Who Fights This War? -- Me

My commander wrote about me for the latest issue of the newsletter. Thought you might like to read it.

By Lt. Col. Scott Perry
During a play in 1639, Cardinal Richelieu uttered the phrase, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” He was certainly not the only to have this opinion, joining greats like Euripides, Shakespeare, and Thomas Jefferson. The sentiment has been germane through the ages, and the current era is no different.
Although serving in a Task Force consisting of awesome strength, firepower and mobility, it is a camera and computer that Sgt. Neil Gussman aims in order to shape the face of the modern battlefield. While bullets and brute force may subdue the most tenacious enemy, over the course of history, opinions, sentiments and perception have been used to greater affect in influencing kings, dynasties and nations. As an accomplished writer, this is something Neil Gussman knows well.
Even so, I had to ask myself, who is this world-influencing neo-gladius whose stories seem to touch the world as easily as he qualifies with his assigned weapon?
As I have learned through my interaction with him, Sgt. Neil Gussman is an eclectic series of mutually un-supporting disciplines, dichotomies and passions that somehow have blended into an exceptional communicative force.
Neil Gussman was 56 years old as of May 2nd, but he doesn’t mind that you can’t keep up with him during Army physical training. And don’t even think about challenging him in a bicycle race. But I’m getting ahead of the story and Neil wouldn’t appreciate that.
Like any other red-blooded American young man, Neil had a passion for fast cars and racing. For those who can appreciate such things, he once owned a ‘69 Cobra Jet Torino featuring a 428 C.I. power plant with a factory 735 dual-feed Holly carburetor and Hurst 4 speed shifter. When he owned a TV that he kept in the basement, the only thing he was interested in watching was NASCAR during the good old days of Cale Yarborough, Alan Kulwicki and Dale Earnhardt Sr. For the purist in Neil, that all ended when the sport departed from bias ply tires.
No problem.
There were other fascinations to occupy the time of this undefined thrill seeker. He had suppressed a motorcycle obsession because his father opposed them. Once on his own, he started out with a Honda 175 and soon was risking his life on the likes of VFR 700s, Interceptors, Hawks and other popular crotch-rockets of the late ‘80s. After a disappointing day at the track he determined he wasn’t practicing enough and he gave up riding having decided he wasn’t really good enough to race.
Neil joined the Air Force in 1972. The next year, he spent over a week in the hospital after being blinded by shrapnel at Hill Air Force Base, Utah during a live-fire exercise of interstage rocket detonators. Incidentally, he had grown up nominally Jewish, but became a Christian while recovering from the blindness. He left the Air Force in 1974 but joined the Army in 1975 as a SP4 Tank gunner and progressed to Tank Commander stationed at Fort Carson, Colo. and Wiesbaden Germany. In 1979, he left the military to go to college.
After departing the service, he used his GI bill benefits to attend Penn State University where he completed his BA in Humanities and an MA in American studies consecutively. After graduating in 1985, he started working for an advertising agency. He noticed others in the agency were out of work when their client left. Recognizing the volatility of the advertising world, Gussman set out to find his own clients. Being familiar with chemistry and calculus, he decided to write about technology for continuous employment and covered electronics until the ad agency acquired a chemical company account. Concentrating on chemistry, in 1998 he became manager of global communications for Millennium Chemicals and was travelling overseas every month. Having no interest in managing as he puts it, “free form-people who each want to rule the world,” in 2001 and 25 countries later, he left to work as a consultant. Now he is the communications manager for the Museum and Library of the history of chemistry and early science which he characterizes as a science museum for grown-ups. The non-profit Chemical Heritage Foundation was founded in 1982 and is located in a 160 year old building located next to the Liberty Museum and Independence Mall in center city Philadelphia.
Having given up motorcycles, he got serious about bicycle riding in 1992 when he logged 8,000 miles. In recent years he’s been racking up over 10,000 miles annually. In April 2007, he broke his neck while riding at 50 MPH down Turkey Hill in Lancaster, PA. The crash resulted in 10 broken bones including three vertebras. Now his 7th vertebra is from a cadaver. His riding repertoire includes cycling on five continents and if you spend any time at Tallil with your eyes open, you no doubt have seen Sgt. Gussman on a bike. He shipped 2 here, bought 2 others since we arrived and he’s met his goal of riding 5000 miles at Tallil Iraq.
I’m sure Neil doesn’t think he’s obsessive or particular. But, how else do you describe a person who goes to a 300 year old Presbyterian Church because he can’t help but criticize the sermons of anything newer? And how else do you explain a person who has organized a spreadsheet enumerating of all the books he’s read as well as an accounting of all his broken bones? -- 32 by the way. An avid athlete, it’s no surprise that he also charts all his physical activities including the mileage he’s run, ridden, pushups, pull-ups, sit ups, etc…
At the age of 54, Neil Gussman re-enlisted in the Army in August 2007. He joined an aviation unit because he was concerned about joining a ground unit, thinking he couldn’t keep up with the 20 year olds. His assessment was wrong. His 26 year old, commanding officer put Gussman in charge of remedial PT to train all in the formation who are unable to pass the test—most of them half his age.
Gussman always wanted to be a writer but prior to college read only science or religious books. Since his first class at The Pennsylvania State University where he read Dante’s Inferno, he has been involved in a love affair with literature. Sgt. Gussman now reads an average of 25 books per year and is hosting 2 separate reading clubs while in Iraq. USA Today recently featured his efforts. When home, he reads other’s stories to his wife and four children; while he’s in Iraq he writes the story of Task Force Diablo’s mission for others to tell the world.

