Free At Last, Free At Last! Thank God Almighty, I'm Free At Last!

Today's my ETS date, the official end of my term of service, and I admit... I am bitter. Angry, even. In fact, I'm downright pissed off.

It's like a movie or book ruined by a shitty ending. The first half, my time in the artillery, I'll treasure for the rest of my life. It wasn't all good times, and a lot of it sucked hard, but... it was worth it. We did good, things I'm still proud of having been a part of. There are people whose lives are better for what we did, and I'm a better man for having been a part of that.
Too bad I've been watching it all unravel over the last couple of years.

The second half, my years in that goddamned military intelligence company as a UAS operator, I'll regret for the rest of my life. I made some good friends there, but it was a waste. Thanks to that company, my career is over and I'll never fly UAVs again. The only part I do not regret is having done what's right - even if it did cost me my career.
The watershed moment for that one was coming back after having spent a month filling an E-7 slot (and doing it better than the E-7's, being as I was significantly more proficient with the UAS than they were) and being counseled by the recently promoted E-7 sex offender that I was ineligible for promotion thanks to the results of a psych evaluation. Never mind that I had debunked the evaluation and gotten a second opinion which explicated that the first was full of shit, never mind that the psych eval contradicted the rest of my psychological history and was internally inconsistent, I was *clearly* unfit for service.
And so I was (and am), but not for the reasons A-Co 1 BSTB claimed. In just a few short years, the military had changed. Some - not all, but some - of the difference can be explained on the cultural differences between the artillery and the MI. On-High claimed it was a return to the 'higher' pre-war standards, blind to the contradiction inherent in such an idiotic supposition that there could be a higher military standard than being fit for service in a wartime... and that standard could involve only the most superficial and banal traditions, the only purpose for which seems to be innovative inertia and intellectual laziness. So yes, I was unfit for service because I am a man of honor, someone whose moral integrity remains unimpeachable, and someone who recognizes that loyalty and duty are not things to be casually tossed aside.

But most of all, America, I'll hold a grudge against you. You miserable bastards, who elected Obama and that pack of Democrats for the purely selfish reason of wanting 'free' healthcare and with the promise of getting back at those evil rich people who've somehow made your lives so miserable (never mind your having made incredibly stupid decisions, it's all someone else's fault). You sorry sons of bitches who elected the Great Peacemaker, and in so doing pissed away everything I worked for my adult life, pissed away the sacrifices of thousands of servicemen, pissed away thousands of Iraqi lives just so you could feel better about yourself and have the temporary illusion of peace and the even more ephemeral illusion of security. You worthless wastes of oxygen who haven't the faintest notion of honor, loyalty, or duty who thought only about what you could steal through taxation, whose only impetus to vote was a childish need to have the government provide for you.

Well, what do you have to show for it? What did you win by ending the war? What did you gain by the Affordable Care Act? Is your life better for trying to wrap yourself in the comforting protection of the government. How has your life been improved by one of the most scandal-ridden, opaque, diplomatically inept, economically incompetent, arrogantly condescending and wasteful administrations in American history?

'Cause I can tell you what we've lost.

Getting Out

First and foremost, I am not getting out because the deployment and operations tempo was too much. I'm not getting out because I couldn't stand going to foreign countries with absolutely miserable weather and even more miserable people. I'm not getting out because the pay's too low or because the sergeants were mean to me or any of that pissy shit. I joined because I was a believer, and I'm leaving because I am not. Not anymore.

I'm getting out because I've realized something. Something important, something crucial, a fundamental flaw in what I was trying to do. I joined the Army to serve my country and defend liberty, but the only means the military force can serve that end is through coercive force (whether it be violence or merely the threat) - and it can only do so in the final extremity. The military cannot protect freedom, it can only - through coercion - create an environment wherein free men might institute a government that safeguards and fosters their natural rights. That oft-repeated and cherished myth that the military fights for your freedom is... just that. It's a myth. It's fallacious. The military can no more create freedom than can that thug on the corner with the pistol (commonly referred to as a 'police officer'). The threat of force does not and cannot make someone free. The only thing we can do is intimidate and kill those who threaten freedoms. Unfortunately, while we pursue those who threaten American liberty with all the eager grace of a hippopotamus, Americans have been steadily losing the struggle for liberty on the home front.

