Standing here typing, listening to Garth Brooks, my mind will not relax to sleep. Reason unknown, but these thoughts seemed to need to be written, so here goes nothing:
- Can a person have too much experience and too varied a resume? I’ve been a Jack-of-all-Trades for so long, but is that damaging my professional brand?
With a tour active-duty Army, a stint in the US Army National Guard, and a tour of duty active in the Navy, my SMART transcripts are thick with experience. Add in the correspondence courses, the moving from state-to-state in the guard, I have collected job specialties/Military Occupational Skills (MOS), and civilian experience to the Nth degree.
In Fourth Grade, I heard about Cracker Jacks, how they were specialists in being Johnny on the spot to fill the needs demanded. I have turned this into project, program, and change management, and supported it with formal and informal education. What is too much? How do I know when I reach that point?
- Garth Brooks sings a song called “Ireland.” The song is more of a saga than a song, and it tells the story of an Irish Army, on the short end of long odds and outmanned. Since I first heard this song, it has struck those chords in my soul, reason unknown. Having been on the receiving end of long odds and understaffed, I understand the sentiment of this song on an almost spiritual level.
I’ve been in professional situations where I was the victim of lies, physical violence, and sexual assaults from both men and women. People who desire to make themselves feel better by making another person worse. I’ve been fighting bullies my whole life; bring it on. You cannot put the “Skeer” on me! Funnily enough, I sure have the Skeer on a LOT of others, mostly without ever trying.
Recently an event from the US Navy came forcibly to mind, one of the few times I put the Skeer on another person, then kept that Skeer up to the day I left the ship. I had a member of my chain of command physically assault me. I stepped toe-to-toe, looked him straight in the eye, and swore to the depths of my eternal soul that if he ever thought of touching me again, I was going to stuff his lifeless body into a saltwater compensated fuel cell, and all they would find of his remains would be atomic molecules as they went through the engines and into the atmosphere. He never looked me in the eye again, touched me, and left the space crying. I never touched him, but I got my point across.
I have carried the injuries from that day to this, and the VA refuses to acknowledge these injuries or their severity. The VBA continues to deny that a male can experience military sexual trauma from another male. But I put the Skeer on the perpetrators, and this comes with no satisfaction. The law refused to support me; UCMJ failed even to acknowledge these issues while punishing me for the smallest of infractions. Where is justice?
I was one of a tiny minority who was sent to Captain’s Mast (UCMJ, Article 15) proceedings, whose NCOER score went up after being sent before the mast. My lowest NCOER score was 3.5/4 during my entire enlisted period US Navy. But I could not get promoted, refused transfers, and was denied everything because I was “Too valuable to the command,” but this did not stop the command from sending me before the mast every six to eight months. I have scars from the bullies, but they never broke me!
- Since June 2022, I have been pleading on my blog, LinkedIn, and Facebook for participants for my dissertation research. Unfortunately, the research participation rate hasn’t exceeded zero—more reasons unknown.
Have you ever sat through company training and a trainer made an impression, for good or ill, on your growth with that organization? Do you train others, hoping you are influencing the students in your classroom? Do your official duties include leading training efforts for your company? Please click on the link to enter the survey/questionnaire:
- Employee: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GCUonlineemployeesurvey
- Trainer and Front-Line Supervisors: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GCUcorporatetrainersurvey
- Senior Trainer: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GCUSeniorTrainer
Have you successfully been coached or been the coach to another? What about mentoring? Have you received mentoring or been a mentor? Your insights are vital to my research, and I want to showcase your insights to other researchers to help improve company training programs. Please, join, and let’s change the world.
- On the topic of the VBA, did you know you can have a VA provider diagnose you with PTSD and be denied VBA benefits? I would never have believed this was possible until it happened to me. The civilian provider doing the PTSD exam claimed a person could not experience PTSD unless they were in combat. If anyone knows how to successfully change the VBA’s mind, don’t hesitate to contact me. I need some help on this claim!
