“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Okay. And now you’re doing it, sir.”
“I’ve done it for a long time in similar circumstances,” Hamilton said. “You might have caught it from me. But I know when it’s appropriate. So I want you to really try to internalize that, Faith. Absent significant experience to the contrary, as in getting things right when it matters, troops don’t trust second lieutenants. They mostly act as not particularly bright messengers from higher, that being me, and impediments to getting the job done. Good ones, smart ones, follow their NCOs around like baby ducks and try to only whisper possible orders to them lest their ideas be awful. They’re not stupid. Most of them anyway. But they are inexperienced and suddenly dealing on a day-to-day basis with a Brave New World called the Marines or Army or Air Force which are filled with in-jokes, institutional knowledge and arcane terminology, most of which they have no clue about since you can’t cover it all in any reasonable training course, even West Point or Annapolis. And acronyms. My God, the acronyms. So they are, by and large, extremely useless. They exist solely as sort of larva of officers-that-may-be. Some day they may be of use. Some day they may be very good indeed. But not, generally, as second lieutenants. I’m aware that you have a similar lack of experience with the military. Do you get that is how the military views your rank?”
“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Sort of.”
“There is one sort of second lieutenant that is somewhat more trusted by the troops,” Hamilton said. “That is a mustang. You know what I mean by that?”
“An officer with prior service, sir,” Faith said.
“In that case, the troops tend to trust them more,” Hamilton said. “Oddly, many officers are less enthusiastic even in this day and age. Or were in the pre-Plague military. So we get to your earlier ‘but.’ You are, in a way, a mustang. But your prior experience is not military. It is quite simply surviving and fighting in this environment and doing so splendidly. The problems with this being that you are, yes, thirteen, not prior military much less Marines, and last but not least, even in this age, you are a girl. It was only recently that women were approved for front line combat and none had made it through any of the Marine combat officers’ courses. Very few women have significant combat experience. If there was a woman in the pre-Plague military with as many combat hours as you already have amassed I would be very surprised. So while Marines may be aware of, and often admire, female Marines who have some combat experience, even those women’s experience tends to be limited. And thus they are not thought of as ‘real infantry fighters.’ So all of this causes…Sorry, Faith, get ready…”
“Sir?” Faith said.
“I’m about to pull out a psychobabble phrase,” Hamilton said, grinning. “The term is ‘cognitive dissonance.’ Can you say ‘cognitive dissonance,’ Lieutenant?”
“Cognitive dissonance?” Faith said. “Which means what, sir?”
“Let’s imagine for a moment that you grow up and the sky is always blue,” Hamilton said. “Then one day you’re taking a class in college and the professor quite seriously intones: ‘The sky is not blue.’ Which for certain values is true, by the way. It’s not blue. It’s clear.”
“Okay…sir?” Faith said, frowning. “Really?”
“Really,” Hamilton said, smiling. “That feeling you have, that sort of pulling in your brain, is cognitive dissonance. It’s when your knowledge set is suddenly challenged by new information. It can actually cause some slight discomfort. ‘Thinking about that gives me a headache.’ It’s because your brain is having to open up new areas to additional resources and the disused arteries swell causing a slight headache.”
“So that’s what causes it,” Faith said happily.
“I take it I’ve been giving you headaches,” Hamilton said, grinning. “Good. Proves you’re doing your job. Some people learn to shunt it aside into a sort of box. ‘I don’t like that thought so I’m not going to think about it.’ Those are the people that they joke about a new thought and a cold drink of water which has some truth…”
“Sorry, sir, lost me,” Faith said.
“You’ve never heard the expression ‘You could kill her with a new thought and a cold drink of water’?” Hamilton said, frowning.
“No, sir,” Faith said.
“Skip it then,” Hamilton said after a moment. “The point being that your Marines, the Gitmo ones at least, are dealing with cognitive dissonance. Our job is to get them past it as simply and rapidly as possible. Because the truth is that you really are the right person for this job. If you weren’t, you’d be doing something else in a jiff. I really don’t care who your daddy is.”
“Yes, sir,” Faith said.
“A lot of it will wash out when we get to the action phase,” Hamilton said. “That is where you are preeminent. Staff Sergeant Barnard will obey your orders. She’s not the sort of NCO to undermine her officer. And she will intelligently expand upon them. Just tell her what needs doing and she’ll get it done. Oorah?”
“Oorah, sir,” Faith said.
“Going to cover a few things I haven’t had time for before we get to the skill training,” Hamilton said. “Faith, have you ever really thought about what you’re planning in terms of career?”
“Not really, sir,” Faith said. “I sort of…I guess I sort of thought I’d found what I was going to do if I grow up.”
“If?” Hamilton said.
“No disrespect, sir, but have you taken a look around?” Faith said. “It’s not about being a Marine and getting in scrums, sir. It’s the world. I mean, Cody bought it by falling in a harbor and getting eaten by sharks, sir. If,” she concluded, shrugging.
“Well, let’s go with ‘when’ for the time being,” Hamilton said thoughtfully. “The promotion ladder for junior Marine officers since World War II has been fairly fixed. You spend six months as a second lieutenant, and absent truly screwing up, like getting caught dealing drugs, you get promoted to first lieutenant. And about two years later to captain if you’ve done an even reasonably decent job. But that was then. Right now, we’ve got, well, a zombie apocalypse. We’re actually rank heavy. For less than a company of ‘other ranks’ we have a colonel in charge. We have two other Marine officers and an overabundance of sergeants and staff sergeants. So even under normal circumstances, I don’t see you making captain any time soon. There’s not really any slot likely. It’s not you, it’s…reality?”
“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Sir, I’m not sure I’m qualified to be a lieutenant. I’m sure I’m not qualified to be a captain.”
“And so am I,” Hamilton said. “And that would be the case even if we had a crying need for one. That’s the second part. I think you’re qualified to be a lieutenant and you’ve shown that you can be a good one. You even do paperwork fairly well,” he added, smiling.
“Not…what’s that thing like an asteroid? Not my best thing, sir?” Faith said.
“Metier?” Hamilton said after a long thoughtful pause.
“Sorry, sir, words,” Faith said. “Not me.”
“Got that,” Hamilton said. “But you know, if I had a choice between some glib and glittering staff officer and ‘not words, me kill zombies,’ guess which I’d choose, Faith? Unfair question, that would be ‘me kill zombies good.’ Because, in case you haven’t noticed the world, Lieutenant…”