Thursday, November 13, 2008
Breaking the Mood, For a Moment
Hey all,
I was just looking back over the blog. All of my posts since the one on the Olympics (August 22nd) have been pretty intense.
I can be pretty intense, but the truth of the matter is I am one of the "class clowns" in my unit's break area.
Between that, and the fact that I am still working out how I am going to tackle the "Task, Conditions and Standards" post that should follow after yesterday's post, I thought this would be a good time to do something a bit lighter.
To do this, I am going to borrow Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine.
(There should be some cool, time travel visual at this point, but I am on a budget here.)
It's August 2003. I have, recently, arrived in Germany. I was stationed at Warner Barracks, in the German town of Bamberg.
Now, as a soldier, everytime you go to a new post, you have to go through some initial processing. You do things like acquire a place to live, make sure the Army knows where to send your pay, inform the Army's personnel system that you arrived where they sent you, etc.
Part of this is a seemingly barrage of briefings by numerous agencies on post that are designed to scare the young soldiers from doing anything stupid.
Germany is unique, in that, at the end of that "Death by Powerpoint briefings" you go through a 2 week course that is a basic primer on German/European culture, mass transit, phone system, money, language, traffic laws, etc. It's kind of cool.
All-in-all, I spent about a month in Bamberg before I was ever able to go to work at the band there. But, it was a good time.
Anyway, as I am going through this, I am in a group of about 30 or so soldiers. Most of the group are soldiers that are either going to their first duty station, or their second. To me, it feels, after getting to know them, like they have about 5 minutes in the Army, and the maturity level of college freshman.
Except for one guy. He is Staff Sergeant Robinson.
He is the same rank as me. We are about the same age. He has been in the Army about the same amount of time as me. We have been to about the same number of duty stations. About the same number of overseas assignments. Been married about the same amount of time. First time in Germany for both of us. Have similar attitudes about the "kids" we are stuck with. He is something of a "computer geek". He knows some stuff that I don't, and vice versa. He helps me with some problems I am having with my computers, and vice versa.
So, naturally, we become pretty good friends.
About the only thing we DON'T have in common is that I am white, and he is black.
An important point to know, at this point, is that the Army has a wonderful program. Every time you move to a new station, you are assigned a "sponsor". Your sponsor is, supposed to be, a person in your new unit that is similar to you: close to your rank, same marital status, etc. This person's job is to help you do everyting from choose appropriate housing for you and your family; to where to buy gas; whether to shop on the economy for certain items, or buy them at the PX or commissary. You name it.
So, anyway, the next to last day of all this "in-processing" in Germany, I am in the PX looking for ... something. I look over to my right, and there is SSG Robinson. So, I say "Hi!", and ask about his computers (we were in the electronics section). We start to talk, and he introduces his sponsor to me, another noncommissioned officer from his new unit ... who just happens to be black.
I shake his hand.
He jokes, "You guys aren't related, are you?"
Robinson shakes his head, and starts to answer, when I cut him off ...
I look his sponsor in the eye, and say, "Yes." (At which point, Robinson's eyes get as big as dinner plates!)
I hang and shake my head, and say, "We are cousins. But, HIS side of the family won't admit that my side of the family exists."
Robinson's sponsor gets this look of horror on his face, thinking he has just stepped into some big, bad, ugly, family thing that he could not have imagined.
At which point, Robinson begins to smile. (He and I have talked, before, how, given our last names, we get called ALL kind of things: Robertson, Robinson, Roberson, Roberts, Robbins, etc.)
I was able to hold that for about 2 seconds before Robinson and I both bust up laughing, and Robinson follows suit.
His sponsor looked really perplexed for a second. Then, he read the name tags on the front of our uniforms, realized that we did not have the same last name, and joined in the laughter.
I guess, the moral to the story, if there is one, for the most part, the Army is a pretty cool place to be. For the most part, it doesn't matter who or what you are, when you put on that uniform, most of us see "Army green" when we deal with each other. Earned rank and competence means more than color, national origin, gender, or ... whatever.
It was fun playing with that, though.
