On Leadership

At this time a year ago (Valentine's Day) I was at the Embassy and FOB Prosperity in Baghdad. It was a nice stay: I flew around almost the entire country to get down to the embassy, I had nice accommodations, I got to watch Mubarak's resignation live with a friend a minute after we flipped on the TV... I got to celebrate my birthday with a great NCO, and I took the standardized portion of the Foreign Service Exam... I really can't complain about any aspect of the trip. That's not really what I wanted to talk about though...

I guess what I really wanted to express was how interesting it is to be in a leadership position within the Army Reserve. All my life, I feel like I've looked up to other people, seeking their advice and their approval, and now it's the flip side of the coin, and I have people looking up to me. Soldiers ending their sentences in "Sergeant" whenever they talk to me, considering I was a Specialist forever until last fall, is still taking some getting used to, but it's a meaningful change for me. It makes me more conscious that it's my turn to take care of other people, and it gives me more confidence - I'm prone to curl up into a shell when I'm under a lot of stress, but not as much anymore! When I was in Quantico for a few days for some joint training, I thought I would be completely intimidated by all the higher ranking NCOs Army-side, and the Marines... but I don't think I really was, and part of it came from actually having relevant Iraq experience.

Two years ago I went to the Army's "Warrior Leader Course," formerly the "Primarily Leadership Development Course" which is a lot cooler sounding I think... anyways, I'll be honest: I didn't get a whole lot out of the structured portions of the class. However, I learned a lot about the intangibles of leadership through interactions with the different instructors and observing their different leadership styles. My two "small group leaders" were very laid-back, yet purposeful about their instruction with us, and emphasized critical thinking over rote learning by the book. Sure we had to perform different tasks to standard, but it wasn't thumped over our heads unless their leadership made us do it... and in the end, our platoon performed the most effectively out of the six or so total in the class.

My goal, though I might screw up the execution, is to be professional while keeping my light-hearted nature intact, to fuse "Yaobert" more into "Sergeant Yao" if you will.

On friends, and 05-09 Civil Affairs/Psychological Operations AIT

It's interesting - I feel like I've put up certain barriers with the people I've met during my time in service, to avoid emotional attachment. In emails to old friends, I've characterized it as the difference between the people I fight alongside with, and the people I fight for... maybe it was to prepare myself in case one of us died or something, maybe I didn't want to make a firm association, I'm not exactly sure. When I visited Columbus for a Yellow Ribbon event, I reunited with colleagues from my time in Mosul and realized just how wrong I was, there doesn't need to be such a distinction!

Honestly, I'll be pretty damn happy when I can connect my circle of Army friends to my circle of old friends.

On a related note, I was talking to another friend, who had gone through AIT with me and deployed to Iraq a few months earlier, who informed me that one of our number had been blown up in Afghanistan - he survived, but basically his lower body was completely shattered by the blast... wow. I didn't know the guy very well, but it definitely hit closer to home. Another AIT friend was in a convoy where one of his close deployment buddies was killed when he stepped on an IED. I always thought it was kind of crazy that the vast majority of our class has deployed, I don't have an exact count but in the past two years I've seen countless pictures of my classmates overseas. One was awarded a commendation medal for valor, several have received combat action badges... and who knows what other wounds of war have occurred?

Super Bowl in Iraq

A few days before the Super Bowl last year, I was at the COS Sykes airstrip for some reason, possibly to drop off a PRT member going back home for a family emergency. I don't exactly remember that... but I do remember offloading several packs of beer that had been flown in for the Super Bowl. This was about the only alcohol that was actually authorized for soldiers to drink in country... two cans of beer during the Super Bowl, to be signed for and supervised by leadership, haha.

As for actually watching the Super Bowl? I slept instead, it was at 3-4 in the morning Iraq time... haha sleep is much more important! Unfortunately, apparently they served beer at lunch to soldiers who missed the actual viewing, and by the time I found out about that it was too late, nbd. I think I was able to catch up with all the ads on youtube, which is the best part of the Super Bowl anyway, and catch people's feedback about their favorites via facebook... thank God for a wired world!

Perspective

February 2nd, 2011 was the worst day of my life up until that point in time, haha. I was completely stressed out with trying to manage an event where we invited several Iraqis on base and getting them where they needed to go. "We updated our paperwork! You need this guy's signature! The facility is unavailable for use even though we had planned on this weeks ago! Don't let the Iraqis out of your sight!" It was a nightmare of getting pulled between military requirements and State requirements... basically it was too much, dealing with all that at once, being on a remote base that was kind of in the middle of nowhere, not really knowing anyone, and dealing with something way out of my league, on my birthday of all days! Yeah, eventually I got to celebrate after a few days with people I know, which was pretty cool, but the actual day itself? Absolute misery.

February 2nd, 2012: I'm a little under the weather, so I stayed in bed until the early afternoon. I think I can handle that.

This should be a good year.

I was looking through old pictures related to my bowling update when I came across a few good memories from seven years ago. A lot of things have happened in the past year, some rather unfortunate, but everything happens for a reason, and every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end right? At least that's how I fall asleep at night... haha in all seriousness though, I do think there are a lot of reasons have a sunny outlook in 2012.

Back when I used to have dreams at night (have not in a while) I used to dream of fixing and healing broken bonds and relationships, which kind of came crashing down. As a wise friend of mine tells me repeatedly, human relationships are my idol, and it's true! I think that human interaction is much more valuable than any kind of material wealth, and I'm aware that sometimes I try too hard. My Iraq experience has taught me to be better capable of juggling loneliness and lack of contact with familiar people, but it's still very important to cultivate our bonds and to be intentionally kind even to people who you're not getting along with - you never know if something irrevocable is going to happen.

Also, I recommend reading Jon's blog: http://porta-jon.blogspot.com