The inconsistencies in my claim baffle and bewilder me to no end. The abuse by the VA’s ineptitude and deleterious attitude leaves me thinking about running for office, if for no other reason than to stop the depredations of the VA. Any lawyers out there looking for a fight, itching to correct a wrong, and want to join?
- I am almost finished with an advanced degree in industrial and organizational psychology (I/O Psych), and I am appalled by many of my colleagues. Not those in I/O Psych, but those in other psychological fields, psychiatry, and the medical field. I am not denying that kids (age 9-18) are often confused about their bodies and have fanciful ideation about being a different gender. Sometimes these thoughts and feelings need professional support to understand and cope. But recommending surgery to mutilate their bodies permanently is morally, ethically, and borderline legally wrong!
In following the gender dysphoria topic, I have read the heartbreaking stories of those who transitioned, mutilated, and then eventually came to themselves and wept for that which has been lost. Related on these blog pages are several stories of people I have known, who have experienced rape, beatings, and tremendous pain due to gender confusion, jealousy, greed, and a compliant medical industry hellbent on doing harm. Why?
I repeat my question, only for emphasis, if your actions are so life-affirming and positive for you, why are you so hate-filled, angry, and abusive to others? If the mutilation of healthy tissue is not immoral, unethical, and borderline legal, why the secrecy, silence, and walls of hate when approached on this topic? These are honest questions. The research does not support any conclusions; expect to plead for more research. Science is not settled on any issue, let alone the alteration of young bodies and minds.
Writing these questions and thoughts down is therapeutic. If they help you, I have accomplished my purpose. I close with a thought:
“Ask yourself the hard questions, never stop asking, and allow your answers to change as you do.” Colin Wright
I affirm in the strongest words I am not a victim, I am not the same person I was at 18, and I glory in the ability to continue to change. Ask questions, learn, and change.
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
Since the first time the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) lost my identity, e.g., the unencrypted hard drive incident, I have monitored the VA’s data security practices. Let’s say I have a vested interest in 
The annual audit is conducted by a third-party, “CliftonLarsonAllen LLP,” who audited 48 major applications and general support systems hosted at 24 VA sites that support the VBA, VHA, and National Cemetery administrations. The VA-OIG reports the following:
While the VA deserves congratulations on closing two antique audit items, they were expected to close ALL aged items during the 2020 FY. Yet, the administrators were still able to skate responsibility, skirt accountability, and act like Sonja Henie at Oslo. Tell me, if your boss expected you to complete a bunch of items, gave you a full year to complete these items, would you be fired for only completing two items? I know I would! As a project manager, if I didn’t have a plan in writing, showing completion dates, inter-relationships, and explicit action items set up within 30-days of being assigned the tasks, I would have been fired! Yet, somehow these VA Administrators, hired to perform these functions by the Government, cannot even communicate, let alone accomplish tasks assigned! Who were the project managers, contract officers, and program managers, and their respective administration officials, line them up and fire them!
The VA-OIG reports, “Despite VA’s commitment that the recommendations would be closed, some of them have been repeated for multiple years [emphasis mine].” Is the connection between the administration officials, their assigned workers, and the failures and designed incompetence clearly observed? I ask because the VA-OIG closed this report with the most useless conclusion I have seen in years of reading these reports! “The VA-OIG remains concerned that continuing delays in effectively addressing the recommendations could contribute to reporting a material weakness in VA’s information technology security controls during the FY 2021 audit of the department’s consolidated financial statements [emphasis mine].”
That the VA administrators continue to hinder improvement at the VA should be grounds for immediate dismissal! Yet, these administrators are allowed to retire with full benefits, cushy benefits packages, and the veteran is left with nothing! Where is Congress in enacting legislation that enables the Government to reduce, remove, or refuse a retirement package for administration employees who cannot or will not act in a manner that reflects competence and ability in following congressional demands and meeting operational standards? Where is Congress working with the VA Secretary on productivity problems caused by administrators who actively hinder improvements at the VA? Why is designed incompetence even allowed as an excuse for failure?
DNC-Consulting 