Bureaucracy and double standards

The military can be a very dehumanizing place, from my perspective. One of the reasons I left the Marine Corps in 1996 centered on the level of weariness I had built up over anyone who outranked me being able to screw with me anytime they wanted. I don’t have a problem working as part of a team, but I do have a problem with petty bureaucrats. The military is infested with this particular type of vermin.

Anyhow to make a long story short - I get very irritated by people who make up rules that don’t make sense to me.
One of the petty bureaucratic rules here at MNF-I (Multi-National Force Iraq) is that our section must wear official Army physical training gear if we go to they gym. On a normal Army post, this would be expected. But we are at the U.S. Embassy, mixed in with lots of civilians. They wear normal. comfortable gym clothes. So do my bosses, who are in the military. The difference between them and I is apparently that rank hath its privileges. In my opinion, letting us wear civvies to the gym is a nice way of letting us relax and be human for a little while. Wearing civilian clothes when you are not on duty doesn’t degrade military discipline in the slighest. Of course, some folks like to remind us all the time that we are on duty 24/7 and the government “owns” us. Two words. Counter productive. Only dumb people want to be reminded that they voluntarily signed up for a term as indentured servants to anyone who happens to outrank them.

Allow me to continue my tedious tale of personal irritation. When we arrived here in November of last year, I noticed that there is no across the board standard for military personnel wearing their issued PT gear to the gym. Some units and sections wear what they want and some are strictly regulated. Others have commanders who have decided that the officially issued PT gear isn’t necessary to maintain good unit discipline. I followed the example of the officer in charge of my section, who wears civilian clothes to the gym. Several weeks later I was told I could not wear civilian clothes to the gym by someone below that person in the chain of command. When I pointed out that the man in charge of our entire area of operations wears civilian clothes and I was just following his example, I was told that he IS NOT in my chain of command. Despite the fact that this angered me because it seems like a double standard, I started wearing my PT gear again. I can follow orders - I am an NCO and I have a sense of professionalism, even if I disagree with the logic or lack thereof when given a direct order.

A few weeks after being told to wear the ill-fitting, scratchy issued nylon shorts and cotton t-shirt, we had a change of command. The new boss of us all, Major General William Caldwell IV, in his first meeting with his new command, stated that we could wear civilian clothes to the gym. So I started wearing them again. I prefer civvies because they fit better, look better and do a better job of wicking sweat away from my body. I bought several sets of microfiber workout gear after the general told us we could wear it. I was happy. Simple things make me happy. Little, dumb things can be a great source of joy when you are surrounded by a war day in and day out for a long period of time.

Fast forward a month. From some invisible source comes a new memo - now we are NO LONGER ALLOWED to wear civilian gear to the gym. So the policy has changed back and forth four times in less than a year at my last count. I just saw my commanding general in the gym two days ago. He was working out in civilian gym clothes.

I don’t mind following policies when they make sense. In my current environment the policies don’t make sense. They are not applied consistently, and they demotivate me. It’s the little things that drive a man to insanity. I’ll suck it up but I doubt I’ll re-enlist when the time comes to make a decision. I don’t mind fighting a war, but I do mind the overabundance of middle management and the plethora of silly policies. I am getting too old and cranky for this shit.