WTP - Day 2

The only major event for today was a three-hour seminar designed for us to talk about our collective experience during deployment. The session was led by a Navy chaplain. He was a amiable enough guy but one whose deployment assignment was to Kuwait so I felt that he was at a disadvantage talking to us about serving in a combat zone when he had not. He plodded through the PowerPoint slides and encouraged us to talk about our expectations and the reality we actually faced. I smiled and looked at my watch ... three ... two ... one: Initiate bitch session.

A female lieutenant wearing Naval Academy shorts was the first one to mention that the duties she performed in Afghanistan had nothing to do with 1) her Navy specialty and 2) the five months of specialty training she received before going over. This equivalent sentiment was echoed by more than 70% of the group. Yes, we were not technically "re-missioned" (i.e., tasked to do something completely out of our lane) but our collective experience sure pushed the boundaries. About the only persons who actually performed their expertise were Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) guys.

Everyone blamed the unwieldy, faceless Joint Manning Document (JMD) which stipulates which jobs exist, and which services are responsible for filling them, for both Iraq and Afghanistan. The JMD review cycle spans well over a year -- someone mentioned eighteen months -- which is one a half one-year tours for Individual Augmentees. The result? We are placing people in jobs that, in many cases, have been overtaken by events (OBE). All our kvetching echoed the same sentiment: "fix the frakin' JMD." Yeah, I'm sure the Pentagon and Joint Staff will get right on that.

Rather than being cathartic, the session just pissed me off. I thought I was here to decompress? The poor chaplain leading our session wasn't prepared to facilitate this type of discussion. I felt sorry for him but he soldiered on until we finished. I thanked him after it ended nonetheless. After all, he was doing the job he was sent here to do.