Adapting in a New York Minute

Yesterday and this morning, I was in New York City on business. Between appointments I had a chance to ride in Central Park. I was supposed to meet a friend who is an avid rider--he commutes into NYC from New Jersey. But the snow on Monday-Tuesday made the NJ roads slushy enough that Jim took the train.

At 5pm, yesterday, I left my hotel at 26th Street and 6th Ave. One of the entrances of Central Park is on 6th Ave, so I turned north on 6th and got in the 5 o'clock traffic in midtown.

When I first started riding again in Lancaster, I was a little bit tentative riding in groups. I had been riding alone for most of the year and I did not want to mess up in a pack so I would follow three or four feet behind other riders instead of right up on their wheel (where I should be).

But turning on to 6th Ave, I had none of that hesitation at all. I got into the bike lane on the left side of the avenue, shifted to the big ring and started riding as fast as I could toward the park. As I approached the odd-numbered streets I would be scanning for turn signals and making sure I kept my speed up and get right by the front wheel of taxis so they could see me.

When I got near Herald Square I could see people waving for taxis in the bike lane. They were all women. Then I remembered it was Fashion week. I kept my speed and stayed in my lane. The people standing in the bike lane were facing me and decided the best plan was to get out of the lane when I got close. Around 40th the bike lane ended so I moved into one of the center lanes. I got caught at three lights in the 34 block trip. As I rolled into the park I realized I had no hesitation at all riding with the limos and taxis and splitting lanes. I have always liked riding in traffic since I was a kid in Boston.

Riding in NYC traffic made riding feel completely normal again. Today I rode a few miles with the daily training ride. I rode right on the wheel of the rider in front of me. Whatever was wrong in my head, riding up 6th and down 7th Ave cleared that up.

Home from Iraq--"What was it like over there?"

Foreign students entering American culture are usually surprised then dismayed by the question "How are you?"

The foreign students, at least the ones who have never been to America before, try to answer the question and say how they are. They soon find that is a mistake. No answer is expected.

In America, "How are you?" is followed immediately without a pause by "I'm fine." Then by a monologue such as, "I got this totally awesome new Coach purse just by friending the Coach page on Facebook, like free. So did I tell you my roommate just went totally whole foods. Grrrrross!! . . ."

The fifty-year-old-white-guy riff on this I have been hearing lately is, "What was it like over there?" After that question there is a pause and a wide-eyed look that says 'Please don't say anything awful.'

My usual answer is, "Hot."

After that answer, the person I am talking to exhales audibly, smiles, then says, "I am so busy. We just got this new contract. My oldest is going to college next year. I don't know where we are going to get the money. . . ."

I am back to work and back to commuting on the train from Lancaster to Philadelphia. I sat with a guy on the train who asked "What was it like over there?" Without waiting for an answer he said, "It must be weird to be back where people care about nothing but themselves." Then he talked for the next 15 minutes about how tough it is for his business in this economy, how he is sacrificing for the business, etc.

I have two very good friends who both recently used the same expression while we were talking. One friend is from Iraq, one is from my service in Germany in the 70s. They each said, "There is no one like you in my world." They are both blue collar, from blue collar families, with blue collar friends--except me. Even though I had not gone to college when I was in Germany, I was reading a lot and learning to be a writer. I was leaving the blue collar world I grew up in during the late 70s, even before I went to college. And by returning to the Army as a sergeant, I was re-entering the blue collar world as an outsider.

I am glad to be back in my world. But it's really clear that the two worlds are not better or worse, just different. People who never read books can be endlessly interesting and funny. People who are very smart can be duller than butter knives.

Medal Inflation (Background): Specialist Sunshine and Sergeant Oblivious

When everyone dress alike personality almost jumps out of the camouflage clothes. Two guys who served together from the beginning of our deployment, wore the same uniform, but are a stark contrast in their personalities are Specialist Sunshine and Sergeant Oblivious. On the outside, they are both over forty, both need to spend more time at the salad bar than at the main course line, both initially struggled to pass the fitness test, and both are the kind of soldiers who cause pre-emptive groans when they open their mouths to speak at a formation.

Twins?

