Politics. Sort Of. . .

This will be my one and only blog post for the political season. I was originally going to write a lot of blog posts about a lot of my thoughts. But I am lazy, and didn't get around to it. Meanwhile, I kept reading a lot of other political stuff from other people, and I realized something - almost all of this political ranting and gnashing of teeth about this or that candidate/policy/debate/gaff/whatever just starts to be pathetically futile background noise. It reminded me of something I saw on Facebook once that struck me as being particularly true. It said something to this effect:

"Your political rants and tirades on Facebook have really convinced me that my previously held beliefs are wrong. I have decided that I should now think like you.

-Said nobody. Ever."

I think that is basically true. I can't think of a single political rant that I have ever read that really gave me pause to reconsider my own stances. It is all propaganda. The Nazis could not have dreamt of a more effective way to spread dissent and hatred. Worse yet, it is almost always misinformed, half-baked and terribly biased. Plus, the amount of venom and vitriol that is spread around on Facebook and other sites about politics is just plain rude. We would never lambast each other like this if we were in the room together. But in the anonymity of our living rooms, we can wax grandiose and belligerent about things we aren't qualified to teach, smugly belittle others while wearing sweatpants and slippers, and for the most part, get away with it.

All of this political fighting doesn't reveal nearly so much about our politics as it does about our character as people. If we are willing to offend, alienate and disenfranchise our friends and family just to make a politically inflammatory statement, then this necessarily means something about us. It means that we suck as people. And if we do this harm to others without being aware that we are harming them, it means we suck as people and are ignorant of it. That is infinitely worse.

I think a lot of people who do this political posting are unaware of the harm they are causing. Unaware (or maybe uncaring) about the feelings they are hurting, the disrespect they are showing, and the lack of civility they are betraying to the world. It is one thing to show support for a cause you champion. It is another thing entirely to mock or belittle the stances of others. Even as a kid playing pee-wee soccer, we were taught that good sportsmanship is cheering for your team. Bad sportsmanship is cheering against the other team. If you score a goal, you cheer. If the other team does something stupid and you cheer, that means you are a jerk. You are celebrating their misfortune. You are a bad sport. You shouldn't be allowed to play. In fact, I can remember a time when just this thing happened.

I was playing basketball in the Jr. Jazz league in Riverton. I wasn't very good, but I was very tall. So I played center. I remember that the other team had a power forward who was a very good shot. But he was short. So I kept blocking his shots. And people in the tiny crowd watching the game would cheer. That felt good to me. But then someone began making fun of him. Whenever he got the ball, they taunted him to try and shoot again. That did NOT feel good to me. I was ashamed. I was ashamed to have been pulled into something that became tawdry and cheap. I became part of persecution. I hated it. I kept blocking his shots when I could, but I didn't enjoy it anymore. I wasn't mad at myself or at the kid. I was mad at the person who turned my good game into his cause to make someone else feel like they were somehow less. The jerk kept it up, though. And was ejected from the game. He was the father of one of my team-mates, and when he was ejected from the game, I felt relieved. He was ruining it for me and for everyone else.

That is what all this political/philosophical/theological abuse really is - we are trying to make other people feel like they are less. This is the essence of persecution. It is bad sportsmanship, bad citizenship. So if you do it, stop. Doing it means you suck. Don't suck.

We don't have to agree. It is healthy to disagree. But if we do so in an ugly way, it necessarily means that we are ugly ourselves. All the anonymity in the world doesn't change this. Ugly is as ugly does.

So here is my plea as the election winds down - next time you have something political to say, make sure you are cheering for your team, and not against the other one. Make sure that, in your zeal to promote your cause, you don't simultaneously degrade yourself. There was once a pretty smart guy who talked about how we should treat people we don't agree with. If I remember the story right, there was nothing mentioned about criticizing, being mean, or making anyone feel like they are less. I am paraphrasing here, but it was something like "do good to those that despitefully use you."

