OSHA in the combat zone

Its axiomatic that the young are careless and display little "common sense". This is because they have an amazing ability to listen to but completely ignore sound advise. "Knowing everything" when you're young is both a advantage and curse. If you survive the youth phase, then you may have gained a measure of what people recognize as wisdom. Wisdom isn't anything special, just a bunch of collected painful lessons that act as predictors of future outcomes. Really sharp people are able to absorb other's lessons as part of their own when those lessons were particularly dire or fatal. The less sharp, don't and get their own chance to learn first hand. Nothing hurts or teaches like pain(physical and/or metaphorical) - her embrace imparts lasting life lessons no classroom course work could ever hope match.

Acute Politics

[...]The modern military combines part big brother society with part warfighter[...]

[...]the most mundane and common-sense workplace safety practices often warrant a official warning. These warnings are usually accompanied by graphic photographs of the one idiot who managed to mutailate themselves in spectacular fashion.

Since I've come to Iraq, I've learned that you should not attempt to exit a moving vehicle or I may injure myself. I've been told that in the event of a rollover, I should not try to open the uparmored door that is now above my head lest I be crushed under it. I've seen pictures of what may happen to me if I hit my hand with a hammer, or get too close to a dirt auger. I now know that I shouldn't play with knives, and that opening the feed tray of a weapon while it is firing may be bad for my health.[...]

More by the same author HERE - this guy is is a very good writer.