Veteran of four wars, four enlistments, four branches: Air Force, Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard. I am both an AF (Air Force) veteran and as Veteran AF (As Fuck)
Friday, October 11, 2013
Army Weak!
The Army will be getting a new fitness uniform soon to replace the current gray and black uniform that is Army ugly.
I saw the new uniform in the clothing sales store on Fort Meade. I noticed that "Army Strong" was written on the sleeve of the uniform.
I smiled.
When I came to Fort Meade and started Army PT at 4am, I scored a 297 on the PT test. Since then my fitness has declined. Before I came to Meade I was training for an Ironman triathlon, adding about a mile a month since swimming two miles in January. Now I am declining. I ran a marathon in March and have barely run 30 miles a month since I have been here. I ride everywhere on post but now my total miles have dropped from 800+ to less than 700 per month.
Am I whining?
Yes.
By being forced to do Army basic trainee PT five days a week, I do far less exercise than I would have on my own. And now it's starting to show.
This may be a good PT program for people who watch movies and play video games if they are not dragged out of bed in the morning, but it is a bad program for someone who actually trains.
One of my classmates runs two miles in 12 minutes and is training for a marathon next month. He does his long run on Wednesday night. At 5 am Wednesday morning we do hill sprints or sprint in a circle. At 5 pm, Ben runs 18, 20 or 22 miles.
Then he is up before dawn doing upper body exercises at 5am on Thursday.
Most units do not have returning sergeants who qualify for fitness awards do this kind of PT.
27 days to go.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Another Reason the Air Force Laughs at us: Thursday Mentorship Training
Among the many ill-conceived programs we endure at school,
the Thursday mentorship program for Army soldiers is one of the dumbest.
Each Thursday at 4:30 p.m. we gather in a conference room of
the main school building and listen to a one-hour lecture about what our job
will be like out in the field. At least,
that is how the lecture is billed.
In reality, exactly one of the lectures had any real
connection to our immediate future in Army Public Affairs. But these lectures do have an effect on our
school experience.
They are one more ill-conceived and unnecessary
aggravation.
We get up at 4 a.m. each morning to do PT (Physical Training) and have eight hours of
classes each day finishing at 4 p.m.
Adding a lecture that will not be graded at the end of a 12-hour day
would be nasty if it were interesting.
But these lectures are farther off topic than cold-weather survival
training in Mogadishu, Somalia.
With one exception, these lectures are far above our pay
grade, and focused on active-duty Army.
The majority of the soldiers in these classes are enlisted and junior
NCOs in the National Guard and Reserve.
Four weeks ago, a Sergeant First Class talked to us for 73
minutes about the distribution of Public Affairs leadership slots in the active
Army. His focus was on officers and
senior NCOs. And he droned on 13 minutes
over his hour in front of people who had already spent a whole day in class.
Two weeks ago, a Master Sergeant spoke for his entire hour
about creating PowerPoint slides for command briefings. He is a perfect example of the kind of
speaker that drives speechwriters crazy:
he thinks he is funny, and he is not.
Worse still, he thinks he is funny when he is just being himself. He said toward the end of the hour, “I know
this stuff is dry, but at least I am entertaining right?”
He got a mildly affirmative answer, but what else could he
get. He has power over his audience and
was using it to make himself feel good.
To be fair, there was one useful mentoring hour. It lasted just 45 minutes. A Staff Sergeant who works on the Army’s
social media program talked to us about how the Army is currently using social
media and where the program is headed.
That talk was useful.
We got one ungraded day in our entire three-month school program about social media, and most
of us will return to units who have or need Facebook page administrators.
By the end of school we will have had 12 hours of mentorship, 12 hours mostly spent trying to stay awake listening to irrelevant information.
Army Strong!
Friday, October 4, 2013
We Won’t Be Heroes Forever
This is what a hero looks like.
I read a post on Facebook about a woman who lost her job
because she bitched about veterans getting discounts and being called
heroes. She had very little support, but
she had some.
The on-going government shut down, like the sequester, spreads pain
unevenly across America. Like any
Republican program, it will hurt the poor more than the rich, but any cut in
government programs will eventually cut veteran’s benefits. So the Republicans quickly moved to restore
benefits to veterans.
Sounds like something good.