I'm getting out because of Americans. I'm getting out because they are unworthy. I'm getting out because America would rather be coddled, taken care of, looked after, and feel safe than live in the dangerous, risky, real world. I'm getting out of the Army because Americans no longer want to be free men, because the most fervent desire, the secret hope of the majority of this country is that they no longer need suffer the burdens of freedom. I understand - I really do. I understand their cowardice, their complacence, their short-sighted, narrow-minded, desperate and burning need to feel safe in this scary, scary world.

I do, after all, recall being a small child.

I am no longer a child. Neither is anyone in this country with the right to the vote, at least not physically or legally. However, I am neither the parent nor legal guardian of the American people. I will not accept the responsibility of their protection whilst also being beholden to their insane whims. I will not fight for them, will not put my life on the line for their liberties while they vote again and again to put into power those whose sole objective is the subversion of the Constitution, which James Madison wrote to limit the powers of the government, and in so voting they subvert my every endeavor. I will not fight for a country which has betrayed me time and again, and betrayed everything which I have fought for time and again.

I will not.

Moving

I'll be en route to Ft Hood pretty shortly. Apparently, my company thinks it's right for me to move out of my barracks room before I clear post... while still expecting me to show up to work. See, shit like this is why I'm so happy to be getting out of this unit/post. I mean, it's not like I don't pay my BAH for this barracks room or anything.
Oh, wait.

SSG Lee: "What's wrong with Texans, Schnepp?"
Me: "Texans, Sergeant."
Bwahahaha. Good thing I don't leave post much. I hear they do lynch mobs.

I really hate scrubbing toilets

Especially when someone in this barracks seems incapable of making it into the bowl, and I ain't just talking about #1. Naturally, yours truly is about the only person who can take time out of his busy, busy day to scrub the shit, urine, and other bodily substances out of the toilets and the water-free urinals. Never mind that we have weekly inspections, the dozens of soldiers in these barracks know someone else will clean up their messes.

Just something to remember when the retention NCO walks by.

Me, Shitbag?

It's funny how one incident can give a commander a completely wrong picture about someone. I was kinda-sorta-but-not-really related to the incident, but TRADOC being TRADOC I got dragged along for the ride. It basically meant that me - a specialist, an E-4, a junior enlisted soldier - had to sit there and try not to pay too much attention to the captain chewing out the sergeant. The captain thought it proper that the sergeant have a battle-buddy, and I don't outrank the captain.
But I thought it was pretty darn disrespectful to the sergeant, so I apologized to him for that as soon as we were clear.
Details aren't terribly important, it was one of those "What were you thinking?" type things. Because it wasn't me being the dimwit and instead someone I respect the hell out of, I won't relate 'em. The captain came away from this little meeting thinking of this sergeant as a lying self-centered bastard. That's the opposite of true. SGT Suhr's one of those sergeants who looks after his joes and tells us the God's honest truth. If he told me the sun was set to rise at 2359 tonight, I'd know it was 'cause he was damn sure the sun was set to rise at 2359 tonight. Apparently I'm disloyal, too, 'cause I didn't immediately leap to be present for my superior's dressing-down. Like I said, it's funny wrong an impression of someone you can get if you only know them from one interaction.

Also, you ever notice how you think of all the right things to say immediately after the door's closed, precisely the moment they stop being useful things to think of?

Shitbag Privates

Holy smokes, what is it about new privates that just makes my blood boil? The little bastards are rude, disrespectful, and cocky. Some of them are salvagable, but it seems that most of A-Co's initial entry... I hesitate to call them 'soldiers'... types are better off being thrown back into the civilian population. At least then they won't put me or my buddies in danger. Back in C-Btry, we looked at the arrival of new soldiers with a mix of glee and dread. Glee, because we'd get to pull all the old shenanigans on a new troop. Dread, because odds were he'd be a shitbag who'd wind up causing everyone in the battery a lot of headaches before he got caught with a DUI, popped hot on a piss test, or molested an underage girl (the only three offenses I've seen people get kicked out of the Army for). Just about every new soldier was an eighteen-to-twenty-year-old private who thought he was all that and a bag of chips because he graduated basic training. While some of that I can blame on their age, a lot of it simply goes back to TRADOC. They don't get taught that, while their dumb little buddies in IET land were just as low on the totem pole as they are, the soldiers in their unit ain't.

