Chemical Warfare, Part 1

Just a few months before I decided to go back in the Army, I wrote about chemical warfare and spoke about it at my day job at Chemical Heritage Foundation.

So I had chemical weapons on my mind (luckily not in my lungs) even before I went back in the Army. The following was published in Books and Culture magazine in January 2007:


Nerve gas is becoming the weapon of choice for tv doomsday scenarios. In last year's season of 24, for example, Russian terrorists steal twenty canisters of a made-for-tv nerve gas and threaten to kill tens of thousands of people. They do manage to kill about 100 people, despite the best efforts of series hero Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland).

Watching season five of 24 makes it clear why we should be afraid of gas, particularly nerve gas, although this terrifying weapon was cleaned up and tamed for tv. The "Weaponized Centox" featured on 24 kills its victims with the lethal efficiency of real-world nerve gas—vx, Tabun, Sarin, and so on—but unlike other actual nerve gases, Centox then conveniently disappears.1 Real nerve gas poses a huge decontamination problem. It sticks to walls and wings, cars and computers, and it is just as deadly on the skin as in the air. When the tv nerve gas Centox is released within CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) headquarters in Los Angeles, the gas quickly kills nearly half of the staff, but those who make it to sealed rooms and survive simply return to their workstations and resume the high-tech fight against determined terrorists inside and outside the government.

Personally, I would not want to be tapping on a keyboard and drinking coffee in a room that had held a lethal dose of nerve gas just a few minutes before. But if TV gets the details wrong, it gets the terror right. Closed, crowded places make tempting targets for terrorists. The 24 terrorists attack a mall, offices, and attempt to attack thousands of homes through the natural gas system.

If you are interested in the history of the most deadly class of chemicals used in warfare, War of Nerves by Jonathan B. Tucker recounts many tales of developing, producing, and deploying chemical weapons, with a particular focus—as the title suggests—on nerve gas. The author of previous books on smallpox and leukemia and editor of a volume on chemical and biological warfare, Tucker takes the reader from the German laboratory where the first nerve agent was developed right up to the present.

So absorbing is Tucker's chronicle that you may lose track of time while learning how an errant U.S. Army test of vx nerve gas killed thousands of sheep in Utah in the 1960s. Lest you think this is exaggeration, I asked my then 15-year-old daughter, Lisa, to read chapter 16 while we were on a rather long drive to a mall. When we arrived, she had two pages left and wanted to finish the chapter rather than run straight in to Abercrombie & Fitch. Chapter 16 describes the life of the man responsible for the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack that left twelve dead and hundreds injured. Most histories of chemical warfare would not slow a teenager on the way to a clothes store.

In his dramatic style, Tucker occasionally reaches beyond knowable facts to get inside the mind of his subjects. He says that Dr. Gerhard Schrader, in his lab at I.G. Farben, "[a]s always, felt a pleasant tingle of anticipation as a new substance emerged from the synthetic process." At the time, December 23, 1936, Dr. Schrader was working in a lab decorated with "a large framed photograph of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in heroic profile." A man in these circumstances could have experienced a tingle for any number of reasons: chemistry, Christmas, or Hitler's portrait. But Tucker doesn't hesitate to read minds.

Aside from this quibble, the stories Tucker finds of ordinary people are both delightful and chilling. Delightful because they are well told and give the reader some insight into the kind of person who would develop or mass-produce weapons of mass destruction. Chilling because his subjects focus on the problem at hand—making thousands of tons of nerve gas, for example—with no apparent qualm. It's the job. They do it.

My favorite of Tucker's tales is the story of Boris Libman, a native of Latvia who could have walked straight out of the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Born in 1922, Libman was just 18 when the invading Russians confiscated his family's land and property and drafted him into the Soviet Army. He was seriously wounded early in the war, returned to duty after a long recovery, and was again badly wounded, the second time left for dead. He survived the war and applied to study at the Moscow Institute for Chemistry tuition-free as an honorably discharged disabled veteran. Libman was turned down because he was officially dead. He managed to prove he was alive, attended university, and became quite a talented chemical engineer. He supervised production of thousands of tons of nerve gas on impossible schedules for many years. In trying to do his best for the Soviet Union, he made an error with a containment pond for toxic wastes. A storm caused a flood, the pond burst its dike, and tons of toxic waste poured into the Volga River. Months later the delayed effects of the spill killed millions of fish for 50 miles downriver. Libman was blamed and sent to a labor camp to appease an outraged public. But as it turned out, no one else could run the nerve gas plant, and Libman was quietly released and returned to work after one year.

