Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Military Future

It's June and the Army Old Age clock is ticking faster for me.  Without a waiver from the commanding general of the PA NAtional Guard, I will be a civilian exactly three years from yesterday.  My discharge date is May 31, 2013.  I will not be retired on that day.  I am reliving my father's Army Career in many ways.  He lost his pension when the age-in-grade law caused him to be mustered out with 19 years service.  The Army retirement requires 20 years to get any benefits.

I will have 17 years in 2013.  I would have to stay until I was 63 to get a retirement, at least as far as I understand the rules, and that would require three consecutive waivers.

Not likely.

But I knew that when I needed a waiver from a general officer to get in three years ago.

In the short term, I also have to decide what to do for the remaining three years.  A public affairs officer in the Stryker brigade would like me to work in his office--he does not have a staff writer--but does not have an E5 slot.  I am not at all interested in an E4 slot.  The vast majority of people I deal with on a regular basis know there is some difference between a sergeant and a general, but both are in charge of soldiers, so it's not all that different.

For older people, Beetle Bailey cartoons may be part of their picture of Army ranks.  The general and the sergeant both order Beetle around.  How much different could they be?

So I want to stay a sergeant.

I have thought about trying to join an armor unit.  It would be kind of cool to begin and end my odd Army career in a tank.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Getting Back Some Speed on the Bike

A year in Iraq left me in generally better shape than when I left, but I am way behind on bike training.  This long weekend I started to train to actually get back some fitness.  On Saturday, I got up early and rode to Philadelphia.  I covered the 72-mile distance in 3 hours and 48 minutes.  That's 24 minutes slower than my best time a few years ago, but better than I thought.  It is also the first time I rode more than 40 miles in one ride in more than a year.  In Iraq I usually rode just 10 or 20 miles at a time because of the dust.  I took the train back to Lancaster.

I had the departure time for the train wrong and rode harder than I needed to.  I wouldn't have pushed myself that hard if I knew the right time for the train.

On Sunday I rode the daily ride with Jon Rutter, the reporter who has been writing about my return to the Army for the Lancaster Sunday News.  He had never done Scott Haverstick's daily ride and wanted to see the course.  So I got 30 more miles in Sunday.

On Monday I did one of the traditional Lancaster Bike Club rides climbing steep hills in Ephrata.  Except, I only did two of the four big climbs, then rode back on state highways.  I was wiped out.  But when I got home, my I rode six miles with my son Nigel on the tandem and Lisa on her bike.  Then Nigel had enough so Lisa and I did nine more miles.  Then Lisa ran five miles while my wife and I planted trees in the yard.  Lisa finished her run about the same time we got the last tree in the ground.  So we ran three miles with Lisa.  After that Nigel and Lisa and I did a few pushups and situps.

My last activity was reading a book.  I did not actually opened the book.  Two hours later when a big thunderclap woke me up, the book and my glasses were on the bed beside me.  



Sunday, May 30, 2010

Editorial in Today's Sunday News

I wrote an editorial in today's Lancaster Sunday News about Conservative Talk Show hosts who never served in the military.  I like the headline they wrote.



Radio/TV patriots snipe from safety of homefront

I was surrounded.

I was taking fire on all sides.

No, not from Iraqi insurgents, but from the conservatives I was eating lunch with in a dining facility or DFAC on Tallil Ali Air Base in Iraq.

Last year I was deployed to Iraq with the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, Pennsylvania Army National Guard. I knew I would be in the minority when I voted for Barack Obama for president, but sometimes I really felt like an Army of one — the one white, male Obama voter among the thousands of soldiers and airmen on base.

We were real curiosities for each other, the conservatives and I. The most ardent among them listen to Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and others tell them that liberals are cowards and trying to destroy the nation and who knows what else. But there I was sitting in the DFAC, my rifle under my chair, serving in the Army. The radio/TV patriots were home in America where they had always been and always will be.

I was arguing with some of the best men and women I ever met. While we disagreed on politics, they were the kind of men and women who left home to support their families and maybe make their lives better. When we were done hassling each other about politics, we could go back to complaining about the heat, or the garrison, or talking about what we were going to do when we got home.

It did seem strange to me that these soldiers and airmen, many on their second and third tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, would give such respect to men who never served. Often someone would say that the president should be a veteran. If, as usual, Fox News was playing on the DFAC TVs, I could point to O'Reilly or Beck and say, "They never served. Why should they be the ones to say who is and isn't a patriot?"

Foreign visitors often see the strangest things about America more clearly than we do. Recently I was talking with an Israeli writer working in America. He thinks America is a great country, but he does think it very odd that all of the leading radio/TV patriots in America have not served in the military. Odder still that in America you can be a draft-dodger and be calling someone else a coward on your daily show.