New Year's Eve--2009 by the Numbers

What an odd year for a 56-year-old guy who works at a museum. This year I have lived in two US states and two middle eastern countries--Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Iraq and Kuwait. Lance Armstrong wrote a book titled "It's Not About the Bike." If I wrote that I would be lying. so the first numbers are about the bike.
Miles: 7100 total
PA--500
OK--1300
Kuwait--100
Iraq--5200
I competed in four races. Three in PA while I was on leave, one in Iraq.
I rode four bikes outside PA. Two I bought for the trip and broke them both. The single speed 29er and track bike are in Conex containers on the way to America. The post chaplain at Fort Sill OK loaned me his bike while I was there (May the Lord bless him!) I bought a $100 bike for the two weeks I was in Kuwait in the spring, broke it and traded it for a latte at Starbucks. I bought a bike for $250 in Iraq in December after I broke the 29er. I sold it the day before I left for $250 and threw in a pump.

I read only 15 books this year--lowest total since I started keeping track. And almost all of them were re-reads: six by CS Lewis, Inferno & Purgatorio, Aeneid, and The Three Musketeers (an old edited French version). New to my reading list were George Orwell's Essays, another of John Polkinghorne's books on theology and physics, and The Audacity of Hope by President Obama.

The unabridged Democracy in America is my first book for 2009. I am halfway through The Oak and the Calf by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and a second (very different) abridged French version of the Three Musketeers and should finish them during the long hours in Kuwait.

By a rough calculation I have written more than 75,000 words on my blog and am just short of 50,000 visitors too my blog since I started keeping track in June of 2008.

Since August I have written more articles than I ever have in my life. The 16th weekly issue of the newsletter goes out Monday. I also wrote four newsletters for Echo Company and had stories picked up by many Web sites and newspapers--none cooler, of course, then the New York Times "At War" blog on Thanksgiving!

Although many are different angles of the same shot, I have taken more than 5000 pictures. It will be very strange to have no camera when I leave active duty.

Counting each take off and landing as a flight, I have been on two dozen helicopter rides, mostly on Blackhawks, but also on the big Chinooks. It was the Chinooks that turned out to be the best single photo subject. It was wonderful watching them hover, six feet above a container with a flight engineer on top of it who hooked the 5,000-pound load, jumped to the ground and ran through the hurricane-force winds as the big helicopter flew away with 2.5 tons dangling 20 feet underneath.

I bought just two meals the whole time I was in Iraq--pizzas at Ciano's. But I bought a few hundred lattes at Green Bean's. The last one was free. I am sitting in Green Bean's in Kuwait writing this post.

