The Real Deal

I'm in the real thing now, the "real" Army, an actual post, an actual job.  I've been out of college for almost nine months, and finally I get to Warner Barracks in Bamberg only to hear they might be closing this base in a couple years.  I will still get to stay in Germany (fingers crossed) but apparently in a different area.

I will not be enjoying Germany this summer though if approval goes through because my unit is trying to deploy me with a company that is already in Afghanistan. I obviously can't write much about this, just enough to say that this would all be happening pretty fast for me.  How do I feel about it?  Well, it is what I signed up for in the Army.  I didn't sign up in war time thinking I would avoid it.  It's also a great opportunity for me to get tons of on the job training, and an opportunity for me to hurry up and get a platoon - which is a key leader position for someone of my rank.  It's also a transportation position which is awesome because often junior officers are lumped together as logistics if they are transpo, ordnance, or quartermaster.  That's only supposed to happen at the captain level and above.  But it's not uncommon for someone like me (a transportation officer) to get put into a quartermaster or other 'loggy' related position that's not my actual branch.

Anyway, a lot of people (Soldiers here, and the family I've told) are asking me if I feel ready.  Honest?  I don't feel ready!  How could I?  However, I am more than willing.  If someone asked me if I wanted to do this, my answer would be absolutely.  But ready?  I wish I had studied Pashtun with more concentration, I wish I had more experience in my job, I wish the training at BOLC made me feel more confident than I do now.

I do have a lot of great resources of experience available to me though.  I have a friend who deployed in a similar situation to me, and so I can ask her how it worked for her.  The Army has been doing this for a while now, so I would be crazy to think I was facing a unique challenge - well at the general level anyway.  I know even if I got all the preparation I wanted, there would still be suprise challenges along the way and that's why the Army has been leaning towards leaders who are critical thinkers.

I think that everyone pauses and hopes they are prepared for this.  It all seems so fast, I do know that I am willing, it's my job on top of it all.  Is there someone else?  If there was, and leadership deemed it better, they would send that person.  I've got to remember I've been trained up for this.  No one said it would be simple.  I may have to take a break from the blogging for a while, but I'll keep a journal downrange, and I'll still write until I get deployed - about everything, the whole moving to Germany experience.

Which reminds me, I don't have an apartment yet, hopefully will do some looking this week.  I would like to have my own place before I leave.  I do have a phone though which I have been looking forward to endlessly!  I got a plan with O2, a German phone company, it's the cheapest plan, although the phones are full price (which is expensive here, I shudder every time I do the euro-dollar conversion).  I still haven't finished inprocessing, there are hours of online training I still have to do.  I have had a full week though.  My sponsor has been nice, but my unit has been busy because they have a range (shooting range) next week.  My commander is actually a Military Intelligence officer but he requested a command position and he interviewed for and got it.  It just goes to show there's a million and one different ways to do a career in the Army.  I went to two different Italian restaurants in Bamberg already, and the food is pretty good.  I also finally saw my friend who graduated in 2009 and has been stationed here the whole time.  She is awesome and doing Pathfinder school, so good for her!  Tonight is the Super Bowl and I was invited by another West Point grad to a party - which is cool, since otherwise I wouldn't really have a thing to do tonight.  Somehow it's another move to a new place in which I've somehow managed to have something to do from the very first weekend on.  How do these things happen to me?  I am most certainly grateful!

I Will Never Quit

Somewhere along the way to where I am now, I lost track of what was important.  My aspiration:  contributing to the end of the gender barrier in combat arms.  The wall is already crumbling, look at the Female Engagement Teams.  Yet it is not fair that women are asked to put their lives on the line doing a cultural or SF (Special Forces) assignment, without recognition for taking the very same risks their brethren take in combat arms.

As a woman, I have struggled internally with choosing a path where I could get my dose of adventure and adrenaline high; and choosing a path where I can help women who join the military in the future not have any doors closed to them.  Some days I am frustrated beyond belief because of the opposition from both genders, but I am not disheartened.  I know what I am passionate about beyond all else is true:  that qualification and not gender is how personnel should be assigned.  Archaic ideas of what women should and shouldn't be doing is not how they should get their branch.

There are women who have served who are opposed to this idea because they don't ever want to be in combat arms, but that's putting themselves on a pretty high pedastol isn't it?  Are they saying they shouldn't be asked to make the same sacrifice as any man who has signed up to don a uniform and be a Soldier?  These women would probably never repeat this, but I've heard it muttered before that they don't mind the gender barrier because they sure as hell don't want to be Infantry.  Well, I have news for them:  they wouldn't have to.

First of all, my proposition is that combat arms be open to women, not that women must be integrated into combat arms.  I would propose no minimum quota in the combat arms, at least initially.  Unwilling women already get assigned to Field Artillery and Military Police because minimum quotas are attempted to be met by the Army.  I know from watching one or two Branch Nights at West Point.

