Generality 3

I’m sitting here in Balad, 0730 in the morning, and I’m typing. I didn’t go to physical training, I didn’t have to. I got up to go for a run, but I went and peed instead. Then I took a shower. This’ll be the future for a month or so.

Being in Balad as an MFT isn’t bad. Assuming this would be our final destination (it obviously isn’t) we would crack open our Quad Cons (1/4th of a Container, think a big metal rectangle of a box on a train) and grab our stuff, set it up. But since we’re here…Doing who knows what, we’re leaving our locks on and ignoring the boxes of prizes we shipped here. I’m looking forward to opening the Quad Con and claiming my Magic 8 Ball and Claw Hammer. But that’s me.

Until then we sit and attend useless briefings. We work out a lot. We eat. We do laundry. We participate in pointless events, albeit interesting.

I’ve asked leading questions regarding why we’re here countless times. The answer is that no one really knows. We’re waiting on orders to go to our next place. Or we’re here to learn what we’re doing from an MFT which returns to the U.S. in a few days. Neither inspires much trust in the leadership. And wasn’t that the second point of General So-and-So’s speech?

Trust in your leadership. The words bounced across the gymnasium walls and floor, filling the dead space with the message we’d all heard two days before. And it made so much sense for a brief second. Then reality came swooping in to remind us that we were being held under lock and key in a gym basketball court because we weren’t trusted to be on our own. As if the months prior to deployment we hadn’t had several chances to escape. As if we didn’t truly realize that yes, we were deploying.

But trust our leadership? The same leadership who had informed us multiple times that they didn’t know where we were going to in Iraq? Who placed zero trust in us? Who yelled with piercing tone for no reasons? Who contradicted themselves?

The flaws in leadership are so encompassing that it’s hard to remember we are even being led. I’m not talking about a lower level either; I’m speaking middle and upper echelon of influence. People who truly have no clue what they’re doing are running the show. It’s the blind and crippled leading the able. Yossarian would understand. The way our leadership treated us, we might as well not exist. Machines could follow the complexities of orders and creative statements which no one else seemed to understand, but not any rational human. When you're told by one individual to do something so stupid that you can't help but laugh, isn't it time to change those in charge? Trade them in for better models? Hell, even something newer would be better, any change at all is welcome because its deviant of poor leadership.

But listening to General So-and-So, I decided that no thanks. I'm alright when it comes my leadership. I place more trust in their inabilities, in their poor decisions. Maybe thats what he meant – trust in them to screw you over. Blindly.

Until that change though, I'll keep waiting for my Magic 8 Ball. At least it has answers.