Musee de l'Armee in Paris: A Vast Museum of French Military History

On this trip to Paris, I visited the Musee de l'Armee or the Army Museum. With more than 500,000 artifacts in 12,000 square meters (3 acres) of space, I walked a couple of miles seeing nearly a millennium of French military history.  The museum is located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on the south bank of the Seine River in the Invalides area of Paris.  
 

The featured exhibit currently is about the the French Resistance and about the Deportation of Jews to death camps. More than 250,000 Jews were sent east, mostly to die under Nazi occupation.  

The collection also includes suits of armor from Medieval France. 

Weapons and uniforms from the Napoleonic era up through World War II

Colonel Myles B. Caggins III Retires After 26 Years of Service

 

Major Myles B. Caggins, 1st Armored Division, Camp Adder, Iraq, 2009

On Veteran's Day weekend, 2022, Colonel Myles B. Caggins III retired after 26 years of service.  The ceremony was in Chantilly, Virginia, in front of family, friends, comrades and with full military customs and courtesies, plus some twists. The National Anthem was a saxophone solo by Eddie Baccus Jr. It was a first for me, and it was awesome.

Saxophone Solo National Anthem

by Eddie Baccus Jr.

General Vincent K. Brooks, Retired. presided at the retirement ceremony

Presiding at the retirement ceremony was General Vincent K. Brooks, a 1980 graduate of West Point. He retired in 2019 after 39 years, 17 of those years as a general officer. Brooks was a lot of fun. He said Myles served in the White House in the Bush and Obama administrations, but that the peak of his on-air career was his appearance on Jeopardy! Brooks had the audience laughing again and again describing that Jeopardy! performance.

Major Collin Richards, emcee, and Colonel Myles B. Caggins III, Retired, after the ceremony

In my civilian career, I met a lot of people who were leaders and innovators in science including several Nobel laureates. I heard them accept awards. Those speeches could be divided in two types. The first kind of speech is about just how amazing the speaker is. In the second type, the awardee says Thank You to their family, their teachers, their co-workers, everyone! It was a delight to hear all of the he thanks, some with laughter, there were tears for comrades no longer with us, honor to mentors, and a poem for his Mom. 

Myles thanking his daughter Tiffany Champion

Harry and Tiffany Champion

We met at Camp Adder, Iraq, when he was the Public Affairs Officer for 1st Armored Division. I wrote about Myles in Iraq here. We were able to work together several times on stories about soldiers.  When we were together in Iraq, it was his second combat deployment. In 2003 as a Captain, Myles led a support company during the invasion of Iraq. 

Myles on the day of his promotion to Colonel in 2017

We kept in touch in the dozen years since we both returned from deployment in 2010.  I saw Myles get promoted to Colonel in 2017. That story is here.  Following his promotion, Myles deployed for another full-year combat tour in Iraq and Syria in 2019 and 2020. 

Myles first civilian job will be a continuation of his last active duty assignment working in geopolitics.

How I Became a Photographer (Twice)--And Why I Don't Own a Camera

A Crew Chief checking the tail rotor of his Blackhawk helicopter on the 

air strip at Camp Adder, Iraq, at Sunset, November 2009. 

Sometimes I get a good shot.

Twice in my long and varied work life, I was handed a camera and told to take pictures. Both times I was in the Army.  I took thousands of pictures in Cold War West Germany in the late 1970s and in Iraq in 2009. 

But I never became a photographer outside the Army, and I don't own a camera apart from my iPhone. 

In 1978, I left my tank unit for a year to work in base headquarters writing about our unit.  News articles need pictures. The brigade had a photographer, so the headquarters staff said Sgt. Anctil is the photographer. Tell him what you need pictures of and he will shoot them.

I went to Anctil. For him, photography was the lab, developing, printing. That was his happy place.  He did not want to go away for 3 or 4 days or a week and take pictures of tanks at gunnery, or infantry in war games.  He handed me an Olympus camera showed me how the f-stop, shutter speed and focus work and told me how to bracket pictures.