Not even close. Specialist Sunshine never seemed to get dragged down by circumstances. At every mission change, he just kept working. As his squad leader Sergeant Oblivious deteriorated throughout our deployment, Sunshine was one of the few people who did not make fun of him behind his back. Sunshine makes jokes, keeps to himself, works hard, and ran as much as ten miles in a day to get ready for the PT test after living a very sedentary lifestyle. Sergeant Oblivious barely passed the PT test then ordered a three-foot pizza to celebrate, because he could now forget about the PT test for several months.

Sergeant Oblivious failed as a squad leader almost as soon as we mobilized. But he had friends who, like him, were on the deployment because it was the only way they could keep their jobs as Army National Guard technicians back in America. Finally, after two months in Iraq, Oblivious was so bad he was relieved of duty as a squad leader. A week later, he was watching the sergeant who replaced him struggle with some of the paperwork involved in the job (which Oblivious so bad at as to be legendary). But it had been a week since Oblivious was relieved of duty for incompetence so, in his usual way, all of the actual events had been erased in his mind and he had replaced them with a new history of his own creation. Oblivious looked at his replacement and said, "That job's not hard."

Luckily, I was not drinking coffee when I heard this. Otherwise I might have spit it across the room. Next Oblivious was assigned a security job a pay grade lower than his own. He failed within a day. Which caused a junior NCO to be stuck on five weeks of guard duty with about 2 hours notice. And, of course, none of it is the fault of Sergeant Oblivious.

Like Sergeant Rumpled, Sergeant Oblivious is also convinced that he is quite attractive to women, despite being bald, unkempt, missing a lot of teeth, and being in known across the battalion as lax on personal hygiene. Oblivious believes many conspiracies both of the global variety (he does not know WHO caused the World Trade Center Towers to fall, but someone. . .) and knows people at every level of the military are out to get him. He keeps records. He takes notes. They are in a secret code. He cannot write an English sentence.

CS Lewis, comparing military service with a term in prison, said the military can put you under the arbitrary authority of a very stupid man. That is much less true today than during than 100 years ago, but it is still possible. Sunshine had good-naturedly worked for Oblivious for almost six months. I am glad for him that Oblivious is headed for some sort of oblivion and is out of any position of authority.

But even that is a cause of some anger and envy among his peers. Because he is prone to outbursts and incompetent, Oblivious was relieved of the duties of a squad leader, but he is still getting paid as one. And he may end up in an MWR tent signing people in and out of the public access computers. He gets an all-day air-conditioned job because he is under too much stress to work outside with everyone else.

When the military rewards failure, it ties a camouflage bow on the package.

And as the believers may already have guessed, Oblivious goes to Church and will start arguments about faith. Sunshine does not believe.

Medal Inflation, Part 2

If you want to be entertained for hours and understand one reason why I met many soldiers who were upset about awarding Bronze Star Medals to people who were not in direct combat, then watch the 2001 HBO Miniseries "Band of Brothers." This eight-hour show chronicles Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, from training through D-Day through the end of World War 2.

If you look at the decorations received by this storied group of American soldiers, you will see the Bronze Star Medal was given for gallantry under fire. Every soldier I met who had watched the series remembered in particular when Easy Company, with less than 30 men, attacked a German anti-aircraft battery. The battery was dug in and protected by machine guns. Using fire and maneuver, the remnants of Easy Company that had just parachuted into Normandy attacked and destroyed the emplacement. The attack, led by then 1st Lt. Dick Winters of Lancaster, is still taught at the US Military Academy at West Point. Winters received the Distinguished Service Cross for leading the attack. Sgt. Donald Malarkey was Winter's NCOIC and fire team leader. Malarkey was awarded the Bronze Star. Malarkey got two additional Bronze Stars over the next year. Easy Company as a group fought in more battles than any member of the Normandy invasion force and Malarkey had the most time in the front lines of any soldier in Easy Company.

Many soldiers, as I wrote yesterday, are angry when they see someone who was essentially an administrator receive the same medal that Sgt. Malarkey received for his part in one of the single greatest small-unit actions in American military history.

The Bronze Star was the most resented award I heard about in Iraq, partly because of some of the people who received it never saw anything close to combat, and partly because it was often awarded to senior soldiers near the end of their careers--as in the case of the chaplain in the last post.

But there were also problems with lesser awards. I was firmly on both sides of Medal inflation in regard to the Army Commendation Medal. More on that in a future post.