Fear of toxic gas and wild exaggeration of its dangers have their American roots in the debate over chemical warfare after World War I. In Chemical Warfare: A Study in Restraints (first published by Princeton University Press in 1968 and now reissued by Transaction with a new introduction by Jeanne Guillemin), Frederic J. Brown recalls the terror of gas during the years between the world wars. "Propagandists were totally irresponsible in their exaggerations of new weapons developments," Brown writes. He quotes H. G. Wells on the aftermath of a fictional chemical attack by aircraft using the Centox of the 1930s, what Wells called "Permanent Death Gas":

[the area attacked] was found to be littered with the remains not only of the human beings, cattle and dogs that strayed into it, but with the skeletons and scraps of skin and feathers of millions of mice, rats, birds and such like small creatures. In some places they lay nearly a metre deep.

Not quite "blood as deep as horses' bridles," but still a vision to warm the heart of apocalypse addicts.

Brown—Lieutenant General, retired, U.S. Army; he was a junior officer when he wrote the book—carefully recounts the military history of the use and, more significantly, the non-use of chemicals as weapons in both world wars and the period in between. Thorough and well documented, his book also captures the policy decisions and leaders' attitudes that kept chemical weapons, for the most part, off World War II battlefields.

Brown's book has the fat footnotes that have long been out of style even in scholarly publishing, but these footnotes are a delight for the reader who wants details. On page 18 is a three-paragraph, nearly full-page, small-type footnote describing President Woodrow Wilson's attitude toward gas warfare, with references to his biography and a meeting with the French commander at the battle of Ypres.

----More tomorrow-----

Books reviewed:
War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda
by Jonathan B. Tucker
Pantheon, 2005
479 pp., $30

Chemical Warfare: A Study in Restraints
by Frederic J. Brown
Transaction, [1968] 2005
388 pp., $29.95, paper

Medal Inflation, Part 3

Now it's time to say how I fall squarely on both sides of the Medal Inflation issue. I wrote earlier this week about Sgt. Oblivious. When he was swirling in the drain and failing as leader, he was also neglecting most other tasks that are part of managing a maintenance squad.

Most of the soldiers who served in our brigade got some medal for serving during the deployment. Enlisted men and junior NCOs got Army Commendation Medals, senior NCOs and junior officers got Meritorious Service Medals. The next medal up the ladder of importance is the Bronze Star, which I have written about in previous posts.

I got an Army Commendation Medal in 1979. I was very proud of this medal and kept it displayed on the wall wherever I lived since then. Very few soldiers in our battalion got ARCOMs back then. It was not just a participation award. But when nearly everyone gets a given medal, the medal becomes a participation award, like the very nice medal I got for participating in the Air Force Half Marathon on Tallil Ali Air Base last year. EVERYBODY who finished got one of these medals. I was happy with myself for finishing at all, but I was far enough behind the leaders that the best of them could have done a full marathon in the same time. Kids refer to participation medals as "you suck" awards. In my case, finishing on the far side of three hours, they are right.

I did not like the idea that the ARCOM I was so proud of became a participation award. But I ended up writing award citations for many of the soldiers in the squad of Sgt. Oblivious because his soldiers deserved the promotion points you get with an ARCOM just as much as the soldiers who had functioning squad leaders.

So while I thought medal inflation was wrong, I thought it was more wrong to let eight soldiers not get medals simply by neglect.

Teachers and professors are in the same position with their students. Do they grade fairly and then keep a good student from going to graduate school because her grades look low? Or do they grade like everyone else, help the student, and become part of the "everyone is above average" thinking? Tough decisions.

Maintaining standards in or out of the military is a constant battle. Everyone, especially those who admire a given standard, wants to be an exception or make an exception for someone they care about. That's how an Army combat unit, full of self-professed conservatives, can be as liberal as an East Coast art college when it comes to maintaining traditional standards on medals.

Adapting in a New York Minute

Yesterday and this morning, I was in New York City on business. Between appointments I had a chance to ride in Central Park. I was supposed to meet a friend who is an avid rider--he commutes into NYC from New Jersey. But the snow on Monday-Tuesday made the NJ roads slushy enough that Jim took the train.

At 5pm, yesterday, I left my hotel at 26th Street and 6th Ave. One of the entrances of Central Park is on 6th Ave, so I turned north on 6th and got in the 5 o'clock traffic in midtown.

When I first started riding again in Lancaster, I was a little bit tentative riding in groups. I had been riding alone for most of the year and I did not want to mess up in a pack so I would follow three or four feet behind other riders instead of right up on their wheel (where I should be).

But turning on to 6th Ave, I had none of that hesitation at all. I got into the bike lane on the left side of the avenue, shifted to the big ring and started riding as fast as I could toward the park. As I approached the odd-numbered streets I would be scanning for turn signals and making sure I kept my speed up and get right by the front wheel of taxis so they could see me.

