We Left the Lights On: NAMBLA

Just one quick story to lighten the mood of this rather weepy blog.

So there I was harassing the production supervisor out on the flight line trying to track down COPIOUS amounts of information for the evening meeting.  In hindsight, this entire sequence of events, repeated daily, is laughable because regardless of how much information I had going into the briefing, I was going to get beat up and screamed at and chewed out.  Uh, the waste!

But there I was.  Interrupting operations.  Asking questions.  Being driven to problematic aircraft.  Bothering technicians.

I still have no idea why or how the supervisors were all so patient with me and my little clipboard, but they were.  Bless their hearts.

Only one time did they attempt to play a joke on me and I think they only stopped it from going forward because I took the bait hook, line, and sinker.

Photo:  Yes, yes I did.

One evening, during my usual Q&A in the flight line truck, the production supervisor explains that we had a very, very bad day.  

"We had some issues," he says,"and we're out a NAMBLA adaptor."

Oh Christ, I think.  Then I ask the inevitable, "What's a NAMBLA adaptor?  Can we go look at one on an aircraft?"

He goes on, "It's a key component and probably won't come in for weeks.  We might even lose the alert commitment again."

OH MAN AND I HAVE TO BRIEF THIS!?  OH SHIT...OH SHIT...OH SHIT!!!

But just before I hit full-on panic mode he starts laughing and explains that NAMBLA stands for North American Man-Boy Love Association.  It's all a joke.

Video clip:  NAMBLA

While I should've taken the following bet to use "NAMBLA adaptor" during the brief (for a $20 payout), I was just thankful that I had good leaders around me willing to make jokes (potentially at my expense) in order to help me see the bigger picture.

Cheers!

We Left the Lights On: The Tormentor

Trust me when I say that I am as sick and tired as everyone else when it comes to hearing about the latest national epidemic:  bullying.

I guess I simply accepted the so-called bullying that I experienced in grade school, middle school, and high school as a right of passage.  It built character or increased my resilience or something.

Photo:  Ah, my favorite character-building pastimes:  bullying and shoveling snow.

I am sure that my parents struggled watching me make friends that would ultimately turn into monsters and mean girls (seriously), but I am better for it in hindsight.

Video clip:  They seriously wouldn't have made this movie if it wasn't true...

High school really wasn't that bad and maybe I was even a bully at times, but only a goofball or nerdy one.

Video clip:  I'd stuff you in your lock-ER for not doing your homework!

I encountered some tough times at the Academy, but never felt bullied or put down or singled out for unfair treatment.  By the time I graduated I assumed I was in the clear.  Professional workforce here I come!

Things were generally fine until I went to Bagram.  I mean I was laughed at in meetings back at Lakenheath, but I was a second lieutenant and I was an idiot.  Briefings and taskers were certainly a right of passage and I figured that as long as I kept doing my best I would eventually dig myself out of that hole.  I mean the military really can't fire you and if you don't get a DUI or stop breathing, then you will eventually make rank (c.f. Captain Cockeyes) so I at least had that option going for me.

But in Bagram I couldn't do anything right.

I'll admit that I bombed my first briefing, but the rash of required pre-briefs to the pre-briefs to the actual briefings that I had to do were pure torture.  This was only required of me (no other lieutenants or captains) by the squadron commander, Major Tormentor.  They were one-on-one and were absolute misery with written and spoken reports required to prove I was doing as I was told.

I was cussed at and told I was stupid and incompetent and pathetic, but when I finally wised up and brought the Chief along none of this ever took place.  The major became affable and would even invite us to midnight chow and let us borrow his truck if necessary.

I felt like a fake and a whiner.  Every instance of torment that I relayed to the leadership team around me seemed implausible.  Who would believe a dumb second lieutenant over a major anyway?

There was one time when an individual had a seizure along the path between the buildings and I responded since I saw everything happen.  When the major showed up he told me to get lost.  Seriously.  I had gotten someone to call the medic and rolled the guy on his side and I was told to leave.  I didn't because I am obstinate, but COME ON!

Article:  I sucked; I'll admit that much.