Medal Inflation, Part 1

Sgt. Melissa White was furious when I visited her office on Tallil Ali Air Base last September. She had just returned from covering an award ceremony for the Sustainment Brigade that was leaving in two weeks. Sustainment Brigades are, by definition, not forward combat units, although in Iraq anybody could get hit with an IED on the roads. What had the tall, tough sergeant fuming was an award of the Bronze Star Medal made at that ceremony.

The brigade chaplain had received the Bronze Star for service during his deployment to Iraq. That service was almost entirely on our big, well-protected Air Base. The chaplain, according to the angry sergeant, almost never went outside the wire (off base) had never been shot at and got the fourth highest combat award for bravery because he spent year in Iraq.

"And he isn't much of a Christian either," she went on fuming about how he spent most of his time with fellow officers and chaplains and about the contrast between him and Chaplain Valentine, the Catholic Chaplain who went on convoys and out to forward bases and outposts every week visiting troops all over southern Iraq.

Her anger was partly specific to this award of the Bronze Star, and partly because she was a reserve soldier who had decided to go on active duty. She cared about tradition and was sure a Bronze Star should only be awarded to someone who was brave in combat--not for 10 months of sustained breathing in a combat zone. In her case it was not envy. She did not want the medal herself. She was sure she did not deserve it any more than he did, although she had ridden in convoys and gone on humanitarian missions in the countryside that can sometimes turn deadly. "If you get the Bronze Star you should be brave under fire," she fumed.

My wife is a professor and deals with grade inflation every semester. It is a perennial conflict between wanting to maintain standards and wanting your students to succeed. In the Army, medals have promotion points. A leader who decides to maintain historic standards in the awarding of medals puts his soldiers behind other soldiers of the same rank and ability who get awards.

The Bronze Star Medal was the focus of anger about the diminishing value of medals. Among people I talked to, the HBO series "Band of Brothers" based on the book by Stephen Ambrose, may be part of the reason. More on that tomorrow.

Mental Compartments

One of the blessings of being in Iraq with no cell phone and slow internet service was single tasking. You may know that as concentrating on one thing at a time. Reading a book without interruption, writing without bobbing through 20 windows checking Twitter, three email services, and a dozen Web sites. Now that I am back, I am trying to keep myself from returning to multi-tasking, to the false efficiency of doing five things badly rather than one thing well.

When I was multi-tasking myself, I did not see as vividly how the act of multi-tasking seeps back into our minds and dissolves our mental integrity. One of the hallmarks of modern life is stuffing our many lives in compartments that do not touch each other. That can lead having multiple beliefs and assumptions that really do affect each other, but we keep them in separate places in our minds, as if our memory were a series of Tupperware containers keeping work, family, hobbies, beliefs in their own little worlds in our heads. That is how people can look at religion as a buffet--taking a little Bhuddism here; a little Christianity there; maybe believe in angels, but not devils; or believe in Heaven but not Hell; as if these complex systems of belief were nothing more than raw material for whatever makes someone feel good.

At this point you could be IMing a friend, watching American Idol, thinking 'Whatever, Dude.' But if you are still reading, I can tell you that being in the land that discourages multi-tasking let me see more clearly what it does inside people's heads.

When we were getting ready to go home, we got a briefing about medical benefits. The sergeant who was giving the briefing made it clear to us that he believes our country does not need health care reform. His politics are in one compartment. Five minutes later he tells us why Pennsylvania wants to be sure we all know about the benefits we have. When the Brigade that preceded us mobilized in 2007, 42% of the soldiers did not have medical benefits when they mobilized. Out of 4000 soldiers, 2320 had medical benefits, 1680 did not. These were not street people. They were not illiterate. But 42% were uninsured. The two thoughts that 'The Health Care System is OK as it is' and '1680 out of 4000 soldiers in this brigade getting deployed to Iraq have no health care' stayed in their own compartments in his mind.

It would be no good pointing out this contradiction. He would have an answer if challenged on this contradiction. He sees what his beliefs allow him to see and will bend what does not fit until it aligns with is belief. So if his political views tell him 'my side is right, the other is wrong' then no actual fact--not even 1680 uninsured facts--sitting in front of him will change his mind.

Commander Back at Work

Brad Powers got a new job. I am back at my former job, but with a new boss. Lt. Col. Perry was in the Patriot News (Harrisburg, Pa.) when he returned to work.