I fired a lot fewer rounds this year than I did as a Cold War tank commander in the 1970s. But then we were training for a real war that seemed immanent. Now we are in a real war that is ending.

Oh right. And I made 387 blog posts in 2009. I will continue posting every day until we are released from active duty. Then I am going to take a break during the 17 days I am still on terminal leave. And when I am finally and officially a civilian again, I might write about some of the stuff I can't write now.

Happy New Year.

TODAY--40th Anniversary of My Driver's License!!!

Among the many milestones I reached in Iraq is one I have celebrated for more than a quarter century--my driver's license anniversary. On December 19, 1969, after a one-semester delay while my grades got better, I went to the Registry of Motor Vehicles office in Woburn, Mass., and there took and passed my driver's test.

I had already bought and sold my first car--a Black 1963 Dodge Dart and so did not have a car on that wonderful day. But my Dad let me drive his car--a 22-foot-long 1965 Chrysler New Yorker. I was in Heaven. I had wanted to drive as long as I could remember and the day finally came. With my license my obsession with cars moved from wanting cars to owning cars.

In three weeks I had a 1964 Opel Station wagon. A month later it was a 1963 Chrysler Newport. Back then I thought I liked working on cars, but really, all I wanted to do was drive. I wore cars out. I broke them. I am the same with bicycles, although with bikes I know I do not want to work on them. I just want to ride.

5000 Miles In Iraq

At 6:30 this evening on Perimeter Road, I passed 5000 miles on the bike in Iraq. I need 99 more miles to have 7000 total for the year. I should make it by Christmas.
That makes more than 400 times around the Perimeter Road. I am a hamster!!!

Dust Clouds

Tonight I rode through clouds of dust to get to my office. I went to the office after the CSL book group. The night was absolutely beautiful when I left our living area. You can only see up where we live. Twelve-foot-high blast walls surround our trailer homes. So I looked up and saw Orion's belt and sword so clearly I almost thought the mythical warrior could step out of the sky and come to our base. So I looked up at the blue-black sky till my neck hurt then rode south to my office. On both dirt stretches the air was brown from long convoys raising dust. The front of the convoy was stopped and the back closing up to the front as they stopped and waited. Dozens of flatbed semis waiting to load with containers and drive to the port. It's strange how the sky can be clear and beautiful just a mile from where it is choked with a stagnant cloud of dust.

At my office I am trying to copy all of my photos off the hard drive of the computer I am using. The computer is cheap and sometimes quits. It is a PC and I am a very committed MAC user. Every time I use a PC I become more convinced that I love my MAC. I did not work very much. I have been up early and am too tired to work effectively late.

Eleven days till Christmas.

Flat Out of Luck

Not me for a change. David, my riding buddy got a flat on Wednesday, fixed it. Broke a spoke on Friday which warped his wheel right away. So he dropped his bike off with Larry the Bike Guy who was kind enough to give him a loaner. Today David wanted to ride 100km before he goes home on Tuesday--just to do it.

This morning the weather was cold but better than it has been, maybe 50 instead of low 40s. But if the weather was good, David was not. He is a former body builder and has been dong P90X along with 9-mile runs and biking about 50 miles per week. He hurt his back.

But he decided to go anyway this morning. About three miles into the ride as we passed the burn pit, it was clear this lap would be his last. He asked the shortest way back, then got a flat. One of our Apache pilots was driving to the other side of the base and picked David up. So I decided I could at least pass some solo milestones. I rode 50 miles today--enough that I am within 100 miles of 5000 in Iraq and within 200 miles of 7000 for the year. And no problems with the new bike. I went to the gym and did enough sit-ups so I am over 11,000 for the year, 9,000 pushups and 800 pull ups. I guess that means the shoulder surgery worked out well.

Two Bikes Down, One to Get to 5000 Miles

Today the fifth spoke broke on the rear wheel of my single-speed mountain bike. The wheel is twisted. I put my last mile on it. So both of the bikes I brought here broke beyond my ability to repair them after 2700 miles each: 2721 on the road bike, 2767 on the mountain bike. So now I have a Giant mountain bike to ride until the end of December. I only need 162 more miles to get to 5000 in Iraq and 265 to have 7000 miles for the year.

