Everyone is an Expert

Most people who have deployed since the Invasion of 2003 will relate experiences on their respective FOBs or JSSs as alternating between boredom and anxiety. The boredom takes up the lion's share of our time here. I have mentioned it before, and have no desire to go into it further here, but it helps lead into my point. Every FOB, from massive ones in Baghdad to the relatively remote ones in the outlying provinces, has two things in common: a hardened-structure Dining Facility serving varying interpretations of "food" and a gym.

And Camel Spiders. Can't forget those friendly fellows

There are always gyms. We are in the process now of closing bases through our Operating Environment, preparing for the eventual (read: probably in 2015) withdrawal of all American forces. When a unit closes one FOB and leaves for another, it sends a group ahead to establish a footprint on that new FOB. I was with my unit on just such a mission, and before I left, I made promises to a number of people to answer two very important questions:

1. How is (insert the new FOB's name here)'s internet?
2. How is (insert the new FOB's name here)'s gym?


The Army loves its gyms. One great way of killing boredom inherent in a mainly Iraqi-drive, force-protection mission like our own is working out. You can listen to your iPod, work up a good sweat and get angry at some inanimate objects, blowing off steam and that ice cream you had for lunch all the while. It is one of the main reasons people returning from deployment can look like they are in incredible shape and probably the main reason so many Soldiers in my unit have lost so much weight since January (right up there with "no beer for a year" and "still waiting for them to open a Hooters"). Hell, I have lost over 20 pounds since I got here... now, half of that is probably because I am not getting most of my calories from Coors Light, but I digress...

The author, circa 2009-2010

The problem, however, [you knew I would find a problem with fitness] is that the more people work out, the more they think they know about working out. Personally, I like to run and I am totally fine being shy of 175 pounds. But don't tell Mr. Muscles that. No, too often I am bombarded by someone who watches me struggle to bench press 200 pounds and says "Hey bro, I got a killer workout for you that will totally blast your fluctoid muscles" while I look at him and think either (1) what the hell are fluctoid muscles? or, apparently, (2) if they exist, am I blasting them sufficiently hard enough? I don't quite know why, but increased gym time means that, for some reason, everyone has discovered the "secret" workout and has become the self-appointed expert on said workout... then they see me, and apparently [maybe its in invisible ink] I have a sign on my shirt that says "Please interrupt me, I really want your specific weightlifting advice." And this is not a deployment-only occurrence. I know everyone who belongs to a gym in America knows what I am talking about.

In two words: this guy

The good news? Freelance personal fitness gurus are a relatively harmless bunch. I can always thank them and move on to benching or curling whatever the hell I want. The bad news? It is transferable to what we are doing now.


I have mentioned before that I am a staff nerd now, far removed from the battlefield... except the constant game of minesweeper I am playing. My sole purpose in life is to take guidance in any form (say, "we need to figure out how to move 400 Soldiers from point 'a' to point 'b' in two weeks") and help develop various courses of action, then present them to my boss and let him work through the problems each presents. I am both a planner and a sounding board, essentially. The job of a staff officer, then, is far from sexy but incredibly important. The group of staff officers in my unit, some 5-8 of us, work together to give the people who make decisions options: they need enough time to focus on making the right decision, something few of us get paid enough to do, and we owe it to them to develop every course of action as thoroughly as possible.

"And I'm not convinced pepperoni is the best pizza available"
"Okay Ron, we'll put pepperoni on the list if you stop whining"

This is not to say there isn't bias on our end; when we like an option we will push for it and try to get our immediate superiors on our side. But typically our favored options are either the band-aid fix variety (easy to plan, easier to resource) or the "save Soldiers from unnecessary b.s." variety (always championed by the lower ranks). What we run into, as we shift focus toward inward security and getting the hell out of here, is people who have been here far too many times and think they "know," without being told, what we need to do. Fact is they don't. Most senior officers - and here I am talking full Colonels and Generals, true rarefied air -have been so far removed from the day-to-day life of an enlisted Soldier or company-grade officer (defined as lieutenants and captains) that they forget what limitations truly exist. Units like mine are little more than chess pieces on a big board, controlled by "experts" who truly know little about what living on cots in the Iraqi desert means to Soldiers who have to deal with it. When presented with options which contradict their method of thinking they have the ability - call it an unnecessarily dangerous luxury - to dismiss it as to inward-thinking, to small-minded, to affect the change they are looking for... and they ignore it. I guess experts get paid a lot for a reason.