It’s 2 AM and I’m thinking, “There’s still all that writing I planned to do today… I should get it done.” I wanted to post some pics of the family getting out to enjoy the first day of pseudo-Spring… I wanted to post about motivation to get or stay fit, and some of the tools that I’ve found helpful… I thought about getting started on a creative writing piece, and some reflections about how fast my kids are growing up.
Forget all that! Video games! Facebook! Distractions!
I won’t apologize. I hear it’s one of those pathetic blog posts, to say “Oh sorry, I know you all couldn’t live without my meaningless banter all this time. I’ll write more.” I have a life, and so do you. We’ll catch up when we get the chance, digitally or in person. I’m cool with that. You too?
That said, apologies are amusing to me at the moment. Right now, a $60 video game is downloading onto my computer, courtesy of Electronic Arts. When they launched the newest rendition of SimCity – the perfect playground for anyone with a God complex – they screwed the pooch. EA set it up as a dedicated online game, but failed to prepare enough servers to handle the large amount of customers on launch day or in the weeks that followed. They misled their fans about the requirement for constant online access to run the game, claiming it was necessity when in fact their claim has been proven false. The creators turned off a number of features in order to keep the game running, but it was still such a mess that Amazon stopped selling the game until all the problems could be resolved.
This looks about right…
Needless to say, it was less than ideal.
To make up for this failure, EA offered a free digital download out of a selection of games from their portfolio. They put up Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3 (so many 3s!), Medal of Honor: Warfighter, SimCity 4, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and Plants Vs Zombies.
I won’t go down the list of how many of these I already own on the XBox, but I settled on Dead Space 3. I figure instead of playing it on the XBox with the volume turned down too low for the kids (and thus, me) to hear any of the swearing and screaming, I can pop in headphones and play it on the PC, and I’m paying nothing for the added flexibility.
EA is still the devil. But if it might be a little while till we next catch up, it’s their fault.
Normally I have a Thursday Tirade – usually about some facet of leadership and management in the military.
This week, my tirade was DENIED by my Chief Enlisted Manager, our squadron’s Chief Master Sergeant whose job it is to fight for the needs and interests of the enlisted folk.
I’ve been waiting to get some surgery done on my right foot, and the operation has already been scheduled and postponed once due to the needs of the Air Force. For a month or so, the rescheduled surgery date has been awaiting approval. That approval did not come until 7 PM on the night before the surgery was scheduled. And it did not come except for the hard work and effort of my Chief to fight on my behalf.
I anticipated delaying surgery “one more time,” which I’ve learned usually means “several more ‘one more times.'” I even typed up a lovely rant about it. The vent post was sitting on my iPad, ready to publish as soon as I knew for sure that the answer was “no.” But then, after multiple trips back-and-forth to speak to squadron leadership, my Chief walked in and gave a double thumbs-up.
She read the rant and said, “I’m very glad you didn’t have to post this.”
Me too.
In the past few days, I’ve seen a lot of good news about the Air Force, not just related to my self-centered needs. Though I have said in the past that I fear that there is a general decline in the quality of leadership, there are glimmers of hope. While I’ve seen managers who are unwilling or ignorant to the balance between accomplishing the mission and taking care of people, there are still compassionate senior leaders out there.
Last week, we found out who was selected for Senior Master Sergeant, and I saw a friend’s name on the list. Chris is one of the smartest people I know as far as our job is concerned, and he has always been quick to fight the trend toward silly or unsafe decisions in flying operations. He was one of my first supervisors in the Air Force, and he is definitely one of the few who demonstrated that they cared. He did not accept mediocrity, but he also mentored me to show me how to improve.
Another Senior Master Sergeant selectee is a former co-worker and supervisor from my time at Kadena. Steph is also one of the hardest working people with whom I’ve served. She knew how to push our office to succeed and yet ensured we could relax and have fun when mission requirements permitted it. She exemplified our squadron’s unofficial motto of “work hard, play hard,” and she led our office and our squadron to some amazing accomplishments as a result. On the personal level, she fought for me and my needs, but she also fought against my procrastination and laziness to force me to be a better NCO.
My neighbor across the street is also on the selection list. When my family moved across the world from Okinawa to Nebraska, we had no sponsor, no official welcome or assistance with how to find our way around a new base. We moved into our new house on base, and our next-door neighbor literally turned his back and pretended like he did not see us. But not Charlie. He saw me struggling a few days later with the ice and snow that had built up in our driveway, and he immediately came out to help with an ice-breaking tool. He’s the guy who pushes a snow blower around the neighborhood, clearing out driveways and sidewalks for about ten families in addition to his own. In the back of his house, he has a virtual farm of fresh produce growing through the warmer months, and several times this year, he has brought over extra fruit and vegetables to us and to other neighbors because “Hey, what am I going to do with all of this?” He genuinely seems to enjoy helping others.
