I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction of my life. I am pretty happy with where I am these days, and enjoy being able to write columns at Task & Purpose while also steering the direction of my website, Duffel Blog.
But perhaps there is something more for me out there. Maybe there is a higher calling. I feel like I can do more to support that 19-year-old lance corporal walking around in Afghanistan, for example, by charging his taxpaying mom and dad something like $50 million for automatic weapons, paying my rent, and the purchase of a Bentley.
Now, let me be clear: This would be a big sacrifice. But I’m willing to give up the lesser things in life for the finer things in life by directly supporting that warfighter on the ground, and myself.
Here’s my pitch:
I’ll start an LLC with a shady-yet-vaguely patriotic-sounding name — maybe American Hawk Consulting or Freedom Intelligence Services, register on FedBizOpps, and then bid on contracts I find interesting in Afghanistan, such as a $536 million deal from the U.S. Army to provide intelligence training to the Afghan military.
Stick with me on this. I think I have a plan that will benefit everyone.
Once I get the contract signed, I’ll hire my girlfriend, my mom, and my 8-year-old son as the company’s CFO, CMO, and CCO (Chief Creative Officer), respectively. Since they are hard workers, I think they deserve a salary of at least $400,000, which is the going rate.
I’ll also spend at least a couple thousand on booze. Might as well hire a couple of strippers, too — just some good clean wholesome fun for the company. And, since we’ve got so many people coming and going through our doors, we probably need to put together a small fleet of luxury vehicles so our professional driver (salary: $125,000 a year) can pick them up from the airport after they return from Bermuda, where we have a lot of pressing business these days.
Oh wait, I’m sorry. I almost forgot to mention all the great things my company will be doing for the Army during this time.
In keeping with the contract, I’ll be helping the Afghans develop their intelligence network. The feds say I am to develop a training plan that will turn regular Afghans into highly-efficient soldiers trained in the world of intelligence, and fortunately, I have an 8-week course that does just that. Training modules include PowerPoints that say things like, “so you wanna be an intelligence officer?” and “writing the intelligence brief: Why you should mention high-level targets of opportunity living in Pakistan for soldiers patrolling in Kabul.”
We’ll always start our sessions with two hours of an intelligence training film from 007, a British firm.
There’s no doubt in my mind that every single one of my training courses will be graded as “successful,” since I’ll be the one grading them.
So I think I’ve made a compelling case. Now let’s just hope the Army goes along with this pitch, again.