Rep. Scott Perry

Rep. Scott Perry of York County welcomed back to the floor of the Pennsylvania House
By JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News

Following a year's absence while he was deployed to Iraq, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Dillsburg, was given a hero's welcome upon his return to the floor of the state House.

Perry, who was commander of the 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion, seemed almost embarrassed by the standing ovation from his House colleagues, motioning several times for them to sit down.

House Speaker Keith McCall welcomed Perry and thanked him for "willingly ... putting yourself in harm's way. ... We're grateful for your safe return and very, very proud of your service to this great nation." But, he added, "It may take some time getting used to as you return here, Lt. Col. Perry, that people aren't going to be saluting you and calling you sir."

House Republican Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, echoed the gratitude about Perry's service. He also commented on how difficult it must have been for Perry, who had a child born during his deployment.

Smith noted that last year's protracted budget impasse was a grind for those at the Capitol, but then said he'd think about Perry and another House member, Rep. Nick Miccarelli, R-Delaware County, who also was on a deployment in Iraq last year. He said that reminded him, "it's not so bad here."

Another Sign I am Home

This morning I called my wife from work to ask about our son Nigel. He had a two-hour school delay and I wanted to make sure it did not turn into a cancellation. In the course of our conversation Annalisa said, "The most fun thing we did. . .wait, fun is not an adjective. . .the thing that we did that was the most fun was . . ."

Later I talked to a friend from Belgium about a book project we might work on together. We were talking about the placement of object pronouns in French. I said French grammar was difficult on this. Brigitte said, "At least French has rules of grammar, English has no rules, only exceptions."

At midnight tonight my military leave ends which means I am off Title 10 active duty orders and back to being a Pennsylvania National Guard soldier. As of tomorrow I am really a citizen soldier again, not regular Army. I could, of course, be called up for duty, but in the near future that would only happen for a disaster in Pennsylvania or a neighboring state.

It is still strange at time to be home. All the more so with another foot of snow on the way Tuesday and Wednesday. I am really home, but I have not ridden my bike since Friday. I hardly missed a day riding in Iraq. Now I am forced to ride inside!! Not yet, but maybe tomorrow.

Who Makes Coffee for the Soldiers?

One of my favorite places in Iraq was the Green Beans coffee shop on Tallil Ali Air Base. I was a regular so I knew most of the staff. Like us, they worked at least 12 hours per day, six days a week and when one of them was sick, the others would work 18 hours to keep the coffee brewing 24/7/365.

Most of the baristas were from India and Nepal. A few months before I left, they hired Frederick Lameki, a young man from Kenya. Like the other members of the staff, Fred was well educated, but could make more money serving coffee in Iraq than he could in his home country. Fred greeted me loudly every time I saw him at Green Beans.

"Goooosemon," he would say. "What's happening?" Sometimes in his enthusiasm he would attempt to greet me with the complicated handshake he used greeting his younger favorite customers--then he remembered I was way too old for that and smiled at my inability.

Fred will be visiting America this summer--most likely New York City, but maybe other North East cities. Fred has 419 Facebook friends which, in his case, may actually reflect his ability to make and keep friends. Fred and I have one mutual friend on Facebook--Jessie Ramos. Fred introduced me to Jessie. She is from Texas, but not really. In fact she is not really Jessie, but more on her in another post.

Green Beans is one of my best memories of Iraq: good coffee, good people who work there, reading good books with no video in the building, and talking about books with other people who read.

Cooking

In several posts during the last year I wrote that the food we had in Iraq was great. Aside from really good bread we were very well fed. The amazing variety of fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal meant we actually were well fed in the nutritional sense. When I got to America I asked my kids to bring bakery bread to me at Fort Dix. Since I have been home, I have had good bread pretty much every day.

But it turns out I also missed cooking. In the last week I made dinner several times. When I make dinner it is more extravagant than my very frugal wife makes, but she doesn't mind because I do the work and cooking expensive food at home is still much less expensive than eating in a not-so-great restaurant.

One night this week I made a pork roast, mashed potatoes, and steamed cabbage. I make mashed potatoes with butter, whole milk and an old-fashioned potato masher--not exactly health food, but really good if you like potatoes. We also had celery with and without peanut butter, provolone cheese, jarlsburg cheese, and bread from a local bakery named "A Loaf of Bread." And very much unlike Tallil, my wife and I had wine with dinner that I got as a coming home present the week before. Just one glass for me--I had a two drink limit before deployment and now can get a small buzz from one glass of table wine. Two days later, dinner was the leftover pork, potatoes and cabbage along brie cheese and French bread and the rest of the bottle of wine.

