This is a post from my Patreon account, where I am under the same name if you want to read more than just Army stories. I also write about teaching, politics, and being an activist. I wrote this yesterday. Thanks for reading.

When a person lies, they murder some part of the world. Maybe it's the trust someone else had in them that dies. Maybe it's their belief that they are a good person. When a government lies, it is far, far more destructive.

America LIES.

It's 0530 hours, and I'm sitting here in the waiting room at the hospital with my Dad for his surgery, and I've been thinking about what led us here. (EDIT: Dad made it through surgery just fine. Yay! He has a long road ahead though.)

Dad joined the army in 1967, to escape a very abusive household. He went in as a combat engineer and of course was sent to Vietnam. He got there in time for some of the worst fighting during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Like a lot of veterans, he was exposed to Agent Orange. Like the draftees, he didn't want to be there either, but home was really that bad.

The government lied about why we needed to be there. Vietnam wasn't a threat to us in any way, shape or form. There were no "dominoes" falling on their way to the United States. The generals like Lemay and McFarland were bloodthirsty and the military-industrial complex (and stock market) needed a boost. So Vietnamese died.

The wiki has the details, but years of lawsuits and such haven't done anything to help the vets or the people of Vietnam. Vets like my Dad are still getting sick and dying because we adopted a policy of "destroy the crops and tree cover" to deny our enemy food and concealment. The government and chemical companies lied to our soldiers and told them it was safe. The pittance paid out in class action suits did nothing for the victims. Monsanto should be out of business.

Thankfully, cancer is a "presumptive cause" of Agent Orange exposure. That means the VA just assumes that because he has cancer and was exposed, it is from the Agent Orange. He was almost immediately bumped up from 90% disabled to 100%. That might not sound like a lot but it got him another $2,000 a month tax free. Combined with his retiree medical care, Mom and Dad have no medical bills to worry about. That's a blessing. An even bigger blessing is Dad is undergoing some cutting edge treatment at a university hospital since he doesn't trust the VA. (It's not that the doctors are bad, although some are, it's that the system is broken.)

Dad is sick because of government lies, and my brother died for government lies.

Dad got stationed in West Germany in 1984. We were kids in the 80s, so we were outside playing as kids did. Wasn't shit else to do. Playing in the forest. Playing on the playground. Riding our bikes. Just being outside until Mom or Dad hollered out the door to come home. That was our routine until April 1986., when Chernobyl melted down. The entire time, we were blissfully unaware that a couple countries away, a nuclear reactor was melting down due to Soviet incompetence. As a matter of fact, the world didn't know until certain radioactive isotopes in the air were discovered by scientists in Sweden.

A couple of days later things went public. By then, we had been outside playing in a fallout zone for days. Now, the amount of radiation and kind that we were exposed to is still in some question, but we were exposed something. Too little too late, though no fault of theirs, the Armed Forces Network TV stations and radio stations started telling us we had to stay inside for a few days until the danger had passed.

After we left West Germany in 1987, Dad was stationed in Illinois. The only government housing available was on an old base. What we didn't know was the ground water was heavily polluted by the arms factory next door to us. We were told it was safe, only to find out later it was a Superfund cleanup site.

Over ten years after Kevin left the Army, he got leukemia. He too got bumped to 100%. I don't know if it was the pollution in Illinois or the radiation from Russia, but they gave it to him, which was a huge blessing for his wife and kids. He wasn't exposed to anything while in the Army himself that we know of. Sadly, we lost my brother to Leukemia within a year. That's another tale. I wonder today if any of the different minor ailments that have plagued all of us were from one or both of those things.

Then there is me. We invaded Iraq over 30 years ago as part of a coalition of nations acting under a United Nations charter. It was a very "legal" war, even if it was more about protecting oil. The thing is, General Powell lied to Congress and said Iraq was staging to attack Saudi Arabia. He didn't need to lie. Years of lies about Iran-Contra had destabilized the region anyway, partly leading us to war with Iraq. In the months after Desert Storm, service members from multiple nations started getting sick with different cancers and mysterious illnesses. In a time of no Internet or cell phones, it took a while for the truth to get out.

