A Link in the Chain

I never served in the military, and I am glad I didn't. The reason is because I know that I cannot tolerate the madness that this insitution is known for. If I had served, I would undoubtedly be sitting in a stockade or a brig somewhere at this moment. That is because I like to speak my mind. This is not allowed in the military. You are supposed to do what you are told without question. This is all conveniently forgotten when something like Abu Ghraib becomes public. Then, you are guilty for not questioning your orders. Amazing, eh?

I work with a lot of ex-military people on my job, and I often ask them how they handled being in the military and some of the stupidity they had to put up with. Here are some chesnuts I have received:

1. "Never volunteer."

Leaders will lie to you and try to get you to do things that you would never normally do if you knew what the duty entailed. Then, when you complain, they pull a little switch on you saying that you volunteered for the duty. Therefore, you have to do it and not complain. Besides, you VOLUNTEERED for this. You learn pretty quickly to never trust these fuckers ever again.

2. "Do what the fuck you are told."

This is straight from the mouth of a twenty year veteran. Ultimately, this is the essence of doing well in the military. It is stated as three rules- 1. Do what you are told. 2. Do what you are told. 3. Do what the fuck you are told.

The military does not reward critical thinking or creativity. It values performance and obedience. Just do it.

3. "I'm just a link in the chain."

This is also from that twenty year veteran, and it is my favorite saying. Ultimately, the only thing you can do is not be the weak link in the chain. If the chain breaks, make sure you're not the broken link.

This may all seem cynical, but what are you going to do? Despite the fact that there is no draft, your time in the military is largely compulsory. Once you're in, you're in. Officers have the option of resigning but not the rest. Their asses belong to Uncle Sam. That is the difference between the military and the private sector. You can quit a job. You can't quit the Army.

There is madness in Corporate America but not nearly as much as in the military. That's because capitalism works by punishing stupidity. In the military, stupidity can linger for decades. In fact, some would argue that it never ends. Only a handful of companies remain from the S&P 500 that existed a century ago. The free market is relentless in this regard. It has no pity. The military is still here and always will be.

But there is a universal in government, business, and the military. People in power rarely listen to common sense. I've never seen it happen in my lifetime. Just look at the clusterfuck known as Iraq. Empirical evidence and the opinions of an entire nation haven't made a dent in the thinking of Bush and Cheney. They will go down in history as shit-for-brains idiots. But they won't be alone.

This is why I take so much from the link in the chain analogy. At the end of the day, that's all I am. No matter what organization I am in, I am only responsible for my end. I will speak up against the government because that's my right. But I have found that whenever I speak up in any company, the retort I always get is a listing of my failures as an employee. This is nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy and usually without any merit, but hey, why should I care? I have been told to quit caring, so that's what I will do.

I have already been through this scenario once before on the job, so there is no point in repeating it. In my twenties, I went on a crusade to try and change a company I was working for, and I lost. It was a waste of time. But capitalism being what it is, those changes got made. That company moved on.

I am reminded of a principle of Edmund Burke that states that we accomplish more with our patience than with our efforts. Ultimately, the reason we go on these crusades is because we are afraid that we will be overlooked in our brilliance. Somehow somewhere someone will fail to recognize how clever we are. I'm older and wiser now, and I have learned to live with being overlooked. The itch of my ego no longer needs the scratch of recognition. In fact, the same thing that motivates leaders is often the same thing that motivates criticism of those leaders--hubris. We all think we can do it better.

Do I think I can do it better? That depends. I know I can do better than Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. I doubt I could do it better than a Bill Gates, a Jack Welch, or a Warren Buffett. But I look at how I manage my own life and wonder why I can't seem to do it better.

To me, being a link in the chain means doing your job as well as you can do it and trusting other people to do their jobs. If everybody did this, the chain would be just fine.

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