Friday, December 10, 2010

How I Would Have Died--If I Lived 100 Years Ago: Bicycle Racing

Latest post on my work blog:


On Wednesday, May 9, 2007, twelve riders (including me) started down a 3/4-mile winding descent known as Turkey Hill. If you live in the Northeast, you probably have eaten Turkey Hill ice cream. It's that Turkey Hill—a real place on the west side of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Turkey Hill is a coasting race; no pedaling allowed. Riders sweep down the hill crouched as low as they can get on their bikes, passing each other using the momentum of the draft. On that lovely spring afternoon, I started at the back of the group and picked off the riders one or two at a time as we went faster and faster down the hill.
Just before nearing the finish line, I swept left to pass the lead rider. I timed it perfectly—except that the lead rider moved left. We touched wheels. I remember less than two minutes of the next three days.
When two-wheeled vehicles touch wheels, the back rider crashes. According to the ten riders behind me, I flipped through the air and landed on my head and right shoulder, sliding into the ditch at the base of the hill.
By my count,  I would have died four different ways 100 years ago. In order of severity:
1) I broke cervical vertebra 1 and 2 and smashed C-7. 100 years ago, spinal injury victims survived for weeks or months at best.
2) My high-tech bicycle helmet was crushed and covered with blood, but intact. Without it I might have been dead before I was done sliding without the bike.
3) Within 30 minutes after the accident I was in a MEDEVAC helicopter on the way to the Trauma Center at Lancaster General Hospital. With a smashed vertebra, I could have been quadraplegic or worse before I got the hospital by any slower means.
4) When I landed, my racing glasses dug into my forehead, peeling it up about two inches and ripping the skin from the bridge of my nose. Plastic surgery put me back together. Without it, infection could very well have been fatal.
This does not mean I got off scot-free. Stay tuned for next week's post, when I explain how modern medicine healed my spinal injuries.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Westboro Baptist Church and Conspiracy Theories

Today's news reports say Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church www.godhatesfags.com will be protesting at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards.  I suppose this is great news for her former husband.  Even he looks good next to the vile members of that creepy Kansas church.

In a related story, Julian Assange was arrested for sexual assault.  Who knows how long his trial will drag out.  Remember the guy who was threatening to burn Korans?  I don't.  And I am not looking him up.

For me, the very fact that Julian Assange and Fred Phelps are alive show just how nutty conspiracy theories really are.  People who really think our government was involved in 9-11 should look at Westboro and Fred Phelps.  Phelps dishonors our own war dead, hurts the grieving families and friends of the dead soldiers and no one "takes him out."

You would think a government that could pull off a conspiracy like 9-11 or implant tracker chips in people's butts (Timothy McVeigh believed that one) or be involved in one-tenth of the conspiracy wet dreams of Glenn Beck or Michael Savage could at least kill Julian Assange and Fred Phelps.

But they are alive, healthy, and Fred is off to trash the funeral of a long-suffering woman for his own disgusting reasons.

Next time you hear some nut case--either live or broadcast--try to explain some vast government conspiracy just check to see if Phelps and Assange are still happily peddling their respective rubbish.  If they are, just try to imagine a world takeover by a government that can't do anything about Westboro Baptist Church.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Facebook Message from Medic I Served With

Facebook is great for keeping in touch.  I got this message today.  I hope I get to meet the lady Cynthia Dalton talked to.  I will write abut her for a future blog post.  I wrote about Cindy here:  http://armynow.blogspot.com/2009/09/who-fights-this-war-flight-medic.html

