John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

“Oorah, sir,” Faith said, smiling slightly.

“You’re afraid you’re not going to live up to the standards of a Marine officer,” Hamilton said. “You think the local Marines think you’re just a mascot or a joke. Because your daddy gave you the job, which is true, and that you can’t really do it, which is not true. Do you not trust them?”

“I…” Faith said, her face working. “I don’t know how to answer the question, sir.”

“In your own time, as many oorahs as it takes,” Hamilton said.

“Then, yeah, sir,” Faith said. “I…Sir, sometimes I get parade rest and at ease mixed up. I don’t know how to march and I don’t know marching commands, sir. Not really solid, sir. I’ve mixed that stuff up around the Gitmo Marines, and I know they’re laughing at me. What kind of a Marine doesn’t know how to march? The kind that’s never been to Parris Island or Marine Officer Basic Course. They think I’m not a real Marine, sir, and maybe I’m not. It’s not that I don’t trust them , sir, sort of. It’s that they don’t trust me. They think I’m a joke, sir. I know they do. And…that’s a real problem, sir.”

“If it were true, and it may be, it would be a problem,” Hamilton said. “To an extent. But…let’s start with why it’s not, okay?”

“Okay,” Faith said tightly. “Yes, sir.”

“Did you get into a lot of military jokes…pre-Plague?” Hamilton asked.

“Not really, sir,” Faith said. “I was on some boards and had some friends who were military but…not a lot.”

“There’s a list, been around a long time,” Hamilton said. “It’s a list of ‘Things you don’t want to hear an officer say.’ Basically, when they say certain phrases, bad things tend to happen. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Is it second lieutenants saying ‘Okay?’”

“No,” Hamilton said with a chuckle. “But a few examples. If you ever hear a first lieutenant say ‘I have an idea,’ it’s best to run.”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said, smiling.

“A captain saying ‘I’ve been thinking…’ same thing,” Hamilton said.

“Yes, sir.”

“In the case of second lieutenants, the phrase you should generally fear is ‘In my experience,’” Hamilton said, smiling.

“But…” Faith said, holding up a finger.

“But that’s a very important point , Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “Nobody in the military, not the Air Force or the Army or the Marines or Navy, where it’s ‘ensign,’ nobody trusts a second lieutenant.”

“But…sir…” Faith said worriedly.

“Yes, there is a but,” Hamilton said. “And we’ll discuss that in a moment. This comes first, Lieutenant. You don’t have to be panicked by the fact that your NCOs, some of them, do not fully trust you. That is normal and standard , Faith. It is . You Are A Second Lieutenant. The fact that you’re also thirteen, unable to drive, have a tracing case of acne and have never seen Parris Island are simple cherries on the cake. The jokes about second lieutenants are innumerable and as old as the military. Jokes about junior officers go back to the earliest armies. You can find them in cuneiform and scribbled on the walls of Roman toilets. ‘Tribune Marcus Aurelius could not find Gaul if he was in Alesia.’ Which was a city in Gaul, by the way. Normal standard and customary. It is not directed at one Faith Marie Smith particularly. It’s a function of that gold bar you bear, often referred to as the ‘baby shit bar’ in the Army for a reason. So chill out . It’s not about you . Okay?”

“O…kay?” Faith said. “But, sir…”

“Faith, there are no ‘buts’ on the chill out part,” Hamilton said. “That’s a requirement. Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. You are not trying to clear a super-liner with no help. The world does not rest on your shoulders. There are others to help , Faith. You’re among friends . Okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Okay. And now you’re doing it, sir.”

“I’ve done it for a long time in similar circumstances,” Hamilton said. “You might have caught it from me. But I know when it’s appropriate. So I want you to really try to internalize that, Faith. Absent significant experience to the contrary, as in getting things right when it matters, troops don’t trust second lieutenants . They mostly act as not particularly bright messengers from higher, that being me, and impediments to getting the job done. Good ones, smart ones, follow their NCOs around like baby ducks and try to only whisper possible orders to them lest their ideas be awful. They’re not stupid. Most of them anyway. But they are inexperienced and suddenly dealing on a day-to-day basis with a Brave New World called the Marines or Army or Air Force which are filled with in-jokes, institutional knowledge and arcane terminology, most of which they have no clue about since you can’t cover it all in any reasonable training course, even West Point or Annapolis. And acronyms. My God, the acronyms. So they are, by and large, extremely useless . They exist solely as sort of larva of officers-that-may-be. Some day they may be of use. Some day they may be very good indeed. But not, generally, as second lieutenants. I’m aware that you have a similar lack of experience with the military. Do you get that is how the military views your rank?”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Sort of.”

“There is one sort of second lieutenant that is somewhat more trusted by the troops,” Hamilton said. “That is a mustang. You know what I mean by that?”

“An officer with prior service, sir,” Faith said.

“In that case, the troops tend to trust them more,” Hamilton said. “Oddly, many officers are less enthusiastic even in this day and age. Or were in the pre-Plague military. So we get to your earlier ‘but.’ You are, in a way, a mustang. But your prior experience is not military. It is quite simply surviving and fighting in this environment and doing so splendidly . The problems with this being that you are, yes, thirteen, not prior military much less Marines, and last but not least, even in this age, you are a girl. It was only recently that women were approved for front line combat and none had made it through any of the Marine combat officers’ courses. Very few women have significant combat experience. If there was a woman in the pre-Plague military with as many combat hours as you already have amassed I would be very surprised. So while Marines may be aware of, and often admire, female Marines who have some combat experience, even those women’s experience tends to be limited. And thus they are not thought of as ‘real infantry fighters.’ So all of this causes…Sorry, Faith, get ready…”

“Sir?” Faith said.

“I’m about to pull out a psychobabble phrase,” Hamilton said, grinning. “The term is ‘cognitive dissonance.’ Can you say ‘cognitive dissonance,’ Lieutenant?”

“Cognitive dissonance?” Faith said. “Which means what, sir?”

“Let’s imagine for a moment that you grow up and the sky is always blue,” Hamilton said. “Then one day you’re taking a class in college and the professor quite seriously intones: ‘The sky is not blue.’ Which for certain values is true, by the way. It’s not blue. It’s clear.”

“Okay…sir?” Faith said, frowning. “Really?”

“Really,” Hamilton said, smiling. “That feeling you have, that sort of pulling in your brain, is cognitive dissonance. It’s when your knowledge set is suddenly challenged by new information. It can actually cause some slight discomfort. ‘Thinking about that gives me a headache.’ It’s because your brain is having to open up new areas to additional resources and the disused arteries swell causing a slight headache.”