Tonight is a “two-parter:”
Part One: A trip down Memory Lane. The past couple of days have been pretty good. Although we are advisors, and the bulk of what we do will be, um, advising, we have to be trained to take care of ourselves out there in “Indian Country.” So for the past couple of days we have been doing some machine gun training, which for me is quite nostalgic.
The first job I had in the Army as an 18-year old Private First Class Infantryman in the 101st Airborne Division was an M60 machine gunner. It was the only thing I wanted to do in the Army—Everything that I did in the Army after that was icing on top of icing. I had a blast doing it, and I relished the simple life: Walk a lot, set up, wait, shoot, walk a bunch more, wait some more, then walk home. Clean gun, get off work.
It was a very simple life. Sure, we walked a lot, and we got rained on a lot, but it was simple. All of life’s complications reduced to Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs: Ammo, water, food, a dry place to sleep, all in that order.
20 years later it was just as fun: An M240 and a .50 Caliber machine gun, two days and two nights of beautiful weather, and a buttload of free ammo. Add to that a nice sunset, a couple of hours of sleep under a full moon on a cloudless night on a Humvee hood, and a beautiful sunrise.
The fellas on my team all shot well-- We were the only team to all qualify on the M240, and half of our guys shot a perfect score at night with the .50 M2. I’m proud of them. Get sum.
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Part Two: The rant on corporate accountability. AIG and investment banks like them make poor leadership decisions, lose billions of dollars on poor investment decisions and inaccurate books, but no accountability for the leadership. They get fired, but walk with multi-million dollar severance packages that were negotiated in advance. In my opinion they should be tried on criminal charges. As a commander, if I lost or misused property, I was held liable and accountable for my actions. These guys screw up and walk away unscathed and untouched.
This is not why I am spending years away from family, living with 39 other men in one building, and not why my family is going without a husband and a dad. I’m not doing this for free chicken so some irresponsible corporate CEO with a lack of morals can get rich off of other people and not be held accountable for his decisions.
Sure, Capitalism and Globalism both have their roots in individual greed, but I think we may have gone too far.
I don't have an answer, just an angry viewpoint.
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