Second of all, and more importantly to me, I would like to say for the record:  Puh-leeze!

If one is scared of being roped into Infantry (Queen of Battle, Hooah!) or having to go to Ranger School, I assure you the commander will readily sign the memorandum to get you out of his or her branch since you probably wouldn't offer much to it.  And as for Ranger, don't worry just refuse to do one of the obstacles, and easy, you're out.  I'm not trying to be snide... well, not too snide, just pointing out that commanders should have a large amount of leeway to reassign disqualified candidates.  Which brings me back to my first point, that minimum quotas are a bad idea.  They leave a bad taste in everybody's mouth.  I am not just trying to call out the timid, I also think that the most enthusiastic woman who cannot meet the demands of combat arms should not be allowed to stay on in that role.  Not everyone wants to serve their country, and not everyone who wants to is capable.  Ask any recruiting office; they will tell you.

But do an experiment and have a couple recruiting offices be allowed to put women into combat arms in a few different locations nationwide, and you might hear some surprising reasons from women why they want to join the Army.

Colder than I've Ever Been in Virginia & Master Resiliency Training

The chill has returned now that it's January, and it feels worse than it ever did in December.  Maybe in the previous month it was more tolerable because the holidays were a distraction.  While it's not the same as a Gray period at West Point, since there is still so much green and no snow on the ground, it's still a down period.  If I was to apply anything I learned yesterday it would be to identify the Action/Event that triggered this mood.

Yet, looking at my emotional patterns and the things I've written from this blog to my journals:  I am more sad, less grateful, and less personable than a lot of people.  I want to improve some of this, but some of it I want to embrace.  That I don't have a sing-song lilt to my voice when I address people has never bothered me before, but now I hear myself trying to emulate this to sound more friendly.  It's false on my lips.

Some things I enjoy because they drive me, I have been leaving on the side.  I haven't been able to get through the first story/chapter of Band of Sisters.  I haven't been studying languages for the last 12 weeks.  Yesterday I managed to get halfway through a German lesson before heading to bed for the urinalysis that began at 0400 this morning.  I managed 30 mL by 0600, I am a shy pisser.  I haven't been in touch with my good friend "Sunny" who always saw the best side of me.  I wasn't able to find out why one of my friends went to the foreign country she is now in, and I don't know for how long.

I'm supposed to make my "positive" list from yesterday and it goes like this:

1. One of the women in my class who I enjoy the company of gave me a piece of Dove chocolate and a sip of her Cappuccino yesterday; it was a great pick-me-up.
2. A friend and I compared our 24-Strength List and read it in reverse as a 'weakness' list.  It was very funny.  I enjoy laughing.
3. I read about the Army World Class Athlete Program in the Army Times about the Army wrestlers who qualified for the Olympic Trials.  One woman, Iris Smith, won the 158.5lb weight class.  I haven't been keeping up with Women's Wrestling and the Summer Olympics are coming up!

And I'm supposed to theorize how to make the things that made me happy continue.  I know I need to start keeping up with women's wrestling again, that's easy enough.  I can continue to seek the company of those two friends because it wasn't a specific event that made me happy.  I need to avoid a source of distress and anxiety for me right now.  I'm stuck with it anyway for a good amount of time and distance.  Then I can focus on these things I've let slide on the side and, well, doing my job.

I've got to remember who I am also.  I'm not a sweetheart from a large family who is a good "people" person.  I'm the youngest, I tend to be self-centered, and I like individual events even though I like socializing.  My close friends are generally more somber and serious individuals (who when we go out, still know how to have fun of course!).  They might be more subdued and less exuberantly buoyant... but they mean a lot to me, and their affection means more to me than from someone who is as extrovertedly kind to everyone.  Those people are great, don't get me wrong, I am learning to appreciate and admire the excellent way I see them appeal to everyone's taste.  They are wonderful for certain tasks, but there are many ways to contribute to the world and mine is not that way.

A Slightly Different Tune: Helping

I continue to draw and talk and hum.  I am moving towards my goals slowly and surely.  I checked out apartments near Fort Lee.  Since Transportation OBC is sort of longer, I am definitely on the look out for a place I can really focus at.  I finally get my dream:  a room to myself, a glass of wine, and my laptop on a desk in a peaceful, private setting.  I mean that's all I need, all else will follow.  I've been looking at career opportunities and realizing all the things I've done that actually translate into experience:  my travels, my thesis work, my constant analysis of the world around me.  I welcome challenge and try to learn from people I've identified as intellectual giants in my life.

