My First Writing Mentor: Clint Swift

The Army made me a  writer.  In several blog posts, especially this one, I have written about how the combination of inspiration and free time of soldiers in the field gave the chance to learn how to write.
A movie of my life would have me start writing, a twinkle would show in my eye as I looked to the future, and within a minute I would be transformed from Grunt to Gogol!

As you can tell from my current writing, I am still a grunt who wishes he was Nikolai Gogol, but when the Army gave me my first journalism job in 1978, the guy who helped me the most was a civilian reporter for the Stars and Stripes newspaper, named Clint Swift.  I met Clint when I visited the Stars and Stripes office in Darmstadt, (West) Germany.  I told him what I was doing and he took an interest in me and my unit.

He also gave me a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.  I read and reread the book several times over the next year.  Clint told me how news stories worked, explained the difference between news and feature stories, and helped me to learn the craft of journalism.  I am currently re-reading The Elements of Style.  I could not even guess how many times I have re-read it.
I looked on line to see if I could find Clint.  No luck so far.  I hope he is proud that I made writing my career.  I am sure he would be amused I am back in the Army.

Paula Poundstone Embarassed Me in Iraq!

Six years ago this month, Paula Poundstone made me collapse laughing.  She went on a rant about Pop Tarts on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."  It was so funny I literally fell on my face.  You can listen to her stand-up pop tart rant here.

It wasn't a long fall.  I wasn't hurt.  Except my dignity.  I was working out in the House of Pain Gym on Camp Adder in Iraq.  I was 56 years old.  I was surrounded by weight lifters in their 20s and 30s bench pressing 300+ pounds and listening to speed metal music.  I was listening to the "Wait Wait" podcast on my iPod.  It took 40 minutes to download on the anemic Camp Adder internet.

I had done just 10 of the 60 pushups I usually do when the host disparaged Pop Tarts as junk food.  Paula was outraged!!!  She went into a 2-minute rant on how Pop Tarts were in fact the secret of her good health and the greatest food ever.  On pushup 21 I collapsed laughing.

With the rant still on full tilt, I looked up and saw a couple of beefy metal heads looking at me.  More specifically they were looking at the old guy on the floor who collapsed doing pushups and was shaking.  They didn't know I was laughing.  For a second, I imagined myself trying to explain that I was listening to NPR and not Metal Music, then my senses returned.

I paused the rant, got up, and pretended I was done.  We could not wear headphones outside, so I grabbed my gear and walked over to my CHU (home) so I could finish listening to the podcast without looking like an old guy having a heart attack.

Clearly, Paula Poundstone made that rant on purpose just to embarrass me in the "House of Pain."

My First Day in Iraq, May 2, 2009

On my 56^th birthday, the ramp dropped in the back of the C-17 cargo plane at 1130 hours.  We had taxied to the edge of the airstrip.  More than 100 soldiers in battle gear struggled out of the five-across seats and walked down the ramp with short, unsteady steps. The same ramp in the picture above.

Heat shimmered on the concrete airstrip.  The air temperature was almost 120 degrees already.  The surface temperature of the airstrip was closer to 140 degrees. 

“Happy fucking birthday, Gussman,” said Sgt. Jeremy Houck when I reached the bottom of the ramp.  The baggage pallets were still on the plane.  We would have to wait for the bags, then hope for a ride to our new homes behind 20-foot blast walls here on Camp Adder.  

The base we were on was Camp Adder to the Army, Talil Ali Air Base to the US Air Force.  It would be home for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, me included, until January of 2010.  

On that day, the outside of me was hot, tired, confused and miserable.  I was wearing 45 pounds of body armor, carrying 50 more pounds of weapon and gear, and I was melting.

But underneath the sweat, I was soooooooo happy.  My dream was not comfortable or fun, but it was my dream.  I wanted to be in Iraq.  I enlisted during Viet Nam, but missed the war.  Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be in the Army in a war.  Now 50 years later, I arrived.  

Trump Leads Chickenhawk Nation

Recently soldiers I serve with have become public fans of The Donald for Commander in Chief.  At first I thought they must not know how much Chickenhawks like him despised soldiers in the 1960s.  Then I realized they don't care.  They were born after Viet Nam ended and have no idea what it was like to live through that war.