Major Tormentor eventually showed his true colors one night barging into the unit and screaming and screaming and then trying to slam the door.  He actually tried to slam the door twice.  I had no idea what he tried to say and only remember laughing hysterically with the senior after he stormed out of the building without the sound effect of a door slamming shut.

He remained generally prickly and, besides giving some really terrible roll calls (to his own discredit), proved to be no worse than a bad bout of gas:  uncomfortable, but temporary.

Fortunately, despite all the crap leaders I had the distinct pleasure of working for, he remains only one of two that I might still hit with my car given the chance.  So that's a win for the Air Force!

It would be another two years until I met my next bully and entered a new dimension of leadership hell, but that story will have to wait since I am not quite done with Bagram yet.

NOTE:  That vehicular manslaughter threat is not real; it is just for storytelling purposes!

(Before) We Left the Lights On

"VEGASSS!"

"VEGASSS!"

"VEGASSS!"

Oh, how lucky was I to get to go TDY to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV only two months after The Hangover hit theaters in the United Kingdom?

Video clip:  Oh, Alan...

So lucky.

Lucky enough to listen to Alan quotes all the way from RAF Lakenheath to London's Heathrow Airport (2.5 hours).  

Lucky enough to have United Airlines play The Hangover on the loop from London to Chicago (8 hours).  

Lucky enough not to lose anyone in Chicago since everyone needed a smoke break and, seeing as how no one could stand each other at that point, scattered like cats throughout one of the largest and most confusing airports in the United States (1 hour).  

Lucky enough not to have any homicides on the final leg from Chicago to Las Vegas since no one wanted to be crammed into tiny seats for another flight (3.5 hours).  

Lucky enough to have a Chief ready and waiting for us at the airport with a bus to the base (0.5 hours).

Then my luck ran out...

See, I didn't hate Captain Cockeyes prior to my transcontinental pilgrimage to the holy land of Las Vegas.  I actually tried to learn from him during the exercise we held just prior to our TDY (because who doesn't exercise immediately before going TDY?!).  But there were warning signs.  And no matter how hard we tried to ignore them, the writing was on the wall.

For example, his insistence on critiquing the Chief's (rock-solid) plan.  Or his desire to travel free of the main body.  His ability to steer clear of all responsibility upon arrival (several days later than the rest of us I might add).  

And then there was his general disposition and mannerisms:  Mouth breathing.  Laughy.  Head bobbing (more on that in Afghan).  Pirouettes.  Parade rest walking.  Incessantly finger-combing his hair.  Living out of his car.  Jealousy.  Lip smacking.

Video clip:  Seriously...on the flight line where real men work.

I was left even more dumbfounded by his decision-making processes (or lack thereof), his inability to brief without excruciatingly detailed notes, and the way he addressed the guys.  Oh, that last one still kills me.

See, people lose things and break stuff in aircraft maintenance.  It happens and if it's egregious or with ill intent you deal with it through paperwork or pay and grade reductions.  Know, however, that the worst possible thing you can do if you screw up is hide it or create an environment where people feel the need to hide it.  That's when jets crash and people die.  

As with all things, however, there is a balance.  You don't want to hammer folks for certain infractions, since this will result in sweeping things under the rug, which increases the probability of major malfunctions in flight, but you also don't want to let everything slide since you can experience the same outcome (death and damage) through laissez-faire leadership practices.

While this was my going in approach to leadership, and remains the core of my beliefs to this day, I was beside myself when I watched Captain Cockeyes interact with the guys.

There was the instance of him reprimanding an individual in front of his aircraft and aircrew for mistakenly wearing his wedding band.  What chapped my ass was that I had told the individual to remove the jewelry with Captain Cockeyes right next to me and when I turned to walk away (with the situation under control and the individual feeling remorseful) Captain Cockeyes got in his face and let him know just what a failure he was.  Necessary?  I didn't think so.

This situation upset me even more when Captain Cockeyes lost his own wedding band out on the flight line a few days later and drove a temporary stop to operations while we looked for his jewelry.

