Writing Wrongs

September 04, 2005

Back in the day, right after making first lieutenant, I experienced the worst field exercise of my existence. How bad was it? Let�s just say parts of it were worse than being deployed to Desert Storm.

If you�ve ever been to the field, in Germany, in January, you need no explanation. We were knee-deep in icy mud. I�ve never been colder in my life--and I�m from Minnesota. My toes went numb at one point and now during the winters I can feel--or rather not feel--the results of that. We slept in that icy mud, or in our Humvees, ate frozen MREs, didn�t bathe for nearly three weeks. It was pretty much your standard field exercise in Germany, in January.

Except. Where was the battalion commander--and the command group--in all this? They were staying in a warm, dry, German gasthaus, eating not MREs or even mess tent food, but gasthaus fare and drinking German beer. And anyone who has been on a field exercise knows, one of the directives is no alcohol. Our (married) battalion commander was also enjoying the favors of--how do I put this delicately--paid companionship. No joke.

By the time we came in from the field, the entire battalion knew. You can�t keep something like that a secret for long. It ate through unit morale like a cancer. The battalion�s lieutenants banded together--we knew we had to do something. But what? We went to our company commanders, who told us not to rock the boat--we had the old man (the battalion commander) right where we wanted him.

Wrong answer. We �skipped echelon� up the chain of command and brought the situation to the attention of the brigade commander. The next day we had a new battalion commander. And I had my faith restored, although I never looked at that particular company commander the same way again.

Last year, I discovered my old unit, the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, was implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. And more than a year later, I still don�t have the words to describe the shame I feel. Even though I�m out of the service, even though, to my knowledge, I didn�t know anyone involved, I still felt somehow responsible.

Let me explain. While in the 205th, I was the interrogation platoon leader. Yeah. That�s right. Interrogation. I know the Geneva Convention. I know what should happen during an interrogation--and what shouldn�t. My company commander always said, if/when the balloon went up, he�d co-locate with me, because of the �politics� involved with the competing agencies that jointly ran the enemy prisoner of war cage (and yeah, we called it a cage).

I read the investigation report online (and as an officer, I had used the same form to conduct investigations into minor infractions--seems odd the military uses the same form for investigating a soldier driving too fast for conditions and torture). At the time, I remember people saying Rumsfeld should be held responsible as well as the entire chain of command, while others countered that this was ridiculous, that the higher ups couldn�t possibly be responsible for every single soldier.

Except. Back in the day, when I was a platoon leader, if Private �Smith� screwed up, he/she didn�t just get called on the carpet. Private Smith�s squad leader did, and platoon sergeant, platoon leader, and company commander, all standing at attention in front of the battalion commander�s desk while trying to explain their combined poor excuse for leadership.

It�s what makes being a leader so damn hard. You�re responsible, always, for people and things you can�t control. It�s why you get to wear shiny brass on your collar, it�s why you get champagne brunches at the officers club, it�s why you make the big bucks. It�s why, sometimes, they play Hail to the Chief when you walk into a room.

It�s the price of leadership.

Every organization has its undesirables--we all know that. With good leadership, they might cause damage, but that damage is contained, corrected, controlled.

Why do I bring these two incidents up at this time? Because the aftermath of Katrina reminds me of how I felt, back in Germany, thawing baby wipes between my palms so I could scrub off the first layer of grime while at the same moment my battalion commander cavorted with a German prostitute. It�s the vacuum of command presence I saw when I read the Abu Ghraib report.

I want to do something. But what? What do you do when you can�t �skip echelon� the chain of command? Donating money and supplies doesn�t seem to be enough. What do you do when you see what�s broken but don�t know where to start in fixing it?

And how do you ever stop feeling responsible?

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 11:52 a.m.

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