And yesterday, while sitting with my foot in a splint, I hopped on Facebook to discover that one of the best officers I’ve had the pleasure of serving under just got selected for Colonel. In my experience, John was a no-nonsense leader who knew how to get things done. But more than that, he knew how to prioritize what needed to be done in order for us to succeed, and he tried hard to keep us from dealing with time-wasting projects. He showed great leadership and yet remained approachable.
Is everything great in my little corner of the Air Force? As we deal with sequestration and budget cuts, with aging airframes and low retention rates, with an ever-decreasing pool of experience, it’s definitely become more difficult to keep up with demands. When we get managers that seem to care about nothing more than their next performance report, it’s hard at times to remain motivated.
So it’s with great pleasure that I see some of the future leaders we’re raising up, and it gives me hope.
I don’t have a rant today, and yes, Chief, I’m very happy about that.
Here are some words you probably didn’t hear in the news recently:
“Some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.” – First Lady Michelle Obama
The quote comes from an unedited version of an ABC interview. In context, she’s talking about the tragic death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendelton in Chicago.
This sounds like a problem! Good lord, why would we leave automatic weapons in the hands of children? Isn’t there a law against that? Can’t we do something to stem the tide of automatic weapons flowing into the hands of our sweet children?
Thankfully, ABC was helpful (like all good unbiased media should be, right?). They edited the interview “for time” before airing it on Good Morning America. By “edited for time” I mean that they took out seven seconds of words from two segments lasting over eight and a half minutes. And the seven seconds were the quote you see in italics above, helpfully removed mid-sentence with a visual cutaway to cover the edit for viewers at home.
Ain’t technology grand?
The context of the quote, from the Fox article: “She was absolutely right. She did everything she was supposed to do. She was standing in a park, with her friends, in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids grew up, where our house is. And she was caught in the line of fire. I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”
The original unedited quote was “she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.”
First off, yes, it’s a Fox News article that’s drawing on a piece from the Washington Times. I can guess what my liberal friends are thinking. “Right wing agenda! Tea Party propaganda!” And I fell for it! Oh noes!
Wait, how is it a Right wing agenda to point out that ABC happily covered up a glaring error in the First Lady’s understanding of this tragedy? Was it Right wing propaganda to point out edits made to Romney campaign speeches in order to paint him as an out-of-touch buffoon? Were we falling for the deceptions of the Right when we learned about NBC editing the 911 call made by George Zimmerman?
And isn’t the whole point of the media (of whatever stripe) to report the actual facts (as if there are other kinds of facts), not their particular slant and their edited made-for-target-audience version of events?
Is Fox guilty of stuff like this? Probably. I’m sure they like making the Right look good, just like ABC and others try to put the Left in a positive light. I’m no Fox clone, unable to see their position and their bias in reporting. You’ll note that I also linked to a CNN political article in this post.
What I’m saying is, I expect it to be a rule of media that they report what actually happened. If the facts and the tapes don’t tell the story you want, that’s too bad. You don’t get to edit the evidence to paint the picture of reality you want.
(Likewise, dear White House, you don’t get to threaten the press when they report the facts. I guess I can see why ABC would be so eager to edit the interview and help the First Lady save face.)
Technology gives us tremendous tools to get the word out about a given event at unprecedented speeds compared to how news traveled throughout history. But with that power comes responsibility to stick to the truth, not edit it to suit our whims.
You too can create an artistic masterpiece… or not.
A while back, my wife was buying arts and crafts supplies for our children, and she found a Paint By Numbers kit that lets the user create a rough copy of a famous artist’s masterpiece. It was an interesting project for my daughter, who loves all sorts of art. And I appreciate the idea – you can enjoy painting without requiring amazing skill as an artist. Paint By Numbers isn’t “real” art in the sense of something the artist completely creates. Everyone knows that, so no one minds.
But if you try to pass off a Paint By Numbers project as indicative of your artistic talent and creativity, now we have a problem.
A former Air Force intel officer and a current economist, Kane looks at what the military does right in developing leaders, and what it does wrong in managing its people. The basic point is that the best and brightest of the military officer corps are leaving at higher rates than anyone expects, and the assumption is that the same is true of the enlisted. Kane makes the case that while the military is attracting better recruits than ever, it is at the same time hemorrhaging them out as soon as the minimum commitment is up.
I can’t imagine why.
There are two problems with the sort of “leadership” that often gets promoted in today’s military. We emphasize big numbers over real accomplishments, and we demand that future leaders conform to the mold of the past. Paint inside the pre-made lines, please. Don’t worry, we gave you 100% more paint colors than you had before.
