El Gringoqueño

All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

Page 28 of 51

My Talent is Selling Drugs

June 7, 2007 /

Tuesday’s prison session was good in a way that made it different, left me hopeful. I sat with two young men, Yadiel and Gabriel. Yadiel, un vacilón, an easy going jokester, and Gabriel, smart serious earnest were both happy to get out of their confinement for a time.

"Why did you come down?" I asked.

"To get out of the module."

"Really?"

"Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, we came to hear the Word, but whew, it’s great to get out."

I smiled. I look for small victories. I have already eased their suffering by being a vehicle by which they receive a short respite from being locked up. "Cool," I said.

Gabriel, seemed a little embarrassed, as if he had offended me by his remark. "No, but we came down because we wanted to hear about Jesus."

Such a caring kid. His exuberance had revealed that he just wanted a bit of freedom, but his empathy caused him to rephrase it considering me.

We talked a bit about some of their favorite things, what they wanted out of life. I lead them through the little exercise where I put them in an MTV Cribs home.

"So let’s say tomorrow, you’re out of here. I give you each a million dollars, a home on the beach with a pool too. It’s a big house with a Lexus and a Cadillac Escalade in the garage."

Their eyes got big.

"You’ve got your fridge stocked with refreshments. You’ve got a killer sound system, a DJ mixing table with all the hot tunes. You’ve got all the hot ladies at your party. And they look fine. You have everything you’ve ever wanted." I paused. "Now What?"

"Enjoy it." they both responded.

"So that’s what it’s all about? Get some stuff and enjoy it? You guys know how some of these reggeaton artists lose all their money, right? They spend it and it’s all gone. They think wealth is an end in and of itself, that the goal is wealth. You’ve got to have a plan for your wealth.

Listen," I continued, "Try to think of wealth like a businessmen thinks of wealth, as capital, a resource. Money is a means to an end and not an end in and of itself. Most poor folks think of the goal as money, but money is just a means to an end. What do you want do? I’ll tell you, spending money will be over before you know it if you don’t have a plan. So, what do you do?"

They sat there a little confused, searching for the answer to the question.

"You might use that money to start a business?" I offered.

"Yeah," they agreed.

"What business would you start?" I asked. "What are you good at? What do you like to do?"

Gabriel thought for a while, searching for something he was good at. He paused and hesitantly offered, "Selling drugs?"

I smiled. I loved that answer. Gabriel was right where I wanted him. "That’s great, Gabriel, don’t be ashamed of that. It’s a skill you have and you did it well. But let me ask you something. What is the most important part of that skill? Does it matter what you sell as much as your ability to sell?"

Gabriel nodded.

"So let’s cross off the ‘drugs’ portion. Let me ask you, Gabriel, what are some of the skills required to sell well?"

"You have to keep the numbers straight."

"Like a CPA, no? And you’re on the street with no computer to keep track of it all."

Gabriel smiled. I am positive that no one had ever congratulated him on his one skill, the one thing in his short life that he had excelled at and been incarcerated for. Instead of simply saying what he did was wrong and throwing it all away – along with him, I turned his talent on its head and gave him a slap on the back. Good job with the selling, but let’s try selling something else, okay?

"You have to create trust with your clients, no?" I asked.

"Yeah," and he smiled. "Trust is important."

"You have to create a trust relationship. They have to trust you and you have to trust them. If there are problems, you have to be able to handle them. That’s customer service. I’ll bet you gave better customer service than a government office, right? Quality product? You have to have a quality product that you believe in, no? If not, you can’t sell it."

Gabriel was nodding vigorously. He seemed to being saying, yeah, man, you got it. You got it. I’d never thought about it like that.

We continued talking and inventing businesses where he could apply his talents, mapping out a plan for his life that rolled in a more positive direction.

When it all finished, I was left, as I always am, with such a hopeful outlook on life. As I complain about sleepy people, entitled people, self-absorbed small petty little people, I come to prison and I am left more hopeful. It’s insane, I know, but sometimes outside, I see the worst of people and within the walls of the prison system, I see such talent, raw un-utilized talent.

