Efficient and Effective?

A while ago I was at Arlington National Cemetery for the burial of a friend.  As usual, whenever I go to Arlington I also make sure I take the time to visit my mom and dad’s grave, as well as the graves of several other friends (and now the sons of several friends).  I also make it a point to visit some of the graves I don’t know, that is, I wander a little bit through the cemetery.  The cemetery is filled with true heroes, about whom we can rightly – in the words of George Patton – thank God that they lived.

One particular section is filled with thousands of unknown soldiers, all from the Civil War, men who fought and died in that great struggle, but were buried without any chance to learn their names.  There were more than a few people who were wandering through that section, stopping, saying a prayer, in some cases putting a flower down at the gravesite for these unknown souls.

But, luckily, they were chased away. 

Huh?  What?

Yes.  The rule at the cemetery is that if you have a pass to visit a family member’s grave, you are supposed to only visit that grave.  This is to prevent crowding and traffic jams, etc.  So, there are uniformed police who wander around and threaten to give you a ticket if you don’t leave.

Give me a break.

I have been to Arlington a lot.  I have never seen anyone park their car where it might truly block a road, I have never seen anyone not notice an approaching funeral cortege and having noticed not get out of the way.  Perhaps it has happened.  But I suspect it doesn’t happen often.  And there is the point that the Soldiers and Sailors and Airmen and Marines buried in the cemetery have earned the right to have a few guests now and then, even if they have no families.

This all came back to me the other day when I read that the hospital administrators at Walter Reed are closing a café used by folks going through rehab, leaving them to hike across the facility – in some cases as far as a half mile – in order to eat during weekends.  I understand that there are budgetary concerns everywhere, but really?  We can’t afford to keep a café open so these folks and their families can get a bite to eat?

What these two seemingly disparate incidents have in common is that they highlight how government bureaucracies really work.  Even in two cases as seemingly obvious as the national cemetery, where we bury our honored dead, or our largest hospital, where we are treating our wounded, in the end the real rule is that bureaucracies will be served, not the people, and that even a little power will corrupt.

Will the café issue be reversed?  I suspect it will be when it reaches the commanding officer.  Maybe not; maybe he doesn’t have the authority.  Thing of it is, this kind of thing should never happen.  But it will, again and again.  And this in a place where we would all think is the one place where you would never see such things. 

So, tell me, how is the bureaucracy acting in cases like: your health care?  Copying all your ‘electrivia’ (your e-mails, your cell phone, your texts, etc.)?  Safeguarding your rights?  Protecting your personal information?  Do you really trust the bureaucrats to make the right decisions?

How about the decisions the bureaucracy makes in regard to giving people clearances and access, such as with the man who murdered 12 people at the Navy Yard early this month?  It might be that this man represents a very small error rate.  On the other hand it might be that 99% of the people the government investigates and then grants access are good people – there is nothing to find – so whether the investigation is adequate or not becomes, practically speaking, irrelevant; those people will never be any cause for concern. Unfortunately, it also becomes, in practical terms, impossible to know how capable and complete are these background investigations. 

So, ask yourself this: which federal bureaucracies would serve as good examples of efficient and effective organizations?

Please send me your answers.