Friday, January 18, 2013

Army Sizes Run Small. . .Or NOT

Last weekend during drill I was on a list to go to the Inaugural Ball.  So I needed a dress blue uniform.  I told the supply sergeant my sizes.  He got a uniform in the sizes I specified, but I could not fit in the pants!!!

The new Dress Blue Uniform

Since my supply sergeant could not get the next size of pants, I went to the clothing sales store and bought a pair.  When I went to try them on, the sales clerk said "Army sizes run small."  

Actually, the Army might be the last place with reality sizing.  My Army dress pants are size 36, just like the pants of my older suits.  The pants fight tightly in the winter and loosely in the summer.  

But my Gap jeans are another story.  Six years ago I bought a pair of Gap jeans.  I tried on the 36 waist pair.  I could take them off zipped up.  The 34s fit.  I bought them.  

Last year I wanted to replace those jeans after rips that were beyond repair.  I picked up a 34 waist pair.  When I tried them on it was like the 36s five years before.  So bought 32s.

I have not shrunk.  But most retailers are flattering their customers with waist sizes disconnected from reality.  The Army is in pants reality.  


Not Going to the Ball

No pumpkin is turning into a coach for me.  My First Sergeant called me up to say they are taking a lot fewer soldiers than he first heard and I am one of the many not going to the Inaugural Ball.

Oh well.


Saturday, January 12, 2013

Low Rank Might Mean High Life



I might be going to President Obama's inaugural ball!!!  

Is it because I am such an important link in the chain of command in the defense of our nation?  
Not a chance.

It's actually the reverse.  PA National Guard has a few slots for soldiers and their wives to attend the Inagural Ball, but they are mostly for soldiers who are staff sergeants and below.  I am low ranking enough for an evening of very high life.

Of course, nothing is for sure.  I got the email an hour after the very short deadline (my fault, not the army).  But my first sergeant was kind enough to forward my name anyway.  

If we get to go it will be January 21.  I will need a dress blue uniform.  I currently have the old dress greens which are OK for the National Guard for another year, but not OK in Washington DC.

Today I will get the new uniform and start getting it ready--just in case I get the call!

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Happy New Year

As this new year begins, the flight companies of my unit are on the way to or are already in Afghanistan.  If you follow me and my unit on facebook you have seen now photos going up in both places.  Several soldiers are posting and sending photos from training and from Afghanistan. Our MEDEVAC unit was in a feature story on army.mil about a new program they are testing to save more soldiers.  Here's the link to the story.

Wish I was along for the ride, but not this trip.  I will continue to write about life in the National Guard until May of 2015 when my enlistment extension is up.

Here a picture from the army.mil story:


Happy New Year!!!


Monday, December 31, 2012

Stewie Caldwell and the Magic Roach Clip

One of my best friends when I was stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah was Stewart "Stewie" Caldwell.  He was a smart, funny kid from San Francisco with a bright yellow Superbeetle who smoked a lot of weed.  We worked in live fire munitions testing.  I worked connecting the missiles to the testing equipment, Stewie was one of the ammo handlers who brought the missiles to the test-firing range.


Stewie and I would hang out together in the barracks and went to Salt Lake City almost every weekend so he could resupply his stash and we could meet girls who were possibly more interested in Stewie's stash than in us.

On one of these trips, a sudden Rocky Mountain blizzard blew out of the west turning I-15 white with zero visibility.  Then the gas pedal broke.

The pedal!!!

It came apart and we were idling downhill trying to think of what to do and how to get off the road so we would not be crushed by a semi.  I am not sure which one of us came up with the idea, but the throttle was operated by a cable that went all the way back to the engine in the rear.  There was a bit of cable sticking out of the floor with a crimped piece of metal on it.  Stewie kept his Roach Clip hanging on the dash.  A minute later I was upside down under the dash.  I put the roach clip on the throttle cable and became Stewie's throttle.  This was tricky in the snow with a stick shift, but he would ask for more or less gas and after a while, I could get the throttle in about the right place.

The next challenge was going through the gate.  Stewie showed the air policeman the broken gas pedal and said it was my turn to be head first under the dash.  They let us in the base!