Outside, where the sleepy people lie, they have no idea that there is a better way of being, that their lives are anything but perfect, exemplary, normal, tranquil, and pious. On the inside, though, with the sinners, those who have fallen, those who know there is something missing, I see a yearning for a better life. I see people looking to make a change in themselves and who know they are hungry.

Will they make a change? That remains to be seen, but I’d say they are already well beyond those that continue to stuff their fat little faces at the banquet, gluttonous in their excess, and never ever considering that the hunger they feel isn’t in their bellies.

More Sleepy Employee Examples

May 28, 2007 /

Just to document the incredible experience of customer service in Puerto Rico, I present this nugget for your pleasure. There will be and have been many more, I assure you.

Place: Western Auto on Avenida los Frailes

I walked to the service counter and took a number. There was not one employee at the six or so available stations. My place in the queue according to the little number displayed beneath "Now Serving" was eight. I had sixteen. Okay, I’ll just hang here with the other patrons as they smile and compliment me on my adorable children.

Olaia and Jaimito entertained themselves looking at seat and steering wheel covers. "Daddy," Jaimito began, "How can such a big seat fit in such a small box?"

"Jaimito, that’s just a cover for a seat. It’s folded up. It’s like a pillowcase. You take it out and use it to cover your old seat. It’s for when your seat is old and beat up and you want to make it look nicer."

"Oh," he replied. "Daddy, I like this one." And he pointed to a blue flaming skull on a black background.

"Oh, very scary, Jaimito. I don’t think Mommy would like it though. It’s too scary."

"I like it." He smiled.

"Daddy," interjected Olaia, "I think Papa Jim would like this old fashioned looking cover for his steering wheel." She pointed to a wood grained Model-T looking cover that was indeed old-fashioned. It’s funny that she associates Papa Jim with old-fashioned. It’s so cute that she picks up on his tastes, and I thought to myself, he would definitely like that steering wheel cover.

"It’s all cool, Olaia," I said. "We could do a mini Pimp My Ride."

"Really?" Her eyes got big.

"Yeah, we could do a pretend Pimp My Ride… but it would be cool if MTV came and pimped out our old car for us, huh? Lights, TV’s new paint, etc."

"Yeah, but it would cost a lot of money, right?"

"No, MTV does it all for free."

"Really? Well, how would be get the car to them?"

"I think they would come here… but I don’t think they would come to Puerto Rico. Too bad, huh? We’ll just have to settle for our do-it-yourself little mini Pimp My Ride."

"You’re funny, Daddy."

I turned to the service counter. Fifteen minutes had passed and there was still no one there. The clients were looking around anxiously. I peered into the rows of parts behind the counter and spied four employees huddled around a hidden counter, performing some sort of witchcraft that had nothing to do with, from what I could tell, anything. "Ahem, are you attending to clients at this counter?" I queried

"Yes, yes of course." They answered like sheep just realizing that a wolf had entered the pasture.

"Um, well, I’ve been waiting for fifteen minutes and there’s nobody here and the little number has not advanced past eight since I got here."

"The guy on that counter must be with a client."

"The clients are here," I answered, "Waiting. Wondering."

"Well, we don’t work that counter." And they turned back to their important work – all four of them.

I spoke up again. "Look, aren’t you going to do ANYTHING?"

I guess I had piqued their annoyance meter and they would be forced to deal with me. One of them got on the intercom and called his compatriot back to his station. Two minutes later, he appeared and began to call out numbers. From where he came or what he was doing, I have no idea – or why there was only one of him. I also have no idea what the other ten or so employees were doing. They buzzed in and around not making one smidgen of eye contact with anyone. They seemed to hope to ignore those of us who came with money to – get this – purchase something.

"I need to change the filter on my transmission."  I finally declared once we had arrived at the number sixteen.

He took out a service order slip and speaking to himself, wrote 1 (one) air filter change.

