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I have finally found time to write, and also keep getting frustrated with my camera thing. I now realize I did not bring the right cord to download pictures off the camera. I may have to suck it up and go buy a new camera and mail this camera back. I was really looking forward to getting some pictures on the blog but all in due time. It’s been a rough five days but I think I’m finally getting into a routine…doesn’t mean it’s good. May 31 is our leave date and right now it seems a lifetime to go. I spent the first two days getting briefed by Master Sergeant May, who I was taking over for the NCOIC of the night shift. I had corresponded with him through emails and got the impression that it is an easy job but there were some problems with personnel. So far both have been further from the truth. He basically told me countless stories of all the quirks of the people under me, some positive but most were negative. As I expected, most are between the ages of 20-23.
We have our people (from my reserve unit) who I totally trust, Nelson who is my assistant NCOIC but is pretty much running it right now due to his prior active duty experience and 5 weeks here already; Mohr, I have known forever and we have gone on two annual tours together; Clark who I have known for about three years; and Taylor, who I do not know very well because she has only been in the unit for six months. The rest are the young pups. He made it sound like the guys are decent at their jobs, but immature and have terrible attitudes. After talking with Nelson and a few others, the reason they have the attitudes is they can’t stand him, and the reason they can’t stand him is because of his methods of communication. It’s been a very toxic atmosphere to say the least. Clark said, “we are so glad you are here,” I’m thinking, great..here we go.
Personally I like Sergeant May. He is two years younger than me but looks and acts older. He is very much into his Baptist beliefs, and we had a few really good conversations about our faiths, but I think his personality and theirs of the young lads is like bleach and chlorine; mix it breath it and you may die. Today is my third shift as a supervisor and so far the guys all seem like they work hard. I have talked to each one of them and seem pretty friendly. I can’t get too buddy-buddy with them just in case I ever have to lay the hammer down. I have had a few laughs with them already, they say funny stuff, act funny, brings back memories of how me and my shipmates use to act with each other when I was young and dumb. I think May said and did some things that could never be repaired, but I am also sure that some of the guys screwed up, they just didn’t deserve to have it reciprocated back to them in the manners May used.
The other part not true was this job is easy. It’s not when they are doing things, saying things that are completely foreign to what you’re use to doing as a reservist. The two days May briefed me, he sat back for long periods and watch movies, of course that seems easy, but I don’t have that luxury. If something bad happened, he would know exactly how to respond because he has been here 4 months. If I were to sit and watch movies and they come back saying, “we have a passenger complaining and he wants to speak with the NCOIC,” I would be freaking out. So what I now have to do is kind of humiliating but necessary to win the respect of the guys I’m over, I have to do their jobs. So the first night I’m in charge, it’s raining outside and I forgot to bring my rain jacket because it was sunny, I go out there and start helping build a baggage pallet. Now you might be thinking, “you’re a tech. sergeant, you should be an expert.” Well two things there, one is we only do this job only 36 out of 365 days a year, or 10% of the year. Two, when you are a tech sergeant in the reserves, you are a paper pusher, I have to worry about everyones training, getting to appointments, and all other nonsense. We rarely ever do the job. But, when you come to a war zone, they don’t care, they expect you to know the job.
I told the guys they need to refresh me on the aspects of pallet build-up, that we never do it at my home station. We knock out the stuff and I hear later from Nelson that the guys like me because I helped them do that and I was personable. I need to keep helping them until I am proficient in all aspects of the passenger terminal. It is frustrating but I need to keep being engaged. Learning by doing is uncomfortable, but in my case, very necessary. I don’t want to bore you with details but we are a small aerial port, we don’t have 747’s coming in and shipping people 3,000 miles across the sea, that’s too dangerous. We have destinations around Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. To go home, one would need to take these little hops until you at least get to Al Udeid in Qatar Military units pay for flights just like we would at home, except they have a fund given to them for such purposes.
When they run out of money or just don’t want to pay, we have a standby process. You also have to remember that C130’s and C-17’s (the two main planes we see), are cargo planes, so someone on standby may get bumped due to a cargo load. It’s very complex, a lot of regulations to remember when running this system. So like I said earlier, it’s not going to be easy for awhile. My hope is that by the time the four months is up I can truly say I deserve to be a master sergeant.
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