Yellow Brewery

Clear the slow mists from her half-darkened eyes,
As slow mists parted over Valmy fell,
As once again her hands in high surprise
Take hold upon the battlements of Hell.
-Chesterton

I am having a lot of problems getting up in the morning. I think my morale is very low. This has nothing to do with how the war is going; I am very pleased with our overall success, at least in this AO. I can’t comment on the rest of the country. But no, this has to do with how things are going here, inside the wire. It’s the routine.

During the beginning of the whole “soap opera” I spoke of a few weeks ago, a superior told me to beware of what he called a “professional depression.” He said that a similar set of circumstances led him to question many of the aspects of our profession, and to see only the bad in the people he worked with and the way our system works. I kind of ignored his warning, and not because I thought it was baloney, but because I didn’t see any way to avoid it. And he was right. I have become dissatisfied with the whole thing.

It’s not like the picture they paint you. You wait your whole life to go to war, and then they run it like you’re in garrison. You train as hard as you can to learn how to lead soldiers, and then all opportunities for leadership get micromanaged right out from under you. You spend a lot of time and effort learning your particular specialty, and people who know nothing about your job tell you how to do it. You build up this image of noble, elite warriors of the new empire, you learn to worship and revere soldiers, and then you go to the latrine and some bastard has peed all over the toilet paper, or you find out one of your soldiers isn’t paying child support, or somebody gets drunk from some booze they got from somewhere. You spend a whole year training to kick in doors and fight through ambushes, and then have to sit through meetings that sometimes last for six hours. You get your legs kicked out from under you by the very people whose mission it is for you to support.

I chose this little four-year detour (instead of going right to EOD) because I thought that it would be rewarding. I thought I would get the chance to lead. But I’m wondering if anybody really gets that chance any more. I have said before that I think the Army needs more leaders and less managers; but are so many systems in place that enforce a managerial approach to war that it is impossible to go back?

I have not been entirely fair, I guess; up until this last summer, I loved every minute of it. I just need to change jobs, move to a new command, and face a new set of challenges. I hate stagnating. I hate not going anywhere. I guess it’s not very long now, though. Only seven more months and I can move to a new position. I just have to suck it up for now.