Tonight we had apples, cheese, purple cabbage, Cappicola ham, fruit and nut bread from Philadelphia, and a really good rose wine that was also a welcome home gift. It really is fun to cut everything up and make the food look good on the serving plates--that's something you can't get in a buffet line.

Explaining Acronyms

Three of us were standing in the lobby today waiting for the fourth for lunch. In the five minutes before the fourth member of our group showed up (punctuality is very optional in civilian life) the subject of Army acronyms came up. The two women I was talking to had no connection to the military but knew that when F was the middle letter in an Army acronym, what word it referred to.

My favorite example of just how much acronyms replace words in the Army is the use of the acronym BFR when referring to a Big Rock. I could almost understand if it was an exclamation--"That's a Big F-ing Rock!" But it's not. A large rock is a BFR because it is more fun to have an acronym.

Then we talked about titles. I have a new title. Instead of Communications Manager, I am Strategic Communications and Media Relations Manager. If got this title in the Army, I would be the SCMRM. I then mentioned that in the Army everyone is in charge of something, even if it is just their own weapon and wall locker. So if you know someone is in charge and you don't know what their title is, everyone from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to team leader can be called an HMFIC. That is the Head MF In Charge. MF is always the same in Army speak.

"You'll Get Back in Shape in No Time"

That's what the other guys I ride with were saying on Sunday, Monday and today. It was nice of them to say, but the truth is getting back to climbing hills is just as tough as coming back from breaking my neck. Hills that used to just look like hills now look like Alpine climbs.

On the 40-mile Sunday ride the two nasty climbs are about five miles from the start. But I was already gasping from riding up the long shallow hill at the start and the longer, steeper hill at mile 2. On the first big hill, the group slowed at the top for a stop sign just over the crest of the hill. There was no traffic, so I went through the intersection at 22mph and caught the group on the descent. On the next hill two other guys dropped to the back, so though I was lagging, I was not the caboose on the train.

From that point on I never stopped wheezing. We rode the rollings hills at a moderate pace--they talked I wheezed--until we crossed Rt. 222 on the south side of Lancaster. The pack sped up and stayed above 20mph for the next few miles. Just as we were about to turn up hill, I drifted back and watched the bright-colored group of a dozen riders disappear. Another guy was behind me. He said he was going to try to catch up; he never did. I turned back toward home at mile 18.

The next day I rode just 17 of 29 miles of the daily ride and it was very difficult.

I know i will get back in shape, but it will be months, not weeks till I can climb like I used to.

Back to Work

Before returning to work on Tuesday, I had a couple of articles to finish. On Thursday I finished an article for On Patrol: The Magazine of the USO writing on the train to and from New York. Last night I was writing my next column for "We're History" in Chemical Engineering Progress magazine. I am revising it now as the clock strikes midnight and will be up for another hour.
(Update through the magic of internet revision, I was up till 2:30am rewriting to include an explanation of why snails have blue blood.)
So I really am back to work--writing about weird topics at weird hours.

An Old Friend's View of an Old Soldier

On the way home from New York City Thursday night, I called Abel Lopez, one of my two best friends from when I was on active duty in the 1970s. If I haven't mentioned him before, Abel left active duty in 1978, a year before I did. He was the commander of the tank next to mine in Bravo Company 1-70th Armor in Wiesbaden. We talked a lot about faith and about life, the universe and everything when we served together and have kept the conversation up for past 32 years. 

Abel and I seldom see each other, but talk every month or two about our current views of the same things we talked about back in Germany. He went home to Chula Vista in San Diego County and became a Federal Fire Fighter. He recently retired from the fire department. I talked to Abel on the 100-mile drive from Trenton to Lancaster, from just over the Pennsylvania line to my driveway. If you think it is wrong to talk on a cell phone while driving you should stop reading now. 

Anyway, the first thing Abel asked when I got on the phone is what I think the summary of my year in Iraq is. "I don't know," I said. We talked for a long time. He, like my friend Meredith Gould, think I went a very long way to prove L. Frank Baum (Author of the Oz books) was right, "There's No Place Like Home." One of my goals in going to Iraq was to become less tied to the life of luxury I was leading. 

