Spin Doctors – An Ode to Military Humor – Springtime Folly

I previously posted about a shakeup in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19^th Support Command, Camp Henry, Korea. Basically, the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, appointed me to be the next chief of the Matériel Readiness Branch. I was essentially replacing the former branch chief who was going off to the wonderful world of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). You gotta love it. He stuck to two fields that he knew. Death and taxes. First, he doled out death in the military, then he went off to tax the shit out of the rest of us poor unsuspecting slobs. Hmmm… I wonder if that sonofabitch had anything to do with the IRS audits that I received the next few years for little bullshit excuses that they called reasons. Their justification was that I had made mistakes preparing my taxes. Bullshit! Two out of the three times that they audited me; the IRS ended up owing me money. The third time, they thanked me for furnishing the additional information they needed to show that I had filled out my taxes accurately. And it wasn’t like I kicked his ass out of the service. I think the Army did that. In fact, I gave him and his family a ride to the goddamn airport when they were getting ready to leave. Not that I was in a hurry to get rid of the sonofabitch or anything like that. Oh, hell no. Well, maybe just a little bit. But that’s beyond the point. Anyway, the old chief was gone, and I was the new guy. I hooked up with my new NCOIC, Master Sergeant Milton Peterson. During my first day on the job, I asked, “Master Sergeant Peterson, what exactly is our job? What does it entail from day to day? In other words, what do we do?” The Master Sergeant answered, “Sir, we are spin doctors. We brief Eighth Army generals on the bullshit, Matériel Readiness posture of all of the military units in country and try to paint any negative statistics in a more positive light. We do that in an attempt to save the Eighth Army G4, and the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19^th Support Command, from getting their asses ripped apart by the Eighth Army generals.” “How often does the shit roll downhill? In other words, how often do the generals go on the warpath?” “It usually happens whenever somebody can’t answer a question that one of the generals asks. That usually happens once every couple of months. You will get a chance to see and experience it all next week when we go up there to present this month’s data.” A week later, Master Sergeant Peterson and I traveled to Seoul to the Yongsan Army Garrison to present our Matériel Readiness data that we had collected on all of the Eighth Army units. We analyzed and compiled the data at Eighth Army G4. Next, we presented our findings to the Eighth Army G4 staff. The deputy G4 for Matériel Readiness informed us that the Eighth Army staff would present our findings to Major General Taylor, the United Nations Command (UNC), United States Forces Korea (USFK), Eighth United States Army (EUSA) Chief of Staff. The deputy G4 for Matériel Readiness told us we were to sit in the audience and keep our mouths shut. I interjected, “But Sir, if we know the answer to a question that the general asks shouldn’t we answer it?” The deputy G4 for Matériel Readiness replied, “No!” “But that’s just dumb. Do you want the general to get his shorts twisted into a knot to the point where he’s in a tizzy fit just because nobody answers his question before his balls get pinched, if he asks one?” “It’s not our job to prepare the General Staff to do their job. They should already know the data before they get up to brief.” “All right. You’re the boss. But letting somebody sink just doesn’t seem right.” Well the briefing started up and was going along fine until the staff got to the rollup charts that showed the Combined Readiness ratings of the command. When you looked at all of the units individually, there were several units that failed for just one line item but otherwise passed the overall Matériel Readiness rating for the month. However, when all of those units were rolled up for a composite Readiness evaluation, Readiness failed across multiple rating areas. If a person were to just look at the statistics presented on the charts, it looked like the command was passing based on the percentages. However, percentages cannot simply be added together to get a composite rating. When the captain had to tell the general that the command was failing Matériel Readiness for the month, it did not seem intuitively obvious to the general. As a result, the general asked the captain briefing the Readiness posture to explain how in the hell the command was failing Matériel Readiness. Well, the captain could read the chart as well as the general and see that the chart showed that the command was failing Matériel Readiness. But he simply could not explain why that was. He had no idea. Finally, he admitted to the general that he had no idea. Then, the general exploded. He jumped up out of his chair and slammed his fists down on the table! He yelled out, “Is there anybody in this room that can answer my question?” I looked at the deputy G4 for Matériel Readiness and said, “I can answer the question.” But the deputy G4 for Matériel Readiness just told me to keep my mouth shut and stay in my seat. I thought that was stupid. The general was about to storm out of the room. He stated, “I expect an answer within the hour or heads will roll.” I looked over at the deputy G4 for Matériel Readiness and said, “Enough is enough. I am not going to let that general walk out of here and think everybody is a stupid idiot.” I jumped up and said, “Excuse me Sir. I know the answer to your question.” The general looked at me and asked, “Who in the hell are you?” “I am Captain Masters, chief, Matériel Readiness Branch, Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19^th Support Command.” “All right Captain Masters. Let’s see if you can answer my question.” I asked the captain who was running the briefing to put up the last slide. Then, I ran down the numbers with the general. I first explained that you cannot simply add percentages. I explained that if you did that, it looks like the command passed the evaluation. But you had to evaluate each individual unit rating separately and roll those ratings up into a composite rating to get the actual rating. When you examined it that way, you would begin to notice that multiple different units failed for just one line item. Thus, when you added the number of units that failed, you would find that the overall rating also fell into a failure category. Once I laid it out for the general, he saw how the calculation was done. Then he asked, “How come nobody on my staff knew the answer to that question, but a spin doctor from Taegu that just happened to be here knew the right answer. Nobody in the room wanted to touch that question. Not even with a 10-foot pole. They didn’t want to tell him that Captain Spin Doctor was sanctioned by Eighth Army to do the Matériel Readiness function for Eighth Army. I also knew when to keep my mouth shut. My NCOIC who would soon come to be known as Friday told me it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. I agreed. There are only so many exercises in futility that a reasonable person can expect to dodge in any given day.

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