Stewie would never go anywhere without a roach clip before it saved our lives.  Now he also bragged about his roach clip to every girl he tried to impress.


Sunday, December 23, 2012

My Unit's Facebook Page Nearing 500 "Likes"

Over the holidays I will be putting captions on family photos.  The pictures were taken at the departure ceremony for Alpha Company and at our unit's Christmas party.

Here's the link if you haven't yet "Like"d the page.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy any other holidays you might like.

Neil

Thursday, December 13, 2012

In Sunlight and Shadow by Mark Helprin

On the train to Philadelphia yesterday, I finished Mark Helpin's latest novel, In Sunlight and Shadow.  I came pretty close to crying.  Helprin is a soldier who writes love stories.  In this most recent book, the central love story was vivid, between two people iridescent with love.  The love story is set in New York, from the eastern end of Long Island to the reservoirs north of the city.  And it is a love story about New York City, set in the years just after World War 2.

For those who have read other of Helprin's books, this one is more down to earth.  The exaggerations in A Winter's Tale, in A Soldier of the Great War and A Dove of the East rival Mark Twain in being colossal and very American.  In Sunlight and Shadow, the hero lives for love and honor and finally is caught between the demands of both.  The same choice comes to the hero of many of Helprin's tales, but in the latest novel, the choice is more vivid and final.

If you think modern literary novels have squishy irresolute heroes (if they can be called heroes) and you would like to read a love story with strong admirable characters, this novel is for you.  As is almost everything Mark Helprin writes.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Getting Promoted with a Splash!




Specialist Daniel Krott was promoted to Sergeant at formation today, December 8.  He is being led in pushups by his supervisor, SSG Elizabeth Barger.  Giving him the traditional ice-water shower for new Sergeants is SGT Joseph Diebert and SGT Jeff Guckin.



Three other sergeants read the NCO Creed to the company formation before the big splash.  PFC Robert Woodring on the left read the promotion order.  SGTs Jeana Frederick, Rene Kicklighter, and Francis League read the NCO Creed.


SGT Krott was promoted by CPT Aaron Lippy, 1SG Jeff Huttle and SSG Elizabeth Barger.


Monday, December 3, 2012

Alpha Company Flies to Training Base

On Friday afternoon I was standing on the south side of Muir Field on Fort Indiantown Gap PA watching eight Blackhawk helicopters take off together on their flight to their training base.  Alpha will train for deployment to Afghanistan when they arrive in Texas.

On this bright, clear afternoon I was standing with the families and friends of the eight aircrews flying away from home for a year.  Wives and Moms were the most obviously sad.  Fathers tried to remain composed, but a couple of the grandfathers were very emotional.

I took a lot of family pictures before the final ceremony and will post these on line soon.  If things had worked out differently, I might have been going to Texas with Alpha.

 Families
 Flying to Texas


 Putting away the flags after the Blackhawks disappear from sight

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Inside the Two-Ton Bubble


 Once on my daily circuit around the airfield at Camp Adder, Iraq, I was in a sandstorm so strong that it stopped me on the bike.  Because I can “track stand” the bike, keep it upright when standing still, I held the bike in place for a minute then jumped off.


Curled up in a ball, back to the wind, I thought about what to do next.  I could turn around and fly back in the other direction, but I would eventually have to turn the north then back to the east, then get stopped again.  Just then, one of the special ops black Suburbans pulled up and told me to get in.  They said, “Dude, get inside.  This storm’s gonna last all day.”

I got inside and they drove me to battalion HQ. 

Today I was riding in a 20 mph wind with 30 mph gusts.  I was going up a shallow hill at 6 mph—way slower than normal, but straight into the wind that was the best I could do.  Many cars rolled past me on that mile-long stretch of PA Rt. 999.  I was thinking about how many times I heard about people “In the bubble” during the political season just passed.  Here I was, the perfect example of why people stay in a bubble—it sucks being outside!!!!

The people in the cars going past me were getting no exercise, they were missing a clear, cold, clear brilliant late Fall day.  Compared to keeping my bike upright and rolling uphill into a headwind, their lives were DULL.