"Um, I said transmission filter – a filter for the the transmission."

"Oh sorry. Just a second," he said and scurried off.

Two minutes had passed and back he came.  I anticipated his news, quickly fantasizing the following scenarios: It will be done in a hour. It will be done in an hour and only cost $25, or we’ll have that taken care of in just a jiffy for our most valued customer. Why am I your most valued customer?  Correct answer: because you are a customer.

"We don’t do transmissions anymore," he deadpanned.

It’s Managment’s Fault

May 19, 2007 /

Gil the Jenius picked up my short piece on the management/employee disconnect in Puerto Rico and ran with it. He pulled no punches, and he’s right to a degree – but… let me add a little more personal detail to my opinion to clarify. I believe in the Puerto Rican employee. The sickness that befalls them, the sleepiness, the rudderless attitude, cluelessness, listlessness, and lack of initiative that we might see isn’t because they are naturally that way.. I think they get a bum rap. I’ve always said it (actually it was Demming, but I can steal, no?):

Bad results are 85% the fault of management.

With that said, my only direct experience with leading/managing a large group of Puerto Ricans was in the Army. I commanded roughly 128 soldiers most of whom were local. I took a dual track with my management style. I made sure that I engaged them, both by seeking and accepting opinions/advice. After all, I wasn’t afraid of being wrong, I just wanted the best way forward.

You know what happened? They came alive. The zombies warmed up, their pallor turning from a gray to a clean clear sun kissed tone. They responded with enthusiasm. They took ownership of their jobs. They accepted responsibility. They became agents of the organization. Once they had authority to match their responsibility, they rose to the occasion.

In fact, they did BETTER than their American compatriots.

I didn’t do much, and I can’t take extreme credit for everything. All I did was treat them as valued assets. I didn’t take privilege. I sleep and ate and suffered as they did, simple stuff, really.

But they’d never been treated that way before. They’d never been given respect the way I respected them.

In my little essay, I do recognize that there are two problems. Employees who won’t act and managers who won’t lead. So yeah, it takes two to tango.

But guess which one I would change first, if I could?

Javier Loves ‘Meemo

April 30, 2007 /

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Little Mr. Javier Ignacio is talking up a storm, so I’ll take a moment to capture the specifics.

Meemo = Jaimito. There is a love hate/relationship here. Javier doesn’t want to spend more than five seconds out of the light of his bigger brother. Yet he’s always crying and yelling about something. His attempts to bully his bigger brother sometimes don’t turn out the way he desires.  He desires control.  He must control his bigger brother in every way.  He comes to me crying in frustration, "’Meemo! ‘Meemo!"

"What little boy? What did ‘Meemo do?"

"’Meemo… ‘Meemo – hit me."

"’Meemo, hit you?"

"Yeah."

"Jaimito, did you hit Javier?" But before Jaimito can answer, Javier is off to torment him some more. I see what’s going on here, Javier, jumping and pulling and crashing into his older brother, and when it gets too rough, he comes wailing to me.

Words Are, at Best, Blunt Instruments

April 24, 2007 /

We sit in our room blind, attempting to divine the dimensions by bouncing bowling balls off its narrow confines.

There are tons of people out here on the internet writing about their beliefs or beliefs in non-beliefs. There are a million and one smug self congratulatory posts titled thusly, "Why I became an Atheist" "Why Christianity Sucks" "Why believe in something I can’t see, taste, touch, or smell have no direct evidence of is totally silly and you’re all morons for even considering it." I can just see the smug little faces. Go ahead and read this www.godisimaginary.com There’s lots of great stuff there… all of it true. You heard that right, it’s all true. God is imaginary. It is a concept that exists in our imagination. God is a word that exists on paper and in our mouths.

If God is just a word, why capitalize it then? Let’s start there, shall we? Why capitalize the word God? If I don’t, have I blasphemed? Will He/She (there I go again) be offended?

There is a short answer to it all, but I’m not going to give it up so easily. The short answer encompasses all of the rhetoric, the atheists, the religious-ists, the believers, the followers, and the reverent. Perhaps all but the reverent will be offended in some way.