When I got near Herald Square I could see people waving for taxis in the bike lane. They were all women. Then I remembered it was Fashion week. I kept my speed and stayed in my lane. The people standing in the bike lane were facing me and decided the best plan was to get out of the lane when I got close. Around 40th the bike lane ended so I moved into one of the center lanes. I got caught at three lights in the 34 block trip. As I rolled into the park I realized I had no hesitation at all riding with the limos and taxis and splitting lanes. I have always liked riding in traffic since I was a kid in Boston.

Riding in NYC traffic made riding feel completely normal again. Today I rode a few miles with the daily training ride. I rode right on the wheel of the rider in front of me. Whatever was wrong in my head, riding up 6th and down 7th Ave cleared that up.

Home from Iraq--"What was it like over there?"

Foreign students entering American culture are usually surprised then dismayed by the question "How are you?"

The foreign students, at least the ones who have never been to America before, try to answer the question and say how they are. They soon find that is a mistake. No answer is expected.

In America, "How are you?" is followed immediately without a pause by "I'm fine." Then by a monologue such as, "I got this totally awesome new Coach purse just by friending the Coach page on Facebook, like free. So did I tell you my roommate just went totally whole foods. Grrrrross!! . . ."

The fifty-year-old-white-guy riff on this I have been hearing lately is, "What was it like over there?" After that question there is a pause and a wide-eyed look that says 'Please don't say anything awful.'

My usual answer is, "Hot."

After that answer, the person I am talking to exhales audibly, smiles, then says, "I am so busy. We just got this new contract. My oldest is going to college next year. I don't know where we are going to get the money. . . ."

I am back to work and back to commuting on the train from Lancaster to Philadelphia. I sat with a guy on the train who asked "What was it like over there?" Without waiting for an answer he said, "It must be weird to be back where people care about nothing but themselves." Then he talked for the next 15 minutes about how tough it is for his business in this economy, how he is sacrificing for the business, etc.

I have two very good friends who both recently used the same expression while we were talking. One friend is from Iraq, one is from my service in Germany in the 70s. They each said, "There is no one like you in my world." They are both blue collar, from blue collar families, with blue collar friends--except me. Even though I had not gone to college when I was in Germany, I was reading a lot and learning to be a writer. I was leaving the blue collar world I grew up in during the late 70s, even before I went to college. And by returning to the Army as a sergeant, I was re-entering the blue collar world as an outsider.

I am glad to be back in my world. But it's really clear that the two worlds are not better or worse, just different. People who never read books can be endlessly interesting and funny. People who are very smart can be duller than butter knives.

Medal Inflation (Background): Specialist Sunshine and Sergeant Oblivious

When everyone dress alike personality almost jumps out of the camouflage clothes. Two guys who served together from the beginning of our deployment, wore the same uniform, but are a stark contrast in their personalities are Specialist Sunshine and Sergeant Oblivious. On the outside, they are both over forty, both need to spend more time at the salad bar than at the main course line, both initially struggled to pass the fitness test, and both are the kind of soldiers who cause pre-emptive groans when they open their mouths to speak at a formation.

Twins?

Not even close. Specialist Sunshine never seemed to get dragged down by circumstances. At every mission change, he just kept working. As his squad leader Sergeant Oblivious deteriorated throughout our deployment, Sunshine was one of the few people who did not make fun of him behind his back. Sunshine makes jokes, keeps to himself, works hard, and ran as much as ten miles in a day to get ready for the PT test after living a very sedentary lifestyle. Sergeant Oblivious barely passed the PT test then ordered a three-foot pizza to celebrate, because he could now forget about the PT test for several months.

Sergeant Oblivious failed as a squad leader almost as soon as we mobilized. But he had friends who, like him, were on the deployment because it was the only way they could keep their jobs as Army National Guard technicians back in America. Finally, after two months in Iraq, Oblivious was so bad he was relieved of duty as a squad leader. A week later, he was watching the sergeant who replaced him struggle with some of the paperwork involved in the job (which Oblivious so bad at as to be legendary). But it had been a week since Oblivious was relieved of duty for incompetence so, in his usual way, all of the actual events had been erased in his mind and he had replaced them with a new history of his own creation. Oblivious looked at his replacement and said, "That job's not hard."

Luckily, I was not drinking coffee when I heard this. Otherwise I might have spit it across the room. Next Oblivious was assigned a security job a pay grade lower than his own. He failed within a day. Which caused a junior NCO to be stuck on five weeks of guard duty with about 2 hours notice. And, of course, none of it is the fault of Sergeant Oblivious.

Like Sergeant Rumpled, Sergeant Oblivious is also convinced that he is quite attractive to women, despite being bald, unkempt, missing a lot of teeth, and being in known across the battalion as lax on personal hygiene. Oblivious believes many conspiracies both of the global variety (he does not know WHO caused the World Trade Center Towers to fall, but someone. . .) and knows people at every level of the military are out to get him. He keeps records. He takes notes. They are in a secret code. He cannot write an English sentence.