"Take lots of shots," he said. "Take a dozen rolls of film. Shoot at different f-stops and shutter speeds. I'll develop and print them."

Anctil wanted no part of playing Army. He wanted to stay on base and sleep in his private barracks room. So I learned by trial and error how to take pictures.  My pictures were good enough for the base newspaper. Once I got the cover of the "Stars and Stripes" newspaper in Western Europe.  

But as I learned more, I knew I did not have that deep feeling for light that separated a good photographer from a great one. I concentrated on writing and took the shots I needed to take. 

When I left the Army, I never bought a camera.  

Almost 30 years later I was back in the Army In Iraq and they handed me a camera. My job for the last half of our deployment was to write about soldiers. But someone had to take the pictures and that was me. So I took thousands of pictures.

Thirty years did not give me any more feeling for light and framing. So I would occasionally get a really good shot, but when I left the Army, I gave the camera back and did not get one of my own. 

I take pictures now, but when I see something I really like, I want to write about it.  Sometimes I forget to take a picture.  

I think of myself as a professional writer, a professional soldier, and a professional dock worker--I can load a truck full and all the cargo will arrive in good shape. But I am not a professional photographer.  I admire great photography in the same way I admire great cello playing: both are beautiful in their own, but I will never be a real  photographer or a cellist.  

But once in a while, I get lucky and get a really good shot. 

 

Axl Rose T-Shirt Leads (Naturally) to a Discussion of the World War II and the Holocaust

Three fans of Axl Rose meet at a history of science conference

On the first day of a history of science conference, I met the author working on a book about Le Résidence Palace, the revolving door of history of a building that is now home to The Europa building, the seat of the European Council and Council of the European Union, located on the Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat in the European Quarter of Brussels, Belgium--the follow up to a book she wrote about her father's escape from Nazi-occupied Europe and service in the American Army.  

The conversation began with an Axl Rose t-shirt. Neither I nor Nina Wolff was wearing the t-shirt. We were at the registration desk for the conference.  One of the graduate students registering attendees, Noemie Taforeau, was wearing Axl Rose.  I asked if she was a fan or just like the shirt. She said, "A fan. Definitely."

Nina said she met Axl Rose in a movie theater on Long Island. Then the conversation went from Guns and Roses and "Welcome to the Jungle" to the Army, to her father and war.

Walter C. Wolff, U.S. Army Intelligence

We talked more at the evening reception. Late in his life Nina's father, Walter C. Wolff, handed her a box of letters which turned out to be a trove of information about a part of his life he had spoken very little about. Walter Wolff came to America as a young refugee. He volunteered to serve. He and other young immigrants worked in Army Intelligence.  They became known as the Ritchie Boys:

The Ritchie Boys^[1] were a special collection of soldiers, primarily German-Austrian units, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. Many of them were German-speaking immigrants to the United States, often Jews who fled Nazi persecution.^[2][3] They were used primarily for interrogation of prisoners on the front lines and counter-intelligence in Europe because of their knowledge of the German language and culture. They were also involved in the Nuremberg trials as prosecutors and translators.^[4] 

A documentary film was made in 2004 about the Ritchie Boys. I will order the book about Nina's father Walter "Someday You Will Understand" when I return to America.  

Rome-ing The World, from Kansas, to Iraq, to Kosovo, to the Eternal City

 

Melanie Sanders Meier

The last time I saw Melanie Sanders Meier in person was in 2009 when we were both deployed to Camp Adder, Iraq.  She was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Kansas Army National Guard and was working as an Inspector General on the sprawling air base in southern Iraq.  

This morning we had coffee together in Trastavere, Rome, where she has been a college student since 2015. She messaged me on Facebook on yesterday to say she lived in Rome. It turned out to be not far from where I was staying.  

I knew that after she returned from Iraq (her second deployment) she ran for the Kansas state legislature where she served until 2014.  She then left politics and deployed again, this time to the staff of K4, the peacekeeping force in Kosovo.  She was assigned to be second assistant to the commander who was Italian. In fact, all of the twenty people working in her section were Italian except her.  She loved working with the Italian command staff.