If Jesus thinks we should be nice and understanding to people who are literally crucifying us, I shudder to think how He feels about it when we are rude or dismissive or harsh to others who have only done us the grave offense of disagreeing.

Betrayal of American Democracy

I have expressed this sentiment several times in various forms, and it looks like I will unfortunately have cause to continue expressing it: we are being betrayed!

When I say we, I mean the American People. Not Republicans or Democrats. I mean all of us. We are all being betrayed by our own political system and the politicians that profit from it. See, there is a cancer that started growing around the US Constitution from almost day one. George Washington was wise enough to see it for what it was, and he spoke out against it, but his concerns fell on deaf ears. So the cancer was allowed to grow and spread until it has now become larger and more powerful in many ways than the original system that spawned it.

This cancer is the US Political Party system, and as long as it remains in its current form, no true democracy is possible in America.

The parties exist for one reason only: to consolidate money and power, and thereby ensure their own power and survival. The parties have no vested interest in giving the people what they want. Far from it. Rather, the parties both have a long and tedious record of becoming consumed in their own ideological bickering, the needs and desires of the American people be damned. The events of the past year are a case in point.

Congress has the job of authorizing funding for the federal government. This is one of their basic duties. But rather than finding a way to get this relatively kindergarten level problem resolved, the issue devolved into partisan fighting and bickering that almost resulted in all Federal employees and programs experiencing a pay freeze that would have been catastrophic to our already limping economy. Only in the eleventh hour, when all the politicians realized their jobs were on the line, did they close ranks and DO THEIR DAMN JOBS.

And now they are at it again, and over a very similar issue. This time it is the debt ceiling, but the results threaten to be similar. Their complete unwillingness to actually represent their constituents, and insistence on playing political gamesmanship is likely to take us again to the very brink of disaster before either side will give way. And who suffers in the mean time? The American Middle. Almost all of us.

The parties dictate the votes of our Senators and Congressmen. If a representative steps out of line with their party, they invariably are censured, miss out on funding, lose committee appointments, etc. So in order to be a powerful rep, you have to also be a powerful lackey. And the really anti democratic element is this: the People of the United States of America do not vote for the party leaders. They do that themselves. It is a voting process open to a very few select people, and only to those who are already members. These people then go about the business of making the decisions that rule our lives, and there is little to nothing that we can do to influence their policies.

I seem to remember another time that something similar happened. But that time the closed group was called the British House of Parliament, and the Party Leader was a man named King George. What has happened in the two centuries since then that Americans no longer want democracy? How have we been so duped as to allow these two feuding oligarchies that call themselves Parties to claim possession of our futures and political destinies?

Well, I am not so naive as to believe that the parties will ever willingly release their grasp on power. And as long as they have one another to deflect blame onto, they can convince the American Middle that they are both necessary to prevent some unspeakable but also undefinable ideological horror from sweeping the country. No, I do not think that we have the power, as sad as it is, to dislodge the parties. But there is something I think we can do: we can fire them all.

And that is what I propose. If any employee at any company repeatedly fails to do his job, or even if he puts off doing his job until he has placed the company in a crisis, that man would be fired. He should be fired. And so should our sitting government. We should fire all of them, and keep firing them, until they get the message: we need a government that works for US, not for itself. We need a government that empowers the American People, not the American Politicians.

So in this next election, and every time thereafter, when the government is failing you, protest the only way the system still allows you to - vote against the incumbent. Because as long as the old guard keeps winning, we are telling them one thing clearest of all: that we will continue to allow them to tread and trample all over us.

Training Update

I just spent a week doing a Field Training Exercise, or FTX in Army speak. Basically, the FTX is like a week-long Army themed camping trip. We trained at Camp Bullis, which is inside a sort of wilderness area just north of San Antonio. We stayed in big tents, slept on Army cots, and ate MREs every day (much to the regret of my digestive system.)

The camp is actually quite comfortable. The tents are air conditioned, and there is hot chow for breakfast and dinner. However, there is one amenity that is very much missing: plumbing. No running water for showers, drinking water, or toilets. So we have to use wet-wipes to clean ourselves, portajohns to relieve ourselves, and water trailers to hydrate ourselves.

