Full Circle

This morning at work we had a brief (I've started calling them assemblies because it feels more like a high school assembly than an important brief) that dealt with how to avoid becoming a POW and what to do if you find yourself in that situation. Before the brief started the C.O. gave us a pep-talk on how everyone needs to be getting their affairs in order before our deployment arrives. . .But more on that later.

The acronym for the brief (the Navy loves acronyms) was S.E.R.E. Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape. The brief was given by an Air Force Tech Sergeant who's only job is to train on SERE and debrief people who have been behind enemy lines or POWs/hostages. At one point during the brief he asked the two people sitting closest to the doors to shut them because we were going to discuss "sensitive" information (not classified but still not good for the bad guys to learn). During this section he told us that he gave a brief on resisting interrogation that contained Classified information yesterday, presumably to those higher up in the chain of command. This struck me as another example of the military giving important information to someone more important vs. Giving the information to someone who will actually benefit from it. As far as chances for becoming a prisoner of war or just being kidnapped on our next deployment, I am much more likely to be the unlucky one than our Commanding Officer or some other person who is important to the battalion who will most likely have a security detail traveling with them at all times. However the Navy, in all it's infinite wisdom, gives the good tricks to those who are not likely to use them, and who are less likely to give up information because they feel a larger sense of obligation to the military than Joe-enlisted.

But back to the C.O.'s pep-talk. As he stood up on the stage before our assembly, he told us all of the importance of getting all affairs in order before leaving to Kuwait. There are quite a few concerns, especially for those who haven't made a deployment yet: fill out your will, power of attorney, automatic money transfer for car payments. These are in addition to time that, according to him, should be spent enjoying the company of family that we will not see for 6 months.
There was no mention of the fact that I have been gone on various field exercises for over 1 month of homeport, seven CPXs, missed out on multiple 3 or 4 day weekends due to class, and stayed late getting weapons/equipment/coms cleaned, checked out, or turned in. After spending nearly 2 weeks in Southern Cali doing a desert exercise, I returned to work only to find that I'm marching in the "seabee-days" parade this coming weekend. So much for spending this time with my wife.
As hypocritical as his words sounded, the speech reminded me of one we had at the beginning of this homeport, regarding Equal Opportunity in our battalion and workspace. This EO brief spoke of all the shortcomings we had dealing with people of a different race, religion, paygrade or sex, and stated that such things would no longer be tolerated. Period. Seven months have passed since that first brief and today I was told to fill out another EO survey, presumably to check if things have improved during this homeport. Granted, having the build up feelings from the previous paragraphs I was in no mood to give the C.O. any slack, but I don't know how much it would have affected my opinions anyway. Since the first EO brief I have seen the same preferential treatment given to the same people who were getting it before the brief, and seen the same problems occur and be more or less ignored by the chain of command as a whole.
For the first time in my career I put not one but multiple comments in the "comments" section of the survey and since everyone has a unique ID to log onto the website, I hope my words make their way up to someone important. But maybe I'll feel different about that if they actually do.