Hey! Something interesting I wanted to share with you...
So there I was at Military Clothing Sales, you know, purchasing all my last minute Class A stuff just like everyone else in the PA Guard! Well I was trying on some shoes for my Class A's when an older woman came over and asked if I was in the national guard. I explained to her that I was AGR. Out of nowhere she just said, I was in the Army for 6 years, active duty. I was a medic in vietnam. Fellow Medic! I instantly stood up from trying on my shoes and shook her hand! I thanked her for her service and especially for laying down the foundation of what I have had the honor and privelidge of what I have made my career. I instantly thought of you. I explained to her what you were doing next fall and asked her if she would be willing to talk to you. (I realize that may have been presumtious of me) She was hesitant for a moment and you could tell she was in deep thought. She said "IDK, maybe" sighed and then said "yea sure." I thought WOW I would love to sit down and have coffee with this woman. The only detail she mentioned in our short conversation was about assisting with a surgery in a tent while she could here the bullets flying! We instantly had a repor and talked a little about what it is like to be a female in the army and what it is like to do the best job in the army. She told me she was there shopping because her husband was in the hospital and he asked to be buried in army fatigues, not the new ones that we wear now but the old desert fatigues. She was looking for his ingsignia and rank to put on them. This woman went from being an army medic in vietnam to an army wife for 22 years, and now here she was preparing for her husbands funeral.
It was time for me to get going, I wish I could have stayed and talked to her for hours. She thanked me for continuing what the WAC's started (Women's Army Corp) and extended her hand to shake mine. I leaned over and hugged her instead.
Neil- I do not know if you have a place in the event you are planning but if you do she would be worth talking to. I was so intrigue by our meeting that since I have been searching the internet for hours looking for books or essays on enlisted female army medics. Unfortunately, I have not been too successful. There is some out there about Nurses and the Women's Officer Corp, but nothing on the enlisted female medics. Something told me to share this with you.
I could tell she wanted to talk more too. She lingered around the register and when I walked up she said "and here is Mrs. Dalton!" I have her name and phone number, if you would like. She gave me her home and cell. She also does a lot of painting revolving around women in the military. Let me know your thoughts-Cynthia

Monday, December 6, 2010

Waiting for the Retirement Verdict

Last week I met with the NCOIC of administration in our battalion, SFC Lori Burns.  She looked at my pay statements from the 80s and forwarded them to division HQ to see if there is any way I can stay long enough to retire.  I know I will have to stay another five years of so, the question is will five more years bring me close enough to 20 years to get me a real retirement?

I have a friend at Church, Ethan Demme, who knows everybody in Lancaster Country politics.  He said he can put me in touch with my US Congressman, Joe Pitts.  My wife knows our state representative, Mike Sturla.  I could need help from state and federal representatives if I hit one of the paper walls any big bureaucracy can set up.

Lucky for me, an old guy who wants to stay in the Army longer (and is healthy) should be one of the projects representatives actually have fun doing.  Many requests for their help come from people who are neck deep in a cesspool and need a real strong pull to get out--not to mention help with clean up afterwards!

I have read memoirs of people my age, back when 57 was really old, who said they believed what they saw in the mirror--a face that obviously belongs to a person nearing 60, but behind their eyes, the person looking at the mirror does not seem like a different person than the 17-year-old who looked in the mirror hoping he would get older so his zits would clear up.

After I met with Lori Burns, I talked to Captain Mike Gross, our battalion operations officer.  He was not with us in Iraq.  We talked about the newsletter.  He asked whether I "just wanted to be the guy with the camera" or if I wanted to work in my MOS to advance my career.  I said, "I'm 57 years old and have three college degrees.  I'm not sure my skill (or lack of it) in generator and pump repair will make a lot of difference to my career."  But he is right to ask.  If I am not going to fix generators, I should let a generator mechanic have the sergeant slot.

We'll see what happens.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Thanksgiving Dinner

I know it’s a week late, but we had a great Thanksgiving.  All the girls were home from college and among our guests were six political refugees from Bhutan.  A family at our Church is involved with refugee resettlement and Lancaster. Pa. has several hundred refugees from various conflicts around the world.  When they came to our house, I thought immediately they were from Nepal.  It turns out there was a migration of Nepalese people to Bhutan several decades ago.  The native Bhutanese since decided they did not want Nepalese and started an ethnic cleansing campaign. 

