The Broken Soldier

A semi-worrying matter came to my attention last night during an argument with a friend.  A matter of false perceptions.  Understandable errors, but errors nonetheless.  The title suggests the errors.

Anger

One need only read this site casually to conclude I’m angry about what’s happened and what hasn’t happened during my tenure with the MIARNG.  But there’s considerable difference between justifiable anger and a pathological anger.  Let’s recap.

Sent to training against my will, Army Regulations, and the terms of my contract.  My assent gained by holding my career hostage.  While at training, instructor orders 250 trainees and all of their gear (80 pounds or so of it) out a banquet hall with two exits in ten seconds, else face some sort of punishment.  Hit from the front.  Hit from behind.  Twist.  Snap.  Crackle.  Pop.  Pain in my lower back running down my right leg and foot.  Went to the doc.  Doc punched my symptoms into WebMD while berating and mocking me for concern that I was losing sensation and movement in my right leg.  Doc goes with the least severe diagnosis, “pulled muscles,” and sends me back to field training with a broken back.  I get home.  Alert my home unit that I was injured.  I’m told not to seek treatment.  The reason: More paperwork for the unit NCO.  I’m told the process of approving medical care will take six weeks.  The process actually took six months.  No explanation was given.  My wife and I sought care, paying for it ourselves out of pocket on one salary.  Difficulty getting medical care approved.  Length of time between rendering appropriate care and injury was sufficient to permanently damage the nerves responsible for sensory and motor functions in my right leg and foot.  An outcome that could have been avoided had anyone in a position of power done what they were supposed to have done.  Am I angry about that?  You betcha!  And if anyone of you reading this were in a similar situation you’d be angry too.

But that this site is devoted, for the most part, to discussing my experiences with Army bureaucracy, and the harm its inefficiencies have caused my family and I, things I’m definitely angry about, it doesn’t mean I’m angry all the time.  This anger doesn’t manifest in a way that interferes with my other activities.  With personal and social relationships.  I don’t wake up every morning cursing the world, eager to kick the dogs, smack my wife, and take a shit on the neighbor’s lawn for borrowing my hand-truck without permission.  In fact, most people who know me, are around me often, are surprised at how good-humored and balanced I’ve been throughout this ordeal.

Authority

My problems with authority aren’t of a rebellious sort.  My problems are with misuse.  For example, a company grade officer, let’s call him LT Lemetrius Duckett, fails to meet his obligations to mentor and prepare me for OCS.  In the course of this failure LT asks that I lie for him to his superiors regarding his involvement in helping me prepare.  He then realizes a class scheduling error, a class seat for Warrior Transition Course, works in his favor.  The course, or so he believes, as he didn’t bother actually investigating the matter himself, will resolve certain issues needing to be addressed before I could leave for OCS training.  I resisted citing Army Regulation and the terms of my contract.  When that failed to persuade him, he changed tactics.  At first stating, “Don’t you want to feel as though you’ve earned that bar?”  When that failed to persuade me, he made the following statement in email.  “You are correct.  You are NOT REQUIRED to attend WTC.  You need unit approval to do that.”  In context the meaning was clear.  Go to WTC, or I will not grant you permission to attend OCS, satisfying the terms of your enlistment contract.

Another example.  Richard Dawkin’s “God Delusion.”  In it, he speaks to God’s existence as a testable hypothesis, and then, quite awkwardly, claims God’s non-existence is supportable - concomitant some strange call to God’s existence being non-zero probable.  Problem: Dick’s claims are not scientific in spite of being couched in scientific lingo.  No data, no test, and more importantly, no supportable conclusion.  Eliminative, enumerative, and statistical inferrence have their limitations.  Namely, they require observation.  Great for describing and generating explanatory stories regarding the physical universe.  Not so good at tackling the non-physical or non-physically measureables.

In each example authority is misused.  In each example it is right to question the use, regardless of one’s status or authority relative to the misuser.  I hope this clears things up.