The training we did was largely interesting and enjoyable, but not always. Things like weapons training, casualty evacuation and care, and land navigation were a ton of fun. There were several simulators that we used to practice convoy movement, engaging the enemy, etc. There was also a simulator for practicing escaping a Humm-V in case of a roll over. That was hilarious.

The training that was less enjoyable was the gas chamber. After being instructed on the proper use of the gas mask, we all then entered a room where tear gas was being pumped into the room. The first thing I noticed was a sensation like an intense sunburn all around the exposed skin on my face and neck. But my mask was working fine, so I had no problems breathing. We had to do jumping jacks and stretches to get our hearts pumping, and then, to top it all off, we had to take our masks off and answer a series of questions to the best of our ability. That was awful. As soon as the mask comes off, the gas gets into your eyes and burns like madness. You can't breathe, but the pain makes you gasp, so you end up coughing, which brings even more of the painful stuff into your lungs. I was not fun. On the other hand, it was also nowhere near as bad as some of the prior service people were making it out to be.

We were lucky that the weather cooperated with us. Not too hot, not rainy. Just right. Even sleeping in a tent with 29 other guys wasn't too bad, since they were all pretty decent cats. We had a lot of fun.

Failing, Growing Older, and Other Things I Did in the Army.

Wow, it has been ten days since my last post. That is both disappointing, and completely understandable. I started out with every intention of making a record of every day of training, both for my own amusement later on, and for the sake of anyone who enters BOLC in the future. I wanted to write a post every day. But that was before I knew how little energy I would have after a day of listening to tedious power point lectures and walking around in the Texas heat, and before I realised how much of my time would be spent trying to get, and then waiting for rides, or waiting in traffic at the gates to the base. Commutes suck, but especially so a O-Dark-Stupid in the morning. If you come to BOLC or any other Army training where living off post is an option, DO NOT DO IT if you don't have your own car. Don't do it even if you do have your own car. Driving sucks, and you will never have enough time to really do all of the things you need to be doing if you have to drive all over the place. Just live on base. Trust me. The best evidence I can give for this theory is this very post. I had a very hot, tiring day today, and still have time to write in the blog. See?

Alright, so: failing. That is what I did yesterday. I failed my PT test. For an Army PT test you have to do a certain number of situps and pushups and run two miles in a certain time, based on age and gender. If you fail any single event, you have failed the entire test, and have to retest later. Well, I failed. And, since I don't do anything half-way, I went ahead and failed all three events. I failed pushups by 2, situps by 5, and the run by 10 seconds. I used to be fit and trim and athletic. That was 12 or so years ago. But there is some good news, which is actually caused by the second thing:

Growing Older. Yeah, today is my birthday. Officially 32 years old. Almost 1/3 of 100. Honestly, I really don't care, and I don't feel old. It doesn't feel much like a birthday, either. I got all of my presents already, either before I came to training or last weekend when Dana visited. (Oh yeah, Dana visited. It was awesome, but I completely was too busy having fun to write about it. But she drove over 1000 miles to spend two days with me. If that is not love, then love doesn't exist. That is right, I said DROVE. In two days, nonetheless. My wife = Road Warrior Princess) So today I didn't have a party or ice cream, but I did have cake at lunch, and the Army was so kind as to give me a birthday present: since I am now 32 I fall into a different testing bracket for PT. If I test again, and get the exact same scores as last time, I will pass with flying colors! Sweet! This may be the first time in history that someone has been deemed to be in better physical condition simply by virtue of getting older. Gotta love the Army!

As for training, it has been mostly very dry Army/Military doctrine for the last week or two. Some of it is more interesting, but some is seriously laughable in it's monotony. We spent two hours (that I will never get back) talking about the various stages of casualty transport. This is something that I will never do, no matter what capacity the Army places me in. Or there were the three hours talking about the various kinds of companies and battalions etc. that you can be assigned to, after which our instructor said "but these are just templates. The Army can create any kind of unit of any size, based on the current need. So your own units may look nothing like these." Well great. Thanks for taking my afternoon telling me things that I may or may not ever find remotely applicable to myself. Next up: a list of people who have gone blind from intentionally staring at the sun.

