Government Shutdown = Nuisance

My TV viewing option on American Forces Network

It's a good thing our military doesn't work like our government at times. Just imagine, a US military shutdown in the middle of a war? Yes, we do have our share of "analysis to paralysis" types who clog up our staff work and waste everyone's time with meeting after meeting to discuss the same thing. I had to work with some people like that in Saudi Arabia and it was frustrating for sure. But we'd never just shut down. But our government does and it did. I'm not going to venture into ideology of who's right and who's wrong in the midst of the current mess back inside the beltway. Instead, I'll stick to making mention of some of the ripple effects it has on everyone at the tip of the spear of America's ongoing war on terror. The media appears to have thought that getting paid was the only thing that needed to be resolved where the military was concerned. We're thankful that a resolution was passed to ensure our pay kept coming through this mess. But just paying us without resolving the other issues doesn't make everyone happy on this end.

Perhaps the most obvious effect the government shutdown has on all of us here is the morale aspect. American Forces Network (AFN), which is our sole source of TV entertainment, went off the air sans funding. This meant no college or pro football, no baseball playoffs, no network sitcoms, no anything except The Pentagon Channel (propaganda and old training films) and AFN news to fill us in about the lack of progress in the shutdown. We can deal without the other programming. But no football? Another big disruption came in our ability to make calls home. We have "morale lines" that we can call back to the US to connect with family and friends. But many of these are manned by civilian operators who were furloughed. That left a lot of us scrambling to find other venues to call through. In my command I have a number of Department of Defense (DoD) Civilians who work for me. Some of them had planned to take leave this month. But with the shutdown they can't because if they go on leave they will be immediately furloughed. What? That's just wrong. But it's the way it is. We try not to think about any of this. The resiliency of our military deployed is that we turn these challenges into jokes. But, truth is, we'd like this stuff to get resolved.

As expected, with so many people on furlough back in the US it effects our "reach back" capability with our organizational counterparts. In contrast to what I heard some idiot reporter say on CNN, these civilians were not just "support staff such as secretaries, custodians, and staffers." Many of them were high-level executives who are in charge of important agencies that support our warfighters. While they are on furlough it made it difficult to get action to be taken on our behalf when it was needed. I could go on and on but I think I've made my point. The government shutdown is a drain on us here. But we drive on and try not to let it affect us. Our mission comes first. Unlike the federal government, we don't shut down.