And I have a buyer for the mountain bike at the end of the month. At this point I am not sure exactly when I will be leaving, but it should be sometime in early January.

This Sunday is my riding buddy's last day before he goes home on leave. If he is stuck in Kuwait for any more than a day, I may not see him again. He wants to ride 100 miles Sunday. I may go 100km. Either way, I will have most of the miles I need before Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, I am going to be the emcee at the Christmas music night they will have here on Christmas Eve. It will be good to have something to do on Christmas Eve. Christmas will be just another work day except the lines in the DFAC will be longer.

And to continue on with yesterday's post on music--sometimes I ride for a mile or two with no hands, just to do it. Last night I was riding the 29er in the dark with my super bright light and singing as I rode with no hands for three miles. It can be boring riding here, but turning corners with no hands keeps my concentration up.

One more month and I should at least be in America.

Bike Update

By the time I go to bed, I will have close to 850 miles this month. So I should get to 5000 miles in Iraq and 7000 miles for the year by mid December. If I time it right, I should be able to hit on of the milestones on December 19--the 40th Anniversary of my drivers license!!!

I celebrate that day every year. Usually I can mention at a holiday party and say I am pretending this particular celebration is in honor of my driver's license anniversary. It's usually good for a laugh. It turns not so many people celebrate their driver's license anniversary.

In sad bike news I think I am losing a bearing on the road bike. It makes and awful sound when I pedal and the freewheel is not very free. If it is a bad bearing, I don't have to sit up nights trying to decide which bike to ship and which to keep. The road bike goes in the Conex, the Mtn. bike stays.



On a completely different topic, I got my 7th Army Coin today. It's an unofficial award that recognizes a good job, sometimes on the spot and has no paperwork. I'll take a picture of mine, but the ones on the photo above are typical. Today's coin was for being the emcee on Veteran's Day from the Garrison. I got another one from my brigade commander for the same event.

I Won the Race--Story in the New York Times "At War" Blog

The race went off fine. My runner and I won the team competition. And the story is on the "At War" blog in the New York Times!!

Here's the link to the story with photos.

---------

Among the hundreds of things I miss about home during my year in Iraq is the Turkey Day bike race in Lancaster County, Penn. This unofficial final race of every season draws 50 or more racers from around the county, and it shows which cyclists kept up with their fitness routines since the end of the season in September. So when I finally got a chance to organize a bike race on Tallil Ali Air Base after six months here, I wanted it to be on Thanksgiving Day.

As far as anyone on the base knows - and there are civilians who have been here since late 2003 - no one has ever organized a bicycle race at Tallil base, or as the Army calls it, Contingency Operating Base (COB) Adder. To the purist, the Task Force Diablo Biathlon was not exactly a bicycle race, but bikes raced in it and bikes crossed the finish line, so it was a bike race.

A biathlon was also an easier sell at Garrison Command because the cyclists don't ride in packs. In July I tried to organize a race for Labor Day weekend. I had a promoter, Rich Ruoff, who put the race on his Web site and was going to handle registrations online. Bike Line of Lancaster gave me two boxes of prizes. I could get medals from the KBR people who organize the running races. Everything was set, but then I met with a sergeant major (who has since left) and the race was over before it started. He wanted me to guarantee participation of at least 100 entrants and guarantee their safety - a tall order for a bike race.

The current garrison sergeant major was stationed in Italy and rides a Colnago road bike himself, so he was more amenable to hosting a race. Early in November, we had a meeting at Garrison, got the green light and started to put together road guard crews, medics and advertising.

Everything was in place, then the day before the race it rained. Real rain. After six arid months here the roads were awash in mud. Tallil has about 20 squat, dirty trees in 20 square miles of base and no grass. As soon as it rains, the armored trucks and fuelers with their four-foot-high tires drag mounds of mud onto the road. I rode that morning and found myself and my bike caked with mud by the end of the ride. I thought the race might be canceled. But by afternoon the sun was out, and an east wind was drying the mud.