Today was a change of pace, though. Today I learned how to field dress an M-16, which was really cool. For you non-military types, field-dress is Army speak for "take apart" or "disassemble." Don't ask me why they don't just say "disassemble" because I am pretty sure nobody in the Army could tell you that, either. But I digress. The training was simple, straight forward, and I went away knowing for sure that I had gained a skill that I previously did not have. We didn't get to shoot the weapon yet, but that is coming soon. I am really pumped for that. Now that I can field dress and M-16, I almost feel like a serious GI. Almost.

How to Make Friends in the Army

1: Be Mormon (seriously, a huge help. Gotta love it when people ask you about your faith and then invariably say "I know a few Mormons. They are all the nicest people.")

2: Be willing to be designated driver for your platoon.

3: Repeat.

That is about all it takes. I went from feeling sort-of left out to suddenly being everyone's best friend as soon as my classmates found out that I would be DD if they needed me. Especially since a single alcohol related incident would be grounds for getting kicked out of the program. On Saturday night, a bunch of my classmates wanted to venture out and explore San Antonio. There is a club here called Cowboys that is supposed to be pretty famous, and this is where they were planning on going via taxi, when my battle buddy remembered that I don't drink, and hence could drive them. The level of excitement over this idea was almost comical, but they were already a little lose by the time of this conversation, so whatever.

So we headed over to the club. It was actually a pretty cool place. Huge by all standards. Gigantic dance floor with a stage for live music, really tight but unremarkable country band on the huge stage, and just about everything else you could imagine being in a honky-tonk, including a mechanical bull. The bar itself is gigantic. Anyway, the group I came with let loose and had a really good time, and I felt good that I could help them get home in one non-arrested piece. I also had a lot of fun, which seemed to surprise the guys I was with, since I was still sober, and they apparently equate 'sober' with 'fun-impaired.'

It was a good night, and I felt like I was included into the group in a sincere way by the time we were driving home. So who know the tee-totalling Mormon kid from Utah would make a good party buddy?

Oh, and for the last few days training has been kinda unremarkable, which is why I haven't written much. And also I have been exhausted. In fact, if there is one remarkable thing, it would be how tired I have been. I literally fell asleep standing up at the back of the room during one of the lectures.

One thing that I should write about is the brigade run that we did on Thursday morning. A Brigade is a very large group. Our company has 360 or so people in it, and the brigade has 5 companies in it. So all told, we were a group of more than 1000 soldiers. We all formed up in our PT uniforms (grey ARMY tee-shirts, black shorts, and yellow reflective belts for safety and added geek effect) in a mass formation on the PT field. After a brief pep-talk and obligatory safety brief from the Commanding Officer, we headed out, with my A Company in the lead.

It was a little over two miles all told, and I have no idea how fast we covered the distance, but it was not fast. Nor was it particularly strenuous. By the time we were done, I was winded, but not sucking air or anything. No side-aches, cramps or any of that nonsense. All encouraging signs that I may be actually getting in shape again.

The most remarkable thing about the brigade run was this overwhelming sense of team, of being a very small piece in a very large machine. The run was all done in-time, which means there was a cadre (team, staff, etc.) member running with us, calling out cadences. Essentially we were marching in double time. Having someone call out LEFT. . .LEFT. . .LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT while you are jogging is actually really cool. And when everyone manages to actually run according to that cadence, the whole mass of bodies sways when you sway, bounces when you bounce. I had a few moments where I got the chills just thinking about all the synergy and cooperation that I was involved in. I was also very proud. There are some highly distinguished individuals in that group, from surgeons to ex-enlisted who have already been deployed multiple times. To be one of them, to run with them, was pretty flattering.

