A Look Back 2
My counselor asked me, "Why did you join the military?" I think the default response people assume most soldiers have is, "to serve my country," "as a career," "to sponsor my education," "to go new places." I'm sure some people felt that way. Personally, I just wanted to escape--permanently. My idea of what deployment to Iraq was skewed. I just wanted to die, but not at my own hands. While I've give these thoughts some time, I don't think I'd ever act on them. It seems irresponsible for me to do something like that (I'm not about to judge anyone else, just myself). There wasn't an heroism or patriotism in what I chose to do. I'd say I was very self-centered. Upon finishing basic, though, I garnered a new appreciation for my country and my willingness to live.
When you're in the military, you're a community. It's not about "me" anymore. It's about "us." You're all intrinsically linked by this silent code of esprit de corp (sometimes not so silent, HOOAH). Not everyone gets with the program; there's certainly many people who are still out there for themselves. I think that's why the phrase "10% rule" was coined. I've heard a lot of definitions for this phrase, but my primary takeaway was 10% of the workforce was doing 100% of the work. It's funny how the military just perverts things and twists things to fit whatever definition they fancy. In any case, it's the excuse give for some people doing the right thing. These are the "house mouse" types that volunteer for details, that sacrifice for their units, that get crapped on by most everyone... I fell into some of those categories. I'm not trying to say I was a victim--I don't revel in that. I will say I was treated unfairly at times. I believe my fellow platoonmates could attest to that. But that's life. That's just how things run. If you want to survive in that system, you do the right thing. You always do the right thing.
I had this thing I called the "Dorian Gray Effect." My hypothesis was that as long as you appear to be doing the right thing, as long as you look good and carry yourself in an appealing way, you can get away with practically anything. I've never advocated for people to do the WRONG thing, but I will note that if you're doing the right thing 99% of the time, you're liable to get away with some things here or there. For some that might be an act: appear to do the right thing and you'll get by. People see through that, though. Not always, but it happens. I always suggested that if you wanted to cut out of something then you gotta go big. I called it "Power Shamming." Shamming was a turn we used to describe people getting out of work. Power Shamming, transversely, was doing something to get out of something else. You look cruddy if you avoid work entirely. You might get away with it, but people always see you. Someone sees you and they're judging. Power Shamming, on the other hand, meant choosing to do something else to avoid other tasks. This might mean doing a big detail moving safes to leave the headquarters, because you know something even worse might transpire (like getting smoked and forced to change in and out of uniforms--if it sounds specific it's because it happened...). Power Shamming is unique, because you're doing work YOU choose to avoid work you otherwise would not choose. Combine these notions: "Always do the right thing" + "Dorian Gray Effect" + "Power Shamming." You get me. This is a fairly accurate reflection of how I made it through the military. I'm not smart. I'm not clever. I'm not particularly attractive (I'm tall, but I'm a scarecrow). I'm not talented... But what I can do is maintain my principals and press forward regardless of how hard people beat me down. It's all about my mindset.
I suppose the most accurate story I can tell about benefiting from The Dorian Gray Effect would be the time I was late to formation in AIT. I woke up to the sound of the Drill Sergeant calling formation. My roommate hadn't bothered to wake me. I was panicked. I threw my uniform on, my books together, and rushed downstairs. I walked out fully expecting to get destroyed by the drill sergeant... but that never happened. Apparently, everyone had assumed I was upstairs cleaning. I had a reputation for picking up after everyone and that's exactly what everyone thought. Yes, it was wrong for me to sleep in, but it didn't matter. The thing that mattered was "perception." Perception is so incredibly powerful that you can make a villain out of someone who's never done or said a thing to you. I think we all do it. In that moment, I was the hero. The sleeping hero.
"Always do the right thing." This is something that hounded me through my entire time in the military. I wasn't going to be a UAV operator (96U/35K/15W) when I first joined. A family friend [wrongly] believed me to be intelligent and suggested I become a linguist. The test for placement is called the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB). The way it was given to me is they give you the paper test, they play a tape with all the rules for the test, and you do what the tape says. The catch is that when you finish a section, you can't turn the page back. During the test I did a section, and halfway through the next I realized I'd done the whole other section wrong. My answers were transcribed one off from where they should have been. Now I had a choice to make... They put me in a fishbowl room by myself, the blinds were drawn. There were no cameras. The proctor had wandered away at the start of the test and left me to my own devices. I could have turned the page and corrected all my answers. But I didn't. I didn't, because that would be cheating and cheating is wrong.
I failed that test by like 6 points.
Thanks to that test I couldn't become a linguist; I became a UAV operator. The entire course of my life was shifted thanks to simply not turning a page. Would I have become a good linguist? I doubt that, but who knows? I've muscled my way through a lot of things I thought I'd fail at. Who knows? I do know this behavior followed me through the military and I gotta say...
It doesn't help you.
People notice it, they say nice things, but overall it doesn't get you any further than the guy constantly doing all the wrong things and still getting promoted. You can do what you can and say what you can. You can try to do the right thing, but it really doesn't matter. The only thing that did was make me feel "right."
I did one regrettable thing when I was in the military. One lie that has eaten at me all these years. I was moving a vehicle and forgot to check the trailer hitch. In turn, it ended up ripping the circuitry on the hitch and breaking the components. My first instinct was to go and tell my supervisors what I did. One of my NCOs approached me and said this (remembering as best I can):
"What are you going to do? Go back and tell them? And then they'll just chew you out like they always do. Just go there and get yourself smoked for a hitch. Or. Or you can just put the hitch back together and walk away. The equipment has to be shipped. Stuff breaks all the time. No one will be any the wiser, but you and me. Do you really want to put that stress on yourself when you're about to get out of the army?"
I've only told one other person that story to this day. It still eats at me typing. All the time in the military I tried to maintain my morality (my trifecta formula as it were), and I got to the end and it broke me. My time there was terrible. I wouldn't do it again.