We look for metrics and spreadsheets to tell the story of our success, which inherently leads to quantity over quality. Everything must be quantifiable. A “smart” leader knows this, and does whatever it takes to improve key numbers, even at the expense of quality. An upwardly mobile leader knows how to walk the fine line of avoiding by any documented decline in quality while doing everything possible to increase the numbers further. I don’t want to rehash old posts, so… moving on.
Performance reports are functionally useless. The smallest effort can be spun into an amazing “accomplishment” in a report, painting the required pretty picture even though everyone involved knows the individual has no actual talent.
We have a system that encourages checking boxes and telling a good story more than actual decisive leadership and management. There’s a “right” career path, and our young enlisted and officer personnel are told that if you do these things, you will be on the track to swift promotion. We don’t always look back to see the actual performance of the individual. We just look for those key achievements and milestones.
Leaders are judged based on these inflated reports and one-dimensional metrics, but no one considers the human cost involved. Three of the four folks who do my job practically live on painkillers to keep working, because they genuinely love our job. And yet we push harder and try to do more with less. We break individuals because we know we can pull another individual from somewhere else in order to keep getting our quantity and our high rates. Or we ignore people’s needs to meet the mission goal, without realizing that the people are the ones that make the mission successful.
None of this is surprising or new.
And yet the military continues to hang up Paint By Numbers leaders on prominent display in the art gallery. Too often, we reward and promote the managers who do the most harm to their people, because the story the numbers tell looks so good on paper. When the news of an award or promotion creates audible anguish in the form of screams and cries of “WTF” from offices, when individuals at every level question what’s happening and shake their heads in secret, then maybe something important is missing.
Leadership is not a science. There’s no equation for it, no perfect recipe to bake the “leadership” cake. You cannot measure out two cups of reward, plus one cup of discipline, three ounces of compassion and one pinch tenacity.
Leading people is an art form. It takes time and effort to improve. More importantly, it takes compassion for those we lead, and passion for the goal we’re leading them to achieve. Leadership requires vision.
Don’t hang up a Paint By Numbers picture in an art gallery and call it a masterpiece. Likewise, please don’t lead by numbers and call it visionary.
One of my atheist friends on FB shared a powerful and challenging picture.
It’s a challenging question, but “the problem of suffering” is not my point today.
The obvious question is, “Where’s God in the despair and devastation that affects so many in the world? And why do we think God is concerned with petty details of our lives while we ignore human tragedy?”
Here’s a bit of an answer to that.
For a few weeks in a row, I’ve been playing the keys for our church band. It’s something I love to do, because 1) I’m good at it, 2) I enjoy it, and 3) helping the congregation worship is exciting. The practice and the early showtime to get ready for two Sunday services means a bit of extra effort during the week. Sunday becomes a long day, almost a day of “work” when everything in me wants a weekend to relax before returning to the office grind on Monday.
The joy of being part of something greater in the band is well worth the hard work. The impact of seeing people abandoned in worship is even more fulfilling. It’s pretty awesome.
But this Sunday, I was reminded how small my focus can be.
We had a guest from India, a missionary who has lived most of his life as an offering for the benefit of others. He shared some powerful stories of how difficult circumstances have brought about tremendous change in the churches of India and in their relationship to their own culture. He talked about God’s heart for the widow and the orphan, and how the Church-at-large has been able to positively touch the lives of those the Indian caste system considers untouchable.
Then he recounted the unexpected events which led to the start of an unconventional ministry. About 15 years ago, one of his associates happened to lead a group of believers into a red light district in their city. The response from the “working women” was overwhelming. But more than commitments and conversions, these women sought assistance that the Christians were not prepared to provide.
The women were victims of human trafficking and the sex trade. They were not in their situation by choice, nor were they free to leave. But they brought out their daughters, small children and infants living in the brothels. The women begged, “Can you take my child away to a safe place? If she stays here, she will grow up as a slave and will be treated the way we have been. Please help us. Please take our children out of here.”
That day, 37 children were brought out of the red light district, and the missionaries started a makeshift shelter with no plan and no idea how to proceed. All they had was the firm conviction that this act of compassion was what God would desire of them.
Soon, they learned the extent of the slavery in the sex trade around them. They learned that in the city there were perhaps two thousand more children just like those they rescued. They discovered that across the country, there are approximately one million young women and children connected to the sex trade as slaves or victims. Their mission focus changed in a flash from simply “reaching the nation” to extending a hand to those in such deplorable conditions.
15 years later, Project Rescue is spread over 6 nations ministering to thousands of victims. At first they tried to buy some of the women out of these brothels, but very quickly saw that the money was going to bring in more young girls. So now, they reach out a hand to HIV positive women and children, providing shelter and recovery, or providing compassion and care to those not yet freed. They have established churches outside the traditional comfort zones of Western Christianity, and they hold Bible studies right in the midst of the red light district. They’ve taken in women who have been mentally and emotionally shattered by daily sexual brutality and physical abuse. Those women are learning job skills and getting new opportunities to escape the hell they’ve known most of their lives.
