Ate up

Ate up

“Ate Up” is a term I first heard when I was in college. It was a common phrase that was used to describe someone who was not performing well. It is not a very pleasant description of someone, and it usually had a few expletives added to it to emphasize its meaning (ate the f*** up!). Even the creative types used the phrase, but said it in a way that made you have to think about it for a while until you realized that they were insulting you (you’re 10 up and 2 down!). I heard this phrase many times during my career in the Army and even used it a few times myself on some choice individuals. It was also a regular part of my friends’ vocabulary, at least those in the military. They all had stories of their “joes” doing stupid things and being “ate up like a soup sandwich” was a very colorful way to describe how really messed up they were. Then a funny thing happened... I got out of the military. It took some time, but eventually I started cursing less, dressing myself for work, and quit using the lively phrases of my Army days. I became a civilian, and I got soft (not that cursing and wearing the same thing every day made you any harder). The longer I stayed out, I realized that I never heard the expression “ate up” used very much in the real world, and in the rare times that I tried to use it, most civilians just kind of looked at me the way a pig might look at a Timex. They didn’t appreciate the saying, so I in turn just stopped using it.

Jump to today...

I have rediscovered my old military phrases. I say this because some of the instructors I have are ate up, some of the instruction we have received has been really ate up, and sometimes I wonder if anyone not in our unit knows what it means NOT to be ate up. I’m trying hard here to keep a positive attitude. For this first full week of training I have been trying to give the cadre, being the trainers, the benefit of the doubt since I know that it must be tough to take a large group of people and get them through the aggressive training schedule of skills needed before they deploy. I want to believe that they will fix their broken system and each night before I lay my head on my pillow, I pray that the next day will be better and free from the frustrations of the previous day. Time and time again, they have failed me, and my team, and I can feel the frustration growing in the folks around me. Some have already thrown in the towel and have succumbed to just being bounced around like a pinball. Their reasoning is that they are getting paid to sit and wait for busses that never show and for instructors who don’t know what they are teaching. Others of us have taken on to training ourselves by hijacking the instruction material from the OCs (Observer Controller – aka the teachers here) and teaching ourselves. There are days that I don't think I belong here and hope for some admin person at headquarters to suddenly realize that they made a mistake and send me someplace else. Enough about that though because I don’t want to rant too much. I have to check myself now and then so I can not slip off the cliff of cynicism that is so easy to do when one works for Uncle Sam.

Each day for accountability, we have to give an “up”. Here is a better explanation of what that means:

“Team 19, are you up?” – Are all of Team 19's members present?
“Bravo company, give me an up on your weapons.” - Let me know if all your weapons are there.
“Dude, that class was ate up.” - Man, that class was not satisfactory.
“Johnson, you up?” – Has Johnson got his lazy butt out of the rack?

We give “ups” a lot within the unit and especially within our team. To make it easier to keep accountability of our people and our gear, we have all been assigned numbers. When the team leader wants to know if he has everyone, he just screams out “Team 19, give me an up” in which we respond by sequentially shouting out our assigned number followed by “up”; “One’s up”, “Two’s up” etc. It’s a very good system, especially when things can get chaotic for movement from one location to the next and we are battling for transportation assets. You don’t want to lose your buddy and you definitely don’t want to lose any of your weapons.

By the way, my assigned number is 8, so most days, I’m “eight up”.

Maybe I do belong here.