Just as such minor incidents began to reveal the Captain's management woes we destroyed a multi-million dollar aircraft engine.  This major accident quickly brought to light the Captain's true character and motivations for all to dread heading into a four-month long deployment.

But back to the incident.

Captain Cockeyes put me in charge of the investigation (AKA impoundment) and we discovered that the technician missed some key steps.  Specifically, he failed to remove the protective covers forward of the intake, which was how one hard plastic protector came to destroy the motor.  

The incident occurred at the end of a long shift and the technician didn't have a history of discipline or poor behavior.  In fact, he was in the process of applying for a recruiter job.  He was going to be the face of the USAF.

I pled my case for some leniency, but he still had to pay 1% of the total damage.  Ok, fair.

Then Captain Cockeyes decided to commit the gravest of leadership sins:  punishing the individual in public.

Specifically, he took the opportunity to lay claim that the engine incident caused unnecessary duress to the unit and myself since we had to devote time and energy and effort to the investigation.  He did this during a mass roll call and went on to state the overall damage costs and infractions that led to the incident.

Now I am all for incident and QA cross-tell, but not in a way that creates an environment where individuals are afraid to admit a wrongdoing since they might be chastised in front of their subordinates and peers.

So when the Captain turned the roll call over to me I felt I had no choice but to speak my mind and do exactly what he had done.

I'll never remember my exact words, but I think they suggested that I was fine with the time and effort I devoted to the investigation because no one was killed or maimed or injured.  Something like that anyway.

In hindsight, I now see this incident as the beginning of my undoing.  I broke my own rule and undermined the Captain in public because I felt I had no other recourse.  I continued to be somewhat disrespectful and immature in my dealings with him all while simultaneously building rapport with the guys.

To wit, I do not regret what I said so much as the door that it reopened.  I had always found myself on the edge of being disrespectful (I can think back to a lot of examples in high school) and was even called a rebel without a cause before my Academy days.  This incident simply allowed the monster to come back out just in time for me to encounter Major Tormentor.

That's almost precisely when I realized I was really out of luck.  Like, really.  Thanks Vegas.

NOTE:  Vegas was definitely a defining experience for me in more ways than the aforementioned passage suggests.  I am, in hindsight, irritated with how I handled the situation, but I have to remember that I was still a lieutenant with 14 months of operational experience.  I was very green and very reliant on my instincts, which I still think serve me well.

At the end of the TDY I was pleasantly surprised to receive an amazing gift from the guys that I will forever covet.  The best part of the gift, however, took place on the ride back to lodging when, one-on-one with Captain Cockeyes, he said to me, "I would've gotten something like that, but I had to be the bad guy."

And here I thought I'd been tough on guy.  NOPE!

Forever indebted to the 494th.

I promise...

...that my next post will be much lighter and more humorous than the following excerpt; I just feel the need to tackle some dark uglies right now and I ask that you bear with me for a moment.


Rather, I feel compelled to expound upon some of the internal conflict I continue to feel as a result of my decision to leave the Active Duty Air Force.


The frustration.  The anxiety.  The irritation (with myself and others).  The anger.


A little background:  I just got back from a job interview in Phoenix for a position with a large, successful transportation company.  In between the screenings, however, I was hounded by a recruiter from Colorado with another job opportunity who needed additional information from me.  This all took place while I simultaneously thought about the one job offer (in sales) that I need to decline, the two-day interview I need to prep for next week, and another follow-up discussion I need to have (with a different company) this Friday.  Oh, yea, and I have an interview on Saturday.


I know I have no one to blame except myself and I know these are good problems to have.


Or are they?

Screenshot:  I am troubled by the truth of this quote...

That quote and passage from The Black Swan continues to haunt me despite the fact that I read that book months ago.


The reason being is that I elected to leave the Air Force primarily to escape societal expectations and to forge my own path whether that was through running or traveling or painting or volunteering or fishing or a combination thereof.


All I know now is that I got sucked right back into what I wanted to avoid:  knowing my next 20 years.


My bravery lasted all of 51 days.


Bravo, Kate, bravo.


