Posted in Rants on January 9, 2008|
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I have a pretty cool job. I am in one of the armed services on what can most closely be described as a SWAT team. I work with 12 others guys who are mostly as excited as I am about how lucky we are and how cool our jobs are. I am also an EMT and a military diver.
All of these things combine to make me fairly content with my current career field. And so I guess it’s the case that when you have it good (and realize that you have it good) that when the people above you start feeding you shit sandwiches, it makes it all the harder to deal with. In any organization, and the military specifically, you rarely have a say about who you are going to work with and who will be assigned to your unit. One of the nice things about being on a 12 man team is that we have, historically, been allowed to give our input about future team members. There are many reason to allow qualified operators to assess potential team mates as well as allowing us to continually evaluate ourselves. We do a “high risk” job. Our service holds us to a higher standard (physically and professionally) that our co-workers. When you only have a dozen guys, a single slacker can drag the whole team down.
So, it has been with some dismay and no small amount of anger that we have been forced to accept a person that is not only subpar (they failed to pass even the initial physical fitness test required to even apply) but actually has a pending felony conviction, is an admitted alcoholic who continues to drink and who is roundly despised by almost every person currently on the team. As I have already mentioned, this is the military. We are often times forced to work with and for people we don’t like and don’t trust. Nature of the beast. But this is different.
**here are a couple of my thoughts on this** we are a specialized force package. As such, any situation that would require our attention would be necessarily a special. Our service has only (rarely) utilized our skill set. This has led to the mindset by some in middle management as it were, that we will not be used at all.
And so it would follow a mindset like that, that we really don’t need people suitable to a SWAT position. Why waste quality individuals when I can fill a team position with a mediocre performer? They’re not going to call them anyway.
More than anything else, this offends me. More than being dangerous. More than being a waste of resources. More than being a dereliction of duty on the part of our officer corps. This basically says to those of us who have sacrificed time with our families and advancement opportunities all while abusing our bodies, that we don’t matter. It’s all a game, apparently, to those who don’t do the job.
I am not naive enough to believe that we are the first people to experience this type of thing. Nor will we be the last. My time at this unit is coming to a close. I am moving on to concentrate on other aspects of my career. Mostly the diving. I will soon be doing that full time and I am excited.
No links today. Just this rant. I had to get it off my chest.
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