Fleet Marine Life

This email was from my buddy Demotivated Dan on 06/28/11

I was assigned to something like a react team.  It was a 6 month active duty.  Anywho, I had to go through a short screening process which involved a checklist that I had to complete and submit.  It was a very easy checklist, all I had to do was fill it out with information that was pertinent to myself and get a couple of signatures.  I filled it out and went straight into my superiors office and asked him to sign it.  He asked what it was and I told him what it was.  He signed it after going through it for a few seconds.  Simple and easy.  All I had to do now was get a signature from my health care provider.  Any of the following was eligible to sign off on it.  The list included:
a. Your primary health care provider
b. a nurse practictioner
c. a physician or
d. a corpsman

So I called the clinic and spoke with the scheduler for my care provider.  I asked if I would need an appointment to get a signature and she replied, “No.  Just swing by around lunchtime and we’ll sign it for you.” Easy enough right?  It should have been anyway.

So I get down to the clinic, expecting to use about five minutes of their time and be on my merry way.  I get to  the front desk and make a little small talk and explain my situation to the lady at the front desk.  After I was finished explaining this is the conversation that took place.

Overanalysis and bureaucracy…

L:  What is this for again?
D:  I just told you, but here is the checklist.  There’s a small paragraph at the top that says what this is for.
L:  Oh.  I can’t pronounce that.  Please take a seat.  I’m going to go get my supervisor.  Take a number as well.
D:  Alright.

Fifteen minutes later…

I approached the counter as I got tired of waiting.  I asked them what was going on.  In the fifteen minute span, the receptionist had forgotten who I was.  For the third time, I was to repeat my situation, however she had my paperwork in her hand.  Sadly I had to repeat for the fourth time as her supervisor was now out on the floor asking why she had called him.  All I needed was a signature and a date for when my physical was completed.  I failed to mention this before but the physical only needed to be current as of five years.  The situation took an all time low while I was speaking to the supervisor.  I thought management was supposed to alleviate situations the regular employee could not handle.  Unfortunately for me, it was just bureaucracy playing tricks on me.  I had known this before as Navy Medicine works like a bureaucratic machine.  Quality of health care provided is mumbo jumbo.  What really mattered were numbers.  It isn’t about how many ill or injured personnel have I treated and cured today.  The real mission of the Navy Medicine team are how many people have came in and how many people left “treated” or how many cases of injuries or illness can I mask today!?  The unfortunate motives of the Navy Medicine are just that.  Even something as trivial as one signature must go through their totalitarian appointment system.  I realized it then and now.  I’m just adding a number to their daily quota by making an appointment.  That’s all I was to this so called physician.  A number.

Back to the issue at hand though…

After explaining that all I need was one signature.  The doctor just looked at me and said well you still need an appointment.  By now I was irritated and explained that I don’t need to be seen.  I have the date of my last physical and a pen, all you need to do is sign.  He quickly replied, “No, you need to make an appointment.”  By now sarcasm had set in with my irritation and I replied with, “Well really, any monkey can sign this.”  I was pretty certain it had offended him, he shot back “Any monkey cannot sign this. Are you insinuating that I’m a monkey?”  Honestly, it was a figure of speech made by a irked dude.  I thought to myself, did he really just take offense to that?  Him being an officer in the Navy demanded I respond to him.  So I replied, “I wasn’t insinuating anything, it’s just that its a simple signature and frankly I can probably sign it myself and save myself this trouble.  Perhaps I came off a bit condescending sir, but aren’t you being a little too sensitive and insecure?  I mean it’s obvious you’re no chimp.”

To wrap this up…

My five minute quest ended up turning into an hour long quest thanks to having to deal with two primates.  It was quite ridiculous.  They also didn’t end up signing my paperwork.  They scheduled me for an appointment for Thursday.  I needed the signature today though.  Checklist was given to me on Friday afternoon and expected to be done by Monday afternoon. Feasible, or so I thought.  I ended up asking a corpsman at the smokepit to fake sign this checklist.  After soliciting about three corpsman, the final corpsman agreed.  God bless her pretty blue eyes.

