Adventures with Captain Crazy

Whenever you're crammed into a few square acres with 2,000 people, you’re bound to run into some crazies.  Especially when most of those 2,000 people are Army soldiers.  And whenever you take 20-something attorneys and throw them into a couple of cramped offices, you’ve got the ingredients for a reality show.  Look, I’ve encountered some strange people in the 4-plus years I’ve been a JAG—Emily’s “Little Buddy” immediately comes to mind—but nothing compares to Captain Crazy.  This girl is a train wreck.  I’ve been a defense counsel long enough to know she’s got a personality disorder.  Seriously.  Fortunately, I don’t have to work with her much, but seeing as how she’s been fired from just about every other job in the office, she could end up in my section yet.  If that happens, I’m defecting … to the Afghan army.  After all, I’ve always wanted to wear loafers with my fatigues. 

Anyway, my first encounter with Captain Crazy was a week or so ago.  We’re helping the Afghans develop a case management system so they can keep track of the people they’ve thrown in jail.  I’m not exaggerating when I say people literally have been arrested, put in pretrial confinement, and several months later everyone is wondering who in the hell that is in Cell Block C (hint: his name is probably Mohammed and he’s probably in Cell Block C because he couldn’t afford to pay a $10 bribe).  So having a case management system, even if it's made out of papier mache, is a big deal.  Despite being a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, this particular captain is helping coordinate the development of the system.  Last week, she sent out an email to the various legal officers involved asking for feedback on the system so far.  Since the system doesn’t work for my Afghan army guys due to them using a completely different criminal code, I took the opportunity to give her a call and discuss ways we can possibly make it work.  I apparently failed to understand her request for feedback meant I was supposed to shower her with praise. 

I was quickly accused of trying to shut down the entire system, ruin the program, and basically cause World War III.  I knew I was in for a treat when my deputy, who was sitting next to me and could hear Captain Crazy screaming on the phone, almost fell out of her seat laughing.  I took a deep breath and calmly asked the captain why she was so freaking crazy accusing me of trying to “shut down the system.”  Words came out of her mouth but let’s put it this way—after the government figures out why those birds died in Arkansas, they’ll be working on the mystery of what the hell this girl was trying to say.  I told her that I was having trouble following her.  I think I may have even said, “Captain Crazy, I hear words coming out of your mouth but they are not making sense to my brain.”  Big, nonsensical words continued to spill from her lips before I finally cut her off and told her that I was simply trying to help.  She then went on a rant about how she doesn’t like it when people call her and criticize what she’s doing.  I reminded Captain Crazy that she had sent an email asking for feedback and that I wasn’t criticizing her or “her” system, nor did I appreciate being accused of clubbing baby seals (this may have been one of the allegations she levied against me; she’s that crazy).  Thirty minutes later, I finally got her to understand that the Afghan army uses a different criminal code, which simply needs to be programmed into this system.  “Oh,” she said.  “Thanks.”  If I were a betting man, I’d say there’s a 1,000 percent chance poor Mohammed will be sitting in that cell on C Block for a long while.

My second run-in with Captain Crazy occurred today.  Only this time it was in person.  In a meeting with some very important people.  And we were the only two people from our office at the meeting with these very important people—very important people who are trying to figure out what is messed up with a particular part of Afghanistan for which our office may or may not be responsible.  Captain Crazy normally attends this particular meeting (although the focus of the meeting is normally blaming Afghans for serious stuff, in which case I suppose her crazy leaps of logic are an asset).  Given the nature of the meeting, Captain Crazy apparently was told by the staff judge advocate to not say anything.  The SJA obviously knows this girl.  Anyway, the SJA wanted me to attend because the meeting involved some issues I've been working on . . . when I haven’t been busy clubbing baby seals.  So the SJA told me to go and answer any questions these important people may have. 


So these very important people started asking questions and I started answering them.  Somewhat surprisingly—especially given the amount of rank present in the room—the conversation became a fairly free-flowing discourse.  Everything was going swimmingly.  I was swatting away their questions like the bats I killed in our Ohio house--thwack!  thwack!  thwack!  I was getting ready for my parade, for the awarding of my medal , for all the backslaps and handshakes and awkward questions of whether I was going to run for president.  Until Captain Crazy opened her mouth.  First, she snapped at a colonel and told him that we weren’t authorized to be talking about the subject matter.  She failed to say that she was not authorized to speak.  She also criticized the colonel for not sending her some information before the meeting so she could silently stew about it . . . since she wasn’t authorized to talk about it in the meeting anyway.  The worst of it is that her stiff arm made us look like we had something to hide.  Look, when very important people are looking at you to provide some kind of justification for why you shouldn’t be blamed for something, it usually doesn’t help to tell them that you aren’t talking.  If there’s anything I learned as a journalist it’s that “no comment” means “yup, I did it.”  Kind of like when Rick Majerus told me “no comment” when I asked him if he had shown his wiener to his basketball players.  True story. 

Anyway, Captain Crazy didn’t stop there.  She proceeded to sit in the meeting with a scowl on her face.  Then she verbally abused one of the meeting participants, a senior-level civilian.  This particular civilian appeared to be a lovely, calm and competent woman.  The woman said something about the Afghan police’s capability to do something.  I don’t remember exactly what that capability was, since I was getting stupider and stupider the longer I was in Captain Crazy’s negative energy field.  I still haven’t totally recovered.  Anyway, Captain Crazy is an expert on Afghan police because she has been working with them for two whole months.  Now mind you, I don’t think she’s ever met an Afghan police officer in her life, but that’s a minor detail.  So being the expert she is, Captain Crazy naturally disagreed with the woman.  The woman in turn explained that, based on her THREE AND A HALF YEARS working with the police, she was fairly certain the police could do X, Y and Z.  She actually said this very calmly and professionally, without any sarcasm or malice in her voice.  Captain Crazy’s response?  “Well, you’re just a contractor.”  She said it like it was a slur.  Forget for a second that most of the contractors here are retired military, including a fair amount of retired generals—saying anybody is “just a contractor” or “just a reservist” or “just a whatever” is rude, petty and unprofessional.  The very important people at this meeting suddenly had very surprised looks on their faces.  Hell, the girl might as well as have clubbed that baby seal right there on the conference table.  And they were looking at both of us—as if I already had a mouth full of seal blubber in my mouth.  I honestly have never been so embarrassed to be wearing a military uniform as I did at that moment.  I thought about pretending to not know her, but it was too late.

The meeting went downhill from there.  I did my best to deflect and tap dance, and I managed to buy my bosses some time to respond later this week.  But don’t be surprised if you see a news conference in the not-too-distant future when some important people say “No comment” to some pretty tough questions.  And if anyone asks what Captain Crazy is doing in Cell Block C, I’ll just shrug my shoulders and lament that there’s no case management system here in Afghanistan.