It might be good in the short term, but government is a zero-sum
game. If you give money one place you
take it from another. So veterans get
benefits, but Headstart and school-lunch programs remain without money.
If the shutdown is a good idea, then veterans should be
screwed along with kids and cancer patients.
Because if we are not, eventually all those who care about kids and
cancer patients will remember that veterans got bennies when they did not.
I served when during Viet Nam when Rush Limbaugh, Bill
O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Dick Cheney and other draft dodgers were sneering at
veterans. And the public thought of us
as baby killers and college-student killers.
When we mobilized for Iraq, our commander said, “Envy
destroys community.” He was right. Now he is in the U.S. Congress and supporting
the shutdown. I hope he remembers his
own speech. The longer this shutdown
drags on, the more envy will eat at those who lost paychecks, lost research
grants, lost school-lunch programs, and lost clinical trials for their child
with cancer.
The public could hate us again. With reductions in force, we will soon be less
than one half of one percent of the population.
More people in America have PhD degrees that are currently serving in
the military.
Nobody likes people who cut in line.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
When We March Before Dawn
CS Lewis said one of the great pleasures in his life was
listening to male laughter. One morning
last week we were marching just past 5 a.m. and I suddenly remembered how much
I like the sound of men singing.
Our platoon sergeant has the kind of voice born to call
cadence, so the whole formation sounds best when he is marching us. Also, when we form up to march, the short
people move forward and the tall people go to the rear. This is standard practice in military
formations, but it has the side effect of making putting the women in the front
and the men in the back.
I am just about six feet tall. With 80 soldiers in four ranks, I am near the
back and surrounded by the men with the deepest voices. With the platoon sergeant’s voice ringing out
in the cold morning air, the formation echoed his calls loud and strong for the
half-mile march to the gymnasium.
The calls are all sterile now, none of the sexist bravado
and kill the enemy songs of my Viet-Nam-era basic training. Even when the swearing and bragging are
removed, 80 voices sounding off before dawn is an inspiring sound.
If you want to hear marching songs the way I heard them 40 years ago, watch the movie "Jarhead."
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Fascinating Foodie--My First Feature at Army Journalism School
Today is the second day of the government shutdown. Among those on furlough is my primary writing instructor, Peter Robertson. My first feature was about him as a foodie. I hope you like the story. He is an interesting guy in many ways, long career as a Navy public affairs NCO, an avid comic book collector, and a stand-up comic among other things.
Now he is one of the hundreds of thousands of government employees deemed non-essential. I hope this ends soon. Our writing class wants him back!
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Now he is one of the hundreds of thousands of government employees deemed non-essential. I hope this ends soon. Our writing class wants him back!
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Peter
Robertson, a journalism instructor at the Defense Information School here, is
living proof that a “foodie” is made, not born.
As a child he wanted macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, and chicken
fingers. He and his younger brother protested
when their mom made falafel and other foods outside their narrow, mostly fried,
favorites.
Now
Robertson loves to cook and eat international cuisine. He sees food as a door to culture and a way
to preserve and share memories. Two
experiences turned him from narrow path of the typical American diet to making
the cooking and eating of a wide array of food a life-long adventure.
The
first big change happened when Robertson took a home economics class in the in
seventh grade. He took shop, art and
music classes that year, which he described as OK, but home economics “I kind
of enjoyed that,” he said.
“I
mastered the incredible, edible egg,” Robertson said. “I learned how to make pasta dishes,
lasagnas, from there I learned how to make stuffed shells,” he said. “By the time I left home to go to college I
felt I had cooking skills other people didn’t have.”
After
college, in the Navy, he continued to cook for himself and increase his skills.
On his first cruise in the Navy, Robertson had an experience that turned him
from competent cook into a foodie with a flair for international cuisine.
His
first deployment was a cruise of the Mediterranean Sea in 1997 with port calls
in Greece and Italy that began in Haifa, Israel. His shore visit should have been short but
extended to several days because of rough seas that kept ferry from taking him
back to the ship.
The
first place he ate was McDonalds which he said was a bad decision, though not
without culinary adventure. He had a
goose breast sandwich at the Israeli Golden Arches. “Every McDonalds caters to locals tastes,” he
said.
On the first or
second morning on shore he and some friends went to a hotel that had a giant
spread for breakfast, he said. On the
serving tables he saw, “Nothing that makes you think breakfast.”