Israel has compulsory military service, so the situation is different, but no one in Israel who avoided military service could pretend to be a paragon of patriotism.

In 1972 when I first enlisted, my enlistment meant a poor kid would not have to be recruited or drafted to take that place. Military service is a zero-sum game. If enough people walked in off the street to fill the ranks, the thousands of sergeants on recruiting duty could go back to leading squads and platoons.

When Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh avoided the draft, a poor kid who could not afford to duck the draft took their place. When a draft-dodger said the Vietnam War was the "wrong war," that implied they would serve in a "right war." But if other Americans are fighting and dying, how can that be a wrong war for a patriot?

I can understand avoiding the draft if you are anti-war. I can't understand it for someone who is yelling about patriotism on the radio, or accusing others of cowardice on TV.

I don't think the war in Iraq was the "right war." Reasonable people still disagree about whether we ever should have invaded. I did not volunteer and serve because Iraq was the "right war." I went because, just as in 1972, if I went, one less person had to be recruited.

Although they are too young to be draft-dodgers, I also wonder why Beck, Hannity, and for that matter Ann Coulter, did not at some point take a temporary pay cut and show us liberals how brave conservative media mavens really are. Coulter and Hannity were born in 1961. They could have enlisted any time between 1979 and 1996. Coulter is an attorney and may still be able to get a waiver before her 50th birthday next year.

Born in 1964, Beck had from 1982 to 1999 before he became too old for an initial enlistment. Technically, Beck could have enlisted during 2006, when the Army raised the enlistment age to 42. That way he could have been in "the surge" instead of just talking about it.

I would not want to return to a draft. That we can fight two wars and patrol the world with an all-volunteer force that is less than 1 percent of our population says volumes about how good our military is. But I do think that those who accuse others of cowardice should have served themselves, especially Savage, Limbaugh and O'Reilly who avoided the draft and let someone else fight and maybe die in their place.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

70th Armor Reunion

Tonight I spoke with Sam Rushing who is organizing a reunion of the 1st Battalion, 70th Armor, Wiesbaden, Germany.  I served with Bravo Company of the 1-70th from 1975 at Fort Carson, Colorado, to 1979 in Germany.  the reunion is for anyone who served with the battalion from 1976 when we arrived in Germany through 1984.

The reunion will be held from July 23 - 26 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  It's the same weekend as the Pennsylvania Senior Games, so I may have to fly in for just a day or two.

It will be great to see people I served with during the 70s!!!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Second Hand Music

This morning on the train and the subway to work, I did not have my own iPod, so I listened to second-hand music radiating from the ear buds of a 20-something guy on each train.  The guy on the Amtrak train to Philadelphia was Hispanic.  The guy on the subway was Korean.  Otherwise they were identical.  They both wore sideways baseball caps, the both wore t-shirts and jeans.  The guy on Amtrak wore boots.  The guy on the subway wore hightops.

Both had music pounding their ears at enough volume that I could hear it from five rows away.  They reminded me of my bunkmate during the first week of pre-deployment training.  Then Pvt. 1st Class Eric Ward was 19 and went to sleep listening to metal music loud enough that I could hear it from the top bunk.  He fell asleep before me so I would shut it off when I went to sleep.  He was already snoring.  Eric was the first soldier to leave Iraq.  He hurt his knee playing football.  After that football was banned for Echo soldiers.

Usually, the Amtrak train is completely quiet, but it is a holiday weekend, so different people ride the train than the usual commuters.  The subway is always noisy.  I missed my iPod.

If you were wondering, I listen to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" and the "Political Scene" from New Yorker magazine.  I also listen to "Distillations" produced by my coworkers and my current audiobook is "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt.





 

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Poo Pond

From today's New York Times "At War" blog, Dexter Filkins on "The Poo Pond" at Kandehar Air Base.


