"If It Ain't Rainin' We Ain't Trainin'" NYC Version

On the Queensborough Bridge Today, Yesterday was a Tropical Storm

Yesterday and today I walked from Manhattan to Queens and back on the Queensborough bridge. Today was beautiful weather. Yesterday was a tropical storm with sheets of rain blowing across the walkway from the north. 

As I walked through the rain wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I thought about First Sergeant Rich Francke, who was one of the people along with Jeremy Houck who helped me make the transition from civilian life back to the military in 2007.  One of Francke's mottos was, "If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin'." 

As I walked up the ramp onto the span getting soaked at a rate that felt like it could be measured in gallons per minute, I straightened my shoulders and imagined myself marching with field gear in the woods in a driving rain and thought 'at least I won't be sleeping in this.'  

The walkway has both a bike lane and a pedestrian lane. There was no one else walking, but there was a steady flow of bicyclists. Most of them were on electric bikes wrapped in raincoats. They were food delivery riders looking very miserable.  After I turned back toward Manhattan,  saw one slow, wobbly bicyclist on a regular bike. She was pedaling slowly and crying heading for Queens. She clearly did not think riding in the rain was an adventure.

Today there were more walkers, but not a lot.  I passed maybe 30 pedestrians in each direction on the 7500-foot-long bridge.  

There were many more bicyclists. Easily hundreds passed me.  One was wearing an Ironman bike jersey. He saw my Ironman hat and we waved.  A third of the bicyclists today were delivery riders, but there were also serious riders and tourists.  

 Completed in 1909, The 59th Street Bridge (now the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge) was the subject of a song by Simon and Garfunkel that most people know as "Feelin' Groovy." Billy Joel's video for the song "Your Only Human (Second Wind)" was filmed primarily on the bridge.  The bridge has been part of more than a dozen movies from 1932 to 2018, most recently in "Avengers: Infinity Wars."

First Sergeant Francke and My Return to Army Life

First Sergeant Francke with SFC Wentzell

When I first re-enlisted in the Army in 2007, culture shock can't even begin to describe what I felt joining an Army maintenance company after almost 25 years as a civilian. I remembered many of the basics, but I was painfully out of practice.

Among the many people who guided me back into the world of camouflage and military discipline was First Sergeant Rich Francke. At my first drill, formation was at 0745 hours behind the Aviation Armory. I fell in with the rest of the company. One of the Staff Sergeant squad leaders ran up to the formation, took his place at the head of his file and then he was on the ground knocking out pushups after Francke said, "25."

With Top Francke, you were already late if the second hand on his old school analog watch was sweeping up toward formation time. I did those pushups the next month. All through the training for deployment in 2009, Top Francke made sure we knew the standards and he held me and everyone else to them. He was also funny. When I re-enlisted the National Guard was still using "Deuce and a Half" trucks for hauling soldiers and cargo. When we climbed in the back of one to go to range, Top said, "These vehicles are older than Gussman, if you can believe that."

I had assumed--hoped--he would be our First Sergeant in Iraq, but five years before he was on a deployment that stretched from a year to beyond a year and a half, so he decided to retire rather than deploy again. But he was with us up to the day we left and made sure we were as ready as we could be before we boarded the planes that would take us to Camp Adder, Iraq.