I guess I can't be too hard on myself though.  I did make the leap right?  I knew I would never love what I was about to do (transition away from being around the guys and breaking shit to sitting behind a desk and worrying about how to get through the next decade as a perpetual kiss ass) and so I jumped.

 

Screenshot:  Cross-blog pollination...or blog cross-pollination...whatever.

But now what?

First, I guess I have to keep fighting the good fight.  I have a lot of folks in my corner that are going to keep me straight and tell me not to get a job right away (HT to my dad's timely emails today amidst the panic).

Second, I think I keep writing.  Lame, I know, but it's like Kamal Ravikant recently said, 

"I understand now why the great [writers] become alcoholics and kill themselves 'cause you have to go into your mind and into your heart and emotions and pull out – go through everything, stuff that most of us spend our lives avoiding.  So you have to write – for a great writer, to be a great writer or artist, you really have to go into yourself.  And we spend our entire lives running away from ourselves.  You have to go through the gunk."

Gunk exploration and dissection sound about right (without the whole suicide thing in Ketchum, ID or ripping off my ear or something).

Oh, this is probably a good place to state the obvious:  I AM NOT SUICIDAL!  KATE LOVES KATE TOO MUCH TO HURT KATE.

 

Video clip:  HT to Bob Ryan during the T.O. suicide scare of 2006.

Sticking with the literary vein though, maybe those artists and writers were on to something.

Screenshot:  We'll go with Melville's take on life (versus Hemingway's) for the moment.

All I can hope for is that this tortured self-exploration results in some sort of coherent career strategy and the appropriate destruction of a life half-lived.

We Left the Lights On: Well, on paper...

So how did we, as a unit, inherit Captain Cockeyes?

Video clip:  I wasn't talking to you Deeds, I was talking to that squirrel (mountain goat) over there!

I blamed at lot of it on the internal promotion system of large institutions in my last post since it is far easier to pass someone up the chain rather than deal with them outright (even though that's the most humane thing to do for both the individual as well as the organization).  We allow bad leaders to remain in positions of authority and jeopardize the careers of those in their charge because we fear conflict.  We avoid sitting someone down and saying, "You just don't have what it takes and probably never will, so try to find something more suitable to your skillset."

Photo:  This works too...

Now there is a kindler, gentler way to say all that, but at the end of the day we just need to stop wasting everyone's time and energy and fire the ineffective (and dangerous) leader.  Kick him out!  You're doing him a favor and letting everyone move on with their lives (HT to Jim Collins)!

Ok, now that we got the high-level reasons out of the way, how did we literally get stuck with someone so oblivious to his own behavior that he was shitcanned from his job in Afghanistan and sent all the way back to England on the taxpayer dime?

Simple:  

Four months before our deployment there was a series of opaque incidents that forced the (unfair and untimely) removal of our current supervisor, Captain Awesome.  Not only did Captain Awesome have a wealth of experience and knowledge, but he actually mentored me on how to be a decent, respectable maintenance officer.  

Like woah!  I know?  Crazy!  Right?

All I know is that there was a perception held by one individual, LtCol Tri-too-hard, that there was something going on between Captain Awesome (male, married) and another Captain (female, single).  All unfounded, but Captain Awesome still had to leave the unit and go to timeout (the Wing AFSO21 office, because that's how much we value innovation in the Air Force...it's the support section for officers AKA the innovation ghetto).

This left us without an officer for both pre-deployment training in Las Vegas as well as the actual deployment across EMEA to Afghanistan.  LtCol Tri-too-hard and his flunkies, in their infinite wisdom, did not see this as a problem and decided to replace Captain Awesome with the most "qualified" individual for the task:  Captain Cockeyes.

Now I bring attention to the word qualified since it is a relative term.  The Air Force, like most bureaucratic corporations, largely applies this word to someone based on their records.  And so we come to live and die by the phrase, "Well, on paper he looked like the best (whatever) for the (very important, no fail mission)."

In the case of Captain Cockeyes, it was his graduation from AMMOS that sealed the deal.

