They can't all be Smart....

Everywhere you go, you must get the T-Shirt

From the Soldier side: 

One of the things I noticed over the years of being in the Army/ Army National Guard and in civilian law enforcement is: Not everybody can be smart.  I think it was John Wayne who said: “Life is tough, its tougher when you’re stupid.”  Or something like that. 

AKA, "Camp Cody" Bosnia

Now, please don’t get me wrong, I did work with and for some really bright people… but as in one of the mottos I came up with in Bosnia was: “We get the job done despite the lack of any kind of competent leadership.”   I say that because most of our officers and senior sergeants had no idea where the camp was that my team was on, or what my team was doing.  Since we were so far away, they had no idea what our area looked like or the population.

One example was when we were given some information about something or someone who’d been at an Orthodox Christian Monastery.  We drove over and took a look around and got a grid coordinate and sent up the info.   You can imagine my shock when the captain called our team and told me: “hey there’s a standing order that the US Army is not allowed in any of the local Mosque.” 

I requested that the Captain call me back on the “secure” phone.  He told me the normal phone was OK to talk on.  (he didn’t know how to use the encrypted phone I found out later…)  So I tried to explain that the main camp he was at was in Tuzla, Bosnia.  The camp we were at was in the Republic of Serpska,(Serbia)  Bosnia.  In and around Tuzla there was a lot of Mosque.  However, where we were at it was mostly Orthodox Christians who prayed in churches and had a few monasteries for education and stuff like hiding indicted war criminals. 

Radovan-A War Criminal

The captain did what most morons do who don’t understand something that they should know, he yelled at me.  He was a pure dumbass.  I later got an Atta-boy for the info about the monastery from higher up…but the captain never heard about it.  It seems he spent most of his free and working time goofing off.  I know Bosnia was a tough assignment for those stuck on Eagle Base in Tuzla, but some of us tried doing our job despite the lack of leadership.  In other words, some of us were totally on our own.

Bosnia: "Kind of like Trukee California, but with land mines and bad roads.