28th Combat Aviation Brigade Barbeque

On Saturday, our drill day ended with a Barbeque for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade.  I got a lot of photos of soldiers waiting for and eating hot dogs, burgers, macaroni salad, and chips.

Family Photos with Jacari

After drill yesterday, I picked up Jacari and Nigel at Jacari's foster home.  We drove back to Lancaster and just as the sun set, Jan Felice (bicycle racer extraordinaire!) dropped by to take pictures of all seven of us.

Front row:  Jacari and Nigel
Middle row:  Iolanthe, Lauren, Lisa
Back row:  Annalisa and Me

From left:  Jacari, Nigel, Iolanthe, Lisa, Lauren, Me

Front row:  Annalisa, Jacari, Nigel, Me
Back row:  Iolanthe, Lauren, Lisa

Growing Bolder Again

Today I was on www.growingbolder.com on public radio in Florida and on the Web.  This is my second time on this very high energy show. 

Every Time I Put My Helmet on. . .

Every time I put my helmet on, whether an Army Kevlar or bicycle helmet, I know I could actually need it.  I keep a crushed, bloody helmet that held together in last big bicycle accident.  It is hanging on the wall in the room where I keep my bikes.  I can take a look at it on the way out the door if I am ever stupid enough to ride without a helmet. 

On May 1, I rode to a race in Millersville PA.  The start line was just eight miles from my house.  When I got within two miles of the race, I started to see bicycles on both sides of route 999.  The riders were warming up for the race.  When I got a little closer a long double line of motorcycles went past me heading east on 999 toward Lancaster.

I would guess 60 or 70 motorcycles thundered past in three or four minutes.  Most of the bikes were Harleys without mufflers.  Most of the riders and passengers were not wearing helmets. 

I have had a few motorcycle accidents, one that left me in the hospital for two weeks.  In the "big crash" I tore both of my knees open and had a lot of other injuries.  The bike flipped in a turn and I flew though the air, landing face fist on my full coverage helmet.  Until I quit riding motorcycles, I kept that helmet to remind me that even if helmets were not required I should wear one.  The visor and the chin bar of the helmet had deep grooves from sliding on rough pavement at 75 mph.  Without a helmet I would have been dead.

At the time of the crash I was young and just out of the Army so I was in pretty good shape for the long recovery.  I also wore a heavy leather jacked and boots that spared me some injuries.

The riders going past me at 55 mph were wearing t-shirts and jeans along with a bandana instead of a helmet.  Many of the riders stretched the fabric of an XXL t-shirt tighter than bicycle racers spandex.  Some statistics put the death rate on motorcycles at 30 times higher per mile than cars and trucks. 

I was riding at an average speed of 30 feet per second wearing a helmet.  The chugging cruisers were traveling 90 feet per second without helmets.

Makes no sense to me.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

A group of Military Bloggers has published a statement in support of repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in the military.  Like Admiral Mullen, the bloggers take the repeal of DADT as inevitable and say that the military can handle it and should get ready to comply.  David Marron at Thunder Run posted the statement and I am sure will cover the on-going controversy if you are interested.

I admit to being of two opinions on the issue.  I served with gay soldiers back in the 70s and now.  There will always be gays in the military, but in the tight confines of Army life, no one currently has to deal with gay behavior.

So on the one hand, DADT is like the porn policy.  All through the tour last year, pretty much everyone admitted or bragged about watching porn.  But, no one was subjected to other people's porn because the rule was Zero Tolerance for porn.  So when I walked in a room, the person who was watching porn was careful to turn the screen toward himself and have earphones in.  The soldier watching "Saw V" had no worries about me or any other sergeant seeing his horror movie.  DADT keeps gay behavior out of view.  If the end of DADT means having to deal with openly gay behavior, it will be difficult.

On the other hand, after seeing the difficulties women have in the intensely male environment of the Army, it may be easier for gays to integrate than women.  I first enlisted in the 70s and found the military more integrated than my hometown of Boston.  Louise Day Hicks led her last busing riot in 1977 in Charlestown, Mass. just across the Charles River from Boston.  During the 70s young soldiers of every race found out that they all had two things in common:  they wanted to get high and they wanted to get laid.  This lowest common denominator meant that the kid from Newark, the kid from Watts and the kid from Sawyerville, Alabama, had a common interest.  Especially on the subject of smoking dope.  The drug tests did not begin until 1971 and were not effective for years after.  The dope smokers of all races helped each other cheat the test.

When I was in Iraq last year, men ate with men who did the same job, followed the same sports, or wished they were home fishing.  The older the were, the less likely they were to gather by race.  Women, on the other hand, sat with women.  Since women are just 10% of the force, a table of women stands out in a DFAC that seats 400. 

It seems to me it will always be difficult for women because their off duty interests are so different.  But I certainly don't know for sure.  Since it seems inevitable that DADT will end, I hope I am right about the gays integrating quickly.

One odd side note is the difference between acceptance of gay men and women.  I never heard a male soldier say they wanted all the Lesbians out of the military.  The only soldiers I ever heard say they wanted gay women out of the military were women. 

Medals and Changes of Command

This weekend there will be changes of command ceremonies at several companies and formations for medals and awards.  For me the weekend will be about logistics. 

Will all of the change of command ceremonies be at the same time?  If so, I'll have to figure out how to shoot as many as possible.  They should all be at the armory, but if someone gets creative and uses an alternate location, I hope they use an alternate time.

Same with the medals.  There could be hundreds of individuals receiving medals.  If four companies hand out medals at the same time, I won't be able to get many pictures.  And since the Army is socialist and all about getting fair treatment, which ceremony do I go to if they are simultaneous?

Then the real big logistic issue comes later.  If I would by creative scheduling get pictures of each change of command and every ribbon and medal, how do I get those pictures to the soldiers in the photo?  For security reasons, Army computers do not allow any USB devices to be used with them.  If I have 400 high-res pictures, I will need to get them onto an Army computer where individual soldiers have access to them.  The photos will have to be mailed or burned onto a disk, but who is going to do that? 
And if we can resolve that, I have 5000 more photos from Iraq that soldiers may want and currently can't get to because they are on my USB external hard drive.

And you thought the Army was about guns and war.

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.