During the Viet Nam War, our nation had a military draft.  If it worked, which it did not, anyone between 18 and 26 years old could be called to serve his country for two years.

Unlike World War 2 when many young men clamored to join the ranks, during Viet Nam most middle-class and rich kids from the northeast and the west coast avoided the draft through deferments.  The Donald had five such deferments.  Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and many other Conservative leaders decided not to serve.

And because the war was unpopular, they were barely making excuses.  Cheney had better things to do.  For others it was the "wrong war."  Really?  There are American soldiers fighting.  Are you an American?

The draft is a zero-sum game so for every draft dodger who did not go, a poor kid who could not afford deferments went in his place.  More than 50,000 soldiers died in Viet Nam.  Hundreds of thousands more were wounded or afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Whoever took The Donald's place is as likely as not dead, wounded or suffering from PTSD.

When I bring this up, one reaction is Bill Clinton dodged the draft.  He did.  But he did not go on to urge more war.  Many people I grew up with sang "give peace a chance" in the 60s and are still to the left of Bernie Sanders today.  But the "peace people" who became Conservatives once their draft eligibility ended are simply cowards.  They let someone else serve in their place and became Hawks once they were safe from actual service. I did not vote for Bill Clinton. I believed, as Conservatives used to say they believed, that character matters. Character is all that matters in a leader. I believe Bill Clinton damaged the Presidency badly enough that America could elect Trump. 

I can understand why people who define their world by who they hate would love Trump.  But how can people who have made the military their career vote for a guy who despises service.  Trump thought people who served in Viet Nam were chumps when he got his five deferments.  The glib way he dismissed John McCain says Trump thinks no better of soldiers now.





 

"Super Dad" Article Got Republished by 28th Division

An article calling me a Super Dad got picked up by 28th Division and posted on Facebook.  It was a good article.  It was fun to talk to the reporter.  We started talking about kids and sports.
Here is the link.

More on Lt. Col. Joel Allamdinger

Yesterday I wanted to get the post about Lt. Col. Joel Allmandinger posted quickly.  After I posted it I realized I forgot two links: one about racing in Iraq and one about his career.  

As I mentioned in the last post, Allmandinger won the Thanksgiving Day race on Camp Adder, Iraq.  The story is here on the New York Times "At War" blog.

The other story is about how Allmandinger left Army active duty after eight years of service in August of 2001, then re-enlisted after 9-11.  His story was in the New York Times on the 10th Anniversary of 9-11.  Here is the link.

The Best People Serve in the Guard

Command Team of Task Force Diablo at Camp Adder, Iraq, from the left:  Col. Scott Perry, Command Sgt. Maj. Dell Christine and Lt. Col. Joel Allmandinger.

This weekend one of the best soldiers I have served with since returning to the Army retired.  Lt. Col. Joel Allmandinger ended a 22-year career that began at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and continued through service in Kosovo and Iraq as a combat Blackhawk helicopter pilot.  He was the Executive Officer of Task Force Diablo at Camp Adder, Iraq, in 2009-10 and Commander of 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion at Fort Indiantown Gap from 2010-13.  I served with him the entire time.

He also happens to be THE best bicyclist I have ever served with.  He won the race I organized in Iraq and was the Sportsman National Champion in mountain biking in 2013.  We rode together up the 18 percent grade on Asher Miner Road on Fort Indiantown Gap and the five-mile climb up Gold Mine Road toward Tower City.  I was behind him at the top of both climbs, suffering.

The host and main speaker of Allmandinger's retirement event was Col. Scott Perry, our commander in Iraq.  Perry is also a U.S. Congressman.   Perry talked about how Allmandinger embodied Army Values all the time.  He is right.  I worked in the same office with both men for several months.  If Joel has a weakness, I never saw it.  And I certainly saw the dark side of many people during deployment.

As tough and self controlled as Allmandinger is, it was also clear when he was angry.  Most of the time I worked for him, he called me Neil.  But at Annual Training in 2013 at Fort AP Hill in Virginia, I screwed up and he let me know it.  I rode 300 miles on the bike in the eight days we were there taking pictures of training all across the 76,000 acres of hills and forest.  Among all that space was one strip of several hundred acres that is restricted.  I rode across that strip to take pictures of a refueling site.