Let’s assume, most of them wanted it that way.  After a while I did.  I turned back early and rolled to the bike shop to buy a better pair of cold weather gloves and hang out in the warm shop for a while.

For people who are in bubbles of belief, their avoidance of facts has an effect similar to being in a two-ton, two hundred horsepower car in a head wind.

Mr. Bubble, looking out through the windshield, can see everything the guy on the bike does, but Mr. Bubble does not experience the world as it is.  He is in a climate controlled, sound-deadened environment moving fast enough that he seldom sees the messy details of reality. 



One of the great things about serving in the Army is realizing—even in America—that individual freedom can only be preserved by people who give it up.  And that health and safety for many means that some must risk their lives. 

I am sitting in a comfortable, well-lit room, in a centrally heated house writing on my unbelievably powerful computer which is connected to the whole world through an incredibly reliable cable modem.  I love my bubble.  But I know it is a bubble which is more than I deserve and much more than 98% of the world will ever have.

Happy Thanksgiving!


Monday, November 19, 2012

New Layout for a New Year

In 2013 I turn 60.  It will be my a record of some of the highlights and oddities of my last two years as an American soldier.  I decided to switch formats for the two years ahead to one that better suits my life as it is.

For a few hours I had a format called Mosaic.  Friends and family agreed--NO!!!! I could not change back, but this is close. 





These pictures and a million more are my life.  So I will try the new format to chronicle my civilian/military/executive/enlisted/family/battalion life.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

New Video on chemistry and War

The American Chemical Society has a chemistry ambassadors series.  They taped me for it in the summer.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

35 Army Years Ago . . .


This is a photo of me taken near Fulda, Germany (then West Germany) in 1977.  I was on top of my M60A1 tank.  It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood of more than 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops we thought were going to roll over us like Patton though a Peace Rally.

They never attacked.  

We all came home.  And all of my 1st Battalion, 70th Armor homies are gathering in Wiesbaden Germany next year for a reunion.  I did not sign up because I thought I would have other plans--an all-expense-paid trip to another middle eastern nation.  But I did not go.  

I won't be going to the reunion because we are saving for a trip to Rwanda.  But maybe I'll catch their next reunion in the US.  All those guys look a lot older now!!!




So What Happened with General Petraeus. . .


Last week the election meant I stopped getting questions about Lance Armstrong's drug use.  For many people in my life, I am the only bicycle racer they know.  So they ask what I knew about Lance's drug use.

Not much.

And if they asked about my race results, they would be SURE I was not on drugs, or that I should switch to better drugs.

And now I am fielding questions on General David Petraeus.  "What is going on with Petraeus?" I heard from several people.

I answer by checking my iPhone to see if BFF Gen. P. has txted me abt wazzup!!!

No text.

Really, Gen. Petraeus does not regularly check in with Army National Guard sergeants.  Or colonels for that matter.  If the Army was the Empire State Building, the top generals are right up where King Kong was hanging on and I am on the second floor without a window.

But if David or Lance hits me up on the down low, fshizzle I will update my status.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Enjoying Veterans Day


My wife Annalisa and I both dressed up for Church on Sunday.  I dressed so my sons could say their Dad is in the Army.  My wife put on Peace signs.  

Many people said "Thanks for your service" to me.  I got a free latte at my local Starbucks on Columbia Ave.  I wore the uniform to work today and two of my colleagues took me out for lunch.  

So much better to be a soldier now than during Viet Nam.  

Monday, November 5, 2012

Fueling Helicopters

This weekend I waited with the fuelers of Echo Company for aircraft to fly in for fueling.  There were few flights.  The two hours I was there no aircraft showed up.  So here are pictures from this Spring when a dozen aircraft showed up in a half hour.








Thursday, October 25, 2012

Had a TRIing day Yesterday

Yesterday I was able to to do all three events of a very short triathlon before, during and after some business meetings.  I went to the gym early and increased my swim distance from 100 to 200 yards.  Just 4,024 yards to go for an Ironman!

After that I drove to NYC and went to a business meeting that ended on time and gave me the chance to ride 18miles before dinner--from 29th St up to the base of the George Washington Bridge and back.  Just 94 more miles for the Ironman bike.