The atheist will retort, how dare you say, sir, that I believe in something which is patently false!

The religious-ist will decry, you are a blasphemer, you malign my faith, a rich tradition with a long history. How dare you!

The believer will say, come child, let me show you the WAY. You are lost and must accept Jesus as your personal savior, or ye shall rot in the fiery torment of hell. God bless you.

The follower will ignore me and continue on his way, busying himself with his good-hearted folly.

The reverent, however, will smile a deep smile and ask, "What did you mean by that?"

And it is there within the question, among all things, that we begin.

Why are we here? Were we created by an intelligence or did we just happen to be. Is our existence wholly a happenstance, contemplated by us only because we happen to exist in it?

"Why are we here" – and deeper, "what is life" are two questions that have no answers. I’m afraid everything you’ve heard up to now is a lie or wrong, or both. We do not know what life is. We do not know why we are here. Maybe there is no reason. Maybe life is a gift from an unknown hand. Maybe it’s just a gift.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I always say.

Maybe life is an opportunity to explore existence. Yes, yes that is it. Life is an opportunity to explore existence, because without it, how could we possibly explore? Life seems pretty essential to exploration if you ask me.

To presume to know is the ultimate sacrilege, the ultimate sin against the cosmos. Scientists, who in their purest form are the most reverent among us, will say we ultimately know nothing, that what we don’t know even about gravity would fill a thousand million libraries. Gravity is something with which we are familiar, but it may as well be magic for all we understand of it. Think about it. Two objects always exert an invisible force on each other. Why? Why the hell is that the case? Well, it just is, you say, and take smug refuge in your equations and mathematical proofs:

          m1 m2
Fgrav = G -------
          d^2

But why? That mass one and mass two are attracted at all by an unseen force is, to me, mind boggling. You speak to me again of strong forces and weak forces and atomic forces and quarks and matter and anti-matter and particle accelerators. Like a Jehovah’s Witness you pull out scientific journals and research that "proves" you know more than I do, that you know the "Truth."

But really, truly, you do not know the first thing about anything. It is all imaginary.

Well, you say, I guess you’re right. I don’t know why yet, but we have a good idea how to use it. It yields useful results and allows us to navigate the stars and harness its force to keep buildings from collapsing.

There, there, there, I say, right there! You got it, man. You got it. It is how we use it, not what we have or whether or not we ultimately understand everything or even one thing, but how we use a thing.

Do we care about our gift? Do we challenge it? Do we take refuge in certainty or fly from it out amongst those that would work without a net?

So I say to you, you religion fetishists (that includes you too atheists), you know nothing, yet you presume to know fundamental truths. Shame on you for your lack of reverence. Reverence for the Truth, whatever it ultimately turns out to be is the essence of God. Here’s another equation for you.

Ttruth = TGod

Equal they are, the same thing. In the end, they cancel out and are irrelevant though. What you call a thing is just as good as anything else as long as you are reverent, because God is but a word, a concept of something the encompasses all of existence. Our understanding of existence is pitiful, so is our understanding of God (or whatever word you use to describe the everything of existence, the I Am, the All, Creation). In the end, though, they are just words.

So stop fighting over them, okay?

What I Learned in Prison

April 18, 2007 /

Since I started as a chaplain in the juvenile prison system in Puerto Rico, about 5-6 years ago, there have only been a couple of kids that sent chills through me. There was a deadness in their eyes, something that made me immediately think, "God, I hope I don’t ever find myself face to face with this kid and on the wrong end of a gun." My mind flashed to the cold feeling of a pistol barrel thrust to the back of my head as I am carjacked. I took too long, I looked at him wrong, or he just wanted me out of the way. In any case, he pulled the trigger looking through me with those dead eyes. He didn’t care if I lived or died, didn’t really matter at all. I was not a person, just a thing, a plaything and in his way.  I was between him and what was now HIS car. Look at that, bullet holes. This thing got blood all over me. The holes look cool though. Let me dump it by the side of the road, wipe myself off.