NOTE:  I will never understand why we, as an institution, value this school so much since the only thing it seems to produce is a bunch of douche bags who only went there to further their own careers and never share any of the secret-squirrel knowledge they learned over the course of eight months.  My apologies to the two officers who don't fit this assessment, but you are the .0001%.  Sorry.

So just as perceptions got us into this mess (i.e. no leadership just weeks before a transcontinental pre-deployment to Vegas), perceptions of Captain Cockeye's competence got us mired even deeper into an already irreversible death spiral just before a real-world deployment.

Video clip:  SMH...

So what exactly happened in Vegas?  

Well my friends, you're in luck, because what happened in Vegas didn't exactly stay there...

Video clip:  ...herpes and bad leadership.

When is it time to cut your losses?

At what point should an organization stop plowing resources into a:

(1)  Project?

(2)  Process?

(3)  Person?

There are numerous examples of projects that drain money, time, and effort from a company with no measurable benefit to the bottom line.  These programs essentially take on a life of their own as the sacred cow of some mid-level manager that is no longer able to confront the sunk costs of the once well-intentioned project and stop the bleeding before the patient dies.  And so this illogical decision-making process continues until it becomes the source of some HBS or McKinsey case study.

The sacred cow phenomenon is present in most industries, but is most egregious in the defense sector with taxpayer dollars fueling both outrageously expensive projects as well as an archaic acquisitions process.

There is no better example of this failure to cut projects and reform processes than the absence of the F-35 at last week's Farnborough International Air Show.

While the F-35 has become the poster child for inconceivable cost overruns and never-ending production delays, this latest incident completes the program manager's performance trifecta with confirmation of poor product quality (P&W engines in this particular case).

In light of this most recent embarrassment, one might expect the Pentagon to reassure the public that future projects would avoid such recurring process pitfalls.

Alas, the executive officer for the F-35 program went on the record to explain that he didn't see the absence of the fighter jet at the air show as a negative event.  He seemed completely unaware of the large amounts of poor publicity around the quality issues and even suggested that sales of the aircraft would not be impacted by this one missed appearance.

Seriously?

Photo:  I wonder, is this photo sufficiently representative of General Officer la-la land?

And therein lies the other problem with large, bloated bureaucratic institutions:  the people.

Somewhere within the promotion system people with no talent come to believe that they have undeniable leadership abilities.  They are fed a steady stream of disillusioned thinking from other subpar "leaders" and so perpetuate a vicious cycle that culminates in feeble-minded yes-men that at best get floated along and at worst get someone killed (c.f. Captain Sobel).

So while it's easy to point at the F-35 as a money pit, the real sacred cow is continuing to invest in the development of ineffective leader-managers.

And that's where I'll turn to next...

We Left the Lights On: The Pistol

When you deploy to the desert, you get issued a gun.  For better or for worse, you are essentially married to this thing.  You must carry your weapon at all times and you must take it wherever you go.  This includes the chow hall and the bathroom.  The only exception is when President Obama visits and makes everyone either leave their guns outside the dining facility or vacate the premise.  Needless to say, I left.

Carrying a gun was a basic requirement and took place regardless of your specialty or job.  You simply had to take care of the weapon whether you felt comfortable around guns or not.

This is not a bad idea in theory considering that the only thing between you and the enemy is a chain-link fence and a poop ditch.  And that's if you're lucky.

Photo:  Of course the Afghans bedazzled their poop trucks...

But that's the problem with theory:  reality.  Because in reality we had a bunch of gun-toking maintainers who would consistently leave their weapons on buses (driven by third country nationals) or in the chow halls (manned by third country nationals) or in the bathroom (serviced by third country nationals).  Now third country nationals are, in theory, vetted and considered safe to work on the installation.  That doesn't mean they won't take the opportunity to kill you if they find a gun by the urinal though.

So, unfortunately, we had to issue paperwork to folks who left guns at bus stops or around the compound.  I didn't like doing it, but the alternative (being dead) was much worse.

Then one evening when I stumbled into work (my hours were roughly 1600 until 0400) I found my immediate supervisor (who we'll affectionally call Captain Cockeyes) already gone.  No turnover.  No heads-up as to what had happened that day.  Just gone.

Except for one thing:  his gun.

