Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Cell Phones on the Train and in Oklahoma

What do a pleading mother on a train and a young soldier trying not to get dumped by his girlfriend have in common?  They both seem to be willing to let anyone within the sound of their voice know their lives are a mess--at least while they are talking on the phone.

This morning there was not a free seat on the inbound train to Philadelphia.  In the middle of the car a woman spent 15 minutes on the phone telling her son that he could make breakfast himself and he had to go to school even if he didn't want to  and much more.  She made at least half of the other 50 people in the crowded car listen to half of her unpleasant conversation with her disobedient child.  It is strange how holding a cell phone gives the caller permission to speak about things she would not say directly to a room full of strangers.

When we were in Oklahoma for training, some of the soldiers were already seeing their romantic relationships fall apart.  When I was in Germany in the 70s and there was no email or cell phones, the relationships ended abruptly.  A soldier would get a "Dear John" letter or, worse, spend the $1 a minute (when he was making $500/month) to call home and hear that his wife/girlfriend/fiance was dumping him.

But in the modern Army with cell phones, I could walk into the dayroom or down the hallway and hear the arguments that precede the breakup or the last efforts at persuasion.  The otherwise proud young man would let everyone within his hearing know that he was dumped or getting dumped soon.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Article on MREs

Last week I posted a video that went with an article on the science of feed soldiers in the field. Here is the article.

Looks like the article requires membership.

Here's the text:

