I do not know. What I do know is that by my 6th, 7th or possibly 8th Christmas I was aware enough of this that when we returned home and saw the package from my great grandmother with our Christmas gifts on the porch and it was open, I knew right away that a gift would be missing and that it would be mine. Disappointingly, this proved true. Worse, the gift was irreplaceable, of immense value to me but not of any to one outside the family. Even at that young an age, I was intensely interested in history and my great grandmother filled a photo album with old family photos and gave it to me for Christmas. It was this that was stolen.
The one time I won something as a child was around the same age at a family reunion in a suburban park. Playing some kind of party game, I won a small puzzle. Intensely happy as it was my first ever prize, I put it on the back seat of the car so that I would not forget it or drop it and get it dirty. When time to leave, it was gone. Did one of my cousins take it? I doubt it. Did someone walking past the car actually reach in and take it? Never even got to play with it.
If only one bicycle got damaged or vandalized in a line bikes chained to the bike stand, it was always mine. Whenever there is an error and not enough of something is ordered, I am always in the group that gets left out. Lunches, awards, gifts, presents, even a medal and another award while in the navy. When certain dan are earned in Kendo, customary gifts are presented to the those who just attained those ranks. Somehow, I was left out at each of these after passing 2 dan and 3 dan, each with a different club due to a move. Oh well, par for the course. All conversations about this go the same way, whether in English or Japanese. Me: “Excuse me, Mr. Smith/Sato. I hate to bring this up, but I did not receive X along with all the others.” Mr. S: “But who were there, right?” Me: Yes I was, but I did not get X.” Mr. S: “But you were there, right”. Me: “Yes I was.” Mr S: “And?”. Me: “I was there, X was passed out but I did not get one.” Mr. S: “But you were there?” At some point, Mr S will just stand and stare blankly off into space and I close and depart and no more is said of it. Though as a child I would bring it up again and again and get labeled as a whiner. As an adult, I used to inquire once and then never again. Now, I don’t bother. I know the result.
Another particular reoccurrence first happened to me while a staff member at Boy Scout camp. We were divided into groups based upon the kinds of merit badges we taught. Teaching reptile study, botany and other nature related merit badges, I was assigned to “The Nature Nuts”. The “Bronze Gods” were those who worked the aquatic events. There were other groups besides these but they do not figure in our story. The scout master in charge of the Nature Nuts was the leader of a troop in a town 12 miles from my home town. He was also my drafting teacher in high school.
Besides our teaching duties, we also had chores to do and these too were assigned by our teaching groups, except for me. For a reason that I never learned, I was assigned to the Bronze Gods for clean up duty but no one told my group’s leader this. So, after performing whatever task the Bronze Gods and I were assigned, my leader and high school teacher would track me down and ask why I didn’t show up for The Nature Nuts work detail. I explained that I was assigned to the Bronze Gods for work details, which he discounted. So, for the entire summer, I got the privilege of working on two work details a day while at least one of these Bronze Gods served on none. He somehow kept his name off the duty roster, which may be the reason I was shifted to that group as it may have appeared to be under manned.
“Why did’t you tell anyone, Kitsune?”, you ask. I did. Plenty of times. But my situation defied their understanding of how the world works and I was quickly labeled a whiner and no aid did I receive. As the situation involved one of my high school teachers, the damage to my reputation did not stay at scout camp. The problem of serving two masters would plague me for the rest of my life. It does now with the multiple employers I have. Most are not problematic, but I always have at least one that while they only employ me for a fraction of the work week acts as if they can schedule mandatory meeting that conflict with other jobs or cause other trouble. O my last ship, I was assigned to the O2N2 plant as I had just graduated from that service school. However, the ship was short of pit snipes (those who work in the engine room which is called the “pit” or “hole”.) and I was qualified as a throttle man. Lucky I, I got to stand full watch schedules for two different divisions simultaneously! UHRAH!
