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Frustrating and emotionally unsatisfying.
NTC in short.
I have learned a good deal - but I don't feel it. I feel as if I've been muddling along, occasionally getting things right, but mostly not doing my job. This also comes from the fact that I largely don't understand my job.
I spent 2 weeks on the FOB. I was surrounded by beautifully stark desert terrain, but I couldn't go anywhere but walk back and forth across the dust from sleep to work to food and back. This place would be interesting if I could drive or walk it on my own - have some training or time to learn what the hell my new job entails.
Instead I was driven out of the box inside of a Stryker - unable to even see the terrain one last time.
Perhaps I need a some time to breathe and think about this place and the job I'm to do.
- - -
The above was written as I was leaving NTC in the back of that Stryker. I could see little more than slits of sky passing by - there are no windows. I was able to turn on a B/W thermal video image from a camera fixed on the front of the Stryker so I didn't get motion sick, but it was a far cry from satisfying, and intensely different from being a Platoon Leader in that hatch - in charge.
The following posts were all written at NTC, but as I lacked the ability to access blogger, I couldn't post them. They are, as I say often of this blog, an airing of grievances, not an objective review of the Army, NTC, or my new job.
Army Logistics
The more I learn about the methods and systems of the Army Logistics
system, the more I hate it. The physical systems – trucks, flat
racks, wretches, etc, are all pretty cool, and fairly well designed,
but the information systems, the methods we use are idiotic. They are
cumbersome, archaic and arcane.
We just received a new computer with software called BCS3. It’s a
fourteen thousand dollar system designed to do any number of things –
from tracking vehicles and supplies to sending up reports on supply
levels. In theory we can update our higher headquarters as to how much
stuff we have. The thing is that it looks like parts of it were made
in 1990, 1997 and 2003 and then kludged together. To get it to talk to
anything it has to have 3 DOS windows open. Seriously. The only useful
tool for me – enforced on me – is the Logistical Reporting Tool. The
only decent way to input data into it is to export to excel and import
after making changes. It rolls up my data and the data from all the
parallel units and sums them at BDE. All of its functions could be
accomplished with a cleverly designed spreadsheet using macros.
Of course, they won’t let us request any supplies using this system –
we still have to submit an asinine form to get that
Even ignoring this new, and in my view, mostly wasted BCS3 system –
Army logistics are dumb. Every system I have seen used is bloated,
unnecessarily difficult to use and hopelessly opaque. An insane number
of forms are required to do the simplest things.
Part of this screed is against the methods here at NTC – they use
contracted assistance for almost every possible thing – from bringing
us water and ammunition to putting up living tents to installing the
Army laser tag systems (we call it MILES equipment) on our vehicles.
These contractors are, at best, training distractors. An example: A
Company in the Squadron goes to draw loaned vehicles. They identify a
broken piece of equipment that had been installed by contractors. They
annotate this fault and do not sign for this broken piece of
equipment. They are told to take the vehicle to a different lot to the
contractors who installed the equipment to get it fixed. Upon reaching
the contractors they are berated and the contractors, who are paid
exorbitant amounts for minimal work, refused to fix the equipment with
a 5-day investigation process. I could fix the equipment with a
soldering iron and a special screw driver and no training.
I was punished with this job for excelling at my previous position. I
signed away three additional years of my life to this Army to avoid
doing this kind of work. I knew it sucked and I wanted no part in it.
It’s stupid, inefficient and painful. I feel cheated, and I’ll be
dealing with this idiot system for the next year. In Iraq.
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