The small amount of money given by some in our church provides for many of the needs of this ministry and others like it around the world. A mere $20 bought a cheap t-shirt advertising the project website, but that money also paid for the expense of putting one of these women through a college program. I sat overwhelmed next to my teenage daughter, considering that there are a million more young women just as precious and valuable as her, who are suffering abuse and abandonment.
There are a million girls in India not much different from my daughter who are in terrible situations and desperate need.
I didn’t have much at the moment, but giving up a $20 bill meant impacting someone’s life around the world in a positive way. The deep need and the vast challenge posed by international sex slavery is beyond me, beyond my church, beyond a logical approach or easy fix. But we must respond as best as we are able, for religious reasons or for simple human compassion.
I was reminded of my time on a medical mission in a rural area of the Philippines, and the poverty and need that I witnessed first-hand. I thought of the streets of Thailand, and the desperation I saw there. I remember the homeless in California and Okinawa, and my wife’s efforts to provide food and warmth where we could.
Some of my atheist friends have discussed this with me in the past. “Why do these missionaries have to go do all this with the religion sales pitch? Why not just do it for the sake of helping out?”
Maybe they’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t need a book to tell me to love others as I love myself or to do for them what I’d want done for me if our situation was reversed. Perhaps I shouldn’t need the excuse that “God said to go.”
Then I look for the massive efforts of atheists and agnostics to reach the poor and needy around the world, and I find them severely lacking. There are organizations, yes. There are people far more compassionate than me, no doubt. But there is not an effort on the scale of the charity work being done by churches around the world to reach into the darkness and pull a hurting soul into the light of day.
Jesus taught that His people would be judged based on their response to Him:
“I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matthew 25, MSG)
They ask, “Where were You? When did we see You? When did we do this?” He responds, “Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.”
And the converse is true. When we’re the ones doing the overlooking, when we’re turning our eyes from the need and ignoring them, He says we’re ignoring Him.
Should I need this reminder, this solemn warning? I suppose not. But the point is that I am interested in being a part of reaching the overlooked and ignored with practical love that meets their real needs. Can we help everyone and rescue all who suffer? No. But we’ll try, and we’ll reach as many as we can.
When people are suffering, I’m not surprised by the question of “Where was God?” But when people are suffering, for those not doing anything to help, don’t be surprised when I ask “Where were you?”
If I try to structure my blog posts at all, then Saturday is when I post a “Storyline.” Usually it’s a piece of creative writing or something related to the books bouncing around in my head.
Today, I’m going to share a bit of my story. It’s late, but it’s still Saturday. And I’ve backed off from rigidly following that daily structure in these posts. And it’s my blog so I DO WHAT I WANT!
Specifically, I’m thinking about the upcoming surgery I have scheduled on March 5th, and the recovery process that will follow. And I ask myself if this is really necessary.
Gonna get very familiar these once again!
For almost twenty years now, I’ve noticed occasional stiffness and pain in my ankle after high-impact activities. It was usually a short ache or a feeling like the joint locked in place and simply needed a good pop. I’d pop the ankle and massage the joint, and move on with my day.
About 2000, I realized it was gradually but steadily getting worse. I soon learned that some of my favorite sports were out of the question. No basketball, no racquetball, no volleyball… I had to quit doing anything that called for pivoting the ankle or making fast movements and changes of direction. I was never very good at any of those sports, so it didn’t feel like a big loss.
Not long after that, the Air Force revamped the fitness program, pushing for more running. Squadron fitness sessions followed suit, and I spent two or three days a week pounding pavement around Kadena. The next day following the run would be full of stiffness, constant aching, and sharp stabbing pains. My ankles would sometimes give out, and I’d stumble. Or the pain would be such that I would slowly work my way down the stairs, eliciting comments and questions from my coworkers.
Imagine you’re walking along and someone raps your ankle with a hammer – not hard enough to break anything or make you fall over, but enough to grab your complete attention for a minute or two until the pain subsides. That’s how it feels most days after I run.
I tried checking with the military doctors, but they were convinced I was not stretching enough. Or I weighed more than I should, and the problem was just the excess weight. They taught me exercises to mitigate the effects of plantar fasciitis, and they suggested diet programs. But the answers boiled down to “Live with it.”
So I did.
I’m not the doctor. I don’t have the medical degree on the wall. I assume they know what they’re talking about.
This went on for a few more years, until the day that I had to crawl around my house rather than put weight on my feet after a simple walk through the Commissary for a grocery shopping trip. My wife got me to re-attack with the doctors, and this time, I got a referral to a podiatrist who ran a CAT scan.