We had both team and solo racers. The really cool people race solo. (I have a heel spur and raced as part of a team.) Being half of a team also solved a problem I had with organizing a bike race and riding in it. I was worried about winning my own race. But since I was in the "less cool" category I did not worry. We also kept the distance short -5k run, 15k bike - which favors the runners.

At 5:00 a.m. I walked the ¼-mile to the start/transition area at the House of Pain gym. I walked both of my bikes because my commander, Lt. Col. Scott Perry, was borrowing my single-speed mountain for the race. By the end of the race he wished it had gears.

The coffee shop is just 200 meters from the House of Pain so I could start the day caffeinated. The road guards started arriving right away and the medics followed soon after. By 5:45 there were only 20 competitors. Five minutes later we had the safety briefing and I gave the race instructions. I thought I was very clear. But not everyone listened.

At 6:10 a.m., 30 racers started the 5k run. Ten were doing only the run. Six of us stood at the side of the road and watched the runners disappear in the pre-dawn gloom of this cloudy morning. We were the riders in the team event. Around the edge of the House of Pain parking lot, leaning on the concrete blast walls, sat two dozen bikes - from a perfectly clean 20-speed Giant carbon road bike with bladed spokes to a $100 mud-covered PX special.

After the runners left, I did a few sprints to get warmed up. There's just no way to be a race organizer and warm up. As the race timing clock neared 18 minutes, my partner, Sgt. Derek Miller, made the final turn on the 5k run. When he finished, I took off riding as hard as I could into a 10mph east wind. Our main competitors were a pair of Air Force security police. Their runner was nearly a minute behind mine, but their rider had gears and I was on a single-speed road bike. As it turned out, the only other rider I saw was the guy on the 20-speed Giant. He was coming toward me when I was just past half way. He yelled, "Am I going the wrong way?" I said yes and kept pedaling. He won't do another race without riding the course first.

At 50:12, I was the first finisher. The Air Force team was two minutes behind. The next finisher was the overall solo winner, Maj. Joel Allmandinger, followed by two more solo competitors. Their race for fourth was the best race of the event. The two riders are both colonels, Colonel Perry, who commands the aviation battalion, and Lt. Col. David Callahan, the deputy commander of the armored brigade at COB Adder. The pilot beat the tanker in the run, but Colonel Perry was on a single speed mountain bike. He was O.K. on the first part of the course riding into the east wind, but on the south side of the course the tank commander could change gears and was going 6 or 7 mph faster with the tail wind. Colonel Perry got passed on the south side. Colonel Callahan stayed ahead until the finish.

After the race I handed out the helmets, gloves and water bottles from Lancaster Bike Line and the medals from KBR. I am hoping we can do one more race on December 19th.

Sgt. Neil Gussman rejoined the Army in 2007 after a 23-year break in service. He blogs every day about his experiences as a 56-year-old soldier at http://armynow.blogspot.com. Sergeant Gussman is a Category 3 masters racer. He has done more than 120 races since he turned 50, including three while he was home on leave in June.

100k on Sunday, PT Test on Monday

On Sunday my bike buddy had to cancel our plans to ride 100 miles, so I decided to ride 100km. It was a beautiful day yesterday so I did three laps of the base then stopped for lunch. I did another lap then met up with the HHC first sergeant to make sure of road guard placement for the race on Thursday. My first sergeant was part of the meeting also. He told me that I had to take the PT Test in the morning--this morning. So I decided to finish the 100km and use 6.2 of the last 15 miles to time myself on the bike distance for the PT Test.

So I got up at 0440 and went to the gym to take the PT Test at 0530. The first event is the pushup. I need to do 56 in two minutes to max--get 100 points for the event. I got 49. Not bad. I was tired. I have done 56 when I felt really good, but after the 100km ride, I did not feel "really good." The situps were next. I needed 66. I got 66 in a minute, 50 seconds. Because I am over 55 I can take an alternative to the run. For the bike I have to ride 10km in 30 minutes. I am not allowed to change gears--which is fine since I have single-speed bikes. I rode the 6.2 mile course with 7 turn arounds in 20:03 on the road bike. For the PT Test, I ode the mountain bike and finished in 22:37.