Those were the thoughts that went through my mind on two occasions. Sometimes I meet with kids who are sullen, withdrawn, unresponsive, but there’s still something there, fear, trepidation, low self image. When I asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they would say, "I dunno." When asked what their talents were, they would say none. Friends? Dunno. People you admire? None.

There was still something though.  It’s hard to try to pry something positive out of the experience, but I never felt like I wasn’t talking to a person, a real living breathing, but hurting and damaged person.

These other two that I met, though, I don’t know what they were, but I only remember never wanting to see them again.  They seemed to be soulless zombies, walking dead, animated bodies with nothing inside, no flickering light.

I am reminded of this after the Virginia Tech shooting and all the information about the shooter, Cho Seung Hui by all accounts, a sullen loner.

We all know people who keep to themselves, who aren’t sociable, friendly, or engaging. It’s not often, however, that we say to ourselves, I’m afraid of this person. I’m afraid he will do something horrible as was the case of the VT shooter. He had creeped out his teachers, his classmates. There was something not just sad about him but deadly.

I read the "plays" he had written, supposedly violent and disturbing. I didn’t find the violence disturbing. They were not actually very violent, in fact.

The plays were disturbing to me for their lack of natural dialog and oddness of language. The interaction between the characters was just wrong, weird, not natural. The anger wasn’t natural. It seemed stilted, like written by a small child with no understanding of conflict, someone stunted developmentally. His plays sounded to me like they had been written by someone from another culture, an alien with no comprehension of how a domestic dispute might go down and what might be said. So, while the plays had violent themes, what was disturbing was how far they missed their marks connecting that rage and emotion.

Cho Seung Hui couldn’t emote or understand emotion or have any empathy.  Maybe he sensed it.  Maybe he knew he couldn’t connect and it drove him mad.

Like those scary kids that I met, my only conclusion is that some people do not have the ability to see other’s pain, emotion, or feel a connection of any kind with the world around them. Are they born that way as psychopaths or shaped as sociopaths by abuse or violence and then become cold, disconnected, and inhuman?

Laura’s Priorities

April 9, 2007 /

Laura had a meeting with a client this morning. I stayed at home to look after the kids. Since she was going to be out anyway, I asked her to pick up some things at the store.

"I need some Splenda. We need eggs, the boys need bananas – oh and we need lunch meat. Don’t forget we’re out of toilet paper too." The toilet paper was, of course, mostly required by my dear wife. Heaven knows why you people of the feminine persuasion consume so much of the stuff. Baffles the mind. I sometimes ponder aloud about a post-apocalyptic future without toilet paper, napkins, or paper towels. I watch her face drain of blood. Frankly, I think modern civilization owes its bounty to woman and disposable paper cleaning products. At least that’s what I say publicly. Privately I mock you.

But I digress.

"Okay," and off she went to her little meeting.

Around lunch my beloved returned to her brood, shopping complete. Splenda? Check. Eggs? Check. Bananas, lunch meat? Check and check.

"Hon, where’s the toilet paper?"

"Oh, I knew I forgot something. I was thinking that I had to get your Splenda, the boys bananas, and lunch meat. Sigh."

"How come you didn’t call me when you were in the store. I should have made a list. I’m sorry you forgot your thing, my dear. Isn’t that just ironic or something. You love your family so much that you’ve forgotten the ONE thing you needed."

"Yeah, I was thinking about what everyone else needed, I forgot the toilet paper."

"Funny but sad. I’ll make it up to you, I promise."

Fist raised to the heavens: As God is my witness you shall never go without toilet paper again!

Impeccable

April 6, 2007 /

I don’t know why I seem to get the word "sin" under my skin. I guess it comes from seeing it misused so frequently. "Sin" is something bad. Religions tell you to stay away from it. Don’t drink, don’t fornicate, don’t do drugs and don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. Those are sins and they are bad. If you do them, then you are bad too. Don’t be bad. God hates bad people. If you are good, he will love you.