That didn't work. My previous posts on the things I have done, bought, etc. since my return to America make it pretty clear that self denial is not one of my strengths. Abel thought that if I write a book about this year, it ought to be for all the people he sees in California who get to be our age and think they can reinvent themselves. They need to figure out how to do the best they can with who they are. And given the considerable lengths I went to in finding out how much I liked my life, I could make fun of my self in a big way writing that book. It also fits with my sister's advice to write one of the currently popular "One Year" books. 

I do know now that joining the Army and serving in Iraq is a great way to clarify what you really want from life--at least it was for me. It also made very clear that goodness has so many forms that one life and one place can never support it all. It is yet another thing that draws me to life beyond this life. I love the beautiful, civilized, literate world I returned to. 

Today I went to the Evolution Table at F&M and enjoyed the conversation of 22 professors and local professionals about current developments in Life Science. Tuesday I return to work with co-workers who have an average of 2.2 college degrees. But I already miss the courage and laser focus I met every day among the men and women I served with in Iraq. I clicked my heels three times, I traveled a long way, but I can't figure out which end of the trip is Oz.

Adjusting to Beauty

Adjusting to being back "in the world" is an odd process with stops and starts. Today I was in New York. I drove to Trenton then hopped on a train and got to spend the day with several different interesting people. That part was just fine. But since these people were in different parts of the city I had several views of this vibrant metropolis.

The most jarring was the Brooklyn Bridge. I took the Park Street line to one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. I walked up the middle on the tourist path. There was a point where those cables sweep up in a beautiful arc--it is where the group of walkers are clustered on the right of the path in the photo above. At that point of the bridge I looked up along those cables. The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud in sight. It was cold. The wind was blowing straight across the bridge deck at more the 20mph. The flag above the bridge pointed straight north.

I stopped and stared up for a long time. I walked a little further, but I was still staring so I stopped again. The bridge look so majestic and tall and clean. The sky line in every direction was brick and glass and steel. Planes and helicopters flew overhead. Boats made there slow way under the bridge in the shipping channel.

Everywhere I looked was a contrast to the low, dirt-covered, place I left. Trees and grass grew everywhere the concrete did not cover in New York. At Tallil the lawn was gravel. My senses were overloaded. I was in civilization. This is home.

Adjusting to Life at Home

Yesterday on the training ride there is a place where we usually slow down as we turn from State Highway 441 onto a narrow road with a creek on one side and a steep tree-covered hill on the other. The hill is dark all the way up to a north-south ridge so if there is any sun it is bright on the top of the ridge and dark all the way down to where we ride the road. Just after we turned onto this road Matt Hollenbach said, "Neil, look up there, three deer, no four." I looked and there they were, right on the ridge line standing parallel to the road.

They were back-lit, standing still and silhouetted from their hooves to their horns. They could not be better targets if they wore orange vests with bulls-eyes. What I should have seen was how beautiful nature is here compared to the dust, rock and vermin that is nature in southern Iraq. But as I looked at the deer and the afternoon sun and the trees, my first thought was "Get off the ridge you idiots! One shot and you are dinner!"

I suppose it will take a while before my view of a natural scene does not include range, target description, and rules of engagement.

When I first returned to America after serving on the border in Germany, I would occasionally be driving along a country road and look at the fields and tree lines in front of me as fields of fire for a tank or see places where a tank could be "hull-down" with it's hull protected from direct fire but with a clear view for the gunner's sights.

Speaking of riding, I really prefer riding without an M-16A4 rifle on my back.

Combat Patch

One of the best things that happened to me in Iraq was covered under OPSEC until now. It would not seem like a secret, but we are in the process of being allowed to wear the combat patch of the 1st Armored Division. 4th Brigade of 1AD is in charge of the garrison at Tallil Ali Air Base/Camp Adder. When I served the last time I was a tank gunner in 1975 and a tank commander from 1976 to 1984. Although I was in tanks, I was assigned to mechanized infantry divisions so I always wore an infantry unit patch, never an armored patch. 