Photo:  Seriously?!

Now he had left like this before and forgotten his coat (which I filled with rocks) and his notes (which I shredded) and his care packages (which I distributed to the guys) and his identification card (which I ransomed for food), but never his gun.

Before you judge me, just know there was a long/short (or perhaps a brief/intense) history with this individual that I will dive into later; right or wrong I felt justified in my previous behaviors.  This time, however, I had hit the jackpot.

Video clip:  I couldn't have set my situation up any better than these guys!

I debated and discussed the potential courses of action with my Senior and Chief, because no matter the situation they have the experience and have seen it all (both maintenance and mischief).

They persuaded me not to rat him out to the commander (Major Tormentor) or the operations officer (Major Panties), but instead helped me hatch a plan to hide the gun in the ceiling tiles and draw a map.

I just want to take a moment to let everyone know that I now realize this entire sequence of events was a horrible idea and I take full responsibility for being a dumb and immature lieutenant.

So at the end of my shift I hid the gun and told one of my other supervisors where the gun was (four tiles west and three tiles north) so that Captain Cockeyes would learn his lesson, but not doom everyone to a day of his unreasonable mood swings.

Despite my best intentions, he ended up blowing his stack and acting even more irrationally than he normally did throughout that day.

So when turnover came around you bet your bippy he was there.  But he didn't lay into me, he laid into my Senior.

He took this grown man away from the turnover meeting (which took place near the turd vaporization trucks) and proceeded to yell at him.  When I approached to take the blame he told me to leave and continued to berate the Senior.

To this day I still feel awful that I did not more forcefully say it was me.  Fortunately, I didn't lose any friends over the incident and Captain Cockeyes proceeded to screw up even more monumentally than anyone could have ever predicted, which left me feeling even more justified for acting like an immature brat.

So at the end of the day I made out pretty okay and learned a really important lesson:  sheer incompetence gets you promoted.

Oh sorry, did I forget to mention that Major Cockeyes is currently a squadron commander?

Well I don't want to get too ahead of myself; more stories are in order to prove the above point.

Captain Sobel

Before I really start in on blasting the bad leaders I had the opportunity to serve with during the last six years, I want to be the first to admit that I am in no way the ideal leader or even a very good leader-manager.  But I am self-critical and I want to get better and I think that's a pretty good place to start.

When I decided to attend the Air Force Academy I thought I was already a pretty good leader.  Not that a 17-year-old high school punk has any idea what leadership is, but I had always been bossy (just ask my little brother) and I was the president of a couple academic clubs and a team captain since I was a sophomore.  So, yea, I thought I could handle the whole leadership thing at the Academy.

And for the most part I did.  I didn't excel, but I learned that I suck at delegation (still do) and that being real and honest with folks is the best policy.

As graduation approached, however, I was flooded by warnings (both welcome and unwelcome) as to the best approach to being a good maintenance officer.  

Now, this is one of those careers they use to scare you at the Academy.  That and being a cop boss.  Your commanders and instructors say, "Oh, you'll be in charge of 98% of the USAF and you'll have no experience blah blah blah."

I knew they meant this as a good-natured warning and to prevent you from becoming that guy, but all I could think of was Captain Sobel.

Video clip:  What a cadet!

If you are not familiar with Captain Sobel, he is that guy.

He's the guy my dad (a Vietnam Vet) told me not to be.  He would always remind me not to be that West Pointer talking shit or the Grad who knows it all.  And you know what?  Dads are always right.  ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR DAD.

More specifically, Captain Sobel was out for himself and tried too hard to follow the textbook.  He was a caricature of leadership.  He would scream and then come up with punishments that made little sense and all while single-handedly destroy morale.  Bottom-line?  He was going to get people killed.  Or the guys were going to kill him (Vietnam).

Even after four years of trying not to be Captain Sobel I still referred to his leadership lessons when I pinned on Captain.  And yes, I was forced to have a promotion party.  I hate that crap.

I was always told that you learn just as much from the bad leaders as you do the good.  Well then let me tell you, I learned a ton.  A TON!