The cadences that were called during the run were pretty cool. Some were funny, and one was disturbing. It is basically what you see in the movies. An enormous group of soldiers go jogging by, shouting at the top of their lungs into the morning air. First the sergeant yells "THEY SAY THAT IN THE ARMY, THE FOOD IS MIGHTY FINE!" Then the whole group, or whoever is close enough to hear the cadence, repeat that same phrase back, in a more or less perfect echo. Then its: "A CHICKEN JUMPED OFF THE TABLE AND STARTED MARCHING TIME!" or some other mildly humorous line. Before I joined the Army, I thought those cadences were merely for breaking the monotony of yelling LEFT. . .LEFT. . .LEFT all the time. But now I know they are really an aerobic training tool. It is one thing to run two miles in a group. It is something else entirely to do it while yelling long sentences at the top of your lungs the whole time. No room for huffing and puffing while singing about Captain Jack and his knife/gun/bottle/bible, and how you are going do your best for Uncle Sam.

Wow, reading over this, I guess my lack of entries was more due to tiredness than to lack of things to write about, lol. But that will have to do it for today. One more day off, then it is back in the saddle. Tomorrow I do some laundry, and see what I can find to do within walking distance of the hotel. Or maybe, if it is too hot, I will just do laundry and hang out by the pool.

Slow Days are Good Days

Today was a pretty easy one, at least for me. The company (which is the military term for a very large group, such as my class of 300+ new officers) started the day out doing physical training, or PT. This would have been my first PT, but I couldn't join the company, because I had to go to the ophthalmologist on base to get a prescription for my combat eye wear. So instead of working out in the Texas heat (it was 85 degrees and 60% humidity at 5:00) I had to stand in line with a bunch of other soldiers to get glasses. Not exactly heroic.

After that, it was pretty much a day spent in classes, getting some briefings from higher ranking officers. We got out a little early, because one of the presenters was a no-show, so I was able to get in a lengthy work out of my own to make up for missing PT. I have been able to get my run and push up numbers good enough to pass the PT test, but sit ups are still a problem. I am holding out hope that I will somehow be able to get my abs and hip-flexors up to snuff by this time next week when the first PT test happens. The really good news is that I had my best run so far, doing two miles in under 17 minutes, and it wasn't even especially challenging. Hopefully I can replicate it during the test.

I am also starting to get to know my classmates, and hung out with a few of them in the evening at the hotel pool while soaking my legs after the run. It seems like an extraordinarily cool group of people, but a lot of us have been slow to find buddies or make connections, so it was nice to spend some time getting to know people in the groups.

So it was a pretty uneventful day, but in a good way. I even might manage to get 6 hours of sleep tonight, if I manage to get off this computer sometime soon.

How to Lose Five Pounds in One Day

First: Go to Texas in late summer.
Second: Put on long pants, undershirt, and a long-sleeved jacket. Oh, and also wear a black wool hat.
Third: Walk around.

That is it. Instant five pounds of weight lost through your pores.

Potential side effects: Severe dehydration; soaking your clothes so you feel disgustingly soggy all day; sweat stains and salt lines in strange places (upper, outer thigh?); and feeling irresistibly drawn to all sorts of air conditioning.

Seriously, I lost more than five pounds today. I only hope that some of that weight loss is of a more permanent nature, since I am also drinking like a fish to make up for water loss. And it is not like we were doing anything strenuous. We just had a group march, at a slow pace, from one building on base to another. Took us maybe 30 minutes. But by the time we got to where we were going, I was drenched in sweat, as was almost everyone else.

It seems that the Army has 5 classifications of heat conditions, and these classifications determine what can and cannot be done in terms of strenuous physical activity. Well, we have been in Class 5 Heat Conditions ever since I got here. When we line up at 4:00 for role call, which should theoretically be the coldest part of the day, it is already 85 degrees outside. But, since we can't exactly phone in our training, we have to get together and do some limited stuff outside in the heat. I am hoping that I can get used to the heat pretty quick, because sweating a half gallon a day is not my idea of an ideal way to spend 9 weeks in Texas.