Saturday, June 7, 2008

The first day with nothing to do...

This was the first down day for the weekend and as predicted there was absolutely nothing to do! It is hot and humid, I heard at one point that the mercury hit 101, so an air conditioned room (even one inhabited by twelve others) was a blessing. There really isn't much to tell about today, unless hearing about my two naps constitutes news. Last night however was a different thing. Apparently someone was drinking and ended up doing the Technicolor yawn all over one of the toilet seats and the floor in the bathroom. Our headquarters element completely lost their sanity and had all 200 students out on the lawn doing PT in order to force a "confession." This turned out to be the totally and completely wrong approach to the problem. First the guy they had trying to "smoke" (military term for completely exhausting one physically) us ended up smoking himself and some of the element violated Air Force protocol by not doing the exercises with us. Second, this particular method only steeled the resolve of the rest of the students and two squad leaders came forward and "confessed" even though they were stone sober and in perfect health. The only thing that was accomplished by the whole debacle was to destroy their own credibility and cause the airmen and many of the younger NCO's to look at them with contempt. I understand that what happened was indeed a problem and needed to be dealt with. Drinking was a no go, and whoever did it knew it, shame on them. The method used backfired big time and no one really knows who actually did it. There were many other ways to deal with it and the wrong one was picked resulting in the whole leadership section looking like the proverbial monkey humping a football. I think the lesson to be learned in all this is to never act in anger and have a plan for dealing with the problem. A better plan probably would have been formulated simply by involving the squad leaders. I can see this little incident having far reaching consequences as this whole group will be going to the same location. I'm sure more will follow in future writing.

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