CS Lewis, comparing military service with a term in prison, said the military can put you under the arbitrary authority of a very stupid man. That is much less true today than during than 100 years ago, but it is still possible. Sunshine had good-naturedly worked for Oblivious for almost six months. I am glad for him that Oblivious is headed for some sort of oblivion and is out of any position of authority.

But even that is a cause of some anger and envy among his peers. Because he is prone to outbursts and incompetent, Oblivious was relieved of the duties of a squad leader, but he is still getting paid as one. And he may end up in an MWR tent signing people in and out of the public access computers. He gets an all-day air-conditioned job because he is under too much stress to work outside with everyone else.

When the military rewards failure, it ties a camouflage bow on the package.

And as the believers may already have guessed, Oblivious goes to Church and will start arguments about faith. Sunshine does not believe.

Adapting to New Environments

Nigel (left) and Jacari


I rode 31 miles yesterday. After being off the bike for a week because of the snow, I rode 12 miles Saturday and had a long ride yesterday with five other Lancaster racers who braved the wet roads.

I did not ride with them long. In fact, I got dropped on a hill no more than 300 feet long on the 3-mile ride to the meeting point at the official beginning of the ride. After the meeting point, I lasted another two miles, then turned off at the top of the first long hill. I did not want the rest of the group slowing down and waiting for me on every hill and that's what would have happened if I stayed. So I rode south to a 2.5 mile hill in the Village of Buck, rode to the top and rode home in a headwind.

After the ride, my wife said that the thing that might take me the longest in getting back to life in Lancaster is being able to keep up with my bike buddies. I think she is right. It will take months before I will be able to do the training rides. But I am still finding myself staring at landscapes that I would not have noticed before. I am still unpacking books and sorting papers from the year I was gone. I packed everything up because of all the construction in our house while I was gone. It's not big things, but I was clearly immersed in Iraq and after three weeks as a civilian, it still seems strange to have all the choices America offers.

Which lead me to think about Jacari. He will start spending weekends at our home by the end of the month and in the summer, we will begin the process of adopting him. Jacari is 11. He has been in foster care for almost four years with a really great family. He wants to be adopted, but even so, he will have so many things to adapt to with his new life.

I once took a stress test in a magazine. I was surprised to find that both good and bad events raise the stress level. The birth of a child and death of a parent had an equal score. Losing your home had a higher score than buying a home, but not a lot higher. So even if Jacari is completely happy with his new family, his new school, his new room, house, etc. he will be under some stress.

With yet another snow storm on the way, I miss Iraqi weather--at least Iraqi winter weather.

Medal Inflation, Part 2

If you want to be entertained for hours and understand one reason why I met many soldiers who were upset about awarding Bronze Star Medals to people who were not in direct combat, then watch the 2001 HBO Miniseries "Band of Brothers." This eight-hour show chronicles Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, from training through D-Day through the end of World War 2.

If you look at the decorations received by this storied group of American soldiers, you will see the Bronze Star Medal was given for gallantry under fire. Every soldier I met who had watched the series remembered in particular when Easy Company, with less than 30 men, attacked a German anti-aircraft battery. The battery was dug in and protected by machine guns. Using fire and maneuver, the remnants of Easy Company that had just parachuted into Normandy attacked and destroyed the emplacement. The attack, led by then 1st Lt. Dick Winters of Lancaster, is still taught at the US Military Academy at West Point. Winters received the Distinguished Service Cross for leading the attack. Sgt. Donald Malarkey was Winter's NCOIC and fire team leader. Malarkey was awarded the Bronze Star. Malarkey got two additional Bronze Stars over the next year. Easy Company as a group fought in more battles than any member of the Normandy invasion force and Malarkey had the most time in the front lines of any soldier in Easy Company.

Many soldiers, as I wrote yesterday, are angry when they see someone who was essentially an administrator receive the same medal that Sgt. Malarkey received for his part in one of the single greatest small-unit actions in American military history.

The Bronze Star was the most resented award I heard about in Iraq, partly because of some of the people who received it never saw anything close to combat, and partly because it was often awarded to senior soldiers near the end of their careers--as in the case of the chaplain in the last post.

But there were also problems with lesser awards. I was firmly on both sides of Medal inflation in regard to the Army Commendation Medal. More on that in a future post.

Medal Inflation, Part 1

Sgt. Melissa White was furious when I visited her office on Tallil Ali Air Base last September. She had just returned from covering an award ceremony for the Sustainment Brigade that was leaving in two weeks. Sustainment Brigades are, by definition, not forward combat units, although in Iraq anybody could get hit with an IED on the roads. What had the tall, tough sergeant fuming was an award of the Bronze Star Medal made at that ceremony.