After dinner the night was beautiful so I ran 4 miles along the Hudson.  Just 22.2 more and I am done with the Ironman run.

So I do have more training to get done.  But it's a start!  Over time, I hope to do a standard distance triathlon in a day, then all at once:  1k, 40k, 10k.

Same with the half Ironman maybe a year from now, or more.  Then the Ironman.


Monday, October 22, 2012

Every Time I Put My Helmet On. . .

. . . Shit Could Happen.

Yesterday, was a beautiful morning, 45 degrees, clear sunny.  What could go wrong? I rode with two friends, Bruce and Lois.

The seventh mile of the 35-mile route drops steeply down from a ridge for about a quarter of a mile to a 14-foot wide steel bridge that is 270 feet long.  I usually hit 35 mph going into the S-turn that leads onto the bridge.  When the road is dry I zip across the bridge at 50 feet per second then slow as I approach the stop sign at the other end.  When the road is wet, I slow to 10 to 12 mph and pedal gingerly across the bridge.  At full speed I cross the bridge in six seconds.  In the wet, the crossing takes a very long 12 - 15 seconds.

The type of bridge I am talking about is pictured below.  As you can imagine, falling on this kind of bridge can be horrible.  I knew a guy who broke all the fingers on his right hand on one of these and had some nasty gashes on the rest of his body.


Open steel span


Up close looking through the steel span at the water.

So yesterday I descended to the bridge braking lightly at the bottom going 30 mph when I rolled onto the span.

The road to the bridge was dry, but the night was cold and the bridge was WET.

As soon as I was on the bridge my tires started squirming on the steel squares.  The rear wheel wobbled under my seat and slid left.  I stayed as still as I could and just touched the brakes as the bike squirmed more and seemed to lose no speed.

Both sides of the bridge are steel girders.  I hoped I could get to the end of bridge before I slid into the side of the bridge. I knew if a car came on the bridge I would hit it because I could not steer or stop.

At the end of the bridge the road drops away steeply down to a stop sign 20 feet away.  I went off the bridge in the air and landed with my rear tire skidding and sliding left.

There were no cars on Conestoga Boulevard, so I swerved into the road and sat up.  Lois and Bruce crossed the bridge slowly so I had 30 seconds to calm down before they caught up to me.  Bruce said, "You flew over the bridge."  If he only knew.

I changed the subject.

But it reminded me that experience gives us a store of info to avoid big mistakes like this.  I haven't ridden on a steel bridge on a cold morning for years.  The road was dry so I rode fast.

The reason I wear a helmet on the bike and wore one in the Army was for that moment when a small mistake, or a big one, means my head is going to suffer a big hit.

My wife decided to train for an Ironman.  She is a good runner, a great swimmer and almost never rides.  She has a lot of training to do before she can ride 112 miles at speed after a 2.4-mile swim and before a marathon.  I know she can do it.  But I do worry about the many hazards that bicycling puts in the way of every rider.  Experience really helps, but the only way to get experience is to ride without until you have it.

So now we can worry about each other on the bike.

And the first thing we are buying for her together is a good helmet.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Ironman August 2015

Two weeks ago my wife announced she was going to do the Ironman in Kentucky in 2015
She swam on her college team, she ran a half marathon at the beginning of the month so she is good on two of three.  I am not sure of the exact number, but we think she has ridden more than ten but less than 20 miles last year.  So she will have to train a lot to look like the woman in the photo above.

BTW:  An Ironman is a 2.4-mile open water swim, followed by a 112-mile bike, then a marathon.

Naturally, I would like to do the event with her.  But she is way ahead of me.  I ran a bunch of half marathons last year.  I could ride 112 miles tomorrow, but I swim 50 meters in the pool and think I am going to die!

Yesterday, my wife started the day with a 6-mile hilly run.  I rode 32 miles.  In late afternoon we ran 5k together.  

Today, she rode 5 miles with my son Nigel.  She said she could feel it in her legs.  I swam 100 yards and was tired all over.  She is 4% of the way to 112 miles.  I am 2% of the way to a 4224-yard swim.

She is getting a new bike.  I am getting a swim coach.


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...