Mind of Malcolm

I normally have a torrent of ideas, thoughts, rants, and questions in my mind at any given moment. Although it can be exhausting, I can have moments of silence as well. Those happen when I am around others who are all carrying on conversations, but don't really expect me to add to them. I find myself staring, wondering, and thinking of almost anything... war, life, sex, food, sleep, death, people, what should I do when I am alone. This blog is going to be what I do when I am alone. If any one person reads this then I will be happy. Will I be happy if nobody reads this? Probably. There is a part of me that hopes that someone can connect to this and want more. Maybe even ask me why.

Today I am in Iowa conducting National Guard training. The past week has led up to this day. I set up radios and communication equipment. The radios that I have spent years working on and perfecting the use of have easily become a thing of the past. Now everything is computers, and with computers comes internet. That also brings a multitude of questions and routine fixes. Yesterday everything was set up and working great. Within ten minutes of everyone sitting down and pressing keys, it all went to crap. I expect this as they have expected me to fix it. I joke that it is job security, and in a couple of days after everything irons out, I will be bored out of my mind wishing someone would mess things up so I can shine. This is the nature of the beast. Feast or Famine. Never happy no matter the situation, and always wanting the other outcome. I don't do this alone. I have a couple of people who work under me, but don't seem to get any work done. One is considered to be the worst person in the world, and lives up to it well. The other is considered to be a poster child, but has secrets that I have to help keep so that I don't share the blame. Not that it was my fault, or that I force this upon either of them. I have tried to teach one, and carry the other... I guess I am to blame. While sitting down for dinner/chow I am facing one of my subordinates who is sitting at the table across from mine. Neither of us are sitting alone, and that is good. I find myself staring and thinking why doesn't this person apply themselves, while wondering how long I can stare before they look up and catch me in my trance? I believe that I have mastered the art of staring but not "staring". I catch myself and snap out of it often enough to give the occasional laugh, or scan the room as if everything is normal. It is hard keeping a secret for someone only to help yourself. You are stuck with it. Enough time will pass when they are gone, or I am gone, and it won't matter who I tell. But until then, we both act as if nothing ever happened. The secret you ask? Nothing really when it boils down to it. It really is my word against theirs. So what if I caught them smoking pot. I didn't smoke it, but I was there when it happened, and in the position I am in, being a leader, I am suppose to do something. I haven't and won't. Too much time has passed to prove anything, and I already have the worst person in the unit. Why embarrass myself with having the worst two people in the unit who comprise most of my section? And when I say worse, I mean a deadbeat and a pot head. The deadbeat has to be micromanaged and taught the same thing all the time, and the pot head knows their stuff and performs well enough to be thought of as a poster child. I guess I am wanting someone to tell me to get over it, but these things are in my mind.