I am once again actively engaged in documenting a gaggle of adventures that I used during my career in materials management, primarily in the manufacturing field at numerous sites throughout Texas. These “stories” I used repeatedly during my career to highlight points and as a way to ingest circumstances into a discussion of “what we are trying to do” and how others got into like situations and what took place enabling them to remove themselves from the situation.
I found these stories to be very beneficial to those working for and with me. I used this tactic of storytelling to present like facts and encouraged the discussion of these facts, all the while twisting the events related around until the group finally realized that they were actually discussing our current event and actually had already began developing solutions to remedy the trouble.
Over the years I discovered that those involved in the discussions enjoyed hearing and analyzing the military related stories more than their civilian counterparts. It dawned on me, something I had always known, that everybody likes to play Army even though they won’t go out and join up – they still like to play. I think this is the primary reason that they usually wanted to hear a military related situation as opposed to a civilian.
Bare in mind; the stories that I am gathering have a military setting, but are actually just about people. One could draw a direct relationship between any one of my stories and a civilian operation. The stories, in the Army are called “war stories,” but actually not a one involves war at all. They are support troops doing what support troops do – the exact same things that their civilian counterparts do everyday of the world.
I have passed a great many of them around to get the comments of others and have found most to be favorable. I continue to work at achieving a balance between military and civilian situations – not for my benefit – just to satisfy those nay-sayers that don’t believe the general populous will read a manuscript containing a majority of military references. I disagree as my experience has proven otherwise – but I continue to please.
I have established my goal for completion to be within the next couple of months and then the hard part actually begins. I have really enjoyed the writing effort as it has brought back memories of some real good times and even better acquaintances – some of whom I would really enjoy talking with (read shooting the bull) just one more time. I treasure these guys and will never forget them. They are the individuals that maid me who I am today. Without them, I would (just maybe) be a completely different individual. I’m just guessing here!
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