Don’t shoot the skinny rabbits…

3/4/09

Don’t shoot the skinny rabbits…

I initially had no idea what to write about in these little essays. However, my current military deployment to South-East Asia seemed as good a place to start as any, and the thousands (right…:-) ) of comments I’ve received so far appear to encourage this. I’m as vain as the next guy, so I could attribute these positive responses to the outstanding qualities of my writing, but who am I kidding…interest in an “inside” look at military life was apparently genuine. I have to ask myself: why is that?

The last 8 years of Uncle Bush’s military adventures, and the massive media and propaganda efforts that accompanied them, have come to initiate an automatic gag (German: würg) reflex in some of us; I’ve certainly had enough group-think pushed my own way to last a lifetime….and yet…

In spite of (perhaps because of) the media wars during the Bush years, many friends asked me questions like: “what’s it really like?”, “how can you stand it?”, “how can you work for that guy?” etc. Even before good ole Dubya, when half the world was still in love or in lust with Bill Clinton, there were always questions. Whether genuinely curious, sarcastic, cynical or wannabe-cynical (a prerequisite to cynicism is substantive knowledge of the subject at hand), plain ignorant and/or prejudiced, it seems people wanted to know about life as a GI. Since many Americans have not served in the Armed Forces (we don’t accept goobers….just kidding, :-), we definitely do, a lot), the questions were not exclusively from foreign friends either.

So let me try to explain what it’s like, perhaps occasionally throw a little pseudo-psycho-socio-babble in there to mix things up, hopefully add a little humor, definitely let out sporadic cries of frustration, but most importantly, I want to have fun with this. If I run out of things to say, or get bored listening to my own blather, I’ll move on. Ditto if I get a strong sense of rejection from the comments readers send :-)

Don’t shoot the skinny rabbits? Maybe some of my American friends know the expression, but I only heard it the first time a couple of weeks ago, from a chaplain’s assistant no less. We were sitting in the big tent, the only place that serves alcohol around here (2 drinks per night, electronically verified), and as usual, I was venting (complaining, bitching, whatever) about the rules. The gentleman in question shook his head in commiseration, and told me that his grandpappy in Ohio used to tell him: “Son, don’t shoot the skinny rabbits”. I looked at him with incomprehension until he explained that it was his grandfather’s way of explaining to him that in life, one should pay attention to the things that really matter (i.e. shoot only the fat rabbits), rather than waste precious time worrying about silly rules etc. The explanation didn’t make me feel much better about the rules, but I did really like the expression.

Now, I can already hear some of you telling me: “What, you genius, it took you 20 years to figure out that the military has rules?” Well no, it didn’t, but…

When I first joined, still shell-shocked from the not-so-welcome-to-the-United-States immigration experience, with nary a clue about the realities of life in America, the rules were actually quite good for me. For a completely lost 20-year-old alone in a cut-throat Southern California economy, whose pride prevented him from returning home to Europe, the U.S. Air Force and its rules were just about perfect. I didn’t have to think, just to do what I was told, and was provided free room and board, and more importantly, a highly structured living environment that allowed me to take a breather, take stock, and …figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Bottom line: At first, the rules were at worst a little nuisance, part of the price to be paid for peace of mind (and 3 square meals a day)…

To make things even better, I then quickly discovered I had a skill set (the ability to learn languages quickly and well) that was highly valued by the U.S. Air Force. Not only was this skill highly valued in itself, it also provided opportunities to….get away from the rules. As a result of my language skills, I’ve spent most of my career outside the Air Force mainstream, doing translation, interpretation, negotiation, mediation (haal mol eng Keier de Baak, Misch), in short, doing jobs that took me away from the uniform, away from bases, away from the strict military framework that most of my fellow GIs get to experience every day. This doesn’t mean that I wasn’t aware of all the rules, just that I didn’t have to play by them much of the time, or if I did (for training courses and other short interruptions), it was always for limited periods of time, and knowing that I’d soon be gone again, shooting fat rabbits.

