Forgery Seasoned With Off-Color Humor

When a man is second in command he has both the title of AOIC and a significant amount of influence over me. He has the ability to shape my annual formal evaluation by his whim. If I behave he will assign me interesting work and if I don't care to feed his ego the tasks could be miserable. So when I drive him around in the cab of a pick-up, and he decides to fill the silence with crude jokes about women that don't make me laugh (Q: What do you say to a woman with two black eyes? A: Nothing, she obviously didn't listen the first two times. Q: How do you know if a woman has an orgasm? A: Who the fuck cares), I feel like I'm living on the inside of a low budget sexual harassment video.

I complained, at a very low level to avoid a big splash, through the appropriate channels and several hours later someone let him know that I didn't enjoy his behavior. I didn't use a mediator because I lacked the courage to confront him myself, but because I wanted a witness. If he persists in making my life uncomfortable I want someone to know that he has worked his mismagic before.

This morning the AOIC called me into his office, the same office where two weeks ago I refused his request to forge the XO's signature on official documents, to apologize. I told him that I take enough shit from men all over this base and I'm not going to take it from someone that I work for. He apologized again and he was sincere, but I know he's only sorry that he exercised poor judgment in telling me the jokes. He's not sorry that in his brain it's funny to think of a woman as subordinates incapable of shaping their own lives.

Ernesto

Yesterday morning, during the middle of a base lock-down due to hurricane Ernesto, Mad Dog made us all leave our rooms, pile into vans and pick-ups, and drive to the galley for breakfast. The galley was officially closed but provided a small meal for essential personnel.

I'm confident that it was not essential for us to get out of bed, brave a hurricane in ten-passenger vans, eat cold eggs, and return to the barracks so we could peel off our soaked uniforms and go back to bed until lunch.

Power to This Person

Mad Dog lined us up in a row and demanded that when the Operations Officer (S3) and Operations Chief (S3C) show up today we're not supposed to tell them anything out of the ordinary about the project: we're not to discuss equipment issues and I'm not to talk about the structural problems we're having with the bridge. No one is allowed to mention the 20' x 30' brush fire one of the builders started using the rescue saw in a field of dry grass. After he addressed the Det Mad Dog pulled me aside and reminded me that I was included in his speech. I'm not to talk about the bridge to the battalion operations staff.

I don't take well to censorship.

The S3 and S3C are landing at 1:30 this afternoon and I can't imagine that the S3C, Senior R., will have a difficult time getting me to talk. Mad Dog's tyrannical behavior hasn't earned him my affection or loyalty.

To Avoid Confusion

To clear things up a bit I wanted to let anyone know who may be reading this that I don't have regular access to a computer that will let me navigate to any Blogger web pages; I'm posting via e-mail. I can send in whatever I want from my Outlook but I can't view comments much more than once a week.