“There was fish,
there was flatbread, there was olives, there were more olives, there were
tomatoes,” Robertson said. He started
eating, combing flavors. He was eating foods that were familiar, but in a
totally different way, he said. For the
rest of his stay he ate “mystery” meat from street
vendors and other foods he couldn’t identify—and he liked all of it.
As the cruise
continued Robertson ate local in Greece and Italy reveling in local cuisine
while most fellow sailors opted for American-style fast food and bars. Some sailors joined him when he wandered port
cities looking for good local food. His
friends then and now tend to be those who share his sense of adventure in
eating.
“If you are someone
who has an open mind about food, you probably have an open mind about life in
general,” he said. “And that’s the kind of person I like to surround myself
with.”
Among his recent
foodie friends is Erin Smith, also a journalism instructor at DINFOS. Smith and her husband go on couple dates to
restaurants in the Baltimore area with Robertson and his wife.
“He’s good
because he’s adventurous,” Smith said.
“I can’t think of a food and food group he doesn’t like and I’m the same
way. We can go out to kind of a funky,
hole-in-the-wall joint and find a good meal. He knows all the good places in
Baltimore.”
Robertson cooks
for family meals, for parties at his home, and sometimes brings his creations
to work. Smith remembers a tea-rubbed
smoked salmon he brought to DINFOS. “It was absolutely to die for,” she
said. “The tea and the smoke and
juiciness of the salmon we’re incredible, cooked to perfection, still a little
bit raw, a little rare.”
Robertson’s
favorite restaurant in Baltimore is Woodberry Kitchen, near Druid Park, north
of the city center. It serves local,
seasonal dishes, a cuisine Robertson dismissed earlier in his life in favor of
getting what he wanted wherever he was and at any time of the year. Now he sees local, seasonal food as the way
to get great flavor.
Though
Mediterranean cuisine is his first love, Robertson’s current passion is for
Korean food. “Korean food always amazes
me,” Robertson said. “Last weekend I had
Korean food at a place called the Honey Pig in suburban Baltimore—they have
this burner in the middle of the table, kind of like a wok, kind of like an
iron skillet.”
The food is
cooked at the table beginning with sprouts and adding “things I can’t
identify—sour and sweet—all the different kinds of meat, Korean barbecue spices,
pork bellies—more bacony than bacon—everything was delicious.”
For Robertson,
life in Baltimore combines a job he loves with a city of great restaurants, both
with local and international fare, access to a wide array of local ingredients
from the land and the sea, and good friends to share it all with. The little boy who wanted only chicken
fingers and burgers has grown into a man who both knows and cooks good food from
around the world, including some of recipes his mother made for her
not-so-adventurous sons more than 30 years ago.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Rough Two Weeks For My Entire Family: Life Happens Fast
On Wednesday, Sept. 18, we got news from Haiti that the adoption might finally be moving forward, and some other indications that Xavier's happy disposition is falling victim to his difficult circumstances and so much uncertainty about the adoption.
On the same day, Nigel skipped football practice because he was being teased and threatened by his teammates. Annalisa wrote to the vice principal, but the situation was not so good. And I was terribly sad. I think of middle school as the place where "The Lord of the Flies" is real. If I could spare my boys middle school, I would be so happy.
And then the news went from sad to bad.
The same the evening I got a text message from my oldest daughter that her dog, Watson, got hit by a car. Watson has bruised lungs, a broken leg, and possibly other internal injuries. Lauren loves her dog. I went to sleep that night feeling so sad for Lauren and Nigel and had a fleeting thought about what else could go wrong.
The next morning my step-daughter, Iolanthe, wrote to say her Dad, who has terminal cancer, would be going to hospice very soon. At this point, Watson was alive, but there were indications of internal bleeding and his bladder was swelling. The adoption agency said we needed to file some papers right away.
That night my daughter Lisa ate egg whites for dinner and spent the next two days with nasty food poisoning. She is 1000 miles away in Minnesota, so I could only pray and hope for the best.
Saturday morning, Iolanthe's Dad passed away. He had been in terrible pain so there was some relief along with the sadness.
Then we got some good news. Watson wagged his tail and seems to be good, but may have further internal injuries. The vice principal talked to Nigel and will help him with the team. The adoption agency said we can move forward with the paperwork and we have preliminary approval. Lisa was feeling better.