I expected to have a full day's rest before the PT Test. I didn't. It's nice to know that I can score 288 out of 300 on a day when I am tired and haven't had much sleep. But I was wiped out afterward. I worked in the morning, but felt like I had cotton inside my skull. I took a nap at lunch.

Now I have to just be cool till Thursday morning and the race.

Fright Night

At the end of the day today, I was thinking very hard about how much we are the sum of our habits. How what we do again and again becomes what we are, because what we do by habit eats into the 168 hours we have every week to sleep seven nights, eat 21 meals, brush our teeth at least 14 times, take seven showers, dress and undress at least 28 times, maybe triple that if you ride a bike in the middle of the day.

I used to smoke. Most of my life from 13 to 33 I smoked. I estimated something on the order of 100,000 cigarettes. I am well past any current desire to smoke, but I still consider myself a smoker--at least in the sense that a long stretch of my life was limited by that bad habit.

And now I carry a gun. I have been carrying a gun for a year. I ride my bike with a gun. I wonder about using the gun. As my last day on the range showed, I am only accurate with the gun if it is supported by something. Without resting the gun on a sandbag or a wall, I can't fire very well. So I left work tonight in a light rain thinking about the gun on my back. I was distracted. I rode south into the darkest part of the base where the road is smooth as glass, but there are no buildings and no lights. Almost as soon as I turned on this usually lonely road I was between two walls of trucks. Just off both sides of the road were 50 huge flatbed trucks parked end to end with armored vehicles on nearly every one of them. Some of the flatbeds were the huge 4-axle armored tractors towing 5-axle trailers designed to carry armored vehicles. These long trailers have 40 tires.

With MRAPS and ASV Armored Gun Platforms, the twin lines of tall trucks strapped to flatbeds made the ride seem to be in a tunnel. The sky was black with clouds and made a roof. The ride pulled me back to the scariest ride I ever had in Hong Kong. I was flying down the mountain above this unbelievably crowded city and entered the middle lane of a three-lane wide one-way street. I was passing a double decker bus to my right. It was a flat steel wall on the left, they drive on the right. So I was riding next to a 15-foot high steel wall when the double-decker bus in the left lane started to move right. I jumped on the pedals and hoped I could pass the right bus before I became a smear between them.

I made it.

So I snapped myself out of that memory when I passed the long line of trucks. Then I was alone in the desert. Usually a bus or a maintenance truck will go past. Nothing. No one. I rode all the way to the east end of the base and north to main post before I saw another human being or vehicle. That started to get spooky after two miles and it was four miles that I was alone.

I am going to my book group now to talk about book 11 of Aeneid when Camilla gets killed.

Updated Stories and a Century Ride

In the next few days I will be updating some of the stories you already read, if you have been reading for the past two months--or they will be new stories if you weren't. I will be posting the full version of the story about the crew that includes Governor Rod Blagojevich's pilot. I am also writing an update to the Jason Guge PT Belt story. I will also post the latest version of Eight Minutes and Gone for those who don't get the Task Force Diablo Newsletter.

And on a completely different note, my main riding buddy convinced me we could do a Century next Sunday--on a single speed! We'll see.

4000 Miles in Iraq, 6000 for the Year, So Far

With just 49 days till my 2009 spreadsheet is closed out, it is time for a mileage update. As of last Sunday, I have more than 4,000 miles in Iraq. Although I ride some miles that are not circuits of the air base, and many interrupted circuits, it is a safe bet at this point that I have made close to 300 laps of this dust bowl. Right now I am 13 miles short of 6,000 miles total for the year. Sometime tomorrow, the odometer should click over to the next 1000-mile interval.

While my heel feels better, my running is way down from last year. But my shoulder is recovering well and my back is holding up just fine despite wearing body armor on flights. So far this year I have done 10,547 situps, 8365 pushups and 705 pull ups, but who's counting. We have a PT test sometime this month. Because I am over 55, I do not have to run. For my aerobic test, I can either run, walk, swim (if there was water) OR RIDE THE BIKE!!!! No kidding. I'll take the bike. I have to ride 10km (6.2 miles) in 28 minutes to pass. And since the bike is pass fail, the score I get is the average of my other two events. I think there is a chance I will be able max the test. In any case, I should get a good score, I have ridden 10k in 16 minutes in the US, so 28 minutes should be very easy to do.