He pulled me into the office and pointed out several noticeable problems with my foot and ankle structure. Then he called attention to the various shadows in the ankle bones, and explained, “That’s advanced degenerative arthritis. It’s much worse than it should be for someone your age.”
Way to make me feel old.
The good news was the doctor had a plan.
The bad news was, so did the Air Force. It took nine months to align dates so that I could get surgery, but I finally got it. We had to work around military education, mission needs, a new office, and squadron deployments. The plan was to get the right foot fixed, then give me time to recover and return to flying duties. After a few months back on flight status, we would get the left knocked out.
I had surgery on my right foot in 2010. The surgeon went in through the right side and carved off some excess bone which was pushing other parts of the ankle out of place. Then he stuck a titanium screw up through my heel to fuse together two of the bones in my ankle.
The recovery process took about five months. By then, increased demands on the squadron got in the way of the original plan. First I needed to fly local sorties, then I was sent on a deployment. By the time I returned, it was time to start preparing to move to a new duty location. I did not want to try to move my family of six across the world while on crutches wearing a cast. Needless to say, the left ankle never got done.
Sadly, the bones didn’t fuse like they were supposed to, so now instead of fixing the left ankle, we get to revisit the right and try to do it “right” (Ha ha). The doc has to take out the old screw, graft in some bone, and put in a new screw. Second time’s the charm, or so we hope. We’re going to help the odds a bit with an infusion of vitamin D and an ultrasonic device meant to stimulate bone growth and recovery.
I know this is going to be a long and difficult process. I have to watch my diet while in a cast, because I will not be able to exercise or be anywhere near as active as I am now. I have to throw myself into physical therapy and personal exercise as soon as that cast comes off, because I will have my next fitness test coming due.
Where’s “Eye of the Tiger” when I need it?
I need a sweet action-movie montage where the hero gets into shape for the big battle against the forces of evil (or the fitness testing cell). I have a story to write in the next few months, but not with words. It’ll be with sets of push-ups and planks, hours of spinning on a cycle or elliptical, weeks of tracking every calorie consumed or burned, every pound gained or lost. It’ll also be dealing with the looks or unspoken judgments of those who don’t know all the details – accepting that some people will assume instead of ask, condemn instead of encourage.
I know I can write this story, because I did it three years ago.
But I’m not looking forward to it.
Stories resonate so well because everyone has one of their own. There’s a drama going on in every life that you and I may not be privy to. It’s easy to jump to a conclusion, but just like any good book, if you do that, you miss the most important details.
The movie montage seems so nice because it shortens all the hours of suck into a few minutes of hard work, set to a driving beat. Of course, life has no such short-cuts, and achievements do not come so easily.
I know I’m not the only one who has a similar story of long, hard work to recover from injury or achieve a difficult goal. What kept you going when it would have been easy to quit? What did you find inspired you to push harder, work longer, and succeed?
I try to be fair and balanced in my news sources. Haha, no, that means I don’t just look at whatever’s on Fox. I also enjoy CNN and BBC and a variety of reputable news sites because I know that a lot of what comes across as “news” comes with an intended message I’m expected to accept. It’s also instructive when two generally-opposed news agencies are telling essentially the same story about a given issue or event.
CNN and Fox are literally sitting next to each other on my Favorites bar… the closest the two will ever likely get in this day and age.
And this day and age of politics is what’s frustrating me today.
Because apparently it’s important that people drink water.
Yes, he’s clearly done. Also we’re looking into whether President Obama eats (gasp) FOOD.
I understand that the State of the Union response is not the best time to grab a sip. In our political theater, we want stoic and powerful speakers who can stare into the teleprompter, feign concern, and deliver a stunning performance. If a guy starts getting cotton-mouth when he speaks, if he takes an awkward pause to chug some water… well, that’s it, the fourth wall is broken for me and now I start thinking I’m watching news coverage of someone debating American policy decisions and promises made by the current Administration.
You mean this isn’t a remake of West Wing? What the heck! I’ve been lied to!
This Rubio water thing is on the front page of CNN. It says “Sen. Rubio drowning in ‘water-gate.'” In other words, we’re equating this to a President being implicated in directing breaking and entering to conduct illegal wire-tapping to collect information about political foes.
A bottle of water.
Look, we have enough problems in America that deserve some attention. We don’t need to make crap up and call it news.
Maybe we can talk about our spiralling debt and our inability to turn this titanic government away from a looming fiscal iceberg. We are halfway to $17 trillion dollars of debt from the $16 trillion I ranted about a few months ago. For a refresher, $16.5 trillion means:
$16,500,000,000,000. Big number. This big number is almost $1 trillion more than the big number that represents everything our country produces within an entire year. We could put an entire year of American production right into the black hole of debt and still owe just about a trillion dollars. Maybe that’s a bigger problem than a drink of water in a very public speech.
Popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted that we [planet Earth’s inhabitants as a whole… he’s very inclusive like that] have a high-rise building-sized chunk of rock hurtling toward our planet with no existing ability to deflect it. Bill Nye (the Science Guy) was on the news talking about Earth missing an impact from that asteroid by a mere fifteen minutes. There is no silver Space Shuttle, no Bruce Willis waiting to detonate a nuke deep in an oncoming asteroid to save humanity from extinction. Since that asteroid is passing by today, maybe that’s something to think about at a higher priority than Marco Rubio’s water bottle.
Tyson also commented on the scientific ignorance afflicting the majority of Americans. Maybe that’s an issue worthy of attention.
Speaking of big numbers, abortion (always hoped to be “safe, private, and rare” by its supporters) has claimed 55 million babies / fetuses since Roe v. Wade. 55 million is pretty big. That’s over one sixth of the population of the USA. Some people think that’s a pretty big deal.
Some people probably consider the population of the US and the world as a whole to be a big deal. 7 billion people on this planet need a lot of resources, and resources in some cases are finite. 7 billion people also use a lot of stuff and leave behind a lot of trash, some of which isn’t going to biodegrade anytime soon. Kind of a big deal.
Ooh, CNN, maybe you should find out whether that water bottle in Rubio’s hand was really biodegradable. That might be another angle you can use to really focus on the key issues in the news today.
Unemployment is still higher than anyone wants it to be. Gun violence is still more rampant than anyone wants it to be. Healthcare in America is probably still more expensive than anyone wants it to be, despite the influence of Obamacare. People in America are fighting for “marriage equality” so that they can love the person they choose. Maybe you’re for that. Maybe it’s a bigger issue than Rubio taking a drink. People in America are fighting to keep their right to express their religious beliefs about marriage and abortion and birth-control. Maybe you’re on their side of the fence. You probably also think it’s a bigger deal than a water bottle during the response to the State of the Union.
Our government recently said, “Trust us when we kill American citizens, we’re totally legit and not shady at all.” And they expected the American public to buy it. Maybe that’s a big deal worth some attention and thought. Marco Rubio took a drink of water, but there’s a 16 year old American kid who got hit by an American Hellfire missile launched off the wing of an American drone flying over a foreign country, and the government can say, “No, really, it’s ok, he was a bad teenager. This is national security stuff, you wouldn’t understand. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Kind of a big deal.
Heck, maybe that “pilot” can get himself a Distinguished Warfare Medal out of the event. We’re willing to recognize pilots flying drones from around the world as more worthy of respect and admiration than servicemembers dodging (or taking) enemy fire while performing valorous deeds in combat on the battlefield. That’s a big deal too.
If politics means looking pretty and delivering a performance worthy of an Oscar or a Nobel prize, then maybe our society is going the wrong direction. Maybe we’re missing the point, forsaking a discussion and debate of the myriad issues facing our country, and allowing people to frame political issues as a pageant where appearance is all that matters. We’re expected to tune in for the next episode in our favorite political reality show, and chuckle when the laugh track CNN provides tells us the joke is funny.
Tirade Thursday has often been about my workplace experiences, so I wanted this week to be different. But nothing particularly rant-worthy came to mind. “Surely the military or the government won’t let me down,” I thought. And this morning, I was greeted with this gem:
“It’s difficult to deal with the stress of combat operations–engaging enemies and providing fire support to soldiers on the ground–and then drive home to your family in Base Housing where everything is normal and peaceful. It’s hard to deal with the strain of that dichotomy.” — paraphrase of a recent AF media article about drone pilots.
I share the above not in jest, and I’ve taken care to portray the sentiment as accurately as possible.
Ok, I get it. I think it might be challenging to come home and play with the kids like everything’s fine if I just saw an IED take out a friendly vehicle and then I launched Hellfires at enemy positions attacking the rest of a convoy in Afghanistan. That would be jarring.
The guys in the convoy returning fire and providing medical care to stabilize the wounded until they can get safely evacuated… those men and women might be doing something a bit more taxing, a bit more worthy of recognition.
Drone pilots are the easy kill on this issue. We can make fun of the AF “Boy Scout RC Flyer Merit Badge” and all that. But this is meant to include more than just remote piloted aircraft. This can include electronic and cyberwarfare actions as well.
I think that’s fantastic.
Defense Secretary Panetta wants to recognize that we live in a new world with modern technology that is changing and reshaping how we go to war. He wants to ensure we reward the hard work done by these ever-increasing specialized weapon systems and the technicians (and pilots) behind them. Good. I wholeheartedly agree.
But it should never trump valorous deeds in combat where your life and the lives of your unit are on the line.
The hypothetical convoy is not dealing with the difficulties of war on a drive home to their families and friends in their comfy suburban home. They’re driving on to their Firebase, all the while checking for the next hidden IED or ambush, wondering if they’re going to make it through the next few weeks or months until they get to return home (in order to get ready for the next deployment to the battlefield).