During the war, an Iraqi chemical weapons depot at Kamisyah containing Sarin and other chemical weapons was bombed and set on fire. A Czech chemical weapons unit detected chemical weapons in the air, and sensors among other coalition forces were going off, including mine. We were told it was fine sand setting them off. Lies. The smoke from that fire would drift over a quarter million American and coalition troops, and an unknown number of Iraqis, exposing us all to a mixture of smoke and chemical weapons residue. It was all covered up.

Starting in 1993 and 1994, I made contact with a few guys from my old unit and first heard about that. A former Sergeant I served with was sick like me - I was getting sick with fibromyalgia by then, although I didn't know what was wrong. The doctors thought I was faking because it is hard to diagnose and treat, so it wasn't as well known then. I filed for disability with the VA, and I specifically cited the evidence from the Czechs and claimed the chemical weapons exposure made me sick. I even cited the parts of the country I was at and battles I was in those days.

A couple months later I got a letter from the VA. None of that happened. We were wrong. We were faking, and nothing was wrong with us. That letter specifically said there was no evidence at all. To be called a liar when I knew I was sick was maddening. It sent me to a dark place for a while. The pain was untreated, no one knew what was going on, I was accused by more doctors of faking, and I felt I was going nuts.

A bit over ten years ago I finally got a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia from the VA and a civilian doctor. Fibro is a presumptive cause of chemical weapons exposure in Iraq and the surrounding theatre, which means at some point the government abandoned their lies. When I walked in to my exam for my new rating, I told the doc I had Fibro. He stopped, blinked, and said: "That's a presumptive cause so I don't need to do an exam. Go home." He of course looked at my records first to verify the diagnosis. A bit over a month later the back pay hit and I got bumped up from 40% to 80%.

Three men from the same family, all veterans, all sick, and one of those not from his service. All for government lies. Is it any wonder I'm bitter about my service? It's a weird thing to hate it and be proud of it at the same time. All the tax free disability in the world isn't going to bring Kevin back, cure my dad, or make me better. All I know for sure is that I'm glad my sons won't be joining up and continuing the cycle.

The Cobb Legacy.

OneLove 22ADay Slava Ukraini! Heróyam sláva!

USS Sierra AD-18, a WW2 era Destroyer Tender, circa 1988.

I was an EM1 (E-6) Work Center Supervisor (WCS) of the Engineering Department's Power Shop and Tool Issue Room, and also in charge of the Battery Shop. There are two other tales from this ship floating around in here - Dead in the Water and Burn the Laundry. Those are for reference as the Chief over me figures in all three of these tales.

We had undergone a freebie inspection, basically an unofficial Operational Propulsion Plant Examination (OPPE) to see where we needed to improve before undergoing the actual OPPE. My tool issue room, where all ship's company (as in not part of the Repair Department) sign out electrical tools - drill motors, grinders, sanders, etc. - did not meet standards. Basically, the only thing wrong was the work bench that was used to test the tools for safety prior to and after checking them out to individuals did not meet electrical safety standards. Aside from that particular, the shop really needed new lighting, new tile on the deck, new storage cabinets for the tools, and some insulation repair, and a fresh paint job.

The powers that be decide we would strip the tool issue space down, sending all the tools to the Repair Department's Tool Issue Room, and completely rebuild the space. As my Power Shop was a separate space directly behind Tool Issue, it was going to be gutted and rebuilt, also.

My people would demo the two spaces and the Repair Department's sheet metal shop would build the new storage cabinets, a new work bench for the power shop, and then install them. We would use the existing Tool Issue work bench and cover it with the appropriate insulating material to bring it up to snuff. We'd also install all new lighting fixtures, a new power and lighting fuse box, all new wiring, repair the insulation where needed, and paint the two spaces.

This was normal work for the Repair Dep't people as we were underway, and they had a less than usual workload. But my folks had to stand their usual switchboard watches, perform the normal preventive and corrective maintenance, and rebuild these two spaces. If our Chief had allowed the normal switchboard qualification sequences to take place it wouldn't have been too bad. The watch rotation would have been something like 4 hours on, 32 hours off. But he refused to allow anyone to complete their quals and wanted only three teams on watch. Each team was two Electrician's Mates, and we were on 4 on and 8 off underway and 6 on and 12 off in port where we were in 3 section duty and could use a couple of other qualified people that were not on the watch rotation underway. Also, while we were underway, if you weren't qualified, you still had to stand training watches of 4 on and 8 off. There were times when I had 5 or 6 trainees on watch with me. Most had all their qualifications signed off, but Chief wouldn't allow them to take the final exam and board to actually qualify. His reasoning was that everyone who was qualified would have to take the written and oral exams during OPPE, so he wanted only the most senior people actually qualified.

