wab said:
Ah, yes, the military system.
"We'd love to promote you because you're qualified and we really really need you... but you just happen to be over the official weight standards. Luckily we've signed you up for mandatory counseling, nutritional training, 3x/week supervised workouts, and monthly weigh-ins. Please don't miss any of these obligations under penalty of UCMJ, and get back to us about that promotion & pay raise when you're within standards. Have a nice day, and don't forget to re-enlist!"
Hmmm... now what can we do to get those retention rates back up again?
lets-retire said:
Rich I'm not saying they want to be obese or a smoker, only that they don't want to do what is necessary to lose weight or stop smoking. I've been there and done that. Eventually, to paraphrase the 12-step programs, they (me) hit bottom and decide to change our behaviors. Bottom is different for each person.
Lets-retire, either you missed the "higher power" part of all those AA meetings or you're eligible for membership in the Navy's submarine nuclear-mentality community. You can't do it all on your own, and eventually even those bottom-strikers need help. Was someone around when it happened to you?
Just as 90% of all aircraft accidents are pilot error, more than 95% of all Navy submarine nuclear incidents are judged to be personnel error. Unfortunately the process of assigning accountability, getting the operator/supervisor to accept responsibility for that accountability, and correcting their deficiencies tends to drive them out of the service. It's sort of like delousing a cat with a flamethrower. I don't miss it a bit yet I find myself reverting to a Type A nuke every time I have the "What
were you thinking?" conversation with my teenager.
You agree with the "Al got stupid" logic, but Caroline has you pegged. I never had the opportunity to look down a gun barrel but I spent over two decades making sure that I and my shipmates didn't get stupid. All of that training is of no use when random acts of destruction (or violence) happen. We can't control or avoid everything but we can take reasonable precautions and be ready to deal with the unavoidable & unreasonable. It's not failure to take responsibility when that happens, but it's naive to not plan for the unthinkable just because we believe that we should have trained ourselves out of it in the first place.
Recognize random chance for what it is-- staying so long in the game that even the impossible happens. Then think about what the survivors should do to recover, not whose fault it is for not being ready in the first place. If any human error is involved, it would be staying too long in the the game. I hear the same sentiments from my nephew the Army Ranger and another infantry captain who's learned about life from Afghanistan.
As for human motivation to change, years of smoking or overeating or alcoholism train the body's biology and rewire the brain's endorphin production. (Exhibit A: Keith Richards.) When someone becomes a different person, they can't just wake up one morning and boostrap themselves into a new, healthy configuration. Cognitive dissonance is all too alive & well in humans (see Exhibit A again), especially when the "good for you" part is made so exceptionally painful by having to haul oneself out of the body's well-worn groove.