Men from Nepal worked in the Green Beans Coffee Shop on Tallil Ali Air Base and at other shops I went to in Balad Air Base and in Kuwait.  They are short and thin and don’t eat much.  My wife cooked for 20 Americans which meant we had a lot of leftovers, even sending a lot of food home with our guests. 

I am glad America is still a refuge for persecuted people like my own grandparents who escaped Russian pogroms more than a century ago.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

How I Would Have Died--If I Lived 100 Years Ago, Motorcycle Accident

On a Tuesday in June 1980 I ran from my desk at the Elizabethtown Chronicle to my 550 Suzuki motorcycle parked out back. I was running late for class on the second day of the summer trimester at Penn State's campus in Harrisburg, Pa. I could cover the 12-mile distance in 10 minutes, park close, run up the stairs and be on time.
It was mid morning and Route 230 was clear of traffic. I went over the hill and down into an S turn, which was followed by a flat stretch for three miles.  In the middle of taking the S at 75 mph (speed limit 55mph) the handlebars started a rapid, back and forth wobble called a “tank slapper” by motorcyclists. I have long arms and had once overcome the wobble  by snapping my arms straight.
My snap must have been off that day. The front wheel grabbed the pavement while turned all the way to the right. The bike launched into the air, back wheel first. The bike and I flipped and rolled across the center of the road and into the ditch nearly 100 yards away.  
I felt no pain. It was a beautiful summer morning. At first, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Then I looked down. I was on my back and covered in dirt and blood. I'd crashed in front of a house that was being painted. One of the painters ran up and asked if I was okay.  He covered me with a drop cloth and yelled for someone to call an ambulance. In the narrow clarity of shock, I told the painter I needed to get up and walk around or I would be stiff in the morning. He said, “You just stay where you are, son. Help is coming.”  
After the flip, I hit face down on the road. The main impact points were  knees and  face. I suppose because of my boots, both knees hit on the left side and the road scraped away so much skin that I could see the ligaments. I did not see my helmet until after my two-week hospital stay, but the full-coverage helmet had grooves scraped in the chin bar and above the visor. After surgery on both knees and some very painful rehab, I was released from the hospital two weeks later and went back to class. I got good marks and sympathy, since I returned in a lot of bandages.
Readers might protest that I would not have died 100 years ago because I could not have gone that fast on two wheels. But bicycles and motorcycles have been the fast track to injury and death since they were invented.  The physics are terrible—moving at high speed while perched on top of a vehicle that tends to flip when unbalanced. Bicycle racing was very popular at the turn of the 20th century. Racers were maimed and killed riding more than 40 mph on steeply banked board tracks. One of the more gruesome injuries came when a crashing rider was impaled by a long splinter. Indian started making motor-cycles in 1901; Harley-Davidson in 1903.  By 1910 motorcycle racing was turning into a major attraction at state fairs. Helmets were as crude as the motorcycles. Injuries were terrible.
I'm alive to write about this accident because I had the good fortune not to hit anything solid on my high speed flips through the air. If I had hit an on-coming car or a tree or a curb at 75 mph my story would be over. Also, without the full-coverage helmet, landing face first would have killed me or made me wish I was dead. People who ride motorcycles without helmets or with those ludicrous “brain bucket” helmets should at least make sure they are signed up as organ donors before they ride.
The full-coverage helmet with all of the polymer technology inside and outside is the main reason I survived the crash. Rapid-response ambulance transport, effective treatment for shock and infection, and follow-up care kept me from the fate of riders who once rode without modern medicine.
http://www.chemheritage.org/community/periodic-tabloid/2010-12-03-how-i-would-died-motorcycle.aspx?

Friday, December 3, 2010

Thanksgiving Morning

Some of you may remember that I had an article published on the New York Times “At War” blog last year about a bike/run race I organized Iraq.  It was on Thanksgiving morning, just like the annual Turkey Day Race here in Lancaster.  This year I definitely wanted to go, even though the only chance I had of winning was freezing rain or snow.  I left my house early figuring I would be dropped on the first lap and ride home.  The race distance is six laps of the 3.3-mile triangular circle where there is a Wednesday night training race from April till October. 

