Maze

These past few days of chasing my tail at work has tired my resolve to stay positive. Couple that feeling with a comment on my last entry and I am coming to the realization that I feel more like a mouse in a maze than a soldier contributing to the rebuilding of Iraq. The high walls that both close us in and protect us from incoming also keeps me from witnessing the fruit of my daily labor. The network of red tape we navigate through to get projects complete is complicated by our cultural differences with the Iraqis and our unwillingness to let them fail at anything. What ever happened to the “teach a man to fish” cliché? I think it’s a good saying, very applicable to our mission here, but at times it feels like the brass is more concerned about showing reports of all the equipment we’ve given the Iraqi’s instead of educating a struggling government on how to procure the gear themselves. An Iraqi asking the current coalition force leadership how to make things better is much like a hungry man consulting the Long John Silvers cashier for fly rod casting techniques. We give them everything they need so they don’t let a mission fail, and the Iraqi’s know this. Instead of assuming the role of teachers and advisors, we more closely resemble the reluctant father teaching his child to ride a bike for the first time. If the child knows that someone is always going to be there to catch them if they lose their balance, then what incentive do they have to try to do it on their own? In my opinion, we need to let them fall. I’m not talking about just giving them a bike and walking away, but we need to let them get the bumps and bruises to do it on their own without depending on us to always be there to bail them out. We can give them pointers and maybe even a good shove now and then, but they need to want learn to do this on their own and make efforts to gain that independence. It’s the only way we’ll ever leave this place and not have to send our kids over here to finish the things we didn’t complete.

I have a sour attitude today that is borderline bitter, but despite my negativity, we are doing good here (take that skeptics!). It’s painfully slow and frustrating when progress is at glacial speeds, but we are making gains in areas that I’ll probably not be around here to see. In the meantime, I’ll keep scurrying about the labyrinth of “reconstruction” searching for the cheese. And when I say cheese, I’m not referring to a philosophical representation of national peace for the country of Iraq. I’m referring to the day that I depart from this place for my leave. Yes, it is short sighted and selfish, but the thought of going home, even for a little bit, is the only thing that keeps me motivated to put on my body armor each morning and trudge through another day.

Worthless fact of the day:

Did you know that Mr. T’s real name was Laurence Tureaud? He changed his name to Mr. T so that everyone would have to address him as “Mister”. I think if Clubber Lang came over to Iraq, all the kids would call him “Mee-ster T”.