Henry's Web Log

Lights were out at 10pm last night, and lots of snoring was happening in our open-bay barracks. UGH! Suddenly, we're woken up at 4am. There are three Lieutenant Colonels in our group, so as a Major, I dodged the bullet of being class leader. That means I'm not the guy who has to turn on the barracks lights at 4am and deliver the pleasant news that our urine will now be tested for illegal drugs.

Everybody forms up, and really has to pee. But 3 are missing, and we can't start till everyone's present. So we wait and 20 minutes later, we're only missing 1, and we proceed anyway. A few soldiers have paid $10/night for separate quarters, and they were supposed to know to be at our little event. It's an observed pee in the Army: nothing up your sleeve.

Next, the schedule said we'd have Physical Training (PT). Our class leader said, "Do it on your own" and we went our different directions. I found a gym and worked up a good sweat, mixing up from my aerobic run yesterday. Breakfast was relaxed, done by 6:30am, and not much to do until our first 8:30 appointment. I start to open up my PC, but there's a bus headed to the inprocessing stations, 1.5 hours early. Why not? It's better than sitting around, even for a chance of getting more stuff done.

We'll stop to let the enlisted soldiers begin receiving their uniforms. Officers have to buy theirs, and they'll give us time for that this afternoon. Most folks have been in civilian clothes thus far. I believe we're down to 45 of us- only one was sent home so far.

One Captain with us has an interesting job: he supervises inmate cooking at a federal prison. Good pay. He told me over dinner that it's all about image on the inside. You never want to be embarrassed, or put down in front of others. Status is king. So the Captain told me he was called up, went through the family good-bye process and took a leave of absence from his prison job. But here's the deal: he's got something going on medically and the VA has already awarded him 30% disability. The first doctor here said he could deploy, just see one more station. But not until Friday. He's very serious about ensuring he deploys, because to return to his prison job would be a complete loss of respect for his authority. I can see his point: it's one thing to come back to friends and family and say, "guess what? I'm back." That would take some adjustment and explaining, but would pass quickly. Not the case for him: it'd pretty much be the end of his civilian job.
Yet for him, his disability would have been on file, so why mobilize him if it's likely he wouldn't be deployable? The answer may be that the military has so many different positions, that a 30% disability as an infantryman may be only a 10% disability as a medical support person. I saw him on the PT track last night. He's serious about making it work.
The prison climate is not unlike what I was reading in one of the CALL books (see my 9/15/08 post) highlighting the importance of respect and saving face among Arabic cultures. You should never put down someone in view of others, and really, only suggest small changes when in America you might otherwise cuss up a storm. The leadership axim that "you praise in public, correct in private" touches on the idea. Since leadership is about influencing the behavior of others, this highlights the importance of being culturally sensitive whether it's in a Federal prison or the sands of Iraq.