Five Months left

Five months complete, five more to go. The days are dragging and are all the same, it is like ground hog day here, the same nonsense every day. Every day I work with the Army I thank God that I joined the Navy; I cannot imagine having to deal with these Army guys every day for years on end. My biggest complaint is the fact that the Officers from LT Colonel and below will not take any responsibility or make a decision on anything. The standard answer is “that is not my lane” you need to talk to so and so, translation I don’t know and I am not going to find out or help you in anyway, please go bug someone else, anyone but me. I care more about what is going on out here than any of them and I would say that I am way out of my fucking lane, a Naval Officer working for the Army as an Electronic Warfare Officer, which I initially had zero experience with, I am so far out of my lane that I am not even on the same map. This is the cultural difference between the Navy and Army; I honestly believe that if the Navy and Marine Corps were running this show the war would have been over years ago.

The inflexibility of the Army is amazing, you cannot just tell someone to do something, they need a FRAGO, not sure what it stands for but it is just written instructions telling someone to do something. Even with a FRAGO there is a good chance shit won’t get done, they just pretend like they never got the FRAGO, “no I haven’t seen that FRAGO” is a common stall technique, when pressed they immediately fall back on “that’s not my lane you need to talk to so and so”. Then the whole cycle begins again and nothing gets accomplished. If just a tiny percentage of the energy used in dodging work was actually applied to getting work done miracles could be accomplished. A perfect example of their attitude occurred while I was recently conducting some training, (kind of a stretch considering most of the Army guys are untrainable), the actual training is classified so I will use an example that explains in essence their mentality or lack of mentality. The Army could not read emails sent to their computer so I was sent in to see why. I immediately noticed that the background on the screen was black, as the characters in the email were black the Email could not be read. I quickly assessed the situation and explained you cannot read black writing on a black background, if you change your background to white you will see the black writing. After changing the background emails could be seen and read. I walked out of the TOC happy with the fact that I had helped ensure emails could be read. Ten minutes later I walked back in and low and behold the screen was black again. I asked the watch team why the screen had been changed back to black, the answer, that is how it has always been, it cannot just be changed, procedures need to be followed, authorization needs to occur. I was amazed and explained the whole situation, why white is the proper color and that all other computers in the Army are set up with white backgrounds. They told me that is not how this watch team does business and the screen would stay black. Well you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.

One thing the Army is very good at is ensuring the Uniform is worn properly. Every Army guy seems to be an expert on uniform policy as well as a member of the secret uniform police. People cannot seem to read an order and implement a simple procedure that will save lives with new piece of gear or tactic. However when a new order is released stating that the cloth American flag is no longer authorized, only the subdued infrared flag is authorized, I am immediately accosted by the secret uniform police, they are drawn toward the cloth flag I was issued like flies to steaming turd. The Army guys who are too shy to actually say anything look at me as though I am dressed in drag. Another no no that will quickly attract the uniform police is walking around with your PT shirt un-tucked, nothing brings faster retribution than committing this crime. I have tired of explaining to Army guys Navy policy regarding our PT uniform, I have decided it is just easier to tuck my shirt in.