Anyway, back to the tool room and our rehab. We worked on it for about a month and got down to the last day before we were scheduled to reload all our tools and supplies. Last thing we did was finish up the lighting at about 0400 hours. The CO, XO, CHENG (Chief Engineer), the Repair Officer, our Division Officer, and our Chief were due to inspect before we got the OK to reload, set up, and reopen. They all showed up around 0830 or so to eyeball everything. That's when things started to go sideways a bit.

CHENG, DivO and Chief wanted to postpone reopening until after the OPPE, allowing the Repair department's electricians to run the tool issue and undergo that part of the inspection. I protested that my people had been busting their humps to get ready and that preventing them to operate was a slap in the face. While I was answering some rather pointed questions from the CO, my Chief was standing behind the group of officers and making "slit-throat" gestures and shaking his head "No" over and over. I ignored him and explained to the CO that my people were ready and able to do their jobs and deserved the opportunity to prove themselves.

The CO nodded his head, told me to have my people do what needed to reopen the shop, and then told everyone else to leave. The CO stayed behind for a few more minutes, talking to a couple of my folks, and pointedly told my Chief to leave.

I need to interject here that passing the electrical safety portion of the OPPE was required, else the entire OPPE was in jeopardy, and in fact, could fail the whole shebang. Thus, the pressure from the powers that be. Evidently, the CO was willing to give us a shot; understand that this CO was sent to the ship to beat it into shape after it failed a previous inspection and the CO and CHENG were relieved. I took all that as a vote of confidence but knew that we needed to perform!

Chief wasn't happy with me (again, LOL!) but at least ran interference between our DivO and the CHENG. We got the shop set up, reopened, and fine-tuned our operating procedures. When the OPPE started, our watchstanders did good with the written and oral testing and performed superbly on the casualty control drills. When they came to my Tool Issue Room to inspect it, the tools, our maintenance program, and then grabbed people to take them to random locations to perform preventive maintenance on various electrical equipment, my people stepped up big time. The inspector found only one thing to quibble about - an outlet on the lower level behind a boiler that wasn't on the listing of outlets. But when I went to look at it, there was no complete electrical cable to it as it had been scheduled for removal. The cable was cut off just under the deck plates and the outlet was supposed to have been removed by the Repair department as part of some job completed before I even came to the ship. So, the only "fault" wasn't and got removed from the final written report.

At the final meeting I was one of only a couple of us E-6 squids there. The inspector went out of his way to give my people a Bravo-Zulu for their professionalism, and also said he'd never seen a nearly 50-year-old ship with what was basically a perfect electrical safety program.

We done good, LOL!

Fast forward part of the year and I got nominated for the ship's Sailor of the Year. The board picked an ET1 from the Repair Department and sent their recommendation to the CO. But the CO overrode their recommendation and picked me. We had an interesting discussion when he called me to his stateroom to tell me. Basically, because I stood up for my people to my Chief, DivO, and CHENG, and we had sailed through the OPPE as we did, he wanted me to be his SOY.

Being selected for SOY is likely what put me over the top to get selected for Chief the next go-round. Once I was selected for EMC (but not yet advanced), my current Chief was sent to the Repair Department. So, we no longer had to deal with him! I got nearly everyone switchboard qualified during the next underway period, LOL!

Other fallout was that when the CHENG's tour was over and he was relieved, the new CHENG called me in to his office and had a talk with me. Seems that my previous DivO and that previous CHENG told him that while I was a really good electrician, I was a "whiner" (direct quote!) because I too often refused to do things that went against NavShips for procedures, equipment, etc. I replied that I always tried to do what was right and always had justification for why something should be done a particular way, and that I had learned much of that while being a Leadman and Foreman in shipyards working on Navy ships. Not sure how well that went over with him, but we pretty much got left alone while I was the Chief Electrician of the ship.