COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

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I've long held that a healthy appreciation of the ironic and the absurd is an essential component of keeping one's sanity in the military, because there are absurdities in military units occuring on a daily basis that would make Dilbert's head spin.

Here are some very much on target observations of military life.

"Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure
to make any progress."


"None of us is as dumb as all of us." Excerpted from a brief (EUCOM)


"Things are looking up for us here. In fact, Papua-New Guinea is
thinking of offering two platoons: one of Infantry (headhunters) and one
of engineers (hut builders). They want to eat any Iraqis they kill.
We've got no issues with that, but State is being anal about it." LTC
(JS) on OIF coalition-building


"It's not a lot of work unless you have to do it." LTC (EUCOM)

"I'm gonna have to leave work early today and probably stay home
tomorrow. I'm fighting off a cold and I want to beat it before I start
my leave in two days." MAJ (EUCOM)

"Creating smoking holes gives our lives meaning and enhances our
manliness." LTC (EUCOM) at a CT conference

"Interagency is a process, not a noun." Anonymous (EUCOM)

"Eventually, we have to 'make nice' with the French, although, since I'm
new in my job, I have every expectation that I'll be contradicted." DOS
(Department of State) rep at a Counter Terrorism Conference

"Everyone should have an equal chance, but not everyone is equal."

"I am so far down the food chain that I've got plankton bites on my
butt."


"You can get drunk enough to do most anything, but you have to realize
going in that there are some things that, once you sober up and realize
what you have done, will lead you to either grab a 12-gauge or stay
drunk for the rest of your life."


"Once you accept that a dog is a dog, you can't get upset when it
barks." Lt Col (USSOCOM), excerpts

"That guy just won't take 'yes' for an answer." MAJ (EUCOM)

"Let's just call Lessons Learned what they really are: institutionalized
scab picking."

"I can describe what it feels like being a Staff Officer in two
words: distilled pain." CDR (NAVEUR)

"When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all." LCDR
(CENTCOM)

"Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer
stupidity." LTC (CENTCOM)

I finally figured out that when a Turkish officer tells you, "It's no
problem," he means, for him." Maj (EUCOM, European Command, which is in
charge of American operations in Europe)

"Never in the history of the US Armed Forces have so many done so much
for so few..." MAJ (Task Force Warrior) on the "success" of the Free
Iraqi Forces (FIF) Training Program, where 1100 Army troops trained 77
Iraqi exiles at the cost of, well, way too much...

"Our days are spent trying to get some poor, unsuspecting third world
country to pony up to spending a year in a sweltering desert, full of
pissed off Arabs who would rather shave the back of their legs with a
cheese grater than submit to foreign occupation by a country for whom
they have nothing but contempt." LTC (JS) on the joys of coalition
building

"OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) will continue to drive this
cart into the ground long after the wheels have been sold on E-bay." MAJ
(JS) on the progress of FIF (Free Iraqi Forces)

"Please don't laugh. This is my job." Maj (EUCOM) from Protocol,
explaining in great detail the approved procedures for dropping off VIPs

"I guess the next thing they'll ask for is 300 US citizens with
Hungarian last names to send to Iraq..." MAJ (JS) on the
often-frustrating process of building the Iraqi coalition for Phase IV

"If we wait until the last minute to do it, it'll only take a minute."
MAJ (EUCOM)

"The only reason that anything ever gets done is because there are
pockets of competence in every command. The key is to find them...and
then exploit the hell out of 'em." CDR (CENTCOM, Central Command, which
is in charge operations in Iraq and Afghanistan))

"Working with Hungary is like watching a bad comedy set on auto
repeat..." LCDR (EUCOM)

"Between us girls, would it help to clarify the issue if you knew that
Hungary is land-locked?" CDR to MAJ (EUCOM) on why a deployment from
Hungary is likely to proceed by air vice sea

"We are condemned men who are chained and will row in place until we
rot." LtCol (CENTCOM) on life at his Command "Right now we're pretty
much the ham in a bad ham sandwich..." GO/FO (EUCOM)
"So, what do you wanna do?"...
"I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?"...
"I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?," etc. COL (DIA) describing the way
OUSD(S) (Undersecretary of Defense for Strategy) develops and implements
their strategies

"Let's face it: Africa sucks..." DOS representative (Bureau of
African Affairs) at a conference on Africa

"It is nothing for US soldiers to be in the desert for a year without a
woman. It is different for us, though, because we are Latin..." LTC
(LATAM country) on one of the differences between Latin American
soldiers and their US counterparts

"I'll be right back. I have to go pound my nuts flat..." Lt Col
(EUCOM) after being assigned a difficult tasker

