An amusing thing happened in January of 2021. I was tasked with calling all the squad leaders in my company to check on some paperwork. When I got to the name of the squad leader who had caused me so much torment, I paused and asked the other soldiers in the room if I should be the one calling. They said they saw no reason why not, so I called him. When introduced myself and asked the question, he just said the last name of another sergeant, and after a long pause, I said goodbye and hung up.
Shortly after that, I got a call from another sergeant who asked to speak with the soldier in charge of the office. After the call, that soldier went into the commander's office. My tormentor then called the commander, and I could hear him yelling through the wall. He used some colorful to tell my tormentor to grow a spine. Then my First Sergeant came in and explained I had done nothing wrong as I had not yet been informed of the no-contact order my tormentor had filed against me. It was funny that he was so disturbed when I was the one who had been on suicide watch.
Most days, I was released from duty after lunch. I was on vacation more or less for about five months. It was a nice change of pace. I helped out a bit with odd jobs. Once while filing paperwork, I came across the story of a sergeant was reprimanded by his squad leader for something minor. The result was the squad leader was forced to write out demerits as a punishment, though this only happened after week or so of various complaint forms being filed. The sergeant in question was about as solid a soldier-linguist as can be- multiple combat deployments, excellent language scores, not a black mark of any kind on his record. It was disappointing to see him get treated like a disobedient elementary school student merely because he displeased his immediate superior.
Another story I caught a glimpse of while filing paperwork was about a soldier I saw when I first arrived at Fort Gordon. He had a very weary, forlorn expression and I was honestly worried that he'd kill himself if he was left alone. It turned out that he had been taken off mission because he was judged to be not productive enough. One of the hardest lessons I've learned is that in any group, the only three choices are conform, suffer, or leave. Any person who is too far from the group average will be pushed toward it, regardless of whether they are better or worse than the average. People who try to drag you down are already beneath you, though it happens anyway.
For about a month starting in February, I was put on road guard. It's a very easy job often given to soldiers who will getting out of the Army soon. One day, it was pouring rain. Since there were no runners to guard from traffic, there was no reason for us to be there. Alas, Befehl ist Befehl, it was our place of duty. The leader of the detachment said that the unofficial policy was to sit in our cars nearby until the rain stopped. So that's what we did, except for one intrepid soul who stood stoically in the downpour. I had my poncho with me, so I decided to keep him company and perhaps persuade him to get out of the rain. I remarked to him that the basic contradiction in the military is what to do when you get a stupid order. His reply was the most depressing thing I've ever heard a soldier say. He said: I think ALL orders are stupid! Nonetheless, I was able to persuade him to get out of the rain. He feared being punished, but it never came.
It was also in February that I nearly went AWOL because I scared I was about to be taken to the insane asylum again. I got a text message at night telling me another psychiatric evaluation had been scheduled the next day for me. I packed a bag and drove to a rest-stop at the state line. After thinking it over, I decided it was best to face the music. I came in disheveled and had an emergency meeting with my First Sergeant and battalion commander. They calmed me down and said it was a routine matter. It was hard to summon the courage to return to the hospital whereupon I was informed I had missed the appointment which was at another clinic anyway.
There's a wonderful novel by a WW2 Army combat veteran called Once an Eagle. It's been required reading at military academies for decades. The basic premise of the book is how to deal with stupid orders. It follows the career of a soldier who wins the Medal of Honor in WW1 and ends up a general in WW2. His nemesis is a conniving bully who outranks him and nearly gets him killed with an overly complex battle plan that leaves an American infantry decimated after it gets cut off for a few days. The lesson I got from the book is that there is no way to avoid the consequences for obeying stupid orders and sometimes the only sensible thing to do is ignore them. Stupid orders get people hurt and killed for no good reason and those who give them ought to be relieved of command.
Sometime in early March, I forwarded the email I had sent to the colonel to two sergeants, the same ones who had escorted me to the insane asylum. Not long after that, my tormentor and now ex-squad leader was mysteriously and permanently reassigned to temperature check duty. One day, he was waving everyone on because the batteries in the temp check gun were dead. I thought that he was finally in the right role: a very easy task that didn't need to be done which he could do anyone because the equipment was broken. Even a nitwit like him couldn't mess up a job that easy.
About the same time, I met a former Arabic linguist on an online dating site, and she gave me her phone number right away and told me where she'd camping with a friend that weekend. After 11 years or so of online dating, I had grown tired of the usual multiweek games of phone tag that generally proceeded a face-to-face meeting. I drove to the campground, found her and her friend, and tried to introduce myself. She was displeased by my uninvited presence, and I apologized saying that I had gotten impatient. Not long after, she and her friend called me, and I explained my tale of woe. They invited me back and we had a decent time, though they warned they would chop me with axes if they felt threatened. I built them a nice campfire as gesture of good faith. It was an odd turn of events, but at least I reached out to someone new.
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