In the midst of all this was a low-level but aggravating problem with our other adopted son downloading images and games he should not be downloading.
Now the news keeps bouncing up and down. Nigel got to play in a game on Thursday, but then got taken off the team on Friday for missing practice.
Lisa is feeling better, Watson is getting better, and Iolanthe looked great at her Dad's memorial service.
Annalisa is holding up unbelievably well with many work pressures in addition to the family stuff.
If there was some way I could withdraw honorably from this school and go home, I would do it. Five weeks to go and I will be able to go home and help more with the all the kids.
I am hoping to take the boys to Lauren's house to see Watson, once Watson is feeling better. This coming weekend I plan to take them to Philadelphia on Saturday and give my wife a day off.
Two terrible weeks end tomorrow.
On the same day, Nigel skipped football practice because he was being teased and threatened by his teammates. Annalisa wrote to the vice principal, but the situation was not so good. And I was terribly sad. I think of middle school as the place where "The Lord of the Flies" is real. If I could spare my boys middle school, I would be so happy.
And then the news went from sad to bad.
The same the evening I got a text message from my oldest daughter that her dog, Watson, got hit by a car. Watson has bruised lungs, a broken leg, and possibly other internal injuries. Lauren loves her dog. I went to sleep that night feeling so sad for Lauren and Nigel and had a fleeting thought about what else could go wrong.
The next morning my step-daughter, Iolanthe, wrote to say her Dad, who has terminal cancer, would be going to hospice very soon. At this point, Watson was alive, but there were indications of internal bleeding and his bladder was swelling. The adoption agency said we needed to file some papers right away.
That night my daughter Lisa ate egg whites for dinner and spent the next two days with nasty food poisoning. She is 1000 miles away in Minnesota, so I could only pray and hope for the best.
Saturday morning, Iolanthe's Dad passed away. He had been in terrible pain so there was some relief along with the sadness.
Then we got some good news. Watson wagged his tail and seems to be good, but may have further internal injuries. The vice principal talked to Nigel and will help him with the team. The adoption agency said we can move forward with the paperwork and we have preliminary approval. Lisa was feeling better.
In the midst of all this was a low-level but aggravating problem with our other adopted son downloading images and games he should not be downloading.
Now the news keeps bouncing up and down. Nigel got to play in a game on Thursday, but then got taken off the team on Friday for missing practice.
Lisa is feeling better, Watson is getting better, and Iolanthe looked great at her Dad's memorial service.
Annalisa is holding up unbelievably well with many work pressures in addition to the family stuff.
If there was some way I could withdraw honorably from this school and go home, I would do it. Five weeks to go and I will be able to go home and help more with the all the kids.
I am hoping to take the boys to Lauren's house to see Watson, once Watson is feeling better. This coming weekend I plan to take them to Philadelphia on Saturday and give my wife a day off.
Two terrible weeks end tomorrow.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Missed the Toilet Bowl!!
In the military, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines hate few things more than mandatory fun: events that are supposed to be fun, but attendance is required, not requested.
I missed today's mandatory fun, an all-day sports event called The Toilet Bowl. Faculty from the Defense Information School play football against the instructors. The services also have games--Army and Air Force versus Navy and Marines. There is barbecue for lunch.
The event begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. For Army students, attendance is mandatory. Air Force students could attend, but if not, they had a long weekend.
Guess who was happier.
Two Army students were excused from the event (You could say flushed from the bowl!). I did not have to go because my step-daughter's father's memorial service is tomorrow. Another sergeant had a suicide in his home unit.
Everyone else went to the TB.
I asked one of my civilian instructors if he was going to the Bowl. He said he would, but he is also a Navy veteran and remember mandatory fun with no small amount of pain. He said, "I am a civilian. I can take leave."
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Finished First Feature!!!
Today we wrote a four-page feature article about our foodie instructor Peter Robertson. He cooks foods from around the world, he knows all the best restaurants in Baltimore, and he and his wife pick their homes by which on has the best kitchen.
Like every feature, it was draining to write, but the topic was fun. I want to go to his favorite restaurants. His Korean fave is the Honey Pig in Ellicott City, Md. With a name like that how could it be bad? They have iron skillet tables and cook right on the table. I really like th Chinese restaurants that put the hot pot in the middle of the table so you cook your own food.
