A Week Alone

 Hey I am back again with a bit of information and a bunch of opinion.....

    This continues to be one of the hardest things I have ever had to sit on my hands and let happen. He called his mother yesterday and started his conversation by telling her how sorry he was he had let us and everyone pulling for him down, see after his initial fail on his run he was segregated from his shipmates and this is really sticking in my crawl the Navy spent the first seven weeks this young man was there making him understand that it was all about the "team" that above all else the team must succeed then at the one precise time that he needs his shipmates they move him out into another barracks with people he has no connection to, how is this designed to improve his feeling of belonging to something greater than himself? think about this if you will just for a second am I the only one that this seems wrong to? I know that they have their standard hell I used to hold fast to it training military troops myself and like I said it seems like it does because it is one of mine. All I can see is this young man that goes from qualifying Expert with the 9mm on top of the world to being told get your stuff we gotta move you.

       He managed to get his time down to 12 seconds in a week and for this reward you get to sit and listen to everyone else having their moment of glory just sit there and know today there is no team, today you sit here away from all of that, sit here and wallow in the short comings you have displayed. I know the whole argument you can't change the standards for one because you would have to do it for all; and on the grand scale all is a lot. All I can see is the the teenage boy that felt he didn't belong anywhere had no friends  to speak of and stayed shut away in his room to getting letters from him stating he was exactly where he belongs that "I have 88 brothers and we all answer to the same name and move at the same speed" I know that in the long run it will hopefully all work out and he may still indeed have a long and illustrious career in the navy and I know this is not even close to the worst he will see but it has to be one of his darker moments and in a organization that relies on teamwork he once again feels like he is an outsider.

     I know this young man and I fear that in his mind he is just as alone now as he was before he got there no buddies to look out for him or to look out for no shipmates to have your back when things hit the fan no none at all.  I have many many years in which I was in or working for the DOD and I know all to well the way things work but this young man that wasn't allowed to call for over a week,  had not received one piece of his mail not one letter. We all have been in a frantic dash trying to do our part to keep his morale and spirits high and he has not gotten one bit of it. No words of encouragement no "you got this" nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch,  all he had to keep him company was continued failure in a place that was designed because people fail but I know from experience that if you keep them in a place that the bonds have been formed performance increases, morale increases, and overall unity increases and in the grand scheme of things by week seven these men and women have formed bonds that they will defend bonds that will make them look to and at each other for the strength they need to accomplish the task at hand.

    You want him to succeed line the running track with the same shipmates he has relied on and have relied on him, put them on that track beside him pushing him driving him on, showing him he is part of a big picture not make him wait here and watch as the people he has been through one of the hardest things he has ever done form up and march away, march away as you stand there in your own mind saying wait what about me? we are a team we look out for each other, we support each other or at least that is what they told him. That is the bill of goods he was sold that is where I have the problem. They are told and rewarded for thinking of their shipmates first before themselves praised and given commendations but yet when one falls behind you are now saying go on every man for themselves?

      I have been told by many to "do nothing" or the ever popular "there's nothing you can do" well I just do not believe that can not believe that. There are to many things built into the process he is involved in for there to be nothing I can do I know the way the military works and I know that some where is just the right person for me to call or talk to that can help me in the matter at hand. I apologize for the lack of eloquence in this entry in to my mind but as you can probably tell is just a little mentally overloaded.  ...