There are others for whom "sin" has become so tied to orthodoxy as to become meaningless. What do I care for this "Sin" of which you speak from your fundamental superstitious little perch? Your sin has no meaning to me. And of "sin" in its general sense? Well, let’s just live and let life shall we? Good – bad… it’s all relative. To each his own.

As usual, my personal opinion differs greatly from either of these viewpoints. Consider the following questioning of some omnipotent sort, someone to whom we look when we are unsure if what we have done is okay. Call it an inner voice, some sort of reverberation, a kind of internal therapist.

Us: Lord, have I loved enough?

Him: Why don’t you wish to love more?

Us: Oh dear God, have I been patient enough?

Him: Why don’t you wish to be more patient?

Us: Am I forgiven?

Him: Will you let yourself be?

Us: Did I do the right thing?

Him: Why do you think you’ve done the wrong thing?

I imagine it’s sort of like this therapy session. We ask those questions, but we really know the Truth. We can never love enough, we will never be patient enough, will never be able to completely accept forgiveness, and if we wonder if we’ve done the right thing, we probably haven’t.

So, "Sin" that thing that seems discrete, quantized, measurable – isn’t. It is immeasurable, a fabric stretching through all time and space in every direction. It is a condition of our very existence.

There is no such thing as "good enough." You will never be impeccable. You will never reach your potential. You will never fulfill your perfect design.

Everything short of that is, my friends, sin. Welcome to the club with an extremely inclusive membership.

The Lady is a Miscreant

March 30, 2007 /

Rain was pouring down in sheets and the traffic had all jammed up, crumpled, jagged, and steaming in the tropical heat. As is my custom, when moving at 3 feet per minute and upon coming to an intersection wherein cars may poke out their snouts and cross through the great slow moving migration, I did indeed complete what had already been apparent, my relative lack of movement, and came to a stop. I had left a good twenty foot gap between myself and the car in front so as to not block the intersection. It was nothing new. It was courteous. It was lawful. It would have been unselfish except for the fact that those twenty feet meant nothing to me… a gap covered in five seconds once the migration should begin anew with a start and a lurch.

We were all there to pick up our beloved children from Catholic School. Mostly we are members of the same community and share a common devotion to braving this cursed traffic jam every day in order that we may fetch our darling children.

So it was therefore surprising that the blowing horns would have begun to fall upon me. Move up! Move up came the frantic wails. Can’t you see those twenty feet are essential to us? Can’t you see that you must move or we shall risk being crushed by the great disaster that comes from behind. And frantically they redoubled their efforts, blowing and snorting.

I held firm, resolute in my righteousness and irritation at the small-mindedness.

Then, without warning a small red Toyota Echo whipped from behind me and lodged himself diagonally into the space, the gap in the intersection directly in front of me. Now even the cross traffic was blocked. But the final straw? Someone in a Mercedes followed suit.

I had had enough. I blocked her. In our little game of chicken (if you could call it that), I could not have been defeated. My car? A twelve year old Chevy Lumina against the beautiful new Mercedes.

Just try it, bitch, I mentally cursed.

So I won. I looked her dead in the eye, shook my head, and mouthed. "Usted es una mal criada." Akin to saying, "The lady is a miscreant."

I love how Spanish allows one to insult with the air of an English butler. It’s fun. You should try it sometime. "I’m very sorry, sir, but the gentlemen is an ass."

So the madam was now stuck in the oncoming lane of traffic, blocked by myself and the stupid little pendejo, Toyota Echo. She attempted to back up and resume her station at my rear, but lo and behold, her traffic jam mate had closed her off from behind. She had no where to go. Oh how I wished there had been a lion or tiger to cull her ass from the herd.

The rain poured harder and I made a decision.

I flung open my door and sloshed my way to her driver’s side window. I leaned on her car and rapped on the window. She cracked it open a smidge.