At the end of the deployment, she found that she could use the GI Bill benefits she earned from post-9/11 deployments to go to college in Trastevere.  With the housing benefit from the GI Bill and low tuition, she was able to live comfortably in Rome. Next month she will finally complete the communication degree she has been working on since 2015 at the American University in Rome, and in no rush to finish.  

It will be a bachelors degree which she can add to another bachelors degree and two masters degrees. Melanie attended the Command and General Staff College and completed a masters degree in Strategic Studies at the US Army War College in 2015. She worked on the courses at night in Kosovo. 

She may stay in Rome. Melanie has considered Tunisia among possible places to live; she has never lived in Africa. We talked about Spain as a place many American and British expats live. America is not on the list of places where she wants to live. 

Melanie plans to travel Europe after graduation.  It's what college kids do.......

Colin Powell, an Arduous Road to Great Success

 

In 1958, when Colin Powell was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army, the former slave states still had Jim Crow laws in effect and the rest of the states had other discriminatory laws. Just a decade before in 1948, President Harry S. Truman desegregated the Army. Truman opened the path of leadership to Black soldiers, but that path was not easy.

In World War II and before, Black soldiers were in segregated units, nearly always with white officers.  My Dad was one of those officers during World War II, commander of a Black supply company at a supply base in Shenango Township, Pennsylvania.  His next assignment was Jewish commandant of a Prisoner of War Camp for soldiers of the German Afrika Korps.

While desegregation was law in the Army nearly two-thirds of the soldiers in the Army were (and are) from the South and the West.  Black officers had to lead soldiers who did not believe they should be officers.  

Four years ago I went to a promotion ceremony for Myles B. Caggins, III. He was a major when we served together in Iraq in 2009 and was being promoted to Colonel.  His father, retired Colonel Myles B. Caggins, Jr., was there to see his son wear eagles on his shoulders.  

Like Colin Powell, Caggins, Jr., served in the Army before and after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Both Powell and Caggins served in the Vietnam War, leading soldiers in battle.  Leadership is always difficult, the road Powell and Caggins walked was grueling. 

I have already seen criticisms of Colin Powell.  

None of those critics have ever overcome the obstacles the Powell surmounted, and none have achieved what he achieved.  May Colin Powell be as blessed in the next life as he was brave in this life.

Peaceful Transfer of Power and Change of Command

Most of my recent military service was during the Obama administration. I re-enlisted in August 2007, deployed to Iraq for a year in January 2009 and then left the Army National Guard in May 2016.  

During those 11 years I witnessed dozens and dozens of change of Command ceremonies.  From command of a company to a full division, the passing of the unit colors from the old commander to the new commander is very much the same ceremony. Whether in front of two dozen soldiers or ten thousand soldiers the officer holding power gives that power and privilege and responsibility to the next commander.

At many of these ceremonies, the new commander in the first address to the unit will talk about the peaceful transfer of power. How this peaceful transfer of power is a true American tradition dating back to President George Washington and continuing right up through the moment of the ceremony.  

Nearly all of the commanders I served with, as well as most of the soldiers, were Republicans or conservative independents.  They were proud of upholding this American tradition and looking forward to the peaceful transfer of power to a conservative President.  

But these same soldiers I served with are now will continue their support for the current President even though he will not commit to the peaceful transfer of power.  

In 1993, Vietnam War veterans made a great show saying they would not back President Clinton as a matter of honor, then honor melted like snow in the Sahara when they had their own despicable draft dodger.  In the same way the words about the peaceful transfer of power will melt faster than the polar ice cap when their Dear Leader refuses to leave office.

The military reports to the Commander-in-Chief.  When the C-in-C breaks the law, they will follow. 