As I rode across a Blackhawk helicopter flew overhead.  Less than an hour later, I got a seven-second message that is still on my cell phone in the archive that said, "Sergeant Gussman, this is your battalion commander. Call me when you get this message."  His voice was calm, but my only thought was "Oh shit!!!"  No doubt now who was flying that Blackhawk.

When I called back, he said he was both angry that I had ridden in the restricted area, and jealous because I got to ride and he didn't.  But he did not stop me from riding to take more pictures.  Many military leaders take one guy's mistake and make a policy to prevent something that will never happen again, just to cover their own butts.  Not him.  The mission really did come first in Virginia as well as in Iraq.

When Colonel Allmandinger spoke at his retirement ceremony, he thanked people from his entire career, from his time as a cadet to right now.  Toward the end of his speech, he said he was going to mention more people.  As I sat in the back of the room he said, "Sergeant Neil Gussman challenged me as an athlete, both in the Army and in civilian life."

Wow!

That was up there with the best compliments I have ever received.  He is one of the toughest soldiers I have ever served with, always among the best in any Army fitness challenge and great on the bike and a Tough Mudder.

Thanks, Sir!  I hope you don't miss military life too much.

Racing in Two Hours

In just over two hours I will be riding the first of two races at the National Senior Games in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  As fart as I know, I am the only current soldier participating in the games:  the minimum age to participate is 50.

I rode the course yesterday with my daughter Lisa.  My sons and I are staying with Lisa in Minneapolis where she is in grad school.

She is at her office now, but will be at the race with my sons.  Because participants FAR outnumber spectators at amateur bicycle races, I will most likely have the biggest cheering section at the game and the loudest.  Some of the riders will have a spouse on the sidelines, but they won't be yelling like my kids.

Yesterday when Lisa and I rode the course, we were talking about the corners, the other riders, where the attacks might come, how strange races are when there are no teams, and all of the specifics that are the conversation of racers.  Lisa raced bicycles form age 4 to 14 and was racing with women when she switched to cross country from bicycling.  Even ten years after her last race, she talks about racing and racing culture like she is still in the peleton.  Former players are the best fans.

Time to go and warm up.

Historians of Science Eat MREs

My Next Race on DVIDS

My next race is at the National Senior Games on the Defense Video and Image Distribution System, DVIDS, here.

Miser-Mom on Detecting Lies

My lovely wife Miser-Mom has a blog that could not be more different from mine.  She talks about frugal living and raising kids.  Today's post talks about a book she read and applied called "Spy the Lie" on how to extract the truth from terrorists, criminals and, as it turns out, teenage boys.  And excellent post on and excellent book is here.

Dad's Last Fist Fight

This year I am the age my Dad was when he fought and won his last fist fight.  And on Friday of this week, my adopted son Jacari will follow in Dad's very large footsteps taking his first boxing lesson at Nye's Gym in Lancaster.

George Gussman was 62 years old on the summer day of his last fight.  He was a working foreman at the grocery warehouse for the Purity Supreme supermarket chain.  They had dozens of stores in New England in the 60s and 70s.  I am sure they have been bought and sold many times since.

On that day, I was also working in the warehouse.  I was 15 years old and had been working summers and Saturdays since I was 12, sweeping floors and cleaning garbage out from the truck and train loading docks.

On that afternoon I was on the west end of the warehouse cleaning out the area where the freight cars unloaded.  On the opposite end of the three-acre building in Charlestown, Massachusetts, near Sullivan Square, was the truck loading dock.  I had not cleaned the garbage there yet.  School just got out for summer, and cleaning dozens of truck and train docks of months of dropped groceries and produce was a job of many weeks--job security.

So I was a quarter mile away under a freight car when a 30-year-old driver from Texas walked up to the Receiver and said he had waited long enough and he was unloading next.  The big Texan, complete with a white cowboy hat shoved the Receiver.  One of the two hundred-plus warehouse workers ran and got my Dad.  The janitor I worked for could sense trouble and ran to get me.

Dad was a middleweight boxer when he was in his 20s and pitched for the Reading Phillies.  He was one of the toughest guys among those two hundred Teamsters.  I saw none of what happened next, but heard roughly similar accounts from at least a dozen guys.

Dad walked up to the angry Texan and said, "What's the problem here?" The Receiver was my Dad's age and had a heart condition.  At that time, a heart condition meant staying calm, or you die.