The brigade chaplain had received the Bronze Star for service during his deployment to Iraq. That service was almost entirely on our big, well-protected Air Base. The chaplain, according to the angry sergeant, almost never went outside the wire (off base) had never been shot at and got the fourth highest combat award for bravery because he spent year in Iraq.

"And he isn't much of a Christian either," she went on fuming about how he spent most of his time with fellow officers and chaplains and about the contrast between him and Chaplain Valentine, the Catholic Chaplain who went on convoys and out to forward bases and outposts every week visiting troops all over southern Iraq.

Her anger was partly specific to this award of the Bronze Star, and partly because she was a reserve soldier who had decided to go on active duty. She cared about tradition and was sure a Bronze Star should only be awarded to someone who was brave in combat--not for 10 months of sustained breathing in a combat zone. In her case it was not envy. She did not want the medal herself. She was sure she did not deserve it any more than he did, although she had ridden in convoys and gone on humanitarian missions in the countryside that can sometimes turn deadly. "If you get the Bronze Star you should be brave under fire," she fumed.

My wife is a professor and deals with grade inflation every semester. It is a perennial conflict between wanting to maintain standards and wanting your students to succeed. In the Army, medals have promotion points. A leader who decides to maintain historic standards in the awarding of medals puts his soldiers behind other soldiers of the same rank and ability who get awards.

The Bronze Star Medal was the focus of anger about the diminishing value of medals. Among people I talked to, the HBO series "Band of Brothers" based on the book by Stephen Ambrose, may be part of the reason. More on that tomorrow.

Mental Compartments

One of the blessings of being in Iraq with no cell phone and slow internet service was single tasking. You may know that as concentrating on one thing at a time. Reading a book without interruption, writing without bobbing through 20 windows checking Twitter, three email services, and a dozen Web sites. Now that I am back, I am trying to keep myself from returning to multi-tasking, to the false efficiency of doing five things badly rather than one thing well.

When I was multi-tasking myself, I did not see as vividly how the act of multi-tasking seeps back into our minds and dissolves our mental integrity. One of the hallmarks of modern life is stuffing our many lives in compartments that do not touch each other. That can lead having multiple beliefs and assumptions that really do affect each other, but we keep them in separate places in our minds, as if our memory were a series of Tupperware containers keeping work, family, hobbies, beliefs in their own little worlds in our heads. That is how people can look at religion as a buffet--taking a little Bhuddism here; a little Christianity there; maybe believe in angels, but not devils; or believe in Heaven but not Hell; as if these complex systems of belief were nothing more than raw material for whatever makes someone feel good.

At this point you could be IMing a friend, watching American Idol, thinking 'Whatever, Dude.' But if you are still reading, I can tell you that being in the land that discourages multi-tasking let me see more clearly what it does inside people's heads.

When we were getting ready to go home, we got a briefing about medical benefits. The sergeant who was giving the briefing made it clear to us that he believes our country does not need health care reform. His politics are in one compartment. Five minutes later he tells us why Pennsylvania wants to be sure we all know about the benefits we have. When the Brigade that preceded us mobilized in 2007, 42% of the soldiers did not have medical benefits when they mobilized. Out of 4000 soldiers, 2320 had medical benefits, 1680 did not. These were not street people. They were not illiterate. But 42% were uninsured. The two thoughts that 'The Health Care System is OK as it is' and '1680 out of 4000 soldiers in this brigade getting deployed to Iraq have no health care' stayed in their own compartments in his mind.

It would be no good pointing out this contradiction. He would have an answer if challenged on this contradiction. He sees what his beliefs allow him to see and will bend what does not fit until it aligns with is belief. So if his political views tell him 'my side is right, the other is wrong' then no actual fact--not even 1680 uninsured facts--sitting in front of him will change his mind.

Commander Back at Work

Brad Powers got a new job. I am back at my former job, but with a new boss. Lt. Col. Perry was in the Patriot News (Harrisburg, Pa.) when he returned to work.



Rep. Scott Perry

Rep. Scott Perry of York County welcomed back to the floor of the Pennsylvania House
By JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News

Following a year's absence while he was deployed to Iraq, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Dillsburg, was given a hero's welcome upon his return to the floor of the state House.

Perry, who was commander of the 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion, seemed almost embarrassed by the standing ovation from his House colleagues, motioning several times for them to sit down.

House Speaker Keith McCall welcomed Perry and thanked him for "willingly ... putting yourself in harm's way. ... We're grateful for your safe return and very, very proud of your service to this great nation." But, he added, "It may take some time getting used to as you return here, Lt. Col. Perry, that people aren't going to be saluting you and calling you sir."

House Republican Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, echoed the gratitude about Perry's service. He also commented on how difficult it must have been for Perry, who had a child born during his deployment.