Chemistry Improves Battlefield Food
When Neil Gussman joined the Army in 1972, meals for the battlefield were served in little green cans. Open those tins, recalls the Chemical Heritage Foundation's communications manager and Army sergeant, and you were likely to find culinary delights like "gelatinous, fat-coated Spam slices" and "big wads of grease."
Known as C rations, "the 12 main courses were ham and eggs, beans and franks, spaghetti, ham slices, and permutations of Spam," Gussman says.
He reenlisted in 2007 and, to his pleasant surprise, found that the green cans had been replaced with sleek tan packages stamped "MRE," for Meal, Ready-To-Eat.
"When I got my first MRE, I was in gastronomic love," Gussman says. Inside were crunchy crackers, brand-name candy, and a heating bag that gave off no smoke or light signature. Tactical eating no longer meant meals of congealed fat, he says.
But moving from cans of "green eggs and ham" to pouches of moist lemon poppyseed cake and hot beef ravioli requires a lot of scientific innovation. "Everything in the MRE involves chemistry in some way," says Jeremy Whitsitt, the Department of Defense's combat feeding outreach coordinator. From the packaging designed to withstand downpours and airdrops to the chemical heater that warms meals and beverages, the Combat Feeding Directorate at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center (NSRDEC), in Natick, Mass., has spent years developing the modern MRE.
The unpredictable nature of military life means that battlefield meals must meet a set of strict criteria. MREs need to maintain their freshness for three years when stored below 80 °F, or six months when stored below 100 °F. "They must also be able to withstand rough handling conditions and airdrops from altitudes of 100 feet by helicopter, without a parachute, or 1,200 feet by plane, with a parachute," Whitsitt says.
An MRE's packaging presents the first line of defense in keeping it from getting beaten up during transport and in preventing oxygen, water vapor, and insects from infiltrating and spoiling the food. "It's a critical part of the overall MRE," says Danielle Froio, an NSRDEC materials engineer.
It's also the first thing you notice about an MRE as you pull apart the seal of its tough, tan meal bag made of low-density polyethylene. The food inside this bag is stored in two types of pouches, Froio explains. There's the retort pouch, which holds food that's been sterilized, and the nonretort pouch, which houses food that doesn't need sterilization.
Both pouches have a polyester outer layer that's easy to print on, so nutritional information is included with each of the MRE's components. Beneath the polyester is a layer of foil, which, Froio says, is the ultimate barrier to oxygen, water vapor, and light. A polyolefin layer also makes it possible to seal the package. And retort pouches have a fourth layer of nylon to make them durable enough to withstand the rigors of the sterilization process.
Researchers at NSRDEC are currently working to find a replacement for the foil layer in both types of pouch. "In low-temperature situations it can develop pinhole cracks that reduce the shelf life of the package," Froio explains. Although the group has examined many different polymers as possible replacements, all are permeable to oxygen or water vapor, she notes.
The researchers are now looking toward nanocomposite materials, Froio says, because their nanostructure "creates a tortuous path for the water and oxygen" to travel. They've had some success with montmorillonite- and kaolin-based nanocomposites, and a low-density polyethylene nanocomposite has been used as a meal bag in field tests.
Of course, the guidelines that govern MREs aren't limited to their durability. MREs are, after all, meals, and they have to provide enough nutrition to sustain a soldier engaged in intense physical activity. By regulation, Whitsitt says, each MRE must provide approximately 1,300 calories.
And then there's taste. Responding to the complaints about the old C rations—the ones Gussman describes as variations on Spam—NSRDEC has made an effort to create meals soldiers actually enjoy.
So how do you make cooked pasta and cake that can sit on the shelf for three years? "We build hurdles into these different food matrices to make it hard for 'bugs' to grow in them," Whitsitt says. Using acidic tomato-based sauces keeps the pH low, for example, thereby preventing bacterial growth. As for the baked goods, by tinkering with dough conditioners and adding iron-based oxygen-scavenging packets, the researchers are able to control pH and water levels to keep the breads and cakes tasting fresh.
All items packaged in a retort pouch are also sterilized by boiling. But certain foods simply don't hold up under the extremes of temperature and time—120 °C for 30 minutes—the military uses for this process. For example, says C. Patrick Dunne, the senior adviser in advanced processing and nutritional biochemistry for the Combat Feeding Directorate, "We have yet to get a really good mac and cheese out of the retort pouch."
To expand meal options and improve food quality, NSRDEC has been working on advanced processing techniques for sterilization that use microwave radiation and high pressure. "The challenge we have is to conquer the chemistry that happens during and after the sterilization process that will lead to degradation of quality," Dunne says. "You're not going to get fresh salads all the time, but we would like to give our guys something that goes beyond basic vitamins."
The novel microwave sterilization process that NSRDEC has developed in collaboration with researchers at Washington State University uses a microwave that operates at 915 MHz. This is a lower frequency than the average home microwave uses and penetrates the food to a greater extent. To keep the pouches from exploding, Dunne says, they are placed under pressure in a water bath. All told, the sterilization takes less than 10 minutes.
The one drawback to using this microwave sterilization process is that it doesn't work with the standard retort pouch. Its foil layer can't be placed in a microwave oven. Dunne says NSRDEC is looking into alternative packaging.
The military is currently testing MREs with chicken and dumplings sterilized via the microwave method. There are "benefits in taste, color, and texture" that come from microwave sterilization, Dunne points out. "You can make a salmon filet that tastes like the poached salmon you'd get in a restaurant. It does not taste like cat food."
NSRDEC is also working on high-pressure sterilization. The process places a food pouch under 100,000 psi for about three minutes. Heating is also used if the food being sterilized hasn't been pasteurized.
The result, Dunne explains, is greater variety of food that doesn't have the "tinny" flavor that comes from the current processing method. Mashed potatoes sterilized with this process have already passed the military's shelf-life and field tests.
Perhaps the most tangible chemical contribution to the MREs is the small chemical heater that makes it possible for soldiers in the field to enjoy the comfort of a hot meal and a hot cup of coffee. The heating technology, which gives off no light or smoke, makes use of the exothermic reaction of magnesium metal and water. The heater is composed of a postcard-sized polymeric "tea bag" filled with 9 g of Mg, which sits in a plastic sleeve. A solider adds just 1 oz of water to the sleeve, slips in the MRE entrée, and waits about 10 minutes.
The temperature gets up to about 60 °C, according to NSRDEC chemical engineer Peter Lavigne. "The reaction product, magnesium hydroxide, is essentially milk of magnesia, so it's disposed of without environmental concerns," he says.
The Mg powder pack also contains a little bit of salt and iron. These penetrate the magnesium oxide coating that tends to build up on the metal and prevents it from reacting. Chloride ions react with the Mg(OH)2 product to form MgOHCl, which dissolves the MgO coating. The role of iron is less clear, but it's thought to cause bimetallic corrosion that promotes the reaction between water and Mg.
Although the heater works extremely well, Lavigne says that there is concern about the hydrogen gas generated in the reaction. "We've always had an interest in eliminating hydrogen from a user-safety point of view," he says. NSRDEC is currently exploring heaters based on calcium oxide and phosphorus pentoxide exothermic hydration reactions, as well as Mg oxidation coupled with manganese dioxide to quench hydrogen generation.
"The challenge is to get at the heating profile that's safe to handle yet capable of heating a food product in a short time and is suitable for use with food," Lavigne notes.
As far as soldiers like Sgt. Gussman are concerned, any further improvements to the MRE are a bonus. "The soldiers who only know MREs sometimes bitch about them," he says. "Old soldiers who remember the canned rations know better."