Now I can wear the 1st AD patch on my right sleeve. So after all these years, serving with an aviation unit in Iraq finally got me the opportunity to wear an armor patch. I wrote about the connection between 1AD and my unit on December 22 & 23. I already got a price for a tattoo. I have seen people get a unit patch tattoo on their arm where the patch would be on the uniform. But I am a bike racer. If I get the tattoo it will be in the middle of my right calf--the place where it is visible in a peleton.

Welcome Home Party

This afternoon was my Welcome Home party. In addition to my family, friends from work showed up--driving all the way from New Jersey in the case of Shelley Geehr and her family. Sarah Reisert made the long drive from Philadelphia. Jan Felice, Jim Pomeroy, Keith McIlhenney, and Scott and Barb Haverstick were here representing the bicycling side of my life. Several members of the math department at Franklin and Marshall College (including Arny and Tracy Feldman who provided the snacks) were here along with bicyclist and college president John Fry. Bruce and Carol Mawhinney and the whole LeDuc family along with the Whites, Eric and Lina Bierker, and Leslie Bustard from Wheatland Presbyterian Church. All my daughters came home from college so the house was very full.

At 6pm my wife disappeared upstairs to listen to Prairie Home Companion. I took the kids to Starbucks and then to the train station to put Iolanthe on the train back to Bryn Mawr. Reviving an old tradition Lauren, Lisa, Nigel and I went to the Park City Mall on Saturday night. We had done that for years leaving the house to Annalisa. Lisa and I went shopping for shoes for me while Lauren and Nigel went looking for a shirt for Lauren. Lisa said it was different with me shopping, since when we did this several years ago, the kids went shopping while I sat near the entrance to Sears and did homework for Greek or Physics or French or whatever class I happened to be taking that semester.

I am starting to feel more like I am really home.

First Ride Back in Lancaster

Today I slept late (almost 9 am) just because I could. Then I pumped up the tires on my "A" race bike (Trek Madone) and started doing errands--all of which cost varying amounts of money because Uncle Sam is no longer providing everything for my life and well being. First I re-registered my car and insured it. $71 for registration, $1003 for insurance. Then I jump started my very dead car and drove it to Firestone. It needed brakes and a new ignition switch and some other stuff that came to $800.

After that I took a break from spending money and did the Friday training ride with Scott Haverstick and Jan Felice. Jan shot the photo of Scott and I on the ride. We did the usual 29-mile winter loop. At the end I could barely talk. Scott and Jan were not even breathing hard. It was great to be back. They even let me win the coasting race. Actually Scott lost 20 pounds during this year which will make him even faster up hills, but at least I will be able to beat him on the downhills.

Back to spending money. I ordered a new computer at MacHeads $1,270 with tax, plus $300 to rehab the old one. I need new dress shoes, $150. I am going to get a flat screen TV tonight or tomorrow for $500.

For the next next two hours I will be taking Nigel to his basketball game, so I will not be spending money for that period of time. The satellite TV gets installed Monday.

I better go back to work soon. I am going to need the money!!

"There's a Good Reason Why You are In This Line for 4 Hours"

Today I went through another stage of out-processing. The particular task involved calculating the leave due me. This can be tricky for the soldiers who are full-time in the Guard or Reserve, but not so much for people me. I and almost everyone else used exactly 15 days of leave for the trip home and we get a total of 32.5 days for the time we served. So I continue on active duty for 17 days with benefits and they pay me for the half day. The process would have taken ten minutes, but my leave form was blurry, so it took 30.

But I waited 4 hours to get to the station where this ten-minute calculation was performed. I was sitting in the finance office waiting for several sergeants and civilians to discuss my faded leave form. I said to one of the finance clerks that I had not waited for anything in line for four hours during the 23 years I was a civilian. She started to explain why we were waiting--only four finance clerks, 170people in line, etc. I said it was not the reason that mattered, but as a civilian if someone wanted me to wait four hours, the reward would have to be phenomenal. She spent 20 years in the Army then went to work for the federal government. For her, waiting in line makes sense. She lives by the government system.

And for her, the reasons did make sense. But if a civilian company would not be in business very long if it made customers wait in line four hours to do a predictable 10-minute bit of paperwork. And onloy a government organization would even try to do something so simple on paper. A money-making business would automate the calculation.

After that four-hour wait was over, I was in two more lines. One for 90 minutes, one for 2.5 hours. The last one I was only in line 90 minutes of the 2.5 hours. I left and ate dinner and came back. Soldiers hold each other's place in line.