Formation soon.
Like every feature, it was draining to write, but the topic was fun. I want to go to his favorite restaurants. His Korean fave is the Honey Pig in Ellicott City, Md. With a name like that how could it be bad? They have iron skillet tables and cook right on the table. I really like th Chinese restaurants that put the hot pot in the middle of the table so you cook your own food.
Formation soon.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Photography Begins!
Today we got our cameras, learned some basic camera operations and went off to shoot pictures. Unlike the writing, I learned new things from the first minute we were taught how to set and operate the camera.
We have to use manual focus which meant I took some blurry photos, but we were taught the relationship between aperture and shutter speed in a way that should help me take better photos.
Learning to be a better photographer will not change my uneasy philosophical relationship with photography itself.
When I first got into journalism in the late 70s, I was handed a camera and told to shoot pictures to go with my stories. I shot 400 ASA black and white film and shot from multiple angles so I could get one good shot in ten.
But the camera also changed my relationship with my subjects. Some people say the camera takes the soul of the person getting her picture taken. I think it takes the soul of the person taking the picture. When I interview a subject for an article I don't care what the person looks like. When I am looking for a photo subject, symmetry and beauty lead my criteria for a photo.
The world looks so different to a photographer than to a writer.
I want to keep the Biblical view: In the beginning was the Word. Let the words determine the photo.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Photography Tomorrow!!!
Because I am in the Army, I get to take pictures of things most people never see.
Now I will learn HOW to take pictures properly when I get these oppotunities.
Tomorrow the class I was waiting for begins!!!!
Photography.
For four years I have been taking photos, nearly 20,000 of them. And I don't really know what I am doing. For the next three days I will get professional help with this problem--three full days of photo class.
Today was the final day of newswriting. I am pretty sure I did well. My average is in the high 80s or low 90s so far. I am sooooooooooo much better at writing than proofreading. The Army, not surprisingly, stresses accuracy over everything else in the writing process. Be dull if you must but don't screw up.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Family Weekend Gets Complicated
Jacari, Nigel (first two, front row) and I drove to Richmond Saturday to see Lauren.
Kiersten joined the boys and I Saturday morning at Waffle House.
Annalisa went to see Iolanthe Sunday.
Lisa is in Minnesota--I talked to her on the phone.
This weekend was as a lot of fun, and I even got to catch up on sleep on Sunday, but it was definitely not a weekend to relax.
I had been planning for a few weeks to visit Lauren this weekend in Richmond. The original plan was for my wife to drive the boys to Fort Meade Friday evening, then I would drive with them to Richmond Saturday morning and return after Lauren's season-opening football game on Sunday at 1 p.m.
Then I was put on the duty roster on Friday evening from 8:30 p.m. till 30 past midnight (Zero dark 30). And my wife had a math meeting at 7:30 a.m. Saturday! I thought I might try to drive home at Zero Dark 30, but that morning we got up at 3:45 a.m. for a ruck march. By the time I got off duty I had trouble driving the one-mile trip back to my bunk.
In the morning I drove north to PA. While the boys cleaned the house, I did the laundry. Around 3:30pm we drove back to Fort Meade where the boys ate in the DFAC (Chow Hall). They ate burgers, fries, cake, Coke--they were very happy. Then we drove to Richmond.
Lauren had couches and beds for us. The boys played video games. I went to sleep.
The next day the boys and Lauren and Pete got up at 6:15 and played with the dog. I slept till 9.
We had brunch at Lauren's, walked to the River, then went to Lauren's football game. The start was delayed by an hour so we only saw the first half, but Lauren, Pete and Pete's brother John all played well.
At 230pm we drove back Silver Spring MD where my wife picked up the boys. She had been visting Iolanthe in Frederick VA.
So we got to see all of the family in VA and PA. Lisa is in Minnesota, so seeing her is a little more difficult.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Marine Knows Twitter
Got a great lesson about twitter today from a Marine sergeant who does social media here at the Defense Information School (DINFOS).
He told us to use facebook to interact and use twitter to follow breaking news. He gave us sites to follow and told us not to worry about hashtags, they are not necessary for searches. We can just search twitter for subjects we care about.
He also showed us good things we can learn from Yelp and other social media sites.
The class was two afternoons and covered all of social media. There were no tests, no lesson plan and no homework. The oddly informal character of the course shows just how new the whole subject of social media is to the military.
