When crazy gets REALLY crazy.

The guys who were out in the field stayed in the field. Not one commander brought his soldiers in. They did exactly what they should have done, held the line, and did not cave to pressure. For a brigade that is definitely not the best I've ever seen (far from it, really), they did a great job. They worked with what they had, and continued to train in spite of everything working against them. In fact, they still are. They'll come home in another day or so, as scheduled.

Now, here's where it gets really insane. When a Battalion Commander from one of the units out there released an official statement via our Garrison Commander, a few wives of soldiers in that battalion replied to him with comments such as, "Jesus, man, do you even believe your own bullshit?" and "You're crazy if you think any of that is true. My husband isn't lying to me about what's really going on out there." This to a Lieutenant Colonel!! Their husbands' Battalion Commander!! Who does that?! What's more, every one of these things posts under the person's real name, and these people had very distinctive last names. That LTC won't have a moment's trouble figuring out which of his soldiers these women belong to, and dealing with them accordingly. I do not envy those soldiers for half a second. Being married to someone who talks to a LTC like that is like walking around with a massive dingleberry, only this dingleberry talks trash to your big boss.

That was only a small sample of the insanity to come, though. As soon as darkness set in, blackouts rolled throughout the entire city, and El Paso reached the lowest temperatures in recorded history, boredom set in among the wives of the soldiers who are in the field, and a few of them got the brilliant idea that the news media needed to know how badly the soldiers of this post are mistreated in this cold weather. They alerted our local FOX news station, and this morning, a story aired about the field exercise. I haven't watched it yet. By the time I got wind of most of this, a lot of the stuff had been taken down from the various post discussion boards, Garrison Commander's webpage, and such, but I'm sure the news story is still available on the KFOX site, so I'll have to watch this madness in a minute.

All I can say is, I'm really thankful that I'm not these people. For one, Thak is not in that unit, so I won't have to deal with the fallout from the loud stupidity of several hundred wives, and the severe screw-up of half a dozen (the ones who contacted the media). It won't be Thak who feels the Commander's wrath on that, who ends up working super long hours even when not in the field, doing busy work on weekends, and all the other fun things that Commanders love to hand down when their troops are out of line.

What's more, the very same Battalion Commander who caught hell from those wives, stated that while most of his soldiers have heat in their tents, he and the Command Sergeant Major do not, and that they are doing fine, so he is sure that everyone is fine under the circumstances. Our General even went out there for the day and said the accommodations were sufficient. So basically, what these wives are saying is that something that's good enough for a Lieutenant Colonel, a Command Sergeant Major, and a two-star General, is not good enough for whatever lower-enlisted guy they married? You must be kidding me. If it's good enough for the command group, it's good enough for you. Every soldier learns that pretty fast.

I am also glad that I have more faith in my husband than those wives appear to have in theirs. Maybe it's because I served with him, and KNOW that anyone would be fortunate to be in his charge in any situation, and that he works best when conditions are the worst. I haven't just heard it. I've seen it. When Thak has been out in poor conditions, my first thought is always, "His lucky soldiers. They will fare better than most." followed by, "I'm glad he knows what he's doing." I know there's really no situation Thak can't find his way through. He's done three tours in Iraq, and has never lost a soldier. If he were in the field this week, through this storm, I would not be worried at all for him. I have more faith in him than that. So basically, I guess the question is, why do so many of these wives have so little faith in whatever soldier they married? Why would you marry someone you thought was too weak to stand up to a little bit of cold weather? I wouldn't. I find weakness exceedingly unattractive.

This week has made a lot of people very unimpressed with 4th brigade and wives thereof (no offense to friends who are with that brigade. We all know the good ones from that unit are 10x as embarrassed by this as the rest of us are.) Nothing good is going to come of it. I foresee longer hours, a cell phone ban during field training, and a lot of Commanders trying to restore order to their units. I also do foresee some small amount of fallout to the other units just to try to prevent that kind of thing. I'll be glad to be done with this post for that reason among others. That's one thing about the Army. A few idiots can spoil thousands of people's good time in a hot second if they try hard enough. Well, congrats, people. You obviously tried hard enough. It's going to be an interesting month on this old Army post.