I know I should be putting the whole sordid experience behind me now, but I just can’t quite seem to let the last four weeks go that easily. I’ve given up being disturbed by the structure of the class itself and its mind-numbingly repetitive combination of research and briefings. Currently, my greatest concern is that looking back at it in retrospect there were a disturbing number of what I can only assume are reasonably intelligent people who didn’t seem to be at all troubled by the issues that were driving me all but over the edge. I suppose there’s always the possibility that they’re right and I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve never thought of myself as a free thinker or a radical, but in the context of people who work for the Army, perhaps that’s what I’m becoming by degree. The idea that we’re doing something just because someone with the title coach or colonel says it’s the way makes less sense to me as time goes on. Prove to me that what you’re saying makes sense or that it’s a better way to do business, but my days of blind faith are long gone. I guess as I look back on it, I grow more frustrated that so few “leaders” recognized the waste for what it was and that virtually none were willing to call it out when they saw it.

I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the lesson that I was supposed to take away from the experience, but there it is. The real question, then, is whether I’m willing to keep calling the spades when I see them and dealing with the fallout or whether I’ll give it up and go along to get along.