The Biathlon is two weeks from today on Thanksgiving morning. I have no odea what the attendance will be.

The Race is On!!!!! Task Force Diablo Biathlon on Thanksgiving Morning

It's Approved. It's on. We are ready to roll!!! The First EVER Task Force Diablo Biathlon begins at 0700 hours on Thursday, November 26. The Run/Bike event will begin with a 5k run followed by a 15k bike. We will have individual and team competition. We are hoping to have medals. We do have water bottles and a couple of helmets and several other prizes courtesy of Bike Line of Lancaster, Pa.

The course profile is the same as an ironing board--flat. I am hoping to have 100 teams or individuals. I am going to make the race flyer in the morning. Advertising should begin by Saturday. Three weeks today till the start.

When I went to the garrison sergeant major's office to get approval for the race, he said we first had to talk about a Veteran's Day ceremony on Wednesday the 11th. I am going to be the emcee. I contacted the guy who will (I hope) be the featured speaker--one of the chaplains who is a regular at the CS Lewis book group.

This Monday I am going to send the newsletter I do to everyone I sent it too a month ago. This seventh issue really is good. With the help of Sgt. Matt Jones at 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, the simple layout I use is starting to look better. And I got some really good shots that I am using full page so they would not look as dramatic on the blog.

Too many great things happened this week to even write them all down. One sad thing for me I realized this morning is the Charlie MEDEVAC Company is leaving. They have been the source of some of my best stories and are one of the best units it has ever been my pleasure to be associated with. They are going back to Alaska soon and another MEDEVAC will take their place. I re-wrote the Eight Minutes and Gone blog post from two months ago as a tribute/goodbye to them and re-cropped some pictures for the past page of the newsletter.

DUST!!!!! and Good Friends

My big idea about a 1,000-mile month might be dead already. We had a HUGE dust storm today. When I rode to the south side of the base in the morning the sky was clear and it looked really nice outside. Then at 10am the visibility went from miles to feet. I let the bike sit all day then rode back to the North side for the Aeneid book group. The whole four-mile trip the sand was hitting me like rain, I could hear it on my helmet and shoulders. It was accumulating in the creases I my uniform like some kind of foul snow.

Last night we discussed Eros in the CS Lewis book group. The discussion went on for all but two hours. So we were talking about Romantic love and going back to define friendship (philia) again to be sure the contrast is clear. In the course of discussing Eros, I became very aware that I was part of a group of friends. Steve, Abbie, Gene, Ian and Edgardo--the regular members--really do bring their own perspectives to the group and, as Lewis says, bring things out in the other friends that would never be as clear otherwise. Gene and Edgardo are both chaplains and both orthodox in their beliefs, but are very different politically. With Edgardo gone home on R&R leave the last week, we only have one chaplain and not the interplay between Edgardo and Gene. Abbie and Steve are both Air Force and both friends outside the group, but Abbie is intuitive and Steve is logical. They play off each other very well. Ian is younger than all the rest of us and, like Abbie, goes to both book groups. He is about 6'6" tall and quiet until a subject hits a chord in him, which Eros did. Ian could give us the single-guy perspective on Eros in new Millenium, showing CS Lewis needs some updating.

I said I would start to talk about what I would miss in Iraq. This group of friends is at the top of my list.

Another Mileage Record

In October I rode 801 miles, my first month over 800 miles in Iraq. Today, I passed the 3,900-miles-in-Iraq mark. So I have two full months left in this year to get to 5,000 miles in Iraq. It should be no problem if I can keep riding everywhere I go. I often work late now, going back to the office at 9pm and returning at midnight or later. When I ride back it is actually cold. Tonight it was 61 degrees, not exactly arctic conditions, but after the temps this summer (133 in the shade!!) 61 feels chilly. Tonight I rode back in uniform and was happy I was not in shorts and a t-shirt.