As I left the driveway, the roads were dry.  By the time I passed Park City Mall ten minutes later, it was raining and 35 degrees.  Another mile later, sleet was pinging off my helmet.  I arrived 45 minutes early and no one was there.  I sat under the eaves of the radio station at the start finish (WARM 103 FM) then decided I would be warmer if I rode a couple of laps.  The race starts at 9.  I waited till 9:05 then decided it was time for the race to start.  Since I was the whole field, I then declared it a one-lap race.  Ten minutes later, I met a guy named Sheldon who rode out to see who showed up in the sleet to race.  He was surprised that it was just me.  But he did agree to be my witness of the win.  He is officially second place.


Two days ago I wrote to Keith Wilson, the keeper of the Turkey Day records, on Facebook.  He said I am the winner and I get the prize--a can of Yams!!!!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Changing Workouts

Ten days ago as I got up to leave Church I had a huge pain in my right knee.  I had ridden to Church on my folding bike and planned walk home with my family.  I rode home slowly since I would get to coast part way.  My knee was swollen and sore.  I tired to do the Sunday ride, but only rode the three miles to the start and turned around.  I went to the doctor the next day.  No knee damage he could see, my lack of stretching just caught up to me and pulled a tendon called the IT band on the outside of my right leg.  The doctor put me on physical therapy with my old friends at Lancaster Orthopedic Group.  I was back to riding and running in two days. 

But I have actually been stretching since and will have to keep it up.  In the last three months I have been riding less and running more.  In fact, it is likely I will have fewer miles on the bike this year that last year.  I’ll have to ride almost 600 miles in December to match the 7133 miles I rode last year—mostly in Iraq.

It’s not that I don’t want to ride, but I have been working longer hours which makes it more difficult to ride with just nine hours of daylight.  And I have been running more—just over 60 miles each of the last three months.  And I have been at the gym more consistently, so in October, I did the most pushups (1115) and situps (1403) I have ever done in a month and it looks like 2010 will be the year I do more pushups, situps and pull-ups than I have ever done in a year.  


Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Next 2-104th Newsletter

I just sent the latest newsletter to the training NCOs in the battalion for distribution.  It’s eight pages mostly of pictures.  In the next issue I will catch up with pictures I did not publish from Echo Company’s refueling operation in September and the pistol, rifle and machine gun ranges in October.  If you want a whole copy, send me an email at ngussman@gmail.com




Friday, November 26, 2010

New "How I Would Have Died" post

Today's post in my new series about how I would have died if I lived 100 years ago:  http://www.chemheritage.org/community/periodic-tabloid/2010-11-26-how-i-would-have-died.aspx

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving--or just a good Thursday if you live in another country.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

How I Would Have Died--If I Lived 100 Years Ago

Here's another of the posts from my day job on the How I Would Have Died theme:


In his Pulitzer-Prize-winning book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, Jared Diamond says Native Americans were killed off in massive numbers—possibly 95% of their population—by smallpox and other germs brought by settlers who would soon begin attacking the Native Americans with weapons. They eventually armed themselves, but the history of North America would have been very different if they had also been vaccinated.
I was born in 1953. My sister was born in 1955. My mother was worried sick during both pregnancies. Polio was sweeping across America, claiming more victims every year from 1920 to 1957. In 1955 Jonas Salk began widespread testing of the first effective polio vaccine. By 1957, the upward trend in polio cases had reversed. By 1960, polio had all but disappeared. 
Vaccination is one of the real triumphs of modern medicine, all but eradicating deadly diseases. But a new and disturbing trend threatens to undo centuries of progress. An anti-vaccine movement has sprung up in America based on the belief that certain vaccinations cause autism. Parents keep their children from being vaccinated and hope enough other children will be vaccinated to keep their children from contracting deadly diseases. The movement has celebrity spokespersons like Jenny McCarthy, but no support from leading researchers in the medical community.
I have five children who get all the vaccinations their doctor prescribes and I am thankful they can get them. If they couldn't, their histories may ultimately prove very different today.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Almost on the Fat Boy Program

