First Day of Training

We go to a range tomorrow to zero our weapons. As it turns out, the first day of our five-day training session is officially a travel day. Since the three sergeants attending the course from our unit are local, we arrived at 8 am to sign in. There was no training today, but there were barracks to turn in and ammo and spent brass to return to the Ammo Supply Point (ASP).

So the first day of the exciting live-fire exercise began with picking up trash around a couple of barracks used by another training group. Which lead to the joke "How many sergeants does it take to pick up a cigarette butt?" Three--because that's how many of us showed up.

Then we removed many cases of 5.56mm, 7.62mm and 9mm ammo, plus several hundred pounds of brass from the range and brought it to the ASP.

Tomorrow we will actually be out on a range. I should have more to write then. I have been running, riding or both for 20 years, but I haven't fired a weapon since the last time I was in--February or March of 1984. So things should get exciting in 24 hours.

Packing Up for the Live Fire Shoot House

I got together my field gear and extra equipment for the Live Fire Shoot House training that starts tomorrow. I've got my new helmet and Kevlar Vest and several different options for gloves and eye protection. It turns out we are the first class through this new training facility. I report at 0800. They are issuing us ceramic insert plates for our body armor. It should be exciting.

And I will be bringing an electronic camera to this and future training. So Iwill have pictures from the event--not the internet stuff I usually use.

Chicken Hawks

When I first enlisted there was a draft, and there were draft dodgers. Many people avoided the draft including a large segment who became conscientious objectors or pacifists during the draft and then flipped to become pro-military conservatives during the Reagan presidency and beyond. In the late 80s these past-service-age patriots came to be known as Chicken Hawks. Among their number are some current icons of patriotism like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. I know a lot of people who listen to these guys. It seems to me that a draft dodger's opinion on patriotism should carry the same weight as Gene Simmons views on abstinence.

So I reread my favorite writer CS Lewis. In particular, his essay "Why I am not a Pacifist." Lewis wrote the essay during World War 2. He was a twice wounded veteran of World War 1. He served in the trenches as an infantry lieutenant. Here's the end of his essay (He is speaking to a pacifist):

"Let us make no mistake. All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you form all you love. Like [jail], it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil--every evil except dishonor and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it.

On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing. Some public opprobrium, yes, from people whose opinion you discount and whose society you do not frequent, soon recompensed by the warm mutual approval which exists, inevitably, in any minority group. For the rest it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love. It offers you time to lay the foundations of a career; for whether you will or no, you can hardly getting the jobs for which the discharged soldiers will one day look in vain. You do not even have to fear, as pacifists may have had to fear [during World War 1], that public opinion will punish you when the peace comes."

And in today's America, you can have your own talk show and declare yourself a patriot.

I liked John McCain's speech at the Republican National Convention, but I could not help wondering as the camera swept the crowd how this courageous survivor of five years in communist captivity felt looking out an the audience in front of him. The cameras lingered on veterans and famous people and young people, but that crowd is and has been for a couple of decades, the largest gathering of Chicken Hawks on the planet. So many men in that audience--rich, white, conservative men--between my age (55) and McCain's age (72) thought Viet Nam was the "wrong war." And they avoided it. Because of the draft, that meant a poor man--black, white, or hispanic--served in their place.

My Uncle Jack served from 1958 to 1982 in the Air Force. From the time I was five until the war ended he was flying over Viet Nam in a refueling plane or in an F-4 fighter jet. And when he wasn't in Viet Nam, it seemed like he was either home for a short visit or stuck in another garden spot like Thule, Greenland.

I have nothing against the consistent pacifists I know. They were against Viet Nam and are against the current war on principle. I disagree, but I respect their views.

But I cannot understand why the blustering buffoons of talk radio should be identified as patriots and even admired by conservatives.

One More. . .

My youngest daughter Lisa, captain of the Girls Cross Country Team at McCaskey High School (Her school, Lancaster country Day, does not have a cross country team), finished first overall in her most recent cross country meet. She has finished first twice and fourth twice in her four meets so far this season. For those who know cross country, there is a complex scoring system I won't even try to deal with, but she is having a great season.

And More Family in the News

My oldest daughter has played 227 minutes as goalkeeper on the Juniata College women's soccer team this season without letting in a single goal. Her game last Saturday was a 2-0 shutout against a team in a higher ranked conference. She was named player of the week here and Landmark Conference Defensive Player of the Week (Story below) And this is the game story.

Auster-Gussman and Albert named Landmark Players of the Week

(Posted on September 15, 2008)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Juniata College sophomore keeper Lauren Auster-Gussman (Lancaster, Pa./Lancaster Country Day) has been named Landmark Conference Women's Soccer Defensive Player of the Week, and senior middle hitter Erin Albert (Philipsburg, Pa./Philipsburg-Osceola) earned Landmark Conference Women's Volleyball Player of the Week, when weekly conference honors were announced on Monday.

Albert helped the Eagles earn a pair of wins over nationally ranked foes while improving to 7-0 with three victories at this weekend's Teri Clemens Invitational, hosted by Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Albert amassed 33 kills over 11 sets with a .286 hitting percentage, with a high of 13 kills in a three-set win over Bethel University (Minn.). She also recorded 11 kills in the four-set victory against Wisconsin-Whitewater. For the week, Albert also tallied 10 blocks, eight digs, and four aces.

The Eagle women's volleyball team opens Landmark Conference play this Saturday, Sept. 20, with a conference round-robin weekend at Susquehanna University.
Auster-Gussman stretched her shutout streak to 225 minutes this season while leading the Eagles to a 2-0 win over Gettysburg College. Auster-Gussman recorded seven saves to lead the Eagles to the win over Gettysburg; she has not allowed a goal since the 88th minute of a 5-0 loss at home to Dickinson College on Oct. 4, 2007, a span of 279:59 minutes.

The win over the Bullets, who entered the contest ranked 10th in the adidas/NSCAA Middle Atlantic Region poll, improved Juniata's record to 4-0-0 for the season while giving the Eagles their first win over a regionally ranked opponent.

This week, Juniata will host Lycoming College on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 4:30 p.m. at Winton Hill Field, followed by a road contest at Penn State-Altoona on Saturday, Sept. 20.

My Wife in the NY Times Magazine

Today's New York Times magazine is the Campus Issue. Beginning on page 88 is a section on professors with style. My wife, Annalisa Crannell, is on page 90. They dressed her in $5000 worth of designer clothes including $2500 Gucci boots which did not show in the shot they used. The irony of this is that my wife has not bought any new clothes in this millennium. She only gets clothes from her friends and yard sales. She even considers Goodwill stores overpriced. The clothes she was wearing may have have cost more than all the clothes she has bought in her life.

No Pushups for Two Weeks

I went to the doctor last night. I have tendonitis in my right shoulder and right wrist and the doctor said rest would fix it--maybe. So I will skip the pushups and pullups for the rest of this week and go to physical therapy next week. PT helps the injury heal faster. I also am taking it easy because I don't want to go to the Live Fire Shoot House having any trouble holding a weapon.

So now I am adding my right arm to the balancing act I go though with running--I try to run far enough and fast enough to do well on the APFT but have to back off when my knees and ankles start to hurt. 20-year-olds can beat the crap out of themselves, get a good night's sleep and completely recover. Those of us who are chronologically enhanced have to be a lot more careful.