All good things must come to an end, however, and last summer, the Air Force decided that “the good of the Air Force” was best served by placing me in a staff position at a headquarters in Germany. I tried to fight the idea, but since I wanted to be close to my family, who had already moved there, I accepted the job (not that I had much choice if I wanted a pension…)

So since September, I’ve been in uniform every day, re-learning all about the right way to wear the damn thing, learning about the “normal” bureaucracy, the checklists for EVERYTHING, etc. Still, I’ve been in Germany (as opposed to Washington DC), and in spite of small adaptation issues, I’ve been lucky enough to have a very understanding boss, who doesn’t put much stock in regulation for the sake of regulation, so it’s fair to say that I’ve been dealing with “Air Force Lite” at worst…until now.

Now I’m deployed to a so-called high-threat environment. The leadership clearly believes that the only way to keep good order and discipline among 1000+ people living in a self-contained environment is to enforce all the rules, all the time, and to make as many additional rules as possible to make sure everybody’s safe, risk-free, and walking around with a pole up their )(&%& all the time.

I’m definitely back in skinny rabbit country.

Skinny Rabbit Example 1:

I share an office space of about 10 square meters with a subordinate. The most dangerous activity that takes place in this office is the transportation of my coffee mug from the door to the desk. Yet, every week, I get an e-mail reminder from the safety monitor, talking to me about risky work practices that I should avoid at all costs. Here are some gems from this week:

- Frequently inspect electrical systems to insure that the path to ground is continuous (huh?)

- Do not remove ground prongs from cord- and plug-connected equipment or extension cords (...good thing they told me this, I LOVE breaking those little suckers off...)

- Use double-insulated tools and ground all exposed metal parts of equipment (uhum...I spend hours doing this every day)

- Avoid standing in wet areas when using portable electrical power tools (as you might have guessed, this is my favorite).

I don’t blame the individual for sending this stuff, she’s required to do so by regulation, but you get my point....

Skinny Rabbit Example 2:

The leadership here is at least very well-intentioned, so last week, they had allowed a party (with the usual 2-drink per person limit) to take place at our recreational facility. The organizers had envisioned a number of games to keep everyone entertained. Naturally, the games had to be vetted to ensure good order and discipline …one game didn’t make the cut, i.e. was prohibited: The Newspaper Dance (you may remember this one from your childhood): couples compete dancing on newspaper foldouts, which then get folded in successively smaller squares, forcing the couples to dance in smaller and smaller spaces. The couples get successively eliminated as they lose their balance or step off the newspaper folds, until only one couple is left: the winners. This game was deemed “too risky” because it could lead to misunderstandings or inappropriate touching, therefore Oh My God, to sexual arousal….’nuff said. WHO COMES UP WITH THIS STUFF? The noble, traditional and acknowledged purpose of the military is to kill people and break things, and they are worried about inappropriate thoughts of a potentially sexual nature? Never mind the fact that the male to female ratio in this place is about 30:1, making it highly probable that some of the “couples” would be same-sex. In my (admittedly open) mind, this would a) make the game more fun, and b) make inappropriate thoughts and touching highly unlikely, at least for about 90 percent of the population, but in skinny rabbit logic this would actually make things worse….one might accidentally end up with two males having inappropriate thoughts THAT'S ILLEGAL.....DEFINITE STARVING RABBIT ALERT.

Skinny Rabbit Example 3:

Smoking is frowned upon. Fair enough, it is frowned upon in most of the civilized world these days. In our little fortress, we are allowed to smoke only in designated areas. What this means, in practical terms, is that they have about 20 little gazebos set up all over the fortress grounds, and that you can’t smoke anywhere else. Osama’s (a pseudonym to protect the innocent), the only legal alcoholic consumption establishment, has its own little smoking gazebo. Skinny Rabbit Alert 1: You can’t take your drink to the smoking gazebo, good heavens, you might smoke and drink at the same time…CAN'T HAVE THAT. Skinny Rabbit Alert 2: on the other side of Osama’s there is a nice little patio, where, when the weather is nice, you can take your drink to sit outside….but.... you guessed it, here, you can’t smoke. I’ve been trying to figure out the logic behind this stuff, but I can’t for the life of me get there from here.

So there you have it, all wrapped up, a nice little lesson in linguistics, a little additional description of GI life, and even some personal stuff thrown in. This essay took a little longer to get into print, I was actually really busy during the last two weeks, hopefully shooting fat rabbits…

PEACE, LOVE, and FAT RABBIT STEW for all,

De Luussert Ennerwee