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Back to Racing--First Time Trial

This morning I rode the first time trial race since before deployment.  The French call this race contre la montre, against the watch.  It is my least favorite kind of racing--alone, curled up into the smallest space possible and suffering at the highest speed you can maintain. 

This time trial was short, just 11 miles.  It was very windy.  The course was South-North out and back along a road that parallels the beach on the Chesapeake Bay near Delaware City.  The wind was above 20mph with gusts out of the west.  It was a side wind in both directions sometimes turning into a brief head or tail wind when the road twisted.

It was very cold and I got up late so I did not warm up very much--about 10 minutes.  I should warm up for a half hour and some of my best results came with an hour warm up.  I don't know where I finished, but I feel bad enough at 9pm tonight that I know I tried very hard.  

No racing next weekend, I have to play Army.  It will be a whole weekend of change of command ceremonies and awards, so I will be taking pictures for the entire weekend.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Emergency Leave

One of the stories I did not have time to write was a process story about how our unit handled emergency leaves. From the week we mobilized till the last weeks in Fort Dix, New Jersey, soldiers in Task Force Diablo got a visit from their commander and first sergeant to deliver a Red Cross message. In fact, for soldiers who knew the procedure, seeing a company commander and first sergeant together, walking to someone's door, both looking stone faced, almost certainly meant bad news for someone in that room.

The soldier at the center of emergency leaves was Sergeant First Class Lori Burns, the NCOIC of the battalion S-1--the people who handle the paperwork. When the brigade received a Red Cross message, they passed it to our Operations (S-3) section who notified the battalion commander and command sergeant major and Lori. She started the paperwork and the very delicate process of determining whether this emergency was actually an Emergency Leave or not. An official military emergency leave is for immediate family--parents, siblings, children, and spouse. But some soldiers are raised by their grandparents.

As some of you may remember, I was one of the soldiers who received a Red Cross message that did not qualify as an actual emergency.  My mother-in-law died on Mother's Day last year, just a week after I arrived in Iraq.  Because there was space in the leave schedule at the time, I could have gone on emergency leave, but my wife thought it would be better to keep my leave as it was scheduled because we already had plans made.

But other guys who fell into the "not emergency" category that I was in really wanted to go home.  And most got to go home by giving up their scheduled leave.  The company and battalion commanders as well as the first sergeants and command sergeant major all would get the soldier home if they possibly could.  And unless they were off base on a mission, LTC Perry and CSM Christine were woken up and briefed on every Red Cross message.  The company commander and first sergeant delivered the message.

We had more than 50 Red Cross messages during the year of deployment and most of them got home one way or another.  Two soldiers lost newborn children during the tour.  One sergeant who lost his father went home twice.  The first time his father rallied and recovered, the next time was for the funeral.

Life seems on hold during the year of deployment, but life goes on back home.  The people who handle the emergency leaves have to deal with the reality of tragedy back home through the entire tour.

Friday, May 7, 2010

First Time Trial Coming up

On Sunday morning I will ride my first Time Trial since 2006.  It is not my favorite event, I don't have a TT bike.  For this event, I don't even have the special handlebars, wheels or helmet real time trailers use.  But I do have a nice new Main Line Cycling/Bi-Kyle team skin suit.  So if I don't ride well, I will at least look like a real bike racer!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Who Fought the Iraq War: Coming Home the Hard Way

About once a month, I would run into Chief Warrant Officer Tim Blosser on Tallil Ali Air Base.  He is a funny guy in a very dry way.  We would occasionally have serious conversations, but mostly we made rapid fire bad jokes then went back to whatever we had been doing five minutes before.  

Last weekend I called Tim up just to see how he was doing.  He is the sort of guy who can make the best of any bad situation and I expected him to be back into a comfortable life and having a good time. 

He's not.

Tim came back to primary custody of his two high-school age kids and a job that disappeared while he was in Iraq.  The people who rented his house while he was in Iraq left a big enough mess that he is renting an apartment until the house can be repaired.  Worse still for someone who spent a year away from his wife, he only sees his wife two days each month.  She lives in Maine, has two high-school-age children also.  She will continue to live in Maine until they graduate.  Tim wants his kids to graduate with their friends, so he will continue to live in Pennsylvania.

