When the Smoke Clears

Re: Situations

1. If Facebook can connect several million people all over the world at the same time including chatting and transferring messages, it’s about time y’all figure out how to keep the email (AKO/DKO) site up and running for official work/communication.

1.a. Fewer wow features and web programming would be nice since y’all usually send us to crap places where we have to pay for even crappier internet access just to read that official communication.

1.b. Spend the $90 to register your site security certificates so we don’t all have to assure whatever computer we’re working on that you’re not a risk EVERY FREAKIN’ TIME. Seriously. Hell, to help my fellow soldiers, I’ll pay it for you.

2. It’s a war-zone. I get it. But if you’re going to house me in a giant tent of squalor, please be sure to have more than a couple of sandbags between the CANVAS tent-wall (where the head of my bed is) and the main paved road running through the post less than 8 feet away. (I’m not making this up.) One MRAP rushing towards the gate and going slightly off course will leave us with a bad day.

3. We are a nation of builders, dreamers, doers. We have mastered the non-squat toilet. How about using some of our American know-how rather than going with whatever local brand is available and guaranteed to clog and be otherwise disgusting because of their design flaws? I’ll take the port-a-john or a hole over those attempts at plumbing any day.

4. Want to improve troop morale? Invest in wireless access. And I mean INVEST. Especially stateside. Yes, there are those who can clog up a network with their video chat, online gaming, etc., but colleges have figured out how to control sites and limit shared bandwidth so everyone has decent speeds. Don’t rely on the USOs with their ability to access a minor ISP that they then run through a single wireless router that can only handle about 20 people at once.

5. Do not hire someone if you cannot fire them easily and quickly for incompetence.

6. Folks running the chow halls in theater: outstanding. Thank you. Take a lesson. Good food, wide variety, mostly fresh vegetables and fruits. (yes, I can tell the tomatoes were frozen). Folks running the chow halls stateside in the mobilization stations: fire them. Start over.

7. Slightly rethink seating on the big flight planes, please. Yes, you can barely fit a body into those spaces and I’m sure they were a great design in WW II. However, many of our soldiers are a LOT bigger now. Warriors should not be limping off a flight due to overly cramped space (where they usually have to sit in their armor) and the impossibility of moving around. Wait for one of those killer blood clot stories to hit the papers and see how quickly you recover from that firestorm.

8. Please don’t tell us we need to put everything on these Eagle Cash cards and then send us to places where we can’t use them and cannot otherwise access our money.

9. At extremely busy posts in theater, let’s reconsider this whole saluting policy. I hate walking down the street because all I do is flap my right arm. As long as they say “sir” at the right time, I promise to do the same. We can save the emphasis on military courtesy for stateside… where it is SEVERELY lacking.

10. New policy: If you are E6 (staff sergeant) or above, you DON’T get to come over for 2-3 months, hear a couple of rocket attacks that come nowhere near you, and then return home and call it a combat tour. It happens too much among top leadership, I just want to say to all senior NCOs and above (including me), set an example.

11. 214 people… 5 sinks. Hmm…

12. Speaking of rank, either stick with what you have or write a new policy. I’m tired of the vagaries. Somehow on paper a Captain outranks a First Sergeant, and yet when it comes time for anything related to comfort, even government workers above G11, Warrant Officer 4s and 1SGs rank higher. Either set those responsibilities/privileges in stone or do away with this variable idiot-chart. (FYI a 2LT seems to rate just above a Private but below a Private First Class, never mind prior enlisted time, rank, etc.) Basically, why in the hell are Majors – FIELD grade officers – being told they need to shack up with a pile of temporary civilian workers, junior officers and lower enlisted (already at 107% capacity) when the senior officers’ area is only at 11% occupancy and includes higher ranking Sergeants?

13. Issued items: LOVE the new boots. Really like the new combat shirt. Interested in getting the new uniforms with a camo that actually camouflages very soon. We’ll see how the new winter clothes go but they look cool, too.

14. Small gravel rocks cost the same as large gravel rocks. Let me say that again: Small gravel rocks cost the same as large gravel rocks. So why to we have to stumble around on all these large gravel rocks everywhere we need to walk?

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