So in conclusion, I am by no means a Lieutenant (to Major) Winters although I wish I was a Nazi-killing badass sometimes.  I doubt I was even entirely effective most of the time.  I just hope I was never a Captain Sobel.

French Toast

I want to revisit Major Mercurial for just a moment.

See, this particular individual was a fantastic leader when he wasn't being an inconsistent, people-pleasing cyborg.

Photo:  I swear that my back-to-back use of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) to represent Major M is entirely by coincidence...

He was, and remains, someone you wanted to like.  During his first command, he maintained that his family was the number one priority and he actually lived by this mantra.  He was also genuinely funny and always seemed to be inviting people to his home for meals.  Major Mercurial was the textbook commander.

Then he wasn't.

When he got his next command something changed.  He seemed worn out.  Tired.  He admitted to sleeping in his office on multiple occasions and even moved a couch into the administrative area so he had somewhere besides his desk to spend the night when he just couldn't make it home.

Then his high-school aged son got a high-school aged girl pregnant and he became a grandfather.

Then he started trying too hard to have the guys like him.

Then he made rank.

A fellow lieutenant and I decided to play a trick on him during his pin-on ceremony as he was once a practical joker himself.  The whole incident took place around a fundraising event that the cops were holding where they would "arrest" a prominent leader on trumped-up charges and then force his unit to pay bail.

The entire premise for the arrest, I now realize, was in bad taste, but we just meant for everyone to have a good laugh.

See, Major Mercurial used to ride motorcycles with a hilarious Chief Master Sergeant that we knew and on one of their rides the Major's bike broke down, which forced him to ride with the Chief.  Thus, the charges we brought him up on (and this is still all under don't ask, don't tell, mind you) were wearing only assless chaps in order to hitch rides with burly men on bikes.  Or something like that.

Either way, the cops arrested him in front of a laughing crowd with fuzzy pink handcuffs.  That's when he lost it.  He became irate at the fact that someone (not sure if he knows it was me and a cohort) had ruined his promotion ceremony.  I felt bad for the cops since they were only trying to raise money and even worse for ruining something that held such importance to the man.

I should've known better since he berated me, on more than one occasion, for trying to get out of my promotions.

"As an officer you only promote so many times...blah blah blah."

Just not my bag.  But again, I should've known better.

Mostly because he lectured me on other things as well.

I'll never forget my first mentoring session.  It took place at the golf course restaurant at like 5 AM and he brought along a career-broadening captain.  This is only to say that RAF Lakenheath had the lowest concentration of core maintenance officers for some weird reason.  More on that later.

Anyways, I had only been there for two months when they asked if I planned to make this a career.

Not knowing that I was supposed to lie I blurted out, over wonderful french toast sticks BTW, "NO!"  I'm pretty sure I laughed after I said that too.  Oops.

Photo:  Makes me think of the french toast song from USAFA...

The look on their faces suggested that instead of having provided a simple, monosyllabic answer to their question, I had instead gone on a long diatribe about carelessly running over babies with my car.  For fun.

Needless to say, the rest of the mentoring session was a mix of "consider not being so forthright" and "you should really want to do this forever until you die of a heart attack at your desk".

Photo:  The french (and bad commanders) can really ruin anything.

I really hate that I am saying this because I really did like the guy.  I still want to be like him on his best of days.  I just saw then and there what the USAF valued more than honesty:  the politician that toed the party line.

The Pre-Bagram Story

I did not mean for yesterday's post to turn into a cynical rant on the state of logistics in the military.  To be clear, I actually think the military does a decent job harnessing geography and moving tons of cargo and troops thousands of miles around the world.  Just don't forget where FedEx founder Fred Smith and Walmart cofounders Sam and Bud Walton (among others) got their impetus to start logistics companies.

No, what I really wanted to talk about yesterday was the following axiom:

Photo:  A trite truism, but one that I had to learn the hard way...

This is one of those little sayings that you hear repeated ad nauseam in classrooms and symposiums.  Unfortunately, you never fully appreciate the power of the message until you encounter someone from your past and hope like hell that you never said or did anything awful to them.