"The lady is a miscreant. In the whole of my life I have never viewed such a manner. Does the madam believe that no one here to pick up their beloved children does not have hurry. Does the madam have more hurry than myself? Or them (pointing) or them? Does the madam not have the smallest portion of shame? I frankly would be ashamed of myself, a person of the madam’s age (55-60) and maturity to take it upon themselves to comport themselves in such a selfish and uncharitable manner."

Through, she kept attempting to interrupt with indignation, "Perdoname – perdoname – " make no mistake, ’twas not the tone of contrition.  No it was the "Look whippersnapper, I don’t know who you think you are – " the cold icy tone of "Excuse me?"

Indeed.

I had finished what I wished to communicate, so I got back into my car shaking my head and continued along… three feet at a time. Inch inch inch.

Weighing in on Walter Reed and the Problem with Generals

March 5, 2007 /

I’ve got a bunch to say since Asier was born, but I wanted to weigh in on the Walter Reed scandal by telling a story from my experiences in the Army.

We were in the field, doing a training exercise. We had planned it for months and were executing it for some much needed operational training and team-building. As we were setting up I was notified by the battalion XO (operations) that we would have to stop what we were doing and go on a police call (cut grass, pick up any trash, paint, pretty up the range), because our the Division commander (General) was coming for a visit.

"Don’t you think he wants to see us training?" I asked.

"Just fucking do it, Captain!" was the Major’s reply. This was to be beginning of a beautiful friendship, for sure.

So we reluctantly dropped our months of preparation by the wayside and prettied up the range. My soldiers were extremely pissed. The 1SG fumed, but as all good soldiers, we went about, "making it happen."

Brigadier General Rosado arrived with his staff, CSM (Command Sergeant Major, top enlisted man in the division) and assorted sycophants. They walked around, buzzed in and circled, talking to no one but the top officers of the battalion, all the while insulated by his staff.

I’ve got to do something about this. I don’t fucking care if it gets me in trouble. I wormed my way up to the Command Sergeant Major and took him aside.

"Do you want to know what’s really going on here?" I asked him. "Do you want an honest assessment of the training and readiness of your battalion here and now?"

"Of course," he answered.

"Don’t tell us you’re coming. That’s it. Don’t announce, don’t make a big hullabaloo. Come here quietly, just the two of you, show up unexpectedly, and talk to the enlisted soldiers. Ask them what they think, get them to be frank. That’s all I ask."

"I’ll let him know," he replied.   The Sergeant Major seemed to be a thoughtful pro-enlisted guy, so I hoped that my comments were welcome. I think he really took them too heart. He seemed a decent fellow. This might work.

A few months latter the CSM resigned and from what I heard through the grapevine, it was over styles of leadership. The CSM wanted to get his hands dirtier. He wanted the hands-on pro-soldier approach that I suggested, but Gen Rosado, for whatever reason, would rather have had his little buzzing snapping field of sycophants.

Whatever.

I bring this up, because the Walter Reed scandal smacks of the same ol’ shit. Forget the fact that the General in charge of Walter Reed had only been there six months. Many are saying he is but a scapegoat. How could he have changed things in six months? Poor guy. It was his predecessor that screwed it all up. Why should he take the blame?

My question to him is this: How many times did you visit the facilities, directly inspect with no announcement to the staff working in those places, talk to patients, demand frank ugly reports from your subordinates? Six months is a long time to be unaware of the problem.

You weren’t fired for not fixing the problem. You were fired for not even knowing about the problem.

But unfortunately, this is the problem with much of the military. Gen Patton said it best, "The more senior the officer, the more time he has to go to the front." Why? Because that’s where the operation is and guess what, Mr. General, YOU’RE IN CHARGE! I’d also add that the more senior the officer, the less time he should give before an inspection. The General should want to know what is really going on in his command. He should trust nothing but his own eyes, his own perception. He is the General. He is in charge.

Stop grooming yourself for bigger and better things and DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS!

With that said, our new Secretary of the Defense, Robert Gates, is really getting on my good side. I like that guy’s attitude, very pro-soldier.

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