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Regardless of whether or not the Army actually lets someone retire, they require every potential retiree to attend training on how to be a civilian. This training is mandatory and follows the standard operating procedure of all Army training: Conduct training in warm crowded room; Talk in monotone voice; Read off power point slides that are neither updated nor accurate; Spend majority of time explaining how to fill out a form. Civilians would find this standard of training unacceptable and demand it be changed. However, military people have not been trained on how to be a civilian yet, so they just quietly endure.

Dale slogged through his mandatory training with a firm resolve to learn what it took to become a civilian. With excessive quantities of coffee flowing through his veins, he attempted to stay awake and learn something new. It looked dire for days, when suddenly a real live civilian appeared. A well dressed tailor stood at the front and began to explain to the flabbergasted audience how to dress well.

Dale has spent 20 years putting on a uniform according to regulations, but when he changes out of his uniform, he puts on one of two things: jeans and a t-shirt or khakis and a button down shirt. How to dress well has never been his concern. So, he was amazed to learn about thread count, acceptable knots and materials for ties, number of buttons on suit coats, why you need a brown belt and a black belt, and about items strangely termed “accessories for men.”

The tailor informed him that a potential employer will not want to pay him a good salary if he is wearing a cheap suit. Thankfully, Dale was not one of the poor individuals who dared to wear their cheap suits to the class for evaluation. The tailor was a well spoken and forthright man who told the class to spend at least $500 on their suit, and he emphasized very strongly, “the clothes make the man.”

I was considering this point of view as I watched the Chicago Bears new quarterback play last night. When he quarterbacked for another team the last several years, he was really good. We Bears fans entered the season with high hopes with doubts. Bears fans are eternally optimistic and eternally pessimistic all at the same time. As I watched our new quarterback have the worst game of his career, I began to think “it must be the clothes”  No matter how good of a quarterback someone is prior to putting on a Bear’s uniform, once he puts on the uniform, he becomes an awful quarterback. The clothes make the man.

This week, I’m in a course officially titled “Action Office Force Integration”, unofficially it’s called “How the Army Runs”.  This picture shows the Army Force Management Model, basically an overview of everything we’re discussing this week.

How the Army Runs

I had been previously told by several sources that this is a great course with too much information for a 1-week course. I’m not sure why, but I got my expectations up. As with many things in life (and the Army), my hopes have been dashed.

I agree that much of the information presented here is very pertinent to my current job. However, eight hours of Powerpoint presentations in a day may not be the best way to present this information! The Major sitting next to me rested his eyes on several occasions the first three days. This makes my job at the Pentagon seem much more exciting! It’s all about perspective.

I think Mugs believed that once I bought my new car, I would start driving to the Pentagon everyday rather than riding as a slug. But I’m happy to report that I haven’t given up riding with strangers each day. However, I need to drive to work about 1-2 times each week to attend frequent meetings at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the Topographic Engineering Center (TEC). With the thought of riding my motorcycle in the middle of a Virginia winter, I bought a Honda Civic. When I got home from the dealer, I took the kids for a drive while Mugs stopped by McDonalds to pick up some fast food. Zeke kept asking “Daddy, is this the Manry family vehicle?” I kept saying “Yes, I bought a new car.” He was very relieved to see Mugs drive up. Pointing to the van, he stated “This is the Manry family vehicle!” After thinking about it for a bit, he declared that the new car is “the slug car.”  So now I drive the slug car to the commuter lot, park, and get in line with the other slugs. On the days I need to drive to work, I stop by the lot and pick up slugs.

Yesterday was a slug day. The line was very short in the morning, and I waited no more than 5 minutes before getting a ride. That afternoon, the line for pickup at the Pentagon was much longer. I probably should have stayed in the office another 30 minutes before getting in line. But you know how we government employees are… always watching the clock! Anyway, the ride home was uneventful, and I had a little nap. Back at the lot, I got in the slug car and drove home. When I parked in the garage and got out, I realized I had left my bag in the car I rode in from the Pentagon. I didn’t have time to do anything about it because the kids’ school was having a skate night at the rink last night. So we ate dinner and went skating. I’m still sore this morning, but that’s another story.

When we got home, there was a message on the answering machine from the driver saying he had found my bag in his car. The tag in the bag had my name and our old Wisconsin address (from Grad School). He looked me up in the phonebook and gave me a call. He offered to meet me at the commuter lot right then to return the bag. Mugs gave me a bar of Swiss chocolate she bought at the commissary to give as a thank you. I met him at the lot 5 minutes later and exchanged 1 bar of chocolate for my bag. He laughed when I gave him the chocolate. Mugs felt sorry for me and gave me a box of Sees chocolates when I got home!