The Texan looked at my Dad and said, "What is this, a retirement home?  Look you old bastard, I'm unloading next or I'll kick both your asses."

Dad stepped closer.  The Texan took a swing.  He missed.  Dad hit him somewhere between five and 100 times (I think ten was the most agreed upon number) and knocked him flat on the loading platform.  The platforms were hinged and tilted down.  By all accounts Dad shoved the Texan with his foot and rolled him off the platform into the garbage I had not cleaned yet.

Dad stood over him, threw his hat down and said, "You'll wait your fucking turn.  Get back in line."  Then Dad turned and walked away.  I saw him walk back to work.  When he was out of sight, a dozen guys came up to me and said, "Did you see that?  Your Dad kicked his ass."

Now that I am the age my Dad was for his last fight, I remember how much I wanted to be as tough as him all the time I was growing up.  I wanted to be a soldier because Dad was a soldier.

Dad was tough to the end.  Three years later at 65 he started his last and longest fight.  Dad had brain tumor, probably from multiple concussions.  He had had his nose broken four times.  The operation that followed nearly killed him, but he recovered and lived another twelve years.

Saved from a Skunk by a Range Official

During Annual Training 2013 at Fort AP Hill, Virginia, we had convoys travel across the post that got hit by simulated roadside bombs.  Above is one of the pictures of a "roadside bomb" going off.  The technician setting up and setting off the munitions was a retired infantry sergeant working as a technician.

During the eight days I was at AP Hill I rode almost 300 miles on my bicycle going from convoy to MEDEVAC to Air Assault taking pictures and collecting information for stories.

The day after this picture, I came up behind the munitions technician on the main road through AP Hill.  He was in his big, white pickup truck.  I was catching up to him, which was strange.  When I got near, he frantically waved me off the road.  Just ahead, waddling out of the woods was a fat skunk.  I could have gotten close enough to get sprayed if he had not signaled.  I slowed, waved and took off in the other direction.

Riding on post is definitely something I will miss when I leave the Army.  On post, everyone gives me plenty of room and even signals for skunks!!  The rest of the world mostly hates bicycles, but on post we are treated like real humans, especially when riding in uniform.  Most of the 300 miles I was in camouflage.

Stupid, and Army Stupid

"If you've got a low IQ, you can be  soldier too." (from the Army marching song "Sound Off")

To me, the movie "Forrest Gump" is proof that anything can be romanticized and therefore distorted. I was talking to an old friend from the Army back in the days during and after the Draft.  We were talking about the truly, profoundly stupid soldiers we had known, served with and served under back in the 1970s.  

The conversation started because I found out at the 70th Armor reunion that one of the soldiers we served with had died a few years ago.  This soldier could not operate an open-end wrench without supervision.  He was funny.  But then we talked about stupid soldiers who were in charge of us.  We both thought of "Jaws." Jaws was our toothless, angry platoon sergeant for a few months.  He had two tours in Viet Nam and if he were serving today would be treated for PTSD.  But he had been brave and he was staying in to "get his 20 (years for a pension)."   Jaws was only funny in retrospect. 

Jaws could not write.  Jaws could barely read.  Jaws also liked to hear himself talk so he would keep us in formation for a half hour or more sometimes saying whatever popped into his head.  If he decided something was wrong, he could not be dissuaded by any argument.  He controlled our lives and tormented us not so much by design, but by our knowing that stubbornness is how stupid people get control of the world swimming around them.  

Which led us to bitch about Forrest Gump.  No one who had ever been under the arbitrary authority of a stupid person could be entertained by that movie.  We both hated it.  

When I re-enlisted in the Army eight years ago, my first squad leader was Army National Guard Stupid--beyond any level of stupid in the regular Army.  Like Jaws, he was missing many teeth and disliked wearing dentures.  He could not write, mumbled, was profoundly paranoid, and was overweight and out of shape.  If Fox News had existed in the 1970s, Jaws might have been as bad, but we will never know.  Clearly, every delusion Glenn Beck could dream up lodged in my squad leader's head.  He was a generator mechanic who could not read wiring diagrams and did circuit troubleshooting by touching wires together to see if they sparked.  He carried a 3-inch thick binder with him everywhere that had paperwork he might need to claim benefits.

My squad leader was eventually barred from re-enlisting in the National Guard, but managed to find a reserve unit that would take him.  While the quality of National Guard soldiers today is far above what it used to be, a few like my 52-year-old squad leader managed to hang on.