Today I identified a sharp new cadet girl.  She was quick, and asking great questions.  She was a much faster learner than her squad leader was a teacher.  I felt frustrated for her, but I hope she keeps up that enthusiasm.  She also just had the genuine and honest sound, not the stuck up pride of a new cadet who thinks they are the shit, and not the upwoundedness of a new cadet freaking out because of all the dumb pressure, and not the lackadaisical attitude of a prepster who just doesn't care.  I got her contact information and told her I would shoot her an email from my AKO account.  If she's as I perceived her to be, than I hope to be some sort of intermediate mentor.  She'll still get guidance from all the same Majors and Colonels who are at West Point, and still from the coaches and seniors of whatever sport she does, but I can hope too help with my current experience living the officer life from 2011.  I just felt the urge to be available to this girl.  It was the only way I could think of to counteract the frustratingly inadequate leadership of her squad leader.  No offense to him, poor thing, but he just wasn't enough and she was particularly bright.

Continuing my own pursuit of self-improvement I launched into Rosetta Stone Level 3 for German and was pleased to understand quite a bit.  It's been a great supplemental tool to all the practicing I do but am too shy to put into practice with my german-speaking friends.  I also tried some of the individual lessons for Rosetta Stone Farsi and was grudgingly able to admit they were decent review pieces.  I still wish I had time to write notes, which I guess I do except then Rosetta Stone likes to think I'm particularly dumb for taking so long on the pronunciation portion.  I know all this language work will pay off eventually.  I guess since I've gotten away from learning all the languages of Europe, that I'm headed towards the Strategic side of things.

I am still happy to have gone the military route, and still trying to figure out how West Point changed things.  A friend doing an internship in D.C. told me he was happy with West Point because what other institution would pay you to travel the world and just learn?  I guess he's right, but at the same time I cannot forget all the shit I went through at West Point.  The good far outweighs the bad, but the bad was frustrating many times.  Many of the individuals who go through West Point do so with the expectation that the world somehow owes them.  It don't owe you a thing... I have come to respect my Senior ROTC officer graduates who may have enjoyed a regular college life more often but who proceed with the intention of doing the best at their level having less control over where they go.

Of course whether West Point or ROTC, I prefer the company of individuals based on them caring about their job or - outside military matters - caring about something.  Basically not just plowing through friends and running straight for the stars whilst pushing over and back stabbing their peers for promotion and prestige.  I think the best thing for human beings to do with their lives if they can with even a fraction of their energy it is to make the world a better place for the oppressed.  It is not the same as simply bettering the world, any Capitalist could explain the economics of how his personal wealth improves the quality of the world, and while that person may be correct, it is the principle of the matter.  How have or can you help the bereft?

and Pause

The committee I'm working for this summer is the land nav committee, and as far as work goes, it's really not bad and I even appreciate how relevant it is as skill.  It has been a rewarding experience thus far, even considering recent sad events.  A new cadet died on one of the courses.  The cause of death is unknown.  I don't know anything about it since it was the evening I got off work with a day off to look forward to, but today there was talk.  There are already a handful of theories being rumored through the Corps.  Whatever the theory, it's being layered with the heat wave going through the North East.  According to the news, the heat has accounted for 22 deaths in this region of the country this summer.  I don't really know, it's possible, but I'd much rather wait for a news update rather than jump to conclusions.  There are three land navigation sites.  I'm at site one.  The occurrence was at site three, so the long course day.  We have been in the upper heat categories, tonight there will be a Taps Vigil at West Point.

Similar to when a Soldier passes away, the Corps (most of those who are in Garrison in the summer anyway) will gather on the 'Apron' which is the area in front of the main buildings (Ike Barracks, Washington Hall, and Mac Long Barracks) and the deceased Cadet's name will be called three times.  It's symbolic and sad.

A brief scan of news showed the last time a young cadet died from a training-related activity was actually as recently as 2003.  The circumstances were a little different, and in the 2003 case the cadet was trying out for the marathon team.  I have not been able to pinpoint the last time a New Cadet died in Basic Training or Beast Barracks.  As I said I have no idea the cause, but the New Cadet was on the individual long course when he was found.  Rather than wait for the result to be determined there were those in the media who immediately investigated if abuse was a factor.  That is, thankfully, not part of training anymore.  Beast barracks is still a challenge, but Cadets who try to haze their New Cadets in a way that could harm them are punished, sometimes failed militarily and forced to re-do their summer leadership details after extensive retraining.

Today there was pause, but training must continue.  The big Army machine cannot stop, but tonight at TAPS it will pause.

In addition, and not to add to the doom or gloom, and certainly not to make light of the situation, but Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London home.  She was only 27.  It just makes one stop and wonder for a moment.

My New Dream

My new dream (folly? pastime?) is to write intriguing, challenging articles until I can get my J.D. and then can write academic articles or be better qualified to get the kind of job I'm interested in.  I don't know where or how to start.  It sounds both simple and ridiculously hard.  I mean, I haven't got a degree in this sort of thing.  It sounds intimidating and fraught with failure.  But I told my friend about my fear of rejection and ridicule from editors or worse just being plain ignored... and he said that the ridicule and criticism could be good things.  People who aren't trying to spare your feelings are maybe the best way to make progress.  So now I'll start working on a couple articles on important issues to me.  Then see what, how, and where I can peddle these sorts of wares.