My Co-Workers and the Iraqi Situation
We have had a large turnover at work in the past few months. Prior to this, there was a vested interest amongst my colleagues for the situation in Iraq. When was the vote? How many attacks were there? Who's in harm's way? And there were reasons for this, obvious to any who know who we are and what we do, but it seemed more than that. It seemed that we cared.
Now, this past week, we had a train up session. There are a lot of new faces in the morning briefings (and not just from my "old and crusty" perspective). People with the wrong language (although we've fought that battle before). People who have no concept of Iraq, yet. And we just humdrum our way through it.
"Are there any questions?" the Specialist asks at the end of the brief. I raise my hand.
I talked about Al-Anbar, what's going on there now, what went on there this past year. What sort of place it is historically.
I reminded them about the USS Cole on the anniversary three days ago.
(I missed the Navy's birthday, but no one cared.)
I was thanked for bringing those things up, but it was by conscientious soldiers who had been here this past year. I know that means I'm doing the right thing... I'm just waiting to see the spark in the eyes of the new (the n00bs). (Some of them just won't spark, I fear.)
I know that to encourage the sort of personal involvement that we will need, I'll have to foster it first in myself, and then in my soldiers. That should spread, but if it doesn't, I'll take Herbie's group, and the dozen of us will run the damned unit ourselves. We can.
We will. (But not until next year.)