The contrast was especially strong today because our morning class was about rewriting national news into local news stories. This was the staple of weekly newspapers, but has all but vanished now that most everyone gets their news from electronic media.
We had a very formal lesson in how to do something that is very rare, and an ungraded lesson in how to do something that will be the center of all communication with young people--90% of the military.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Bathroom Stalls Get Busier at School
No, we did not have an outbreak of food poisining.
As of today, Army students are not allowed to have cell phones during the duty day at DINFOS. We were told about the new rule at final formation yesterday.
We are learning to be news people. At the beginning of today's public affairs class the instructor told us we should all be news junkies and asked how we get our news. Everyone said, "On my phone."
The Air Force is laughing at the Army again. "You guys can't have cell phones?"
We are allowed to write a request to the battalion commander if we want or need and exception to policy. But very few soldiers will do that. The jokes at class breaks say cell phones will ride in back packs and magically appear in the bathroom stalls.
61 days to graduation.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Dissing the French
One predictable form of stupidity I have to hear when I am on active duty is jokes about the French and France. One of our instructors can't get through a class presentation without a French joke. At least he is a veteran.
The more virulent anti-French feeling goes back to the beginning of the Iraq War. The French joined the Afghan war from the beginning. They are still fighting and dying there today. The French decided that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the others who cobbled together the lies that got us in that war were full of merde.
The French were right and since they did not fall for lies in 2003 they are willing to join us now. The British decided evidence from us still smells like Iraq. They voted NO.
The same instructor who makes French jokes says the job of the military is to "break shit and kill people." He knows we are not well suited to peacekeeping. The French know that better than we do. When they went into Mali, they fought the terrorists and killed them. They were not winning hearts and minds.
The French lost 1 million killed and 5 million wounded in World War I out of a population of 66 million--double the casualties on BOTH sides of the American Civil War. France does not go to war since then without a clear objective. I think we should do likewise.
Without Marquis de Lafayette there would be no America. To me, dissing the French is stupid and ungrateful.
But then, then main group of public people dissing the French dodged the draft during Viet Nam and became patriots later when they could no longer be drafted.
C'est la vie.
The more virulent anti-French feeling goes back to the beginning of the Iraq War. The French joined the Afghan war from the beginning. They are still fighting and dying there today. The French decided that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the others who cobbled together the lies that got us in that war were full of merde.
The French were right and since they did not fall for lies in 2003 they are willing to join us now. The British decided evidence from us still smells like Iraq. They voted NO.
The same instructor who makes French jokes says the job of the military is to "break shit and kill people." He knows we are not well suited to peacekeeping. The French know that better than we do. When they went into Mali, they fought the terrorists and killed them. They were not winning hearts and minds.
The French lost 1 million killed and 5 million wounded in World War I out of a population of 66 million--double the casualties on BOTH sides of the American Civil War. France does not go to war since then without a clear objective. I think we should do likewise.
Without Marquis de Lafayette there would be no America. To me, dissing the French is stupid and ungrateful.
But then, then main group of public people dissing the French dodged the draft during Viet Nam and became patriots later when they could no longer be drafted.
C'est la vie.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Double Punishment Day
We are back from a three-and-a-half day weekend. It was a four-day weekend for the Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines in our class, but a three-day weekend for the Army.
We had Army Values training on Friday.
Now we are back and I have two punishment sessions today.
On Wednesday last week, I got a 63 on a news release. Anything below a 70 means remedial training. I made an error in fact which is an automatic 20 points off, plus enough other copy errors to drop my score below the passing line.
All we had to do is come in one hour before class officially starts and write another news release. I passed this one with no errors. It was not difficult, but it was another hour that I could not be doing my other work--which would allow me to get more sleep.
And that's the difficulty with our schedule. Because the Army (and no other service) has Physical Training at 5 a.m., which means formation at 4:45 a.m., which means getting up at 4 a.m., we are chronically tired. At least the older guys (me and the 30 year olds) are tired.
And at 4:30 p.m. today we will have remedial PT or drill and ceremonies because that's what we do on Tuesdays after classes from last week until we graduate.