America's Future: Combat Medic in Training

 

Emily Burgett on Mount Monadnock just before enlisting 

Eleven years ago, I wrote a lot of articles with the general title "Who Fights Our Wars?" Now I am years away from serving and a friend who I met while volunteering at an ESL ministry is in training to be a Combat Medic. 

On Tuesday, March 17, four days after borders began closing all over the world, I got a flight back from Paris to Kennedy Airport. Emily and I had talked and messaged a few times while I was in Israel and Europe and she told me she decided to enlist. By the time I landed that day, Army Specialist Emily Ann Burgett was flying to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to begin what was to be the last Army Basic Training for a while.  

Emily thought about enlisting for a long time. She thought about becoming a pilot. She finally settled on Combat Medic.  Right now she is in medic training at Fort Sam Houston.  I occasionally get a text from her about medic training and Army life then don't hear from her for a week or two.  

At 28, Emily is a decade older than most basic trainees. She lived in both California and Massachusetts with her family, lived in Lancaster, Pa., as an undergraduate and after getting a masters degree. She earned that masters degree in history at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While there she studied Arabic and plans someday to work with refugees. She has traveled to China with her family. The family business is making pianos sold in America and Asia. She has been across Europe and in Central America. 

Emily is an avid rock climber and an adventure tourist so the Army travel will continue the adventure.  Last week, one of the messages I got from Emily was about the explosion in Beirut.  Her class had just learned a new life-saving procedure. She said it reminded her why she joined. 

She will complete medic training next month and join her unit in Massachusetts. 

Satire: Good for Your War, Not Mine

Catch-22, whether the original book, the movie or the recent Hulu series, is a satire of Army Aviation in World War II.  The author, Joseph Heller, was a bombardier in B-25 Mitchell Bombers flying missions in southern Europe. 

When I defended the book in a facebook discussion, my friend Joe Steed mentioned that his father, Bernie Steed, flew B-25 Bombers and on a few missions had a bombardier named Joseph Heller.  The led to writing about Bernie Steed's service in the 488th Bombardment Squadron.  Joe told me that Bernie had no idea that Heller wrote a book. Bernie read a few chapters and decided the book was not for him.

Bernie Steed receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross

I just did the same with David Abrams book "Fobbit."  It turns out I can read and enjoy a satire of a war before I was born, but I did not like reading a satire of a war I was in.  I should have known. When I visited the Bastogne War Memorial there was an M4 Sherman Tank outside the museum painted by an anti-war group. I had also seen Soviet tanks painted with peace signs. 'That's okay,' I remember thinking, 'But I don't want to see an M60A1 Patton tank painted with that shit.'  It's okay to deface other tanks, not my tank.

My tank: Bad Bitch, Fort Carson CO, 1976

So Bernie and I agree after all. Satirize another war, not my war.  

On Memorial Day: Visiting the Grave of Major Richard "Dick" Winters

Major Richard Winters, 1918-2011

This morning I got a message on Facebook from Sarah Frye Gingrich. She was asking about a gravesite of a soldier to visit on Memorial Day.  I immediately answered with the grave of Major Dick Winters, one of the soldiers I most admire, and who is admired by even the most cynical of my fellow soldiers. 

The Winters family grave at Bergstrasse Lutheran Church

Ephrata, Pa.

 In suggesting the visit to Sarah, I was aware I had never visited Dick Winters grave.  Sarah took her six kids to cemetery at Bergsrasse Lutheran Church in Ephrata, Pa.  An hour later, I put on my uniform for the first time since I left the Army and went to visit Winter's grave with my youngest son Nigel. 

Nigel at the Winter's family grave site.

For those who don't know the story of Dick Winters, I cannot recommend more highly the book Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose and the HBO miniseries of the same name.   

First time in my uniform since 2016

There are many memorials to the men who participated in the Normandy invasion. The airborne museum at Sainte-Mere-Eglise tells the story of those who flew into the invasion in gliders and with parachutes.  And the American Cemetery at Normandy where more than 9,000 soldiers are buried on the cliffs above Omaha Beach.

Nigel and I after the visit.

Rest in Peace Major Winters.