Tim said parenting is about sacrifice.  He and his wife knew when they married that they would only have occasional weekends together for the first four years they were married.  He said that an arrangement like this really makes him appreciate the time he has with his wife.  He even said they plan to continue to have special weekends together when they live in the same place.

He got a job, but it is with a small company and he is the new guy, so he did not sound really secure in his prospects.  But he talked about how the company is expanding and if everything goes well, there could be real growth.

Tim is an amazing guy. 

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Tough Mudder Pictures

the event photographer posted some pictures form the event on line.  They found several mud-covered shots of me.  I am looking through their "Lost and Found" section before I order the high-res pictures.  In the meantime, they are here.

I have photos from the event I took after it was over.   It would be a fun event to shoot with all the costumes and mud.  I was so tired after it was over, I hung around for a while, but decided to go home so I would not be sleeping on the side of the road.


Kendra Boccelli, my niece, handled publicity for the event.  I heard about the event through her and my sister.


One of the event organizers with his Dad.  The founders of Tough Mudder are two Brits who like extreme sports.





One of the costumed competitors. Three guys wore blue body paint and yelled Avatar down some of the hills.


The Amish guy had a British accent.


Sophie Pollit-Cohen, who sent email and text updates to competitors about everything from start times to parking.



The water slide--we went down the hill in pairs.  The guy who went down the hill with me ended up on top of me in the pond.


Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 3

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 2

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman is Here

Second Tough Mudder Report

First Tough Mudder Finish

First Tough Mudder Photos

First Tough Mudder Entry

Ironman Plans

Ironman Training

Ironman Bucket List

Ironman Idea

Ironman Danger

Ironman Friendship

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Tough Mudder---I Finished!!!

The most important news about Tough Mudder is that I finished.  It was a grueling event and laid out in a way that made it especially difficult for me in the last mile.

At the beginning, we recited the following pledge.  UNLIKE any other event I have ever run, ridden etc, people really did help and encourage each other all along the course.  This event really was like being in Army training and not a civilian event, because the others mud-spattered competitors really were helping.  They helped me through three obstacles near the end when I was worn out.

As a Tough Mudder I pledge that…
* I understand that Tough Mudder is not a race but a challenge.
* I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time.
* I do not whine – kids whine.
* I help my fellow Mudders complete the course.
* I overcome all fears.


The race started half-way up one of the steep slopes so we began with a "Braveheart Charge" downhill.  We turned and ran, then walked (most of us anyway) up the longest climb of the course.  More than half-way up, was a snow, slush pit that we crawled and walked across, then continued up the climb.

On the way down the other side we crawled under a long net sliding in the muddy grass on hands and knees.  We continued down to a pile of firewood.  There we each grabbed a small log and went up then down a 200-yard climb.  We went from there to the steepest climb which was actually OK for me.  It was bike riding muscles on the hills.  Down the other side we ran through hip deep mud, crawled through smooth sewer pipes, then went down a long hill to a low crawl under wire through the mud.  After that we ran through the woods for a couple of miles.  When we emerged from the woods, I was in trouble. 

First, I had linked up with a group that called themselves the Pandas.  Panda 6 said their leader dropped out.  I told him he was the leader.  In the Army 6 is the number the commander uses.  So our commander in Iraq was Diablo 6.  Panda 6 was happy--"the Army guy said I am in charge."  I ran with the Pandas to the water obstacle.  I dragged myself across a really cold pond hand over hand on a sagging rope.  Panda 6 thought this would be better than going over on a two-rope bridge.  Maybe I spoke too soon.  All the energy went out of me in that cold water.

The next obstacle was under barrels in another pond.  I was colder.  It was in the high 80s.  I was cold.

Next we jumped off a pier and swam around a buoy and back to shore.  To the trained swimmers in the water, I looked like a practice dummy.  One swam up to me and asked if I was OK.  I said No.  His partner on the pier threw me a line and towed me in like a boat with no engine.

Out of the water, I jogged to the 12-foot wall climb.  I had to climb two 12-foot walls.  Other Mudders helped me over both.  From there we went down a 100-foot water slide into a pond.  I flipped into the pond butt first and landed on a rock with another guy's legs landing on my head.  He helped me up and I swam for shore.