Smith noted that last year's protracted budget impasse was a grind for those at the Capitol, but then said he'd think about Perry and another House member, Rep. Nick Miccarelli, R-Delaware County, who also was on a deployment in Iraq last year. He said that reminded him, "it's not so bad here."

Assigned Moral Lectures

Only officers gave the moral lectures I referred to in the last post. This made sense, because they are the ones who will punish us for infractions of the Army moral code. And in the same way every officer must be ready to lead soldiers at a moment's notice if they happen to be the highest ranking officer in any given place, any officer might be called to give us a lecture on morality.

My favorite instance of this--and I did keep a straight face through this mercifully brief lecture--happened shortly after we arrived in Iraq. A lieutenant in his mid-20s got assigned on short notice to give us one of these lectures. He is a very affable guy. In fact, just the night before this young man who was a hard-partying fraternity brother just two years before was telling a group of sergeants in the mess hall about a time when he and his girl friend were having sex in a room with several other couples. "This was not group sex," he said. "We were just one of several couples having sex in the same room."

The next morning he was telling a large group of enlisted men don't drink, don't have sex with anyone you are not married to, etc. He was serious. He had to be. At the end he did lighten up a little and said "Don't be stupid. Don't get caught."

Army Morality

In other posts I have said how strange, sad, and funny by turns our "morality" lectures were, especially during training for deployment.

No one was ever talking about a real moral code of any recognizable religion. The Army is the government and since our government separates Church and State, it would be wrong to impose any single religious view on the Army. So the Army makes it up.

Like every bad youth organization, whether religious or secular, the Army tries to use the sins of the spirit to keep us from the sins of the flesh. It uses cold-blooded sins to keep us from warm-blooded sins. In case you have not reviewed the Seven Deadly Sins lately, they are (from least to worst):
Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Anger
Envy
Pride

Some lists switch lust and gluttony as the least, but all ancient lists are clear that the disreputable sins are the least and the arrogant sins are the worst. Sloth sits in the middle because it can be both physical laziness and spiritual laziness. So the sins of the flesh: lust, gluttony, greed and laziness are different from despair (spiritual laziness), anger, envy, and pride.

The sins of the flesh are those committed by those pictured on the pages of People magazine--too much sex, food, and money. The sins of the spirit are those committed by the readers of People magazine: hating, envying, and finally looking down on those who are pictured in People magazine.

Anyway, the Army tells us not to drink, have sex, and take drugs. First we are threatened in various ways, but then the poor guy who is giving the lecture appeals to our self-respect and says we are (or should be) better people than that.

But the Army does it with a lighter touch than a bad youth leader. Because nearly all of our morality lectures ended with something like a plea not to get caught. If you have sex, drink or whatever don't get caught.

Any real morality comes from the inside and shows its results on the outside. The only thing the Army can do is impose moral standards from the outside and hope for some appearance of obedience.

This is very funny on the subject of pornography. The Army bans pornography and makes a big deal of telling us how we can get busted, fined, lose rank, go to jail, etc. for possessing porn, especially on deployment. But the lectures on not having sex often end by saying something like, "Keep your porn to yourself, don't get caught, and wait till you get home for the real thing. In the meantime give yourself a hand."

Another Sign I am Home

This morning I called my wife from work to ask about our son Nigel. He had a two-hour school delay and I wanted to make sure it did not turn into a cancellation. In the course of our conversation Annalisa said, "The most fun thing we did. . .wait, fun is not an adjective. . .the thing that we did that was the most fun was . . ."

Later I talked to a friend from Belgium about a book project we might work on together. We were talking about the placement of object pronouns in French. I said French grammar was difficult on this. Brigitte said, "At least French has rules of grammar, English has no rules, only exceptions."

At midnight tonight my military leave ends which means I am off Title 10 active duty orders and back to being a Pennsylvania National Guard soldier. As of tomorrow I am really a citizen soldier again, not regular Army. I could, of course, be called up for duty, but in the near future that would only happen for a disaster in Pennsylvania or a neighboring state.

It is still strange at time to be home. All the more so with another foot of snow on the way Tuesday and Wednesday. I am really home, but I have not ridden my bike since Friday. I hardly missed a day riding in Iraq. Now I am forced to ride inside!! Not yet, but maybe tomorrow.

Who Makes Coffee for the Soldiers?

One of my favorite places in Iraq was the Green Beans coffee shop on Tallil Ali Air Base. I was a regular so I knew most of the staff. Like us, they worked at least 12 hours per day, six days a week and when one of them was sick, the others would work 18 hours to keep the coffee brewing 24/7/365.

Most of the baristas were from India and Nepal. A few months before I left, they hired Frederick Lameki, a young man from Kenya. Like the other members of the staff, Fred was well educated, but could make more money serving coffee in Iraq than he could in his home country. Fred greeted me loudly every time I saw him at Green Beans.