Take for example one of the little shits in my class. He's an E-2 barely out of BCT and not quite through IET. I'm an E-4 who's been some places and done some things. He acts as though following my directions were entirely at his option, and I have no recourse beyond going and grabbing an NCO! And because this is TRADOC, all the NCO can do is put him at parade rest and chew him out. He can't smoke him, can't write up paperwork on him. I've told him that I hope he winds up in the same unit as me. I fully intend to either break him as his drill sergeants should have done or make sure that when he screws up, the command does not look kindly upon him. I've had enough with shitstain privates. I don't mind the ones who're just dumb, but have a good attitude. I don't mind the ones who're cocky, but squared-away enough to back it up (that much). But when I'm chewing a private's ass because he decided that he would disregard my directions to continue working with the rest of the class rather than skip out to 'take out the trash' for twenty minutes, and he blatantly disrespects me? I tell him to go to parade rest and wipe that smirk off his face and he shoves his hands in his pockets? Fuck no. If the class leader (a SGT) hadn't intervened... heh, I probably woulda wound up losing my clearance and getting kicked out of the school. He thinks he's hot shit 'cause he can do 200 push-ups. Swell. That's completely unimpressive to anyone who's done PT with SSG Cobb (I bet everyone in old C-Btry remembers those "DIAMONDS!"). Doubly when you consider this private has lousy form and has to take breaks during this. Playing by the same rules, I can do over 500. You'll never hear me claiming that, though, 'cause I can really only do 50-60 a rep. Hell, you'll never hear me claiming that because I'm not some douchebag private who mistakes PT for soldiering. He asks "Why?" questions of an NCO. Anyone who's been in longer than three weeks understands that you do not do that. Period. Private does not ask "Why?", Private executes. If he's lucky, he'll figure out the "Why?" while he's doing it. The class leader had to tell him several times to get to parade rest. Not "At ease", not smirking, at parade-fucking-rest. What will his platoon sergeant do? Not a damn thing.

Before you think I was the one who started this, I wasn't. Except, perhaps, by being too soft and too nice to these kids. Believe me, I know how to be an asshole. I learned from the best. I chose not to, as it's not my job here. But when I start having to deal with a little bastard who disrespects everyone who doesn't have stripes on their chest... Well, I'm fully capable of putting away the Nice Guy hat and busting out with the Bastard McAssream hat.

This private is not the exception. He is the norm. This is why I have no intention of staying in the Army. TRADOC completely fails to instill any degree of respect into the new soldiers, and more and more the high command prevents units from correcting this oversight. They teach these kids that there's no such thing as rank inside the GCS. Bullshit there ain't. You can't pull rank to settle a disagreement over safety-of-flight issues, but there damn sure better be rank all the rest of the time. Privates need to follow the orders and directions of their superiors because... well, hell, they're the juniors for a reason. They don't know anything. If a private won't follow directions during a simple clean-up task, how can I expect him to follow directions during a firefight? How can I expect him to follow directions during a long, difficult mission? I can't. We are an Army at war. Even the noncombatant types like UAS operators need to understand that. I have a buddy who repairs optics. It's a job that sounds as poggie as... hell, the Navy these days. He's been in more firefights than he can count. What happens if I wind up in a knock-down drag-out firefight, and I have to rely on some shitbag private like the one described above? I'm trained and proficient in warfare. It comes naturally to me. I'll probably get killed trying to keep that jackass from getting himself killed, all because he won't listen to me when I'm trying to train him up... because he thinks that just because I'm not a sergeant, he doesn't have to listen to anything I say. Ignore the fact that I've spent more time in Iraq than he has in the Army. Ignore the fact that I've spent more time wearing a vest than he has wearing ACUs. Ignore that, he's an eighteen-year-old private and he knows everything.
Way to go, TRADOC. Glad some officer got that bullet on his OER. How many soldiers get killed because you won't let Drill Sergeant do his job the right way? How many shitbags have you released to the Army who we had to devote excessive time and energy into straightening out? How the hell do you think this is the right way to go?