After that the run between the burning hay bales was positively refreshing.  I took a few pictures at the end, but I was so tired, I ate everything in sight then drove home.

I was SOOOOoooo happy to finish.  It really was a happy 57th birthday.


Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 3

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 2

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman is Here

Second Tough Mudder Report

First Tough Mudder Finish

First Tough Mudder Photos

First Tough Mudder Entry

Ironman Plans

Ironman Training

Ironman Bucket List

Ironman Idea

Ironman Danger

Ironman Friendship

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Racing at Turkey Hill

I missed the last two Turkey Hill road races.  Held the first weekend in May, I have been riding in this event since 2003 and did very well (for me) in it from 2003 through 2005.  Those three years I finished 7th, 10th, and 7th.  In 2006, I was 27th.  In 2007, I dropped out out and a few days later broke my neck.  Turkey Hill was one of the few races I did that year, and definitely the last one.  In 2008 I was at pre-deployment training for the race and in 2009 I was in Kuwait packing up to fly to Iraq.

It's a hilly race with some spectacular crashes.  In 2006, Chuck Waterfield broke his skull in several places crashing in this race.  Trevor, a new racer who lives in my neighborhood, crashed in almost the same place Chuck did, but only had cuts and bruises.  We rode home together from the race with a couple of members of the Franklin & Marshall College cycling team.

This year I was the last finisher still pedaling.  I got dropped on the second lap.  I was at the back of the pack and saw the strong guys up front pick up the pace on the first climb on the north side of the course.  I watched them disappear.

I should be better next year.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Weighty Comments

Today on the training ride one of my friends rode behind me on one of the climbs toward Highville and asked "So how much weight do you think you've gained since you got back?"  I said about 10 pounds.  It was more like five, but my weight can vary by five pounds in a weekend depending on how much I eat and if I dehydrate myself.

Competitive men in spandex are a rough crowd in matters of weight.  In the Army, weight is a little less obvious in the ACU uniform because the shirt is not tucked into the pants.  In fact, the Army refers to it as a jacket, even though we wear just a t-shirt underneath it.

I am sure to gain more weight next week.  I in a bike race on May 1 and the Tough Mudder on May 2.  Both events will exhaust me.  I will eat a lot and my weight won't go back to 190 for a week--let alone 182-186 where it stayed in Iraq.  Every pound makes a difference on a bike going up a hill!


Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 3

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 2

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman is Here

Second Tough Mudder Report

First Tough Mudder Finish

First Tough Mudder Photos

First Tough Mudder Entry

Ironman Plans

Ironman Training

Ironman Bucket List

Ironman Idea

Ironman Danger

Ironman Friendship

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Christmas in April

Yesterday I got my bikes and baggage back from Iraq--a footlocker, a duffel bag, my rucksack and two bike boxes.  The are both broken so tomorrow I will take the to Bike Line of Lancaster to get repaired.  I will leave at least one and maybe both in Philadelphia.  The bikes I took to Iraq are single speeds.  They are not great for Lancaster but good for Philadelphia where the city is flat. 

I have not completely unpacked, but it seems strange that I had all this stuff in Iraq.  I haven't seen it since November so I forgot what I packed for shipment home.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Friends Old and New

Today I spent five hours in the car driving to Fort Indiantown Gap at 6:45 am then to Philadelphia then back at 10:45 pm.  A very long day.

Those of you who believe one should not drive and talk on a cell phone should stop reading right now.

During the 300-odd minutes I was in the car, more than half on the PA Turnpike.  One the way to Philadelphia I called my Iraq "Roomie" Nickey Smith.  We talked for a half hour about how his life is going since his return and gossiped about some of the people in Echo we liked and some we didn't.  Nickey told me about getting sent to Oklahoma to reroute the gear for Connecticut soldiers.  He was one of two who went.  Others should have and did not. 

It did not surprise me at all that he would keep his word and trudge on when others did not.  I have written before that he took over for a squad leader who got relieved and unlike me and several others, stuck with his squad and with the motor pool when other sergeants jumped for greener pastures.  For his loyalty, Nickey got an average evaluation which the motor sergeant and motor officer knew was actually a rotten evaluation in a world where all evaluations are as highly inflated as inner tubes used for floating in a pond. 

Next time I drive to Boston, I am hoping to stop at his house and meet his family.  Who knows, his wife might be curious about the old white guy that her husband roomed with for most of a year.