The dust storms are supposed to hit us tomorrow. If they do, my mileage will be down. I was hoping to ride at least 33 miles a day. If I can do that, this will be a 1,000-mile month.

500 Feet Above the Ziggurat of Ur

Today I will upload images from flying above the Ziggurat of Ur on Thursday afternoon. This area, Ur, is the hometown of Abraham. People call this place the birthplace of civilization. If civilization was born here, it has had a very complete change of address. Jared Diamond's most recent book Collapse chronicles other places on our planet which are on the way to becoming arid ruins.

First 50-mile Day in Iraq

From the day we arrived here it was so hot and dusty that I limited my riding to early morning and late afternoon. The dust hangs in the air at night sometimes, so I did not relly consider riding in the dark until recently. But now with my new way-cool bright light I have been riding more in the dark.

And last night I took the long way home from work at midnight so I would get 50 miles in one day here. Next target is 63 miles (100k) and maybe when it gets even cooler I will try for a Century!

Speaking of bike milestones, there is a chance I will be able to ressurect the bicycle race in the form of a biathlon: 5k run, 15 or 20k bike. The run-bike format will eliminate the mass start. Of course, running 5k will also eliminate me from contention, but it's probably better that the organizer doesn't win.

I will let you know more as the back-channel negotiations proceed. Tentatively, Thanksgiving is the day. The Tallil Turkey Trot Biathlon (it would be great alliteration if we could set up a triathlon, but the sand swim would be difficult.)

You Light Up My Life. . .

Bike Line just send me a shipment with two tubes, ten spokes, a Gatorskin tire for my road bike and a Seca 700 headlight. The people who can't believe I would spend more than $200 for a bicycle (the same people who spent $1,000--no kidding--on pizza and other delivery food) will be aghast if they find out I spent $415 for a bike light.

But what a great light. Instead of straining my eyes and riding slowly around the dark side of the base, I can ride as fast as I want with a headlight that throws a beam more than a football field. In fact, I am riding back to the office on the south side of the base in a few minutes and will ride fully illuminating my path.

Also, Larry Wise the Bike Guy here on base fixed my spoke so I can ride the Mountain Bike. The garrison put fresh gravel on a 200-yard stretch of road the south side that makes it hard for me to ride the road bike--I have to ride in the soft sand beside the road.

In other news, three of my stories got picked up by a combat medic who blogs at www.ffpblog.com the "Far From Perfect" blog. He linked to both of the flight medic stories, and also linked to a post titled "Eight Minutes and Gone" which I did not send for publication. Maybe I should. Second weekly newsletter goes out tomorrow. Let me know if you want a PDF.

Flight Cancelled

I was supposed to be in a Blackhawk now flying to a couple of the nearby small bases, but the flight got cancelled. Somebody with a real mission got the seat, so I am labelling photos and getting ready to transfer them to an Army computer.

This morning was the Ruck March half marathon. Since I was supposed to fly, I did not pick up my number. I suppose I could have walked, but I took some pictures of participants, then took a nap until the walkers were coming back in.

On Monday, I sent the first issue of a new newsletter I am doing for the battalion (700 soldiers). It is a six-page newsletter that goes the soldiers and families in the states by PDF. The layout is in PowerPoint! I would not have thought PowerPoint is the way to do a newsletter, but it is really easy to use--easier than Word. Of course, it is very limited in what it can do. I have very rectangular layouts. But it is a newsletter so it should be fine. I will be sending the newsletter every Monday morning from now till we leave.

Coincidentally, the Brigade (2000 soldiers) will also switch to a weekly format from a monthly. The article that was the Medevac Pilot who is also a state trooper will be on the cover of their newsletter, also Monday morning.

Part of my charge is to do Daily Life stories. So this week I followed a day maintenance team from the unit that flies only at night. I also followed the crew that sets up the helicopters to fly.

If you want the newsletter, send me an email or tell me in a comment.

So now I write stories, take pictures and go to events full time. Of course, I ride my bike everywhere.

War is Hell!