On Sunday I took  PT Test.  I was one point lower than last time.  I went over max on the situps (82, 64 is max) and the pushups (just barely) but was 28 seconds too slow on the run.  So my score was 296.  BUT, I almost flunked the AFPT before I ran.  At 8am we went in for height and weight.  My weight was 191, up from my usual 186 because I had not ridden the bike for almost a week and was eating a lot the night before the PT Test.

Since I am getting old, I am slowly shrinking.  The first time they measured me, the medic said I was 71 inches tall.  According to Army height-weight standards 186 pounds is the maximum weight for a man 71 inches tall.  The medic sergeant rechecked and said I was 72 inches tall.  Then the max weight is 197.  If I had not passed height and weight, I would have been a No Go on the overall fitness test even with a score of 296 out of 300.

Actually, if the measurement had gone the other way, the medics "tape" you, checking your waist and neck.  With my waist and neck measurements, I would be allowed up to 203 pounds.  So I am good.  For now.

But I have to make sure I am not a Fat Boy in the future!!!!!!

Riding in NYC Tomorrow--Bought a New Lock

Tomorrow I will be riding in NYC.  I will be taking my other Iraq bike, the GT Peace 9er with me.  To be sure that bike is not stolen, I bought the best Kryptonite Lock--the Forget About It New York model.  I keep the bike in my hotel room anyway, but if I would need a lock--this one is the best.  And at 8 pounds, it is just one pound lighter than an M16A4 rifle.  So even the weight will be like being back in Iraq.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Air Assault Training

On Saturday 2-104th Aviation trained 55th Brigade Combat Team.  We flew 70 feet over the tree tops up and down steep hillsides on the way to Medina Ridge where we put two rifle squads in position.

  


Saturday, November 13, 2010

LOTS OF PICTURES

More than 1200 pictures of soldiers in my unit since we got back from Iraq are here.

If you are looking for photos of 2-104 Aviation photos, look no further.

How I Would Have Died--If I Lived 100 Years Ago

[The following post is on the blog Periodic Tabloid. I will be writing weekly about how I would have died if I lived 100 years ago.]

In honor of Veteran’s Day, which was yesterday, let me explain how I could have died at 9:30 a.m. on November 9, 1973 had it been 1873 instead:

I enlisted in the Air Force in January 1972. After eight months of school I was assigned to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. My job was live-fire testing of missiles. We were 8,000 miles from the war in Vietnam, but several days a week we bolted rockets into test -firing rigs and set them off.

Our job was officially aging and surveillance testing. We froze missiles, heated them, shook them in 750,000-watt machines, put them in altitude chambers and humidity chambers, then fired them.

Most of the missiles burned just as they are supposed to. Occasionally, the mistreatment we gave them caused the propellant to crack. The air gap could make the missile explode rather than burn. We hated that. When a missile blew up a test pad we would get behind schedule and be out on the range longer. Some actually worried about the concrete and steel raining on the bunker we waited in—mostly the older guys. The single airmen, most under the age of 20, only worried about their weekend plans.

On Friday, November 9, 1973, we were testing inter-stage detonators on a Minuteman 3-stage missile—the kind that carry several warheads across the poles to the other side of the world. Back then they were aimed at Russia and China.

In a multi-stage missile, detonator cord separates the stages. When the first stage burns out, the detonator cord burns through the skin allowing the spent stage to fall away before the next stage fires. I was connecting test wires to the detonators when I saw a blue-white flash and flew back against the wall of the test bay.

I stood up and saw my crew chief lying on the floor. I could see, but I could not blink and my vision was tinted red. A wire was sticking out of my right eye, holding it open. The first two fingers of my right hand were hanging at a strange angle. Bits of wire, screws, and aluminum from the test clamp peppered my body from my waist up.