"Goooosemon," he would say. "What's happening?" Sometimes in his enthusiasm he would attempt to greet me with the complicated handshake he used greeting his younger favorite customers--then he remembered I was way too old for that and smiled at my inability.

Fred will be visiting America this summer--most likely New York City, but maybe other North East cities. Fred has 419 Facebook friends which, in his case, may actually reflect his ability to make and keep friends. Fred and I have one mutual friend on Facebook--Jessie Ramos. Fred introduced me to Jessie. She is from Texas, but not really. In fact she is not really Jessie, but more on her in another post.

Green Beans is one of my best memories of Iraq: good coffee, good people who work there, reading good books with no video in the building, and talking about books with other people who read.

Who Fought the War--And Is Back to Work

Spc. Brad Powers just after he landed at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.


Spc. Brad Powers has a new job--already. While many members of Task Force Diablo are taking a well-deserved rest, the restless Powers is beginning a new job and a new career simultaneously.

In Iraq, Powers was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic in Echo Company. We were in fourth squad of the motor platoon. At various times I was Powers team leader and squad leader. At Fort Sill, Powers was also in my remedial PT (Physical Training) group. The 27-year-old Lancaster resident is big, strong and went to enough parties before mobilizing that he was marginal on passing the two-mile run. No one was happy in the remedial PT group--the training was Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday from 7 to 830 pm--but Powers never complained in my hearing. And like all but one of my remedial group, Powers eventually passed the PT test.

All the time we were training in Fort Sill and Kuwait and working in Iraq, Powers was taking college courses. During 2009 he completed a full year of college credit, the final year of classes toward a bachelor of science degree that qualifies him to work in safety management. He finished his last class just before Christmas in Iraq and was a awarded a Bachelor of Science degree while he was in Kuwait on the way to America in early January.

In addition to working on his degree in the evenings while working in the motor pool at Tallil Ali Air Base, Powers was sent to Garry Owen, a small forward operating base near the Iran-Iraq border. He kept working on his degree without interruption there.

With the degree in hand, Powers applied for a job on line with a Peabody, Massachusetts-based, firm with operations across the country. A few days after he got home, the morning after a welcome home party, Powers got a call asking if he could be on a flight to Boston in four hours. He said sure. Then they told him it was a Southwest flight leaving from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, 88 miles away.

He made the flight and apparently aced the interview because he got the job. Monday morning he flies to Boston for a week of orientation training then he starts work with clients along the East Coast. Powers said his company likes to hire veterans.

With every possible excuse not to complete his degree and get a job, Powers completed 30 hours of college credit during a one-year deployment and returned to get a professional job in a new career field when he could still here the echo from "Welcome Home."

Cooking

In several posts during the last year I wrote that the food we had in Iraq was great. Aside from really good bread we were very well fed. The amazing variety of fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal meant we actually were well fed in the nutritional sense. When I got to America I asked my kids to bring bakery bread to me at Fort Dix. Since I have been home, I have had good bread pretty much every day.

But it turns out I also missed cooking. In the last week I made dinner several times. When I make dinner it is more extravagant than my very frugal wife makes, but she doesn't mind because I do the work and cooking expensive food at home is still much less expensive than eating in a not-so-great restaurant.

One night this week I made a pork roast, mashed potatoes, and steamed cabbage. I make mashed potatoes with butter, whole milk and an old-fashioned potato masher--not exactly health food, but really good if you like potatoes. We also had celery with and without peanut butter, provolone cheese, jarlsburg cheese, and bread from a local bakery named "A Loaf of Bread." And very much unlike Tallil, my wife and I had wine with dinner that I got as a coming home present the week before. Just one glass for me--I had a two drink limit before deployment and now can get a small buzz from one glass of table wine. Two days later, dinner was the leftover pork, potatoes and cabbage along brie cheese and French bread and the rest of the bottle of wine.

Tonight we had apples, cheese, purple cabbage, Cappicola ham, fruit and nut bread from Philadelphia, and a really good rose wine that was also a welcome home gift. It really is fun to cut everything up and make the food look good on the serving plates--that's something you can't get in a buffet line.

Explaining Acronyms

Three of us were standing in the lobby today waiting for the fourth for lunch. In the five minutes before the fourth member of our group showed up (punctuality is very optional in civilian life) the subject of Army acronyms came up. The two women I was talking to had no connection to the military but knew that when F was the middle letter in an Army acronym, what word it referred to.

My favorite example of just how much acronyms replace words in the Army is the use of the acronym BFR when referring to a Big Rock. I could almost understand if it was an exclamation--"That's a Big F-ing Rock!" But it's not. A large rock is a BFR because it is more fun to have an acronym.

