Management

I was having breakfast with one of the guys from another platoon. He’s a pretty good man, a devout Christian. He’s been in the military for years and it amazes me that he’s just a specialist. I was also surprised when he mentioned he had grandchildren. He definitely doesn’t look at all his age.

I asked him how things were going in his platoon. I hear that a lot of the guys like it now that Abu Ghraib is closed. There’s a big difference in the time they spend out on missions now. Since Abu Ghraib has closed their mission time has been cut by two hours each day. He mentioned how they go about their business now. Part of it didn’t make sense to me because of the way they do it. I came up with an idea for half the platoon to do part of the mission in the morning and come right back and the other half to go in the afternoon and complete the mission. He already tried to mention a plan like that but it seemed like no one wanted to try something different. I thought it would be great because it would motivate the guys since they’d have a shorter day. They’d want to hurry up and complete their mission so the could come back here to the FOB to go to the gym, do maintenance, or whatever it was they needed to do.

He also mentioned that there was a lot of tension in his platoon. It’s like a ticking time bomb ready to explode. That doesn’t surprise me either. That’s one of the hardest things to deal with anywhere, personal relations. The problem in the Army is that we eat, sleep, and live with these people. At least back home my job was only Monday thru Friday. So I only had to see my coworkers 40 hours a day. That wasn’t enough to get tired of them. He said he needed time to himself and I don’t blame him. That’s another problem around here. Even when or if we get a day off the leadership never ceases. They are always there bossing us around. I guess it be like comparing it to having a weekend when your boss come to your house, knocks on the door, and tells you that there’s something that needs to be done at the office. And that boss would knock not at 10am on a Saturday morning but like at 8am Saturday morning.