After six eye operations and surgery to reattach my fingers, I recovered months later. If the same accident happened 100 years ago, infection would have left me blind, or dead. And without the high-tech eye surgeons who cleared their schedule to operate on me, I would have been blind just from the injuries.

Modern medicine depends on chemistry. Not just drug development, but the materials that make high-tech surgery possible and the instruments that make labs so accurate and efficient.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Iraq Bike Stolen on Veterans Day

Today I went to lunch with a friend in Center City Philadelphia.  I rode my bike to lunch.  Chained it to a u-shaped metal pipe for locking bikes and went to lunch.  When I came out from lunch the bike, my helmet and the lock were gone.

Which bike?  The one I bought for Iraq and rode for almost my whole tour--a red Trek T-1 single speed.  If you ride in Philly, bike theft is going to happen.  I'll miss that particular bike like an old friend because I rode it in Oklahoma for the train up and for almost the whole deployment--I broke the crank with a month to go on my tour, but Bike Line of Lancaster fixed it when I got back.

I don't suppose I'll ever see it again, and I do have other bikes.  But I really liked that bike and will always remember the looks I got from turret gunners in MRAPS and Humvees when the say me riding with my rifle on my back.

Homesick for the DFAC


Three times in the last two weeks I stopped for breakfast on the way to work in Philadelphia.  Usually I don’t eat breakfast.  I drink coffee at home.  I drink coffee when I get to Philadelphia and sometimes buy a loaf of bread from Fork (a local restaurant that bakes its own bread). 

Today, I stopped at the buffet in The Bourse in Philadelphia.  It’s just any buffet.  It is an American buffet run by an Chinese family.  They have creamed beef, fried potatoes, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, bagels, toast and all the greasy starchy stuff anyone could want for breakfast on the hot line.  But they also have six or seven different kinds of just-cut fresh fruit:  watermelon, honeydew, mango, kiwi, pineapple slices, grapes and then everything mixed together in fruit salad.  Its all fresh and bright colored on an immaculate serving line.

I miss the cut-to-order fruit every morning at the DFAC.  I only eat a little of several things because it is expensive.  If I ate breakfast in Iraq DFAC quantities, it would cost $25.  But for $5 I can get enough to remind me of one of the really good things about Iraq.  The best thing here is when I walk outside there is no sand and no dust storm.

Maybe around the holidays if I am really hungry, I’ll eat like a soldier one morning.

Happy Veterans Day!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Late Update on Half Marathon

Reached my goal Saturday.  I finished in 1:58:18--under two hours.  To go any faster I will have to train specifically for the the run--intervals, hills, etc.  This one also made me wonder if I should go for a full marathon.  But again, lots of training.  At the end of the half marathons I can speed up.  My lungs feel great.  My legs don't.  I think a full marathon will likely end in injury.

But I might do another half if I can find one close by.

The best thing about this event was the water stations.  Every two miles or so, a dozen Amish kids were lined up handing water and Powerade to the runners.  This event could not be held anywhere but Lancaster PA.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

"This Job is for Young Men"

As some of you know, way back in 2007 when I re-enlisted I thought I would join a WMD detection team as some kind of chemical weapons detection specialist.  It never worked out at the time, but when I got back from Iraq, I started getting weekly listings of full-time jobs available at Fort Indiantown Gap.  One of those jobs was the job I was looking for four years ago.

I looked at that job every week and thought 'Do I really want to be full time?'  It turns out that the team members have to be full time, which makes sense.  I called the office last week and talked to a senior officer in the unit.  He told me that the job involved a lot of travel, a lot of chemistry and was physically demanding.  He asked how old I am.  When I told him he said I could apply if I wanted to, but almost everyone else on the team was in their 20s.

I suppose I could apply anyway, but the unit gets to decide who they interview from the applicant pool.  And when I joined, I was thinking I could do this kind of thing part time.  Since that's not the case, I'll sty where I am.

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...