Christoph Bangert for The New York Times The view of Kandahar Air Field, one of the largest NATO military bases in Afghanistan. The round-shaped lake in the middle of the base is where raw sewage is treated.
Visiting a city like Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the subject of human excrement is not something that ordinarily occupies much of your thinking. After all, unlike much of the rest of the country, Kandahar has toilets, even if most of them are just holes in the floor made of porcelain. As a pedestrian, the only issue that would probably prompt any thinking on this subject are the sewers that line Kandahar’s dusty streets; they are the open-air type. You’ve got to take care to avoid them, or you’ll fall in.
But avoiding the lake-sized pool of human excrement that fills a section of the sprawling American and NATO base known as Kandahar Air Field is something else. Avoid it you cannot. This I discovered recently while visiting the base itself, which occupies a chunk of chaparral just south of the city itself.
I had flown from Kabul to interview a senior officer about some things the military has in the works. Wandering through the base at sunset, I suddenly found myself enveloped by a terrible smell. What on earth? I thought. Did a sewage truck hit an I.E.D.?
Then I saw it.
“The Poo Pond,” as the servicemen affectionately call the place, is an enormous liquid pit for all the human waste at the airfield. That’s not a small amount: The airfield is a small city, with at least 20,000 men and woman at the moment, many of them having only recently just arrived as part of President Obama’s escalation. The pond is perhaps a hundred yards across. Its contents form a kind of brownish bog — a swamp, if you will. The swamp is cordoned off by a single rope and an array of warning signs: “Biohazard: Do Not Enter.” It’s not as if I was planning to!
I stared at the bog for a few moments. Not a trace of life stirred on the surface, not even a mosquito. Out there in the middle sat a decorative fountain, happily spewing and bubbling.
From this smelly sea wafts a never-ending cloud of stench, which sometimes sweeps far and wide across the base. What gives the pond its piquancy is its location. It has not been shunted to some far corner of the airfield — which is miles across, with plenty of open spaces — but rather sits squarely in the middle of the base, among the multitudes. Just across the road are several rows of barracks.
“Wow, who has to live next to that?” I said to two American service members as we drove near the pond in their S.U.V.
The two Americans — one man, one woman — smiled at each other like an old couple.
“We do,” they said in unison.
I looked out toward the pond, breathing through my mouth.
“Do you get used to it after awhile?” I continued naïvely. “Do you get used to the smell?”
“Never,” said the man, who was driving. “Not for a second.”
It should be said that the pond does, apparently, serve as some functions useful beyond the absorption of sewage. Taliban fighters often bombard the place with rockets, which sometimes explode and injure people. During one recent attack, an officer told me, a Taliban rocket struck the pond and disappeared inside.
It hasn’t been heard from since.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

More Troops in Afghanistan Than Iraq

As of today, there are more US troops in Afghanistan Than Iraq as reported today in the NY Times At War blog.  I am glad to hear it.  The war is over in Iraq--unless the civil war starts and if it does, it is not our war.

Really good news.  The American troops who have to be in the Middle East are moving to where they can do the most good in fighting terrorists.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

American Chemistry Magazine Published a Story I Wrote

Because it is in a PDF, I cannot post all three pages.  If you want to read it, send me an email:  ngussman@gmail.com

Friday, May 21, 2010

WHYY to Teach Soldiers Video Skills

After breakfast with Carl Kassell on Tuesday, I got a tour of the new Learning Lab at WHYY in Philadelphia from Craig Santoro, the project manager.  During the tour, Craig and I talked about the possibility of WHYY training soldiers in video skills.  In a minute, Craig had a plan for a "Boot Camp" weekend.  A full day of shooting, framing shots, and technical instruction with WHYY professional staff.   The second day will be video editing and other technical considerations.  Craig suggested we bring our own cameras so the training will be on the equipement we will eventually use.

I knew I was going, whether it was an official Army weekend or not.  Yesterday, I called Sgt. Matt Jones at the public affairs office on Fort Indiantown Gap.  He said that, depending on the schedule, we could certainly use video cameras at the PA office.  I called Capt. Ed Shank of the 56th Brigade Combat Team (Stryker).  Capt. Shank said he would be attending himself and bring his PA staff. 

Tentative dates would be in September or October.  It's a great offer.  Thanks to Craig, WHYY and the Learning Lab.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Breakfast with Carl Kassell

This morning I went to the new Learning Lab in the WHYY FM91/TV12 Studios in Philadelphia for a breakfast event featuring Carl Kassell.  I got to sit with Carl during breakfast and took several photos during the presentation.  He was interviewed on stage by Dave Heller of WHYY. 

Carl talked about his life, NPR News, and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.  He joined the army in the 50s and served two years in Italy where he met his first wife.  His high school drama teacher was Andy Griffith and in the mid 70s he hired Katie Couric as a summer intern.  In response to an audience question, Carl said Gene Simmons of Kiss was the worst guest in the history of WWDTM.


                               Carl and Me

                      Carl Kassell during the on-stage interview


Dave Heller and Carl Kassell on stage at WHYY

Monday, May 17, 2010

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.



















Sunday, May 16, 2010

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








Saturday, May 15, 2010

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. 

Friday, May 14, 2010

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.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

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. 

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

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.

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.

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...