In the 18 months I spent at DLI, I’m happy to say I only met two insufferable sergeants. One criticized me about something almost every time I met him. He had been to airborne school and though he was a model soldier. Well, I’ve jumped out of a plane too; it’s not that big a deal. I was relieved when he failed out of the Arabic course.

The other sent me a condescending email after I incorrectly addressed a sergeant as ‘sergeant’ in an email as though I were speaking to him rather than the three-letter abbreviation followed by his last name. In fairness, I should have searched ‘how to write an Army email’. Anyway, this sergeant signed off his email with some silly title like ‘Lord Commander Viceroy Staff Sergeant So-and-so Esquire’. I replied to that email using the title he had just bestowed on himself and explained my mistake. And that was the last time he ever spoke rudely to me.

When I was about to leave DLI, I met him one more time. He asked me how I did. I said ‘I passed, sergeant’ then turned around and left. Throughout my life, I have been accosted by people who, even if I walked on water, would then yell at me for not knowing how to swim. Fortunately, I learned how to give them a taste of their own medicine.

I must say, the Army’s no drinking rule at DLI was good for me. I was forced to cut way back, which was good anyway because I doubt I could have learned Arabic or met the Army’s fitness standards had I been allowed to drink as I pleased. Nonetheless, the Army is the only branch at DLI with an alcohol ban and worked about as well as Prohibition did. The main effect of the alcohol ban was to make liars out of many otherwise good soldiers.

The base I went to after DLI was far less pleasant, in fact I felt like a juvenile delinquent in a minimum-security prison for the ten weeks I was there. It was disappointing that after completing one of the longest and hardest schools in the military, my reward was to be treated like a prisoner. One of the biggest and most chronic problems in the military is taking something which is acceptable in small doses and then taking it to such an absurd extreme that any possible benefit is gone. That is, it can be good to toughen people up with harsh treatment, but the amount I experienced was ridiculous.

The library was excellent, and it was there I read About Face by David Hackworth. It’s probably the single best book about what it’s like to be in the Army, both in war and peace. It was disappointing to read that many of the things he complained about are still present in the Army. These things include worthless and/or unrealistic training, pointless paperwork that is often falsified, and the punishment or discharge of soldiers for minor infractions. Hackworth himself lied about his age to get into the Army and had to falsify the paperwork again later to avoid punishment. He also won several medals for bravery as he rose to the rank of colonel, which I think more than compensates for his initial dishonesty.

And much to my chagrin, I had to do battle with another obnoxious sergeant there. It wasn’t just me. Nobody liked her and the only positive interaction I had with her was the time when she told me I had dropped my wallet. Once during the weekly mass breathalyzer, I didn’t take a big enough breath before I blew, so I had to take another halfway through. She yelled ‘why did you stop?’ and so after calming myself, I said to her very slowly ‘I. ran. out. of. breath.’ Stupid questions exist. They’re the kind that stupid people ask. They don’t get smart enough just in time to ask the question.

It was at this time that I learned that my first assignment would be with a military intelligence unit that supports the NSA. For a libertarian like me, it came as a bit of shock, but since I had come this far, there was no turning back. It was nice to arrive at Fort Gordon and be free of all the silly rules I tolerated while in training. It was especially pleasant to be able to buy alcohol and not have to lie about it or hide it. My mantra in training when asked if ever broke the no alcohol rule was to reply: I scrupulously follow all rules and regulations, just like everyone else in the Army.

I got there at the end of January 2018 and after a few months of in-processing and refresher classes, I went on mission in June of that year. I didn’t know how long my wait would be, and because I didn’t want to get stuck as a gate guard, I volunteered for a deployment to Syria that spring. I was relieved to have such a short wait for a real assignment. Many I knew from DLI had to wait months or even a year before they started doing the job they trained so long and hard for. It takes about 3,000 hours to train a military linguist and it costs about a quarter of a million dollars. And despite all the incentives, the burnout rate is high and the reenlistment rate, especially for the Army, is low.

As a side note, I had to sit through about 100 hours of PowerPoint between my arrival and Fort Gordon and my first day on mission. In my opinion, that’s about 95 hours too many and it’s on top of all the other death-by-PowerPoint sessions soldiers must endure these days. While I was trying to build up my promotion points, I spent many hours pointing and clicking to complete courses whose content was irrelevant or quickly forgotten. One course had a section on how to direct naval gunfire, which would be relevant…if it was 1942!