Sweating Bullets

There is probably not a military health care administrator alive who hasn't had a "Staff Assistance Visit" or worse yet, Inspector General visit.  They may be known by different names these days but what they basically are is administrative 'strip search' inspections by higher headquarters staff.  They (meaning a team of functional and management experts) come to take a close look at your programs and make suggestions on how to improve them...or so they say.  While that is mostly the truth, it also true that they will send you packing if you are not doing a good overall job.  

"Not a problem," a Medical Service Corps officer might say to him or her self; "I am doing fine."  But then, you can never be completely sure as you probably carry a half dozen or more hats including some you may not even be schooled in.  Then again, if you are the head administrator, you have four or more MSCs working for you and that drives the number of "hats" into the dozens so you don't know exactly how you are doing either.  Plus, that person inspecting you may have a totally different take on whether you are doing fine or not right?!

So there we were, in the mid-70's at Mountain Home.  A handful of MSC's and a couple hundred health care workers preparing for a Tactical Air Command Staff Assistance Visit headed by none other than the late (RIP) Colonel Emmett Thornell (the Alligator" as he was sometimes called).  Charlie Brown, then a Major, was our Administrator and we were mostly shavetail lieutenants trying to figure out how to do our jobs correctly.  Charlie was a "below the primary zone" administrative whiz who had a lot of written and verbal program advice for us and we were hauling a__ to get ready for the visit as a previous one with a different crew had not gone well.  As his nickname suggested, Colonel Thornell had a tough reputation. As a brown bar I'll confess that I (and maybe some of the others) was pretty intimidated.  

Lt. Charlie Brown
Viet Nam

The visit hit, we did well and I think everyone up to and including the wing commander breathed a sigh of relief.  Charlie set up our next objective for the following weekend...four of us, the "Riders of the Purple Sage" agreed to participate.  There were others invited but I suspect they didn't relish the idea of camping with us reprobates.  Charlie the hospital administrator, Jack Ohl the box kicker, Jerry Salsberry, technical box kicker and I, the resident bean counter headed out for Idaho's Strike Dam for the weekend.  Accompanying us were a recent model Winnebago RV (Charlie's), a Crestliner ski boat (mine), a bunch of easy-to-prepare food including some venison tenderloins and an abundance of beer. 

The trip was just for a day and night but "Oh, what an night" as the song goes.  We had a blast skiing that day and didn't hurt anyone including ourselves. That night we played music, sang at the top of our lungs, arm wrestled and laughed at anything that had the slightest resemblance to a joke.  Far into the night, as the four of us attempted to sleep, one or more would break out in laughter over a comment by another.  Quite a few times, we would begin laughing with absolutely no prompt.  I had never laughed so hard or so often in my life until then and have not laughed like that since...not even for my own subsequent IG and Staff Assistance visits when it was my turn to serve as hospital administrator.

You've "been there and done that" haven't you!? Great memories eh?!