So the morning was an individual punishment for a mistake I made. The afternoon is a mass punishment because some of us do not use proper form on some of the warm-up and cool-down exercises we do. We are collectively good at the actual exercises, but because a few of us did the bend and reach or windmill with imperfect form at 5 a.m., we will practice it every other week from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Catching Up on Sleep--Then back to the trenches
The Labor Day holiday weekend began earlier than I had hoped. I expected to spend most of Friday in Army values classes, but we were released from the class at noon Chow and I got a text before 1 PM that said we could sign out.
So I rode to company headquarters and signed out just after 1 PM. Wow! I was on pass until Monday. So I went back to my room and put the laundry basket in the car and put all my papers in my backpack and thought I would just rest for a few minutes I was so tired.
At 5:15 PM I woke up. At that point the traffic in Baltimore was beyond terrible. This weekend the Indy cars were racing on the streets of Baltimore. Many downtown streets were closed and fenced so traffic on this holiday weekend was even worse than usual. So I went to chow and went for a ride and waited for some of the red lines in Google maps to turn to yellow before I drove home.
By the time I left the traffic it subsided and I made it home in a couple of hours. And I was still tired.
On Saturday I rode 22 miles so I did change my recent habit of the Saturday exercise Sabbath. In the afternoon the boys and I went to Philadelphia to my office. I worked for a couple of hours while they played on computers. Then we went to dinner with one of the visiting scholars from where I work and her daughter who is at Cornell University this year getting a Masters degree in chemical engineering. We went out for Chinese food and as usually happens when the boys are at dinner people who do not know them are surprised at how much they eat. Jacari ordered two entrées and did not have a lot of leftovers. Nigel ordered a large appetizer and entrée again not a lot left over. We did bring all the leftovers home and the boys ate Chinese food for breakfast on Sunday.
On the Thursday before this weekend my wife had an event on campus with pizza. She brought home for leftover pizzas. She and Kiersten each had two slices. The boys ate the other 28 slices. They had 10 each for dinner and three each for breakfast and to others just in between.
On Sunday I tried to catch up on exercise. I rode 36 miles: 29 with my wife in the morning and seven in the afternoon Nigel. I swam a mile at the F&M Pool while Nigel ran and hid a tennis ball into Jacari was off at church event. I tried to run after that and did an extremely slow 2 miles quit.
Now I'm going to go back to Fort Meade and get ready for tomorrow's public affairs test. Long day tomorrow!!!!
Friday, August 30, 2013
Current and Future News People. . .NOT!!!
Each day we have public affairs class, Mr. A starts the class off with a news quiz. In every class he encourages us to have news feeds on the computers at our desks. (The other two instructors DO NOT want us to be multi-tasking when they are talking.) Mr. A says we should know what is going on at our base, in our community and in the world at large.
He is right.
But what news do students, faculty and other folks here at DINFOS care about? Today I was eating lunch at the end of chow hours, about 12:40 p.m. Since I was sitting alone, I sat near the CNN TV. Each of the five dining areas in the dining facility has a TV up high on the wall at each side of the room: one on CNN, one on ESPN. I was watching a speech by John Kerry about Syria. I had to leave, so I got up in the middle of the speech. As I walked toward the back to drop my tray, I went into the next room where about 20 DINFOS people, civilians and soldiers, were standing looking up at the TV.
For a millisecond, I thought they were watching CNN. Nope. ESPN was re-running bloopers from a NY Jets press conference.
Part of the reason I chose this career field was my obsession with the news, a Gussman family tradition. This is a career field for those obsessed with the news. It will be tough out in the fleet and field for folks who really don't care about local, national and world events.
He is right.
But what news do students, faculty and other folks here at DINFOS care about? Today I was eating lunch at the end of chow hours, about 12:40 p.m. Since I was sitting alone, I sat near the CNN TV. Each of the five dining areas in the dining facility has a TV up high on the wall at each side of the room: one on CNN, one on ESPN. I was watching a speech by John Kerry about Syria. I had to leave, so I got up in the middle of the speech. As I walked toward the back to drop my tray, I went into the next room where about 20 DINFOS people, civilians and soldiers, were standing looking up at the TV.
For a millisecond, I thought they were watching CNN. Nope. ESPN was re-running bloopers from a NY Jets press conference.
Part of the reason I chose this career field was my obsession with the news, a Gussman family tradition. This is a career field for those obsessed with the news. It will be tough out in the fleet and field for folks who really don't care about local, national and world events.
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