"I guess this is the wrong power cord for the computer, huh?" LtCol
(EUCOM) after the smoke cleared from plugging his 110V computer into a
220V outlet

"OK, this is too stupid for words." LTC (JS)

"When you get right up to the line that you're not supposed to cross,
the only person in front of you will be me!" CDR (CENTCOM) on his view
of the value of being politically correct in today's military

"There's nothing wrong with crossing that line a little bit, it's
jumping over it buck naked that will probably get you in trouble..." Lt
Col (EUCOM) responding to the above

"I may be slow, but I do poor work..." MAJ (USAREUR)

"Great! What we really need are some more 0-5s (Lieutenant Colonel)
around here..." MAJ (EUCOM) on the release of the list of 0-5
promotables

"Don't ever be the first...don't ever be the last...and don't ever
volunteer to do anything...." CDR (EUCOM) relating an ancient Navy
truism

"Hey, somebody should really do that..." CDR (CENTCOM) on the
CENTCOM
tasking process

on the following report from a newspaper:
"(The Iraqi military was crippled by)...a
multitude of erratic orders and strategic miscalculations, while its
fighting units barely communicated with one another and were
paralyzed from a lack of direction...these woes were compounded by
incompetence, poor preparation, craven leadership and (the) wholesale
desertions of thousands of soldiers..."
"Are you sure they aren't writing about us? Hell, at least we
should jump on that wholesale desertion thing..." Maj (CENTCOM)

"Cynicism is the smoke that rises from the ashes of burned out dreams."
Maj (CENTCOM) on the daily thrashings delivered to AOs (Action Officers)
at his Command

"WE are the reason that Rumsfeld hates us..." LTC (EUCOM) doing some
standard, Army self-flagellation

"South of the Alps and East of the Adriatic, paranoia is considered
mental equilibrium..."

"The chance of success in these talks is the same as the number of "R's"
in "fat chance..."" GS-15 (SHAPE)

"His knowledge on that topic is only power point deep..." MAJ (JS)

"We have no position on that issue. In fact, your position IS our
position. Could you tell us what our position is?" CDR (TRANSCOM,
Transportation Command) at a policy SVTC (Secure Video Teleconference)


"Ya know, in this Command, if the world were supposed to end tomorrow,
it would still happen behind schedule." CWO4 (Chief Warrant Officer)
(ret) (EUCOM)

"Even if Al-Qaeda nuked this place, the Chief of Staff would approve a
4-star visitor the very next day!" GS-12 (US government employee,
grade 12) (EUCOM)

"Never pet a burning dog." LTC (Tennessee National Guard)

"It's basically announcing to the world that I've completely given up."
LT (USN F-14 squadron) on his initial feelings behind the wheel of his
brand new minivan

"A staff action is like getting an out of state check, countersigned by
a fraud on a phony ID: some of the time it clears, but most of the time,
you're screwed." Lt Col (USAF)

"I need intelligence, not information." Maj (EUCOM)

"Ah, the joys of Paris: a unique chance to swill warm wine and be
mesmerized by the dank ambrosia of unkempt armpits..." LCDR (NAVEUR)

"'Status quo,' as you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in...'"
Attributed to former President Ronald Reagan

"We are now past the good idea cutoff point..." MAJ (JS) on the fact
that somebody always tries to "fine tune" a COA with more "good ideas"

"Who are you talking to? ...Hang up the phone!" Lt Col mentoring MAJ
(EUCOM) on how to stay in his own lane...

"The hardest thing about having a third child is switching from 1-on-1
to a zone defense." MAJ (EUCOM)

"Nobody ever said you had to be smart to make 0-6 (Colonel)." Col
(EUCOM)

"I haven't complied with a darn thing and nothing bad has happened to me
yet."

"Whatever happened to good old-fashioned military leadership? Just task
the first two people you see."

"The first question I ask myself when tasked to do something that's not
obviously and overwhelmingly in my own best interest is, 'Exactly what
happens if I don't do it?'"

"Accuracy and attention to detail take a certain amount of time."

"No need to tip our hand as to how responsive we can be." CDR (EUCOM) in
a passdown to his replacement

"I seem to be rapidly approaching the apex of my mediocre career." MAJ
(JS)

"I think that my next set of orders will take me to Iraq. My career's
going so badly that I'm considered a 'dead-ender.'" LtCol (EUCOM)

I can make no warrantee regarding their provenance, but they sound authentic to me. This kind of humor is pervasive throughout the ranks. Indeed, soldiers' humor is probably the number one reason I've enjoyed my service so far, and regardless of how many times I've tried to quit, it's why I keep coming back for more.

Splash, out

Jason