I'm in a union

[Divinus Arma]

Congrats! How's the knee, is it going to hold up?

Thanks. Not too bad. A little stiff here and there with very mild pain on occasion. It was a medial meniscal tear or something like that. I indeed tore a ligament, but not as bad as I thought. It's healing okay. I get an MRI in about a week, and then a consult to see if a minor surgical procedure is recommended. I'll probably turn down the surgery, given that it would lay be out for a week or three, and I can ill afford that with the new job. I wouldn't mind getting a full repair, but life is just not going to afford me that opportunity right now. I can't turn down the best job in the world right when my little girl is coming. Daddy needs medical insurance and a paycheck.

Edit:

Eclectic, I'm not asking this rhetorically, and I would like a serious answer -- does it ever bother you that so much of your career has involved salaries derived from tax dollars? I realize that the pay is nothing compared to the personal sacrifices and dangers you have faced, but still, it seems like there might be some friction between your strongly held beliefs and the way you put bread on the table.

You must think I have an aversion to the existence of government. I'm not an anarchist. I'm a public servant by God. Let me give you the long term plan so you know where I am aiming. My career began, and will continue, in emergency service. I finish my MBA next spring and then I can start teaching at 2 year colleges online part time. 6 months after, I'll get a Master of Public Administration. Then I go right into a PhD in Public Policy from Walden U. The goal in all of this is to reach executive level emergency services management by retirement. You see, I take the position that government should be run as a business. Government administrations should be run with the same organization efficiency as a fortune 500 company. The government has cost centers and profit centers just like a regular business. Take the post office, for example. That is a profit center that can be used to turn down costs in other parts of the federal government. The same goes for law enforcement (you didn't think traffic cops just cared about saftey did you? Hellloooo city finance!), emergency medical, and other sources of non-tax income. In fact, I would like to see a government run without taxes at all. Dreaming? Maybe. But by taking elements of government that cannot be privatized and by turning them into brutally efficient revenue machines, we can trun down the cost of government and provide the customer/citizen with an improved product in every aspect. What is that product? Governance. Since we cannot be rid of it, let's do it right. I'll apply the principles of Business to the bureacracy of government, and turn the whole house upside down.

2nd Edit: By the way, my money will not be made in governance. It does the job now, but my wealth is to be made elsewhere. I'm taking a significant paycut from the military to take this job. I actually have to pull a touch of dough out of my investments to make ends meet for the next year.