As for the Mr. Peabody reference, earlier, if you didn't get it, here is a sample of the cartoons that I grew up with:
I was just looking back over the blog. All of my posts since the one on the Olympics (August 22nd) have been pretty intense.
I can be pretty intense, but the truth of the matter is I am one of the "class clowns" in my unit's break area.
Between that, and the fact that I am still working out how I am going to tackle the "Task, Conditions and Standards" post that should follow after yesterday's post, I thought this would be a good time to do something a bit lighter.
To do this, I am going to borrow Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine.
(There should be some cool, time travel visual at this point, but I am on a budget here.)
It's August 2003. I have, recently, arrived in Germany. I was stationed at Warner Barracks, in the German town of Bamberg.
Now, as a soldier, everytime you go to a new post, you have to go through some initial processing. You do things like acquire a place to live, make sure the Army knows where to send your pay, inform the Army's personnel system that you arrived where they sent you, etc.
Part of this is a seemingly barrage of briefings by numerous agencies on post that are designed to scare the young soldiers from doing anything stupid.
Germany is unique, in that, at the end of that "Death by Powerpoint briefings" you go through a 2 week course that is a basic primer on German/European culture, mass transit, phone system, money, language, traffic laws, etc. It's kind of cool.
All-in-all, I spent about a month in Bamberg before I was ever able to go to work at the band there. But, it was a good time.
Anyway, as I am going through this, I am in a group of about 30 or so soldiers. Most of the group are soldiers that are either going to their first duty station, or their second. To me, it feels, after getting to know them, like they have about 5 minutes in the Army, and the maturity level of college freshman.
Except for one guy. He is Staff Sergeant Robinson.
He is the same rank as me. We are about the same age. He has been in the Army about the same amount of time as me. We have been to about the same number of duty stations. About the same number of overseas assignments. Been married about the same amount of time. First time in Germany for both of us. Have similar attitudes about the "kids" we are stuck with. He is something of a "computer geek". He knows some stuff that I don't, and vice versa. He helps me with some problems I am having with my computers, and vice versa.
So, naturally, we become pretty good friends.
About the only thing we DON'T have in common is that I am white, and he is black.
An important point to know, at this point, is that the Army has a wonderful program. Every time you move to a new station, you are assigned a "sponsor". Your sponsor is, supposed to be, a person in your new unit that is similar to you: close to your rank, same marital status, etc. This person's job is to help you do everyting from choose appropriate housing for you and your family; to where to buy gas; whether to shop on the economy for certain items, or buy them at the PX or commissary. You name it.
So, anyway, the next to last day of all this "in-processing" in Germany, I am in the PX looking for ... something. I look over to my right, and there is SSG Robinson. So, I say "Hi!", and ask about his computers (we were in the electronics section). We start to talk, and he introduces his sponsor to me, another noncommissioned officer from his new unit ... who just happens to be black.
I shake his hand.
He jokes, "You guys aren't related, are you?"
Robinson shakes his head, and starts to answer, when I cut him off ...
I look his sponsor in the eye, and say, "Yes." (At which point, Robinson's eyes get as big as dinner plates!)
I hang and shake my head, and say, "We are cousins. But, HIS side of the family won't admit that my side of the family exists."
Robinson's sponsor gets this look of horror on his face, thinking he has just stepped into some big, bad, ugly, family thing that he could not have imagined.
At which point, Robinson begins to smile. (He and I have talked, before, how, given our last names, we get called ALL kind of things: Robertson, Robinson, Roberson, Roberts, Robbins, etc.)
I was able to hold that for about 2 seconds before Robinson and I both bust up laughing, and Robinson follows suit.
His sponsor looked really perplexed for a second. Then, he read the name tags on the front of our uniforms, realized that we did not have the same last name, and joined in the laughter.
I guess, the moral to the story, if there is one, for the most part, the Army is a pretty cool place to be. For the most part, it doesn't matter who or what you are, when you put on that uniform, most of us see "Army green" when we deal with each other. Earned rank and competence means more than color, national origin, gender, or ... whatever.
It was fun playing with that, though.
As for the Mr. Peabody reference, earlier, if you didn't get it, here is a sample of the cartoons that I grew up with:
