Bad Profiteer. No Cookie.

So, the past few days have been hell, spent dealing with issues caused by one particular contracting company responsible for our interpreters. Apparently, one of our guys tested positive for tuberculosis in his last physical. He was one of seventeen out of the brigade. So what do they do? Well, like any warm-blooded American corporation, they decided to fire them. Unless of course, they can go to Baghdad with one of us in tow to escort them, and pay $45-55 for an examination to prove that they're asymptomatic. Of course, it's not terribly difficult to tell that someone is asymptomatic with TB; not coughing up blood, for example, is a pretty good indicator.

It's just more evidence in the case against the whole rotten system. When I went in to talk to their field manager, he acted like I was intruding, wondering aloud why people kept coming in when all the necessary information was on the email. I'm sorry Mr. Contractor man, I didn't get that email list. Is there a time I can come back when you're not PMSing? And then of course, he gave me a big story about how he didn't want us Army types to think they're screwing our terps, the damn gutsy people without whom we cannot do our jobs. After all, he says, if this happened in the States, wouldn't you expect the same thing to happen.

Well, no. I don't think people would get automatically laid off if they tested positive on an error-prone diagnostic. Especially if they were vaccinated. Especially if they were asymptomatic. And especially without their employer helping them to get checked out. You know that whole (admittedly flawed) employer-based health care system we have? Yeah. In fact, I'm pretty sure you'd get sued if you tried something like this in the States.

But maybe I'm just being too cynical. Maybe they're really concerned about people's health, not their bottom line. Maybe they're not just looking for easy ways to shave their payroll now that operations here are winding down.

I hate this country. I hate this base. I hate my boss(es). I hate my colleagues. I hate the circumstances. I hate our nonexistent mission. I hate the bullshit tasks I'm given, and the lack of resources and information to carry them out.

Most of all, I hate that I let it get to me. I just want to make a difference...

Achoo

I swear, I get sick more while playing soldier than at any other time/place/dimension. The Army is a virulent disease-bearing organism. Stay away!

Professionalism

As an organization, the US Army banks heavily on its reputation for professionalism. We are much-admired for our ability to get shit done, regardless of personal feelings. After all, here I am, a man who in another life marched in protests against this war, fighting in it. Of course, like many of the ways in which this organization is perceived, it is wildly overstated. I realize that uncomfortably close proximity to someone, working with them every day for 5 months and counting, can grate a little. Hell, I don't like my team lead very much. But when someone is so incapable of sucking it up and finding ways to deal with their interpersonal conflicts that the command here has to reshuffle the teams and fuck up everyone else's operations and rythym...that's just pathetic.

Maybe I'm Not Useless

Why does contributing one tiny little overlooked fact about the upcoming elections to one inconsequential discussion make me feel like I've accomplished more than the last three months in total?

Outreach

There's several women who work at the city center here that have asked my interpreter to get American hair and beauty care products for him. Apparently, Iraqi versions of same are...shit. If he does this, he will have singlehandedly done more for Iraq than my team has done in the three months we've been here.

That is all.

My First Engagement

I actually got to do some CA work today. Crazy. We were out at the Mayor's office for a service managers meeting, and I was sitting outside pulling security. PSYOP rolls up and says hey, got some CA stuff for you. "Oh...kay." I go upstairs and listen to a couple council members and a deptuy mayor bitch about microgrants. Too bad for them we're not doing them anymore. Still, gonna check on the ones they already have in. Hopefully they're not one of the many that can't be funded. Damned oil economies.

I Shoulda Been A PI

Seriously. Investigating things is fun. I just spent all morning running around trying to figure out where and how thing X got fucked up. It was supposed to be changed yesterday, but wasn't. Why? Well, the big bosses here on post didn't send the information out properly. (Last week.) Yet our company headquarters continues to insist that it wasn't supposed to be changed, despite the fact that I just tried old X, and it didn't work...but new X did. Facts don't lie, folks.

"As a man of faith I am bound by a different covenant that Doctor Arroway. But our goal is one and the same: The pursuit of truth. I for one believe her."

-Palmer Joss, played by Matthew McConaughey, "Contact"

The Nature Of Reality

I think the one thing that aggravates me more than anything about people in general is the tendency to find simple, reductive explanations for everything. It's not only depressingly uncurious, but leads to a lot of poor decisionmaking. There are countless causes for a single effect. NOTHING could happen how it does without millions upon millions of variables being precisely as they are. The physical world, and doubly, triply, many times so when you involve human beings, is an inherently complex system. Stop pretending things are simple.

Happy New Year

Party hard, yo. Or I'll have to come kick your ass.