Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Did anyone stumble across your blog on the net and confront you about it, and , if so, were there any interesting exchanges?
I got this question about three weeks ago and for the entire year - well, I guess I should only count the time people have known about it: four months - the answer was pretty much, no. Interestingly, the very last day at Ft Dix, I was confronted separately by two E7s who didn’t like my comments on the narratives they apparently wrote for my ARCOM (Army Commendation Medal).
One told me he was very insulted by what I wrote and said that they tried to personalize each statement. He said even if I thought I didn’t deserve it, "I bet your family thinks you deserve it.” Actually, no. After reviewing the criteria for the medal, which is awarded to a Soldier who, “distinguished himself/herself by heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service (italics mine),” my wife agreed that that it was not deserved.
The other E7 was a little more bitter:
SFC Phil: Thanks for the insult, Judge
Colin: Roger that, Sergeant.
SFC Phil: Don’t worry we can revoke the ARCOM
Colin: I’ll just give it back to you.
SFC Phil: Oh, no, no, no, we’ll revoke it.
I decided to return the ARCOM that day and called Mary at home and asked her to bring it to the armory. I had mailed it from Baghdad, but it hadn’t arrived yet. She could tell I was bothered by it and because she’d been alone with the boys for over a year, she said, “They are being babies and you need to be a big boy.”
Obviously, I was too subtle with what I wrote before (did they get the other posts?), so I’ll lay it out:
1. Everyone gets a medal.
2. In order to get the medal, I had to distinguish himself.
3. To show that I had distinguished myself, leadership had to write about how I distinguished myself.
4. Since the only way I distinguished myself was that I avoided UCMJ action, they had to use hyperbole.
5. I found the hyperbole humorous and wrote about it in the blog.
Besides this incident, no one’s really confronted me about it. When something outrageous happens, guys will look at me and say, “That’s going in the blog,” but most of the stuff was either sensitive or too crass to post. I’ve been asked, more than once, whether my blog is mostly positive or negative. In return, I’d ask them whether their experience was positive or negative and they’d say that it wasn’t too bad. Then I learned to ask whether they’d want to come back again and everyone one says “no”, with the exception a Kip who wants come back working for DynCorp making $120,000 a year. Hey, if we liked this job, we’d be regular Army.
I have to admit, I’m no Soldier. Like another guy said, “I’m just here to help out.” Yes, I’m very critical of the military, but it’s not because I don’t believe in its mission. It’s just all screwed up. One Soldier said when we were flying out of Baghdad, “Remember the time it was icy, so we couldn’t fly in the plane from the Minnesota National Guard because it lacked deicing equipment, so we had to wait for the one from Florida that did?” It’s really like that.
I got this question about three weeks ago and for the entire year - well, I guess I should only count the time people have known about it: four months - the answer was pretty much, no. Interestingly, the very last day at Ft Dix, I was confronted separately by two E7s who didn’t like my comments on the narratives they apparently wrote for my ARCOM (Army Commendation Medal).
One told me he was very insulted by what I wrote and said that they tried to personalize each statement. He said even if I thought I didn’t deserve it, "I bet your family thinks you deserve it.” Actually, no. After reviewing the criteria for the medal, which is awarded to a Soldier who, “distinguished himself/herself by heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service (italics mine),” my wife agreed that that it was not deserved.
The other E7 was a little more bitter:
SFC Phil: Thanks for the insult, Judge
Colin: Roger that, Sergeant.
SFC Phil: Don’t worry we can revoke the ARCOM
Colin: I’ll just give it back to you.
SFC Phil: Oh, no, no, no, we’ll revoke it.
I decided to return the ARCOM that day and called Mary at home and asked her to bring it to the armory. I had mailed it from Baghdad, but it hadn’t arrived yet. She could tell I was bothered by it and because she’d been alone with the boys for over a year, she said, “They are being babies and you need to be a big boy.”
Obviously, I was too subtle with what I wrote before (did they get the other posts?), so I’ll lay it out:
1. Everyone gets a medal.
2. In order to get the medal, I had to distinguish himself.
3. To show that I had distinguished myself, leadership had to write about how I distinguished myself.
4. Since the only way I distinguished myself was that I avoided UCMJ action, they had to use hyperbole.
5. I found the hyperbole humorous and wrote about it in the blog.
Besides this incident, no one’s really confronted me about it. When something outrageous happens, guys will look at me and say, “That’s going in the blog,” but most of the stuff was either sensitive or too crass to post. I’ve been asked, more than once, whether my blog is mostly positive or negative. In return, I’d ask them whether their experience was positive or negative and they’d say that it wasn’t too bad. Then I learned to ask whether they’d want to come back again and everyone one says “no”, with the exception a Kip who wants come back working for DynCorp making $120,000 a year. Hey, if we liked this job, we’d be regular Army.
I have to admit, I’m no Soldier. Like another guy said, “I’m just here to help out.” Yes, I’m very critical of the military, but it’s not because I don’t believe in its mission. It’s just all screwed up. One Soldier said when we were flying out of Baghdad, “Remember the time it was icy, so we couldn’t fly in the plane from the Minnesota National Guard because it lacked deicing equipment, so we had to wait for the one from Florida that did?” It’s really like that.
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