Actually, I filled 4 billets (distinct jobs) in three different work centers in tow different divisions. Pit snipes usually stand port (left) and starboard (right) watches which alternated every 6 hours, 6 on watch, 6 off watch. I was truly standing port and report watches, got two 45 minute periods off watch a day for the entire cruise. Just as with scout camp, no help for me and labeled a whiner for trying to solve the issue. The best part was learning that my work center supervisor in the O2N2 plant wrote me up daily for the under instruction watches he assigned me to while I was standing watch at the throttles in the pit. It did lead, however, to the incident I wrote of last year of my being living proof that the bravest service members belong to the navy. This refers to a joke that I am sure still makes its rounds aboard ships and most likely, with changes, in other branches. My situation got bad enough that I as a MM2 told off a BT2 and survived Captain’s Mast, screamed over the phone at some dip shit of a JO and even the Air Boss, whom I threatened, who was an admiral. So I am not certain I have the thick skin attributed to me.
The navy and I must assume all branches of the military are horribly bureaucratic. As a navy vet, I thought what I had experienced in the service would make all civilian red tape laughably small problems to deal with. BOY! Was I ever wrong! The nav has nothing on public colleges. Both are crafted and run by the same demented minds. I am certainly not the only one who was made to dance the “Warren Hall Shuffle” as we called dealings with the school’s admin. The term predates my birth by at least decades, so I know I am not alone in my frustration dealing with those mental midgets who truly do not know what their other hand is doing. What did differ for me was the frequency and intensity I had to dance the Warren Hall Shuffle. Far more for me than any I knew. They lost all evidence that I ever stepped foot on campus each and every semester I was there. Luckily, one of my teachers noticed that my name suddenly disappeared from his class roster mid way through my first semester at the school. He thought it strange that I would attend his class after dropping it, though if I had dropped it, the school should have notified him of the fact. Asking all my other teachers, the same happened with all my classes but just the one noticed or thought to ask me. One of the problems was with the VA. While each semester would have a batch of student data that did not make it into the system, I was the only one who was in that batch each and every semester. When something is sent online and it is not received, the receiver has no way to know it was sent and thus does not know it is missing. The sender does not receive notification what they send is received and thus do not know what they sent didn’t make it until someone comes in and complains. I would end up spending more time in Warren Hall than in class and it was not even close. More on that later. A big reason why I do not trust computers.
While studying in Japan, I was wholly dependent upon my monthly GI Bill check which my parents would cash, they had power of attorney, and buy an international postal money order and send it. Then they stopped. The VA lost track of me again. Always thin, I left the states with a 26 inch waist. I lost so much weight from lack of money and thus food during my first time studying in Japan that I could open both hands flat and slide them in line with my pelvis within my 26 inch waist jeans. Looked like I survived a WW2 POW camp. Not an exaggeration. I have had gut problems ever since.
The school year in Japan is from April 1st to March 31st. To attend class at the University I was an exchange student at, I could not enroll in classes at the home campus that Spring as they would not conclude before I had to leave. After I departed for Japan, the system kicked me out as I was not registered for classes at home. Not only did my GI bill payments cease, I was forced to use my after graduation deferral for my school loans while still in school. But wait, this is but the beginning.
Deferral for student loans is only for 6 months. Do you know of anyone who had to make school loan payments for undergrad while still an undergrad student? Well, you do, and I am he. But it gets worse. It took me 2 full years to get credit for my year of studies in Japan as an exchange student. The computer system would not accept the class dates of my courses taken at a Japanese university. During one of the countless meetings in Warren Hall, I asked my academic advisor how this problem was dealt with in the past. They would just write a note in the margins of the ledger or form and that would be it. With computers, unless someone thought to include it in the work order for the code writers to include in the software, if you do anything that does not fit nicely into the data fields, you are SOL. I was trying to explain my hatred for computers to an older coworker at the gift shop I was then working in. He said that I did not know how bad it was before it was automated. Back when he went to college, the only record of the classes he had was the mimeographed schedule he was given. He once lost his and it took two full weeks to get in replaced. In agony, I cried out, “TWO WEEKS? Two whole weeks?! I would give my left arm to have my credit problem solved in just 2 weeks! I have been meeting in WarrenHall at least weekly for 2 and 1/2 YEARS and they still can’t enter my data into the computer. There is only 3 months left before I am supposed to graduate and they are no closer to fixing it now than they were 2 and 1/2 years ago. TWO WEEKS!” This was big reminder that most cannot comprehend anything they have not experienced for themselves. Same issue with the minimum security prison with a limited school release program mislabeled as a dorm that this Japanese university put me and 4 other students in. That deserves its own post, which it may or may not get. It might as it was quite the lesson in many of the ways and whatfors of Japanese society.
Wow ...