About two weeks ago, I attended a 1-day Staff Officer Orientation for personnel recently assigned to the Pentagon. The briefers included many senior officers and civilians from the Department of the Army, including Secretary of the Army Pete Geren and Chief of Staff of the Army General George Casey. One of the first speakers, LTG David Huntoon, the Director of the Army Staff, talked about adjusting to life at the Pentagon. He remarked that most of us in the audience were coming from assignments with a lot of responsibilities to new jobs where we are only responsible for our little computer cubicle. He cautioned that we may have a difficult time adjusting to this change and lamenting about our fate in life. His sage advice was “Get over it”. Honestly, this transition has been much more difficult than I anticipated. My attitude wasn’t helped by the state of the cubicle I inherited (thanks, Espo).

I should have known what to expect. I replaced a very good friend, Espo. One of his online monikers is TrashMan. He is a hoarder. For some reason, though, I wasn’t mentally prepared for the piles of files, documents and folders on the desk. I have spent countless hours going through each document to identify what needs to be saved and what can be trashed. He promised he would organize everything before he left, and in his own way, he did. The morning after Espo moved to his new assignment (also in the DC area), I arrived to find the piles shifted around and labeled with yellow post-it notes saying:

1. Look at 1st (But keep together… I will take some of it)
2. Misc Classified Read Browse 2nd (or as time permits)
3. Read when time
4. Misc Stuff Peruse at Leisure
5. Was Mostly Here
6. Mostly Old, But I did Put some Here
7. Real Old

After six weeks of work, I have almost finished the purge. Because I work in a secure facility, to discard any document, I have to review each page, tear it into small pieces and place the pieces in a burn bag for disposal. The burn bags are basically brown paper grocery bags for collecting classified materials for destruction. To date, I have filled twenty (20) burn bags! Espo has stopped by a couple of times in the midst of the purge. Although he hasn’t said anything, I can tell he is emotionally troubled by the amount of things I’ve sent away in burn bags. Oh well. As LTG Huntoon would say, he just needs to “Get over it”!

On Thursday, I attended the quarterly Army Geospatial Governance Board (GGB) meeting. The GGB is co-chaired by the Army Chief of Intelligence (G2) and the Army Chief of Engineers. Both of these guys are 3-star Generals. The G2 is one of my numerous bosses. My immediate supervisor is a Colonel-level civilian; his boss is a Colonel; her boss is a Colonel; and his boss is the G2. So when I say I work for the 3-star General, I really mean I work for Civilian #1 who works for Colonel #1 who works for Colonel #2 who works for the general (G2). COL #1 has been in G2 about a month longer than I have. The first day I met her, she commented that she was surprised with the number of meetings that everyone had to attend. I have found this to be very true. I guess I was spoiled for the year I was in Iraq since I eliminated all meetings that I had control over!

For every meeting, there’s a prep meeting. For every briefing, there’s a pre-briefing. It looks like I’ll be spending a lot of time giving pre-briefings in prep meetings so that when it’s time for the real meeting nobody is surprised by what is in my real briefing. I’ll have help from Jim, Pat and Tony, the other members of the Geospatial Team. The prep meeting for the GGB is a Council of Colonels. So for the GGB, we pre-briefed our boss (Civilian #1), then with Civilian #1, we pre-briefed COL #1. The Geospatial Team, Civilian #1 and COL #1 attended the Council of Colonels. After that, Jim, Civilian #1 and I pre-briefed the G2 on what happened in the Council of Colonels and what to expect in the GGB. We didn’t think COL #2 was going to be involved in the GGB, so we didn’t pre-brief him before we pre-briefed the G2. That was a mistake. He wasn’t happy about it and let us know. So we pre-briefed him two hours before the GGB was scheduled to start. The final tally was 4 pre-briefings and 1 prep meeting, all for a single 2-hour meeting.

For the GGB, I was the designated note-taker. My counterpart in the Chief of Engineers office, LTC Jeff Martin, was the designated slide flipper. Immediately after the GGB ended, I compared notes with Pat and Jeff. Originally, I had captured 4 taskers. After comparing notes, the list grew to 7 taskers. I put the taskers into a document and emailed it out to a few folks for review. After this review, the task list grew to 9. The next morning, Friday, I reworked the task list and ended up with 11 tasks. Task #11 was “Create a Task Tracker”. As I was adding Task #11 to the list, I felt like I was stuck in a Dilbert cartoon, and I was Wally. As soon as I sent it out, Jeff called and said we needed to add one more task which was “Schedule the next GGB”. So the final tally was 12 tasks.

I have meetings to prepare for meetings, briefings to prepare for briefings, and even tasks to prepare for tasks. I don’t know how it could possibly get any better.