On the way home, I called Abel Lopez, my best friend from back in the 70s in Germany.  We reminisced more than usual and talked about music the guys we served with listened to.  Abel reminded be that Gene Pierce listed over and over to his one Alice Cooper album (remember--this was back when cassette tapes were new technology!).  Everybody listened to Peter Frampton, "Do You Feel Like I Do."

We also talked about immigration.  Abel thinks it's a good idea to keep the gangs out, but he lives near the border in San Diego and knows that if California passes a law like Arizona, he and his family will be profiled.  Abe was born in San Diego, but his parents are both Mexican, so he, and especially his son, are likely to be hassled or swept up if profiling becomes legal.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Still More Welcome Home Pictures


Cheneen Nicholson-Carter and some of her family and friends


Major Hayes, SPC Broome, LTC Doud, and others






LTC Perry, MAJ Feddersen, Mrs. Feddersen











Perkins and Lake families












CSM Dell Christine

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Soccer Tournament

Yesterday I took Nigel and Jacari to Lauren's Spring Soccer Tournament.  Juniata College played six other teams in half-hour games in a one-day tournament.  Lauren is one of two junior goalkeepers who will be playing their final season this fall.  The other is Kristen Penska.

The tournament, falling on Saturday, April 24, meant the soccer team could not attend the annual Juniata College Pig Roast.  So Kristen's father, David Penska, brought a roasted pig to the tournament.  It was carved, but the pig's head was left roasted and intact as the centerpiece for the serving table.  So we all had roast pig in the gym at Lebanon Valley College, site of the soccer tournament.

Thanks Dave!!!



Nigel, Jacari and Lauren after the tournament


The Juniata Women's Soccer Team plus Nigel and Jacari





The guest of honor

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me--I Won the News Quiz

I was the first contestant today on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" the NPR News Quiz.  You can listen on line here, but like most call-in guests, I don't say much.  This weeks comedian/panel is Tom Bodette, Paula Poundstone, and P.J. O'Rourke.  Jokes about Iceland went past me so fast I thought I could feel wind through the phone.

The three questions were very easy so I won the prize, Carl Castle's voice on my answering machine.  The producer I spoke with said you can have pretty much anything for a greeting.  I just have to write it out and Carl will record on a CD.  The best suggestion I have heard so far was from my wife who said the greeting could be:  "This is Carl Kasell from NPR News, Neil and I are out training for the Tour de France and can't come to the phone right now, please leave a message and one of us will get back to you."

But I have a few days before sending in my script.  If you have an idea for a greeting that tops Carl and I training for the Tour, let me know what it is.



Friday, April 23, 2010

Reality Day

Today I talked to two close friends today and had one of those reality checks only real friends will give you.  The first conversation was about racing, the second about writing. 

On the subject of riding, I am way behind in bicycle racing fitness.  I know it sounds cool that I rode 5000 miles in Iraq and a total of 7000 miles last year, but nearly all of it was what racers call "junk miles."  I rode to and from work on base.  I rode ten-mile laps around the base, but never pushed myself in the way that riding with other racers pushes me.

Anyway, I told my friend about having the PA Senior Games as my goal for the year and the National Senior Games as my goal for next year.  He thought that was a good plan.  Between the reduced amount of training I do compared to before deployment and the "year off" riding in Iraq, he was sure there was not much chance I would be competitive in licensed races anytime soon, maybe not for years if at all.  Comebacks are not easy at 57.

A few hours later I talked to a good friend who is an excellent writer.  I said. "Maybe I am wasting my time riding 10 or more hours a week to get back in shape when I have the opportunity to write a book."  He asked me what I could get from a book.  Clearly not money.  Every author I know personally writes for money to supplement their incomes.  Then he talked about audience.  He reminded me that the people who most admire what I did want me to stop talking whenever politics comes up.  And the people who agree with my politics think I am certifiable for going.  He's right of course. If I had a Big Idea, maybe, but for right now I just have a title and a lot of stories. 

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Even More Pictures from the Welcome Home


Maj. Joel Allmandinger, battalion commander, Mechanicsburg Mens Club, event sponsor.




SPC Aaron Trimmer with his daughter




















                                         SPC and Mrs Matias


Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the ceremony




Some members of the Family Readiness Group

Not So Supreme: A Conference about the Constitution, the Courts and Justice

Hannah Arendt At the end of the first week in March, I went to a conference at Bard College titled: Between Power and Authority: Arendt on t...