Memories of NATO

Le Siège de Paris
Ernest Meissonier

Meissonier is one of my favorite painters, the one above is packed with historically accurate details and lots and lots of allegory. The lady at the center of the painting represents the city of Paris (Meissonier's wife actually posed for that bit), a city which has seen a lot of turmoil in its long history. (This was the second siege of Paris, the first was undertaken by Vikings in 885 to 886 AD.)

Now the French are an interesting lot (before you warm up your comments to hate on the French, tread lightly, the family name was originally Gaudry, changed by my paternal great-grandfather for reasons which have been lost to time), martially they are belittled by people without much knowledge of history. Sure, the French fell apart in 1940, but in 1812 they actually captured Moscow, something the Germans failed to do.

I've talked with folks who have served with the French, they, to a man, praise their abilities. Peuvent-ils être casse-cul? Certainement.¹ I remember a story related to me by a German colleague in NATO (so perhaps "consider the source" applies here, there is no love lost between the Germans and the French).

Back when I was working on the E-3A AWACS², Boeing would occasionally have the various organizations who operated that type aircraft over to Seattle to learn "what's new" in a new software build. There were four groups: the Americans, the British, NATO, and the French. At the end of the week-long visit there was normally a party.

Except when the French were visiting. Apparently they were all business and made no effort to be nice or friendly. Boeing had a product to sell and the French probably didn't want any fripperies while doing so. I couldn't understand why the French were disliked by Boeing.

Until the day Boeing sent a representative to Germany to regale us with the grimy details of the new build of the Executive software (which was the heart and soul of the AWACS Operational Computer Program, i.e. AOCP, how I remember this 25 years later rather astounds me ...).

Your Humble Scribe and his close associate, one Oberfeldwebel Bendfeldt of the Luftwaffe (known far and wide as Benny), were detailed to sit down with this contractor guy, who apparently had been doing this task for years and enjoying every minute of it.

So on a Monday (why is it always a bloody Monday), Joe contractor walks in carrying a rather thick binder of computer paper. We all sit down, he opens the binder, and starts going through the JOVIAL³ code, line by line.

While Benny sits there, soaking it all in, and being nice, I'm flabbergasted, astounded, and mind-boggled at this latest display of NATO inefficiency (more on that in a bit). I think I lasted a half an hour, a mere 30 minutes, before I asked, "Do you intend to go through this code, line by line, rather than tell us what's new and where we might have problems with this version?" (Boeing issued a standard version which we then had to modify to suit our operational needs, each operating organization having slightly different needs.)

He sat there for a moment, stared at me for a moment, then went back to reading each line of code. I called "foul," went immediately to my boss, and said contractor was on a plane back to Seattle the very next day. (At least that's how I remember it.)

Now I think the reason this really irked me has to do with my "introduction to NATO" a couple of years prior to this incident.

Apparently every new enlisted assignee to NATO underwent a six month period of training. Not every day mind you, the courses were interspersed with one's regular duties, but it took six months to get all the training in.

The first couple of courses weren't bad, just I couldn't see the point of them. Most of what they taught would be picked up via On the Job Training, OJT. But then I hit a third course which was, essentially, Computer Programming 101.

Uh, what?

I had a degree in computer science, the Air Force had made me go to their school, which had been a waste of time and money (though I did have fun in Biloxi, even if it was summer and the average temperature seemed to hover around 90, with humidity the same). I smelled another one of those "someone decided that this was a requirement, so we must do it, even if it makes no sense.

Now I had a boss in those days, an American major, female, who did not tolerate bullshit and was outstanding to work for. I went and talked to her, asking why I had to, once again, learn how to convert numbers from hexadecimal and octal and how to write a computer program. She thought that was odd, so she went up the chain.

Turns out that not every nation in NATO sent programmers to NATO to, ya know, work on computer programs. Especially certain southern European countries whose names begin with "I" or "G." For NATO was sweet duty for them (one Italian told me that basically being assigned to NATO doubled their salary). So their governments liked to spread the wealth.

Among some of my colleagues were air traffic controllers, security policemen, administrative types, etc. From what I understood at the time, those nations didn't have computer programmers in their militaries (though I may be misremembering).They could spell "computer" but that's about it.

So someone, I suspect an American, decided that those folks from other countries should be trained. Then, I suspect a southern European, decided that it was unfair to make their guys take this training, everyone should take it!

I threw the bullshit flag, my boss reviewed the tapes (so to speak) and it was decreed that if someone showed up with a computer background, and had the proof of training therein, then that person need not take the NATO training. The cries of "unfair" fell upon deaf American and German ears. (Less people taking the training, less money spent on same.)

As back then it was primarily the Germans and the Americans footing the bill, our votes counted more. (To show the importance of those two nations at Geilenkirchen, command rotated between a German general for two years, then an American general for two. All the generals we had when I was there were Sierra Hotel.)

At least that's how I remember it.

You may note that there is no new chapter to Uprising, I am working on it but work has started to display an element of suckage that heretofore it did not. New management dontcha know, as people move on. Process is king, status über alles, and who cares whether or not we deliver crap to our customer?

Retirement is looking sweeter and sweeter. While I'll miss some of my co-workers, it's time to hang up the cleats. No later than the end of the year. I've enjoyed myself up until now. It sucks to watch it all turn to shit. Early days though, maybe it'll improve.

Though I shan't hold my breath ...

/rant

¹ Can they be a pain in the ass? Certainly.

² Airborne Warning and Control System.

³ Jules' Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language. I shit you not.