Alternatively, this truism is also applicable to times of reflection around major life changes when you actually have a moment to ponder how and why you got to this point.  This decision point.  This tipping point.  This leap of faith.

To be clear, we're talking about me here and why I left the USAF.

Obviously a lot of thought went into the decision and I did not leave on a whim or because of a bad boss.  I left because of a series of conversations that, at the time, I swept under the rug, but were clearly a glimpse into my next 20 to 30 years.

This is one of them.

***

December 26, 2009.  Pre-dawn.  RAF Lakenheath, UK.  The morning of the main body movement to Afghanistan via Kyrgyzstan.  

I was a second lieutenant and charged to be the troop commander for over 200 folks going downrange.  I had a compliment of outstanding senior noncommissioned officers (SNCOs) either enroute or going with me, but I still felt extreme anxiety.  

I had all of the documents that I needed to get everyone to the postage-sized dump in the middle of Central Asia known as Manas (pronounced either MAN-ass or MUN-az, but whatever).  Once there, I then had to get them assigned to transport missions into Afghanistan.  All of this before the aircraft package from England via EMEA got there, of course.  

Not to make excuses, but I had been in the active-duty USAF for all of 17 months and with this particular unit for four months.  Yea, stressed out does not even begin to describe how I felt.

Then the problems started.

I found out through my commander, Major Mercurial (name changed to match his outstanding leadership style), that one of my SNCOs had gotten into a bar fight and would not be going with us that morning.  No problem.  We call the alternate.  Alternate arrives.  Cool, right?

No.  Major Mercurial is going to call the SNCO who got his shit punched in and requires dental surgery into the office for a berating that very morning.  This will take place in front of everyone who still has to go on the deployment as well as:

During final out processing.

During multiple roll calls.

During final instructions from the logisticians charged to move us.

During weather reports.

During transport aircraft updates.

During the bus loading to the aircraft.

Photo:  So this is how I probably would have dealt with everything (i.e. no paperwork), but that's why I am getting out...

So I make the call to send a fully competent Senior Master Sergeant into the berating session so that I can herd cats, stay up-to-speed on all the information, and try to avoid completely screwing up the first step of this monthslong deployment.

Wrong.  WRONG!

Video clip:  Wrong.  WRONG!

So the moment Major Mercurial realizes that I do not plan on attending the putdown session he bursts into the hallway and essentially asks what I am doing.  (NOTE:  I can only assume that the berating was just to make sure this guy felt worse than he already did, since he was, and is, a good guy and got into the fight because some guys were giving his wife trouble.)

And this is where the details of the exchange get fuzzy.  Like I said, how I felt is the main point of this story.

So he directs me into the office, dismisses the bruised and battered SNCO, and rips me a new one.  He proceeds to asks me if I have any idea what I am doing (me:  I guess not), asks me if I know what is important (me:  again, I guess not, sir), and around and around we go.

The part that stuck with me was the cussing.  I had never been sworn at like that in the past.  Sworn at, absolutely, but not in reference to my decision-making abilities, prioritization skills, or general intelligence.

Regardless, it was one of the few times I did not take this sort of interaction personally.

I knew that given the opportunity I would have made the exact same decision.  One human being just simply cannot be in two places at once and I made the call that I needed to move over 200 people versus making one guy feel worse than he already did.

I am thankful, however, that I had enough wherewithal to put the incident behind me and focus on the mission at hand.  (WOW, the paradox of that last statement actually has me laughing out loud right now; does the mission get any more at hand than that?)

I did make one horrendous decision when I got to Kyrgyzstan in spite of all the hoopla and that was to make a point of the incident and not allow folks to drink their daily beer allotment since it was an alcohol-fueled bar fight.

If anyone on that trip reads this, I AM SORRY.  Additionally, I know all of you drank and you know that I did not go to Pete's Place for that very reason, right?

Photo:  A real crap decision on my part...

See all of this is indicative of what a crap manager-leader I was, but at least I see that now and can learn from it.  Too bad I didn't have anyone (Major Mercurial) to call to help me with that thought process.

More on him and his mentorship later.

For now, thanks for reading!