That's not fair!

This one girl who I've come to know over the past few months she's been at this post, totally floored me today with a comment she made. Her husband has to go out to the field for some very important qualifications and training, and did so on extremely short notice. In describing this to me, she said, "That's just not fair that they had so little notice!" That blew me away.

Was it fair? Well, no. I thought of it, and honestly, next to nothing in the Army is fair. The only factors they're not allowed to discriminate on are race and religion. Everything else, the Army can openly and loudly discriminate against soldiers based upon. There are whole career fields not open to female soldiers. Even within the fields that are open to female soldiers, many have a pretty thick glass ceiling that nobody's managed to even chip yet. Beyond gender, get fat and see if you ever get promoted. Be suspected of being gay, and watch doors close (yes, don't ask don't tell is mostly gone, but it's not to the point of good yet).

Even for straight white male soldiers who meet their height/weight standard, the Army is about the least fair thing anyone could ever ask to be a part of. It's true for EVERY soldier. It starts on day 1 of Basic. Some poor sucker gets stuck carrying a machine gun when the rest of his/her squad has rifles. I qualified as a machine gunner and a riflewoman, and let me tell you from personal experience that a rifle weighs about 1/4 as much as even what they consider a LIGHT machine gun. Then if your Drill Sergeants are really sadistic like mine were, whenever someone flunks out, their stuff doesn't go away. Their battle buddy just has to carry it around for the rest of Basic. I can tell you from experience, that isn't fun. Oh, and you don't get to pick your battle buddy. In just about every company I've ever seen, they're assigned alphabetically, so basically, you could end up with last year's high school All American athlete of some variety, or you could end up with the fat kid who only joined because his/her dad told him/her to. You didn't choose your last name and neither did they, so it's completely luck of the draw. It's damned sure not fair.

When you finish training, orders come out. This isn't fair either. Sometimes single people go to very family-friendly assignments like Ft. Belvoir, or Germany, or Ft. Richardson, or even Hawaii. Sometimes married people get sent unaccompanied to Korea. Some people will get non-deploying assignments, and stay home for their entire enlistments. Others will deploy within weeks of graduation. Some people get assignments they love (I got Ft. Hood), others get assignments that are widely considered the armpit of the Army (Thak got Ft. Riley for his first Active Duty assignment). There are only two things guaranteed. Everyone gets an assignment, and it definitely isn't fair who gets what.

Then in today's Army, someday you deploy in most cases. Maybe it's a year from your training graduation. Maybe it's a week. Maybe you never do. Most people deploy, though. When you get there, you'll notice that some people get put on these really big bases all over whatever shitohle of a middle eastern country they send you to. They have all kinds of stuff to do, celebrities come visit them, they can even buy their own custom made Harley Davidson right on the base (it'll be waiting for them when they get home). Their communications are so good they get reliable internet in their room, so great that everyone can stream video all at the same time if they wanted. The phone centers are huge, but nobody needs that anyhow since there's so much availability of cell phones, and it's so safe that the commander actually lets his/her soldiers get them! Then there's the other people. They get stuck in places so remote the only married guy in the squad has to beg his wife to supply seven guys with toothpaste, soap, and cigarettes for a year because there's nowhere to buy any within 100 miles, where there's really no communication beyond a satellite phone that's always broken, where the mail comes in maybe once a month.... Then there is a lot in between. Only two things are for sure. Everyone goes where Uncle Sam needs them, and it's DEFINITELY not fair.

Beyond that, there's the thing everyone thinks about when they think about deployments. I will just say, there is nothing fair about the Casualty Notification Officer's job. He/she doesn't pick and choose. The bombs that send him/her to some unsuspecting family's doorstep don't pick and choose. War doesn't pick and choose. Some people die. It completely fucking blows, and it's not fair. Why did that Staff Sergeant die just weeks before he would have come home and met his newborn daughter for the first time? Why did one of the best NCO's I ever met get killed by a roadside bomb last year, while countless people who have done so much less come home unscathed? Why did that sniper choose the Lieutenant who had left behind a wife pregnant with twins, and spare the bachelor Captain next to him? Simple answer: Because that is what war does, it makes zero sense, it is THE single ugliest thing in human comprehension, and it is not fair.

What's more, even the ones who do come home aren't dealt fair hands. One of my friends from Ft. Stewart didn't lose her husband when a roadside bomb exploded under his humvee. She did, however, spend months in Walter Reed with him. That story ends well. He kept both legs, walked again, and was medically retired at a high disability percentage (lots of money) a year later. What about the ones who don't end that well? They're everywhere, missing limbs, having nightmares all the time, heavily medicated, brain injured.... These are soldiers, too. They just aren't the lucky ones. They enlisted just like me, or Thak, or any other soldier. We were just luckier is all.

Every person who joins the Army, whether by enlistment or commissioning, has written the same blank check to Uncle Sam. We all took an oath to do whatever our country needed us to do, even if it cost us life, limb, or whatever else. We all took the same oath. Uncle Sam asked something of each of us, but it wasn't the same thing of everyone. It never has been. Any old vet can tell you that. If you want fair, the Army's probably not your place.