Putting the actions of a drone pilot above those people with boots on the ground is a gross disservice to our volunteer force.
I’m pretty sure very few people really begrudge the existence of the award. What really burns us is the importance attached to it, another example of the misplaced priorities and completely backwards emphasis on the wrong goals.
Yes, that’s the government for you. Yes, that’s a common experience after years in federal service.
That doesn’t make it alright.
Congratulations, DoD, we’ve distinguished ourselves once again… just not in the way anyone hoped.
I was planning on only writing a positive “Here’s what I love about the military” Thursday Tirade this week. Then I was chatting with a friend and former co-worker, and I was (unfortunately) inspired.
So you get another Thursday Tirade, since the first one really wasn’t a tirade at all. Think of it like a Hobbit… you get Second Breakfast, or Rage Elevensies.
Today’s Tirade-word is “hypocrisy.” Here’s a hint: in a leadership position, you don’t want this word associated with you.
Seems obvious, but not everyone knows or understands this.
Servant leadership means – among other things – taking care of your people. One of the ways we do this is through open and honest communication. There’s nothing worse than playing “I’ve got a secret” with the members of an office or organization.
The old phrase is true of some leaders: “You make a better wall than a window.”
Open communication engenders trust. It aids with expectation management. The news may not be good for the person(s) affected, but at least they know what is going on. They can plan accordingly, and they know they can trust their leadership in the future.
Unfortunately, it seems like we often trade that long-term trust relationship and positive reputation in order to solve a short-term crisis. Someone gets deployed with little notice, and we tell them “You’ll be back in six months.”
Then, a month out, they get told they’re staying longer. Not only that, they and their spouse get told, “This was always the plan. You were going for nine months all along. You probably misunderstood.”
Congrats. You filled a short-term need and solved the huge “Who’s going out next month” problem. You did it at the cost of years of trust. Your people are not blind or stupid; they’ve seen what you’ve done, and they know not to believe you when it’s there turn to deploy or to fill a need. Not only that, but people talk. Your action seems to affect only one or two individuals, but those individuals are going to spread the story to others. Years from now, people are going to hear about you and immediately distrust your leadership.
What’s worse is when these “leaders” preach transparency and openness with their subordinates. “Don’t have a hidden agenda,” we are told, by an individual who is known for always having a hidden agenda. Did you think we weren’t watching what you do the rest of the year? Were we only supposed to listen to what you say today?
Open communication and a healthy relationship would mean that the person in charge gives the junior member all the information they need while both sides accept the fact that we’re in the military and plans can sometimes change.
I’ve had to call home from training TDYs to tell my wife, “Hey, this might be six weeks long or six months long depending on how they decide to do the flight portion of the training.” On day one, the person in charge came in to pound his chest and remind all the students that the training squadron alone would make all those decisions, so “don’t make any plans. We’ll let you know.”
So my wife is across the world with three kids, wondering whether I’ll be gone weeks or months. And on the last day of academics, the authority comes into the classroom and says, “Get tickets home. My plan all along was for you to do flight training back home.”
Really? Was that not valuable information? I’m a big boy. I understand if I get told, “The original plan was for you to go home but we can’t make that work, sorry.” Maybe keeping a secret helps you feel better about how “in charge” you are, but I never doubted whether you were in charge. I just wanted to be able to tell my wife what to expect. But for you to act like there is no decision, or keep all your plans to yourself when you can alleviate confusion and tension… and then to talk about transparency and clear communication… that’s hypocrisy.
We do this whenever we pay lipservice to a value or rule only so long as it suits us.
If you refer to regulations and guiding documents in one argument to win the discussion and justify your opinion, then you can’t turn around the next week and ignore those regs and guiding documents when they don’t say what you wish they did. That’s hypocrisy, and it’s blatant and obvious.
We can’t in one breath talk about the value of quality and for the rest of the discussion push for ways to get more production faster.
We shouldn’t be in the business of redefining words to wiggle out of what the regulations dictate, or reinterpreting clear direction in order to push (or ignore) the boundaries set upon us by leadership. If we do this for short-term expedience, in the long run, we lose the trust of those following us.
If nothing else, the hypocrisy at least is pretty transparent.
Some of my recent rants on Facebook or in this forum have highlighted problems I’ve encountered with leadership in the military… so much so that I got some pointed feedback on one Facebook post asking about my plans to separate (…which I turned into a different rant, but that’s beside the point).
I was thinking how easy it is to focus on all the bad things and complain about what I think is wrong or what I don’t like, while paying no attention to all the good that has come from the last 18 years in the military.
So this is my tirade about what I love about this job.
Best job ever. Usually.