"If you've got a low IQ, you can be  soldier too." 

Blackhawk Helicopter with 105mm Howitzer Sling Load

Here's a video of a Blackhawk helicopter carrying a howitzer:

Leadership Reaction Course--Groups Solve Problems

The Army Leadership Reaction Course gives a problem to a group and has them solve it in ten minutes or more depending on the problem.  The problems usually involve moving something or someone across an obstacle:
Move a drum across a stream
Move an unconscious pilot across stream on a cable
Move an ammo box through a pipe and across a water obstacle

Here are some photos of soldiers in my company attempting those obstacles.

My Unit on TV in Northern Michigan

Follow the link to Chinook and Apache helicopters on TV in Northern Michigan here.

Fun to see the unit on TV.

It's Not Just Me: Rejected by the Allentown Morning Call

Today one of my public affairs colleagues complained that he has sent stories for years to the Allentown Morning Call and they never pick up any of them.  Other media in central Pennsylvania run stories about local National Guard soldiers, but not the Morning Call.

I just searched Army on the Morning Call web site and got no results about current soldiers.  I did get a World War 2 veteran.

Two people in the same profession, finding the same difficulty can make each other feel better by sharing difficulties.  I could do that very thing today.  I told my colleague that one of the best stories I ever had about a National Guard soldier got rejected by the Morning Call, but later was picked up by the New York Times.  It was one of the soldier stories the New York Times used in a feature about the tenth anniversary of 9-11.  The whole story of Lt. Col. Joel Allmandinger leaving the Army just before the 9-11 attacks and then re-enlisting is here.  Or you can scroll down to The Officer.  I also copied that section of the New York Times story at then end of this post.

You can also read my story about him from 2010 here.

When I can back from Iraq, local newspapers picked up my stories about several other soldiers from sergeants to colonels.  I thought the one about then-Major Allmandinger was the best of the bunch, but he is from the Allentown area and the Morning Call did not pick up the story.

 My colleague was relieved to hear I also got rejected by the Allentown newspaper and may use my story about the New York Times picking up the story the Morning Call rejected to say "It's not just me" to his commander.

Getting rejected is part of this job, but getting this story rejected really surprised me.  But if I had to choose between the New York Times and the Morning Call, it turned out for the better.

The Officer

He had graduated from West Point, served eight years as a Black Hawk pilot and wanted to try his hand in business. It was June 2001, and Joel Allmandinger was leaving the Army.

He was in California for a wedding when the attacks occurred. The groom, a firefighter, held a vigil at his wedding and introduced Mr. Allmandinger as a soldier, though he no longer was one. And that troubled him. 

“I didn’t feel part of that brotherhood of the uniform anymore,” he recalled. “These guys could immediately identify with what happened in 9/11.”

So back home in eastern Pennsylvania, he signed up for the National Guard. On his first day of duty, he wore his uniform into a store and someone thanked him for his service.

“It was odd and uncomfortable,” he recalled. “But when I got into the car and started driving to the armory, I thought, ‘That was neat.’ ”

His unit deployed twice: first in Kosovo in 2004, to fill in for an active-duty unit being sent to Iraq; and then in Iraq in 2009, where he flew dozens of missions.

A one-year commitment turned into a decade. Today he is a lieutenant colonel and battalion commander. He is also the director of sales for a national food company and a father of two.

“I think I have a much, much better appreciation for the civilian soldier,” he said. “In some ways, I see it is an even bigger commitment, the sacrifices people have. There is a duality to it that is tough.”

Riding to Do My Army Job

Part of my Army job is taking pictures of Army training, Army living and sometimes Army relaxing.  To get to these various places I ride my bike when I can.  Today I was shooting photos at the extreme ends of the ten-mile long Fort Indiantown Gap training area.  In the course of riding to and from both events I put 31 miles on my single-speed mountain bike.  Since the terrain here is hilly, it was a good ride on rolling hills.

In the middle of the day I took pictures and videos of teams of soldiers on the Leadership Reaction Course.  This is a team obstacle course.  Later I rode to the other end of the base to take pictures of a field kitchen.

I don't have those pictures downloaded yet, but I have a few from Land Navigation the day before:

In Back of an LMTV (Army Truck)

Today I went to