Why War is Good
by Henry Simpson
Armstrong
Consulting was a gray rectangular box with
identical rows of windows that gave it a prison-like
appearance. At the entrance hung a limp American
flag and a Texas Lone Star’s. After getting
past security and the receptionist, BJ took an
elevator to the top floor and crossed to Dr.
Armstrong’s door. An attractive blonde
greeted him and sent him through to the inner
office, where a graybeard in a wrinkled suit was
sitting behind a huge desk, He motioned for BJ to
sit on the ladderback chair facing him. “Welcome
to Armstrong Consultng, BJ. Let’s talk about
your career here in Alamo country.”
“Yes, sir,”
BJ said.
“Lose the
sir, son. We’re informal in these parts,
unless we got visiting bigwigs. Relax ‘n
call me John. What should I call you?”
“BJ is
how everyone does that.”
“For
Robert or Bobby?”
“Naw. It’s
just BJ.”
“Sounds
like your dad, he short-changed you, did he?”
Armstrong smiled.
BJ forced a
smile. “Me and dad are both Bobs. He didn’t
wanta call me Junior so he always called me
‘BJ.’ It’s followed me ever since.”
“Sure, I
get it. To avoid confusion, is that it? Listen up,
BJ. Like you, I’m a Billy Sears alum just
like you. I like that school. And your resume.
General studies. That’s a fine background to
start a career. What was your most difficult
subject?”
“Electricity
was. Tesla was supposed to be a genius for
alternating current. It wastes lots of energy,
going back and forth like that. I don’t
believe in the theory. You can’t see it, you
can’t hear it, you can’t smell it, or
touch it. It can’t be electrons lining up
and running through wires like ants on parade.”
Armstrong
blinked. “We appreciate creative thinkers in
this company, BJ. I’m impressed by your
achievement, graduating from BSU, after growing
up way out there in West Texas, with your dad a
disgraced alcoholic business failure and you
having to work your way through BSU on your own.
Heart and head matter more than any school. Our
business is with the military. They don’t
give a shit about theories. All they want is
explanations their simple minds can grasp. They
call us with problems and contract us to fix
‘em. We write technical reports with fixits.
Military decision-makers reject any fix that
changes anything. So it’s an endless cycle
of new contracts, new reports, and the money
keeps coming in. Our business model is based on
war. War is good for business. When it’s
peaceful, the business changes to preparation for
war. Either way, we win.”
“Wow,
John,” BJ said. “That’s an inside
bet.”
Armstrong
stood up. “How about it, BJ? Are you ready
to join my team?”
BJ stood up
and nodded at Armstrong with gusto. “Yes,
sir—John. Sign me up.”
They shook
hands across the desk. Both men sat. Armstrong,
now serious, and almost stern, “BJ, I want
to welcome you aboard my ship and offer you a
little advice. Universal principle number one is
to always follow your leader. Number two is, we’re
consultants, not ditchdiggers. We tell our
clients what to do. If we don’t know how, we
hire educated and experienced temps who do, they
write the report, and we put our name on it.”
“How soon
can I start?” BJ said.
“Today,”
Armstrong said. “Take the elevator all the
way down to the Personnel office, ask for Bertha,
and she’ll get you going.”
BJ started
that day, arranged a generous advance on his pay,
and rented a studio apartment a bus ride from the
office. His job title was a “Staff Marketing
Administrator.” Bertha assigned him to a
proposal team that worked in a large room of
numbered cubicles, each with a chair, computer,
telephone, shelves, hat rack, and file cabinet.
BJ’s supervisor ordered him to review a tall
stack of old proposals and technical reports,
participate in brainstorming sessions to invent
new contractable tasks, draft proposals, meet
with customers, write technical reports, make
presentations, celebrate wins, analyze failures,
and contribute “lessons learned” to a
computer data base.
In a few years,
he was promoted to “Senior Marketing Manager”
and charged with supervising underlings, which
involved firing laggards, loudmouths, and those
with negative attitudes about anything.
Unofficially, he was expected to schmooze his
superiors and torpedo potential competitors. The
firm recognized his talents and promoted him to
“Senior Scientist,” in charge of
several projects.
In due course,
JR married a co-worker. She quit her job, they
bought a condo, and they had two kids, a boy and
a girl. BJ named the boy “Bob” after
himself, technically Bob III, and nicknamed him
“Bobby” to avoid possible confusion
with himself and his father.
Fifteen years
passed and, after several projects, the firm
promoted BJ to “Principal Scientist,”
of which there were only three in the firm. With
this, he attained power and enough seniority that
co-workers feared him, women flirted with him,
men kissed his ass or avoided him, and he became
impressed with his personal success, which he
attributed to his grit for overcoming his father’s
reputation. BJ’s numerous short-lived love
affairs endangered his marriage, his wife sued
him for divorce, and he moved from their
McMansion in the Alamo District to a cheap
apartment near where he had started years ago, a
bus ride from the office.
Then,
something changed at work, so gradually that BJ
hardly noticed at first—a slow, year-after-year
decline in new contracts, and smaller contracts
for pissant jobs. Armstrong called an All Hands
meeting late one Friday afternoon, announced
layoffs, and urged staff to reduce overhead.
After twenty years, the traditional wild winter
and summer parties were cancelled. The coffee
bars were replaced by do-it-yourself combinations
of hot plates, instant coffee, and hot waterworks
taps. Shortly after that, Armstrong was forced
into retirement following a visit to rehab and a
financial audit. BJ attended weekly going-away
parties for those who left of their own accord or
were moving elsewhere or changing careers to find
a job in an industry not subject to the whims of
military procurement officers in far-away places.
For all their effort in those waning days,
nothing of significance came except hard times,
and, eventually, closure. It was the end of that
place, and the end of BJ’s career in that
place. After consulting his astrologer, BJ
decided to attend graduate school, earn a Ph.D in
Education, and become a college professor.
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