Skills: As a guy fresh out of high school, I was an experienced grocery bagger and stock-boy. I also had a paper route. Highly marketable skills. The Air Force taught me two foreign languages and trained me for intelligence production and first-line analysis. Then they instructed me as an aircrew member and developed my communication skills and crisis management. They’ve taught me decision-making and resource management, and they’ve shuffled me through a variety of jobs and programs that give me some understanding of what works and what doesn’t in a corporate office. Perhaps most importantly, I have been in a variety of positions requiring management and interaction with other people, whether as peers, subordinates, or supervisors. I’ve learned how to get along with others in order to get the job done, even when we personally don’t see eye to eye. I’ve developed empathy for the needs of others, and I like to think that there’s some element of the servant-leadership we hear about during military education–that leadership style which says “I as a leader am here to take care of your needs as you accomplish the mission.” Most of these skills have proven essential over the years, and I know they’ll serve me well after I take off the flight suit and set a retirement shadow box up on the shelf.
Travel: One of the main selling points of military service is that “you get to see the world.” I am quite grateful in this regard. Prior to Basic Training, I never traveled more than two or three hours outside the Chicago area. Now I can say that I have stood on the beaches and battlefields of Okinawa, and I’ve enjoyed the weather in Florida. I hiked the side of Mount Fuji and ate wild strawberries in autumn in the hills of Washington state. I’ve walked the Las Vegas strip at night and visited rural villages in the Philippines on a medical relief mission. I’ve driven through every state west of the Mississippi and I’ve flown around the world. From the markets of Doha, to the temples of Thailand, from the scenic drives of the Monterey Bay, to the tropical paradise of Diego Garcia, I have seen far more of the world than I ever expected. And I have the Air Force to thank for this.
Experiences: The travel is made all the sweeter because of the special memories associated with these places. There’s the satisfaction of flying operational sorties that provide needed intelligence to soldiers on the ground in harm’s way. There’s the excitement of seeing another nation’s military in operation, up close and personal. There’s the joy of interacting with members of other services and other nation’s Air Forces, learning about our commonalities and our different styles of operations. Then there’s the unique opportunities – picnics with the crew eating tuna steaks fresh off a grill, from a fish that was swimming in the open ocean three hours earlier… pig roasts at the park, parties on the beach, and crew traditions in the squadron lounge, hearing stories from the men and women who were doing this job long before I enlisted… connecting with fellow believers around the world and walking into a Chapel on the other side of the earth from home, accepted and allowed to minister to the local congregation through music and song. There’s the special camaraderie that comes from dealing with a frustrating or challenging situation, and knowing that I’m not alone in this, that I’m there with my brothers and sisters in arms, and we’re all fighting to get through it. (And also I got to fly an F-15 that one time.)
People: These experiences would be nothing without the special and tremendous group of people that make up the Armed Forces. On a day-to-day basis, I get to interact with people who have (for one reason or another) raised their right hand and volunteered their service and their very lives for a cause greater than themselves. Not only that, but my job puts me in constant contact with the very best and brightest of this special class of American. As a sheltered young man from a very conservative background who preferred solitude to socializing, my time in the Air Force has been eye-opening, shattering any stereotypes and preconceived notions I had about anyone “not me.” Every day I see people who are totally different from me, and yet they share the desire to excel in what we do, to improve the situations and circumstances around them, to take care of the needs of their fellow Airmen and those less fortunate. I see the selfless service and devotion of individuals to their peers and to this nation, and I am deeply proud to be a part of it. More importantly, when our task sucks and our deadline is looming, and we’re pushing ourselves to the limits to get the job done, I feel a sense of success as my peers tell me, “You made that difficult time better for me. Thanks.”
Family: There is a special group of people that I wouldn’t know at all if it was not for my time in the Air Force. I met my wife in 1996 when she was serving in the Air Force as a Civil Engineering troop on Kadena Air Base, Okinawa. She was my ride to church, my sister in Christ, eventually my best friend, and soon after, my fiancee. We met because a friend from Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas had a neighbor who had a friend on Okinawa who was a missionary from Hong Kong who happened to know another young Airman who attended a good church where I felt accepted and loved. That’s a mouthful! Now I have a wonderful teenage daughter and three amazing sons (and a pain-in-the-butt wiener dog).
So… when I complain on Facebook about the Air Force doing something stupid, or when I go off on a Thursday Tirade about mismanagement and abuse of power, please understand that I am not whining because I hate my job. I’m venting because I have so many reasons to love this job. So I get upset when our silliness and poor decisions obscure all the awesome reasons to join and stay in the military.
My friends know that when something difficult comes up at work, I will occasionally mutter, “I love my job I love my job I love my job” in an intentionally unconvincing monotone. We all laugh – misery loves company, after all.
But maybe, way deep down, I secretly mean it.
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.
