Moments of Clarity

I was chatting on-line with a friend who had the thankless job of defending Congress since he works for one of the staffs. I shared some of our gripes and the issue of the CIA being everybodies punching bag came up.

He pointed out, or at least made me realize, that I tend to use congress as my easy punching bag for much of what is wrong. Granted, while Congress as an institution is a beautiful thing, the members are usually deserving of the scorn with which I regard them. However, that is not always the case.

I don't intend to idealize the military. The bureaucracy is ridiculous. There are some brilliant folks and some true winners. But as a whole, it does seem we tend to take our mission and our duty seriously.

After our chat, I wonder if a perceived--if not real--lack of seriousness about things among the civilian leadership is at the root of much my frustration. And maybe that of my peers, though I am hesitant to generalize. We read the news and among appointees and elected leaders, "leaders," point scoring and polls seem more important than adult decisions.

I don't know. I talk about adult decisions but was laughing at chow when one of the guys was telling stories about patrols with an Iraqi force he was training. One of his guys stopped to lick a rock just to see if the Iraqis would all stop to lick the rock too because the American did.

They did.

All kidding aside though, it was interesting to hear them talk about the development of some of the forces we work with now. A few years ago on joint patrols some of the Americans would lead while the others pretended to lead while really watching the Iraqis in case they turned on us.

Now there is a real trust. That's from a guy who's had to put his life in Iraqi hands.

OK, so all my posts are kind of rambling with rough transitions and no real theme. I feel like I should be bothered by that, but I'm OK with it.