unready

iraqi trainingI just read a fascinating piece about the difficulty of training Iraqi troops. One major problem is that these poor guys are being pressed into “service” (survival) way before training is complete. And apparently, there’s nothing like actual combat to screw up combat training. Survival (understandably) trumps procedure. That’s why, when US troops return from combat, the Pentagon classifies them as “unready” until they can be rested and retrained.

I think this is brilliant. One complaint about formal education is that it doesn’t prepare you for “the real world” (it can’t, because it isn’t). The flipside of this, though, is that the real world is guaranteed to knock whatever good sense / integrity / principles you may have right out of you.

So maybe that’s what “time off” really ought to be, at least in part. Rest, of course, but also retrain. Think through why you are doing what you do, and how you are doing it. Review the fundamentals. Try to forget the workarounds, shortcuts, compromises, etc. that “reality” forces on us. And start anew. Ready.