Overanalysis – It’s a simple signature.  Not a complex neurology related operation.
Bureaucracy – I understand that implementing a system that promotes high efficiency and low cost is good for a business or agency.  However, I think that if you put wait times on trivial tasks, it just wastes more time and energy.  Isn’t the purpose of a bureaucracy to make an organization more efficient?  When was putting an hour long wait to a less-than-a-minute task considered efficient?  I must have missed that conference where sixty-five minutes is shorter than five minutes.

This is the best post that I’ve found on Ihatethemarinecorps.com.

You think we are unsat? What about all the married SNCO’s and NCO’s who go out on deployment sticking their worthless dicks into anything wearing a skirt? To you that’s ok right? Or the highers who care nothing for the welfare and the lives of their marines, only how hard they can work them to improve their career prospects. I guess you think that’s ok too in your eyes, right? All the corruption, backstabbing and immorality being done by active duty marines and you focus on the guys on a website venting their anger. That is unsat. How about you fix the problem instead of punishing rogues you spawned through years of maltreatment? Just because we signed a contract guaranteeing you 4 years, that doesn’t give you a green light to abuse and overwork us for your own gain. The festering cesspool of corruption and idiocy that is the MC does not rely on competence, intelligence or skill. It relies on people with limited horizons, a fear of getting out and facing the real world, and above all, blind obedience to any idiotic order. When I was in and my friends would ask me what exactly I did in the MC, I would say “I slavishly obey the insane commands of a baboon.” The MC is like a scientist who makes one great discovery and rides on that discovery for the rest of their career, accomplishing nothing else but always citing the glory days of old. The new MC has no resemblance to the old MC that accomplished many great things, yet the highers and boots alike constantly cite the old glories in which they played no part. The MC also is very similar to Hitler’s SS. In the SS, an order was always right, and they were trained to obey orders without thinking. It’s similar not just because of the blind obedience, but also because of the propaganda. Hitler’s SS heavily relied on propaganda images the media portrayed of them. Disciplined, well groomed, professional, someone to look up to and consider a role model. Yet history revealed the reality. The MC relies on the media in a similar fashion. All the images you see on TV glorify the MC. Plus, they closely monitor everyone, like the Gestapo. When people praise and rant on about the good things, they love it, but when a site like this comes to their attention, they move with expediency to crush the opposition. When the truth, or at least bad press comes out, they go into a conniption. We are made to look like moral people with the utmost professionalism, yet I have personally seen NCO’s and SNCO’s cheat on their wives, steal, abuse drugs and other things. Always Faithful my butt. Does that motto not extend to one’s personal life? Does cheating on one’s wife not violate Always Faithful? The real MC motto should be “Look out for number one.” The totalitarian like state in which the MC operates is very reminiscent of Hitler’s third Reich. To the MC, there is no higher honor than sucking your commander’s cock, swallowing his man gravy then following his senseless and often insane orders without giving it any cognitive thought. I spent four years as a janitor. That is the greatest qualification a marine can claim. The mind numbing stupidity of those in charge, the games and all else drive some to suicide. Only in a dysfunctional organization would the idea of mass punishments be glorified and frequently used. When my friends asked me if I was going to re-up, I would say something like “hell no, I would rather suck the jizzm out of a dead faggot’s rancid, decomposing butthole. One thing I will never comprehend is why do some SNCO’s hold shave inspections and cammie inspections before combat operations? For God’s sake, some of the men you are inspecting may not survive, and you are harassing them with something so mundane? I had better stop, because I could write a manifesto on the problems with the MC. I must say this: the problem is NOT the MC itself. The organization cannot do stupid things. What makes us hate the MC is the SNCO’s and officers who make our lives hell for their own benefit or amusement. I will end with this: To all who have served, thank you for serving, and congrats on getting out. To those still in, your EAS will one day come. It seems like it won’t, and you begin to think that time is looping on itself causing you to stay in longer, but don’t worry. When you EAS, you get back your soul, the water is more refreshing, the food tastes better, your bed is softer, the air is sweeter, and life is worth living again.