Then we talked about titles. I have a new title. Instead of Communications Manager, I am Strategic Communications and Media Relations Manager. If got this title in the Army, I would be the SCMRM. I then mentioned that in the Army everyone is in charge of something, even if it is just their own weapon and wall locker. So if you know someone is in charge and you don't know what their title is, everyone from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to team leader can be called an HMFIC. That is the Head MF In Charge. MF is always the same in Army speak.

"You'll Get Back in Shape in No Time"

That's what the other guys I ride with were saying on Sunday, Monday and today. It was nice of them to say, but the truth is getting back to climbing hills is just as tough as coming back from breaking my neck. Hills that used to just look like hills now look like Alpine climbs.

On the 40-mile Sunday ride the two nasty climbs are about five miles from the start. But I was already gasping from riding up the long shallow hill at the start and the longer, steeper hill at mile 2. On the first big hill, the group slowed at the top for a stop sign just over the crest of the hill. There was no traffic, so I went through the intersection at 22mph and caught the group on the descent. On the next hill two other guys dropped to the back, so though I was lagging, I was not the caboose on the train.

From that point on I never stopped wheezing. We rode the rollings hills at a moderate pace--they talked I wheezed--until we crossed Rt. 222 on the south side of Lancaster. The pack sped up and stayed above 20mph for the next few miles. Just as we were about to turn up hill, I drifted back and watched the bright-colored group of a dozen riders disappear. Another guy was behind me. He said he was going to try to catch up; he never did. I turned back toward home at mile 18.

The next day I rode just 17 of 29 miles of the daily ride and it was very difficult.

I know i will get back in shape, but it will be months, not weeks till I can climb like I used to.

Back to Work

Today I took the 7:06 am train to Philadelphia. This is my first day back at work after just over a year. Annalisa and Nigel drove me to the train station (Annalisa actually did the driving) and I joined the big crowd that gets on the train in Lancaster--more than 150 of the nearly 300 regular riders of the Keystone train get on and off in Lancaster.

I saw a lot of faces I recognized. the faces looked a little older than when I left--which means my face looks older too. The 7am train riders are, thankfully, a very quiet group. They file onto the train. The regulars walk the length of the platform and sit in the last car. Sometimes there is no sound all the way to Paoli--two-thirds of the way to Philadelphia. The train was 15 minutes late this morning because we got behind a SEPTA local and could not go around it.

After leaving the train I walk across 30th Street and down into the subway station. The El train arrived a couple of minutes later. I rode eight minutes to 2nd Street then walked up Market to Fork restaurant. They bake bread every day. As I arrived the baguettes were just coming out of the oven. I love fresh bread.

I ate bread, checked out my new office and started a series for short meetings to get moved back in to CHF. I learned abut changes in the computer system, got my access card key back, heard about the medical benefits and started cleaning up email and voice mail.

I had a couple of meetings about plans for my work for the next few months and talked to many of my co-workers about Iraq and returning to civilian life. They all thought I looked very different in a blue pin-striped suit than in a camo uniform.

It's great to be back. I'll be going to New York on the 17th, Orlando on the 27th, maybe to Boston or Washington DC in between. I really am becoming a civilian very quickly.

Reality Check

One of the things I thought about doing when I returned home from Iraq was getting involved in local politics. Specifically school politics. I care a lot about education and thought I could be of some help just by being involved. My wife, Annalisa, said I could get involved right away by going to three simultaneous events at my son's school: Wharton Elementary School in Lancaster: dinner, Parent Advisory Council meeting, and Parent Teacher Organization meeting.

530pm--free dinner supplied by the school. Chicken fingers, mashed potatoes and applesauce for the kids, turkey, ham or roast beef "wrap" sandwiches for the adults. Water and iced tea were the drinks--no soda in school. Annalisa, Nigel and I got in line and ate at the green formica-covered tables that fold down from the walls in the gym. About a dozen families showed up for dinner.
6pm--we went upstairs to the library and the PAC meeting. PAC organizes events and support for teachers at the school. The only guys in the room besides me were a local bookstore owner in the audience, the head of the group, Nigel.
645pm--Annalisa and Nigel left for Nigel's basketball practice.
655pm--the meeting switched from PAC to PTO. The bookstore owner left. The meeting continued for another 45 minutes discussing PTO business and plans.

The 16 parents (14 moms, 2 dads) who attended the meeting were not attracted by the free food. I knew many of them, at least by sight. They are well-educated, involved in their child's education, encourage learning and reading by reading and learning themselves, are involved in the community, and are, therefore, not at all typical of the parents of Wharton Elementary or any other school.

In racing of every kind, you have to start to have a chance of winning. The people who show up are the people have influence. How we spend time and money are great indexes of what we really care about. It was interesting to see who really cares about education.