The General’s thrown me out of his office. Again. All I was doing was complaining about the Air Force fraternisation regulations. Again. Hey, I’m in love with an officer under my command – I’m allowed to complain. I swore next time the President came to visit, I’d have a word with him about my grievances. He hasn’t been back since that zatarc incident; the incident that started all of this I suppose.
Hammond said I should look at the regulation from the other side; as if I was one of those big stuffy ten star generals who like ruining lives. Considering I have nothing better to do with my time, I’ll try it just to humour myself. Okay, so the regulations state that officers may not have sexual relations. Hey – does that mean if Sam and I go out and not have sex then we’re okay? No, maybe not. Stupid fraternisation regulations, which I, as the ten star General, have implemented. I don’t want officers getting emotionally attached to one another, in case the senior rank has to send the other to his or her death. Well, considering I’ve shot and essentially killed her, I don’t think it matters here. I’m emotionally attached to all my team anyway, because we’ve worked together for five years now, and I’ve proven that I don’t treat her any differently because I’m in love with her. Surely the Air Force should trust two officers to keep a personal relationship away from their work.
Anyway, I’m no longer a big fat evil general, I’m an impartial observer and basically the fraternisation regulation is still stupid because of the variety and number of bases it has to cover. If you’re stationed overseas, and you don’t speak the language (been there, done that) then your only possible dates are all from on base. If you work in a highly classified project then trying to have a relationship outside of it is near impossible. Working at Stargate Command especially so. You can’t explain how you manage to get injured all the time just working inside a mountain. You’re away for days at a time sometimes, and can be called on at all hours of the day or night for anything. We give our lives to the job, and even though part of the Air Force motto is ‘service before self’, it would be nice to be able to actually share what social life I do have with another person, and as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one candidate for that position. She’s just not allowed to fill it.
Two officers are in love, but because they have not expressed it, they do not violate any regulations, but the problems that the regulations try to prevent are still present. I refused to leave her behind, and I haven’t slept with her. I hadn’t even kissed her before then (excluding alien viruses and alternate twins) and the only kiss when it was truly me kissing her was in a time loop. No consequences, and she will never remember it.
Hammond said I should look at it from their point of view. Well, if you ask me, they should be the ones looking at it from the other side. They should see what it is like being in love with a woman whom they see everyday, but can not touch, which then only makes you want her even more. They should live for five years like that, always following the regulations, then tell me that I can’t be with the woman I love. They should see how impossible it is to keep up a “normal” relationship while working on a classified project. My marriage didn’t fail because Charlie died, although that was the final nail in the coffin. The problem was that I could share nothing with Sara because all my missions had been classified. My own wife knew nothing about what I had seen, or what I had done, and she didn’t recognise or know the man I had become because of it. The SGC is for all who work there the equivalent of a family, because they are the only people with whom we can share everything.
But in the end, we’re all here to do a job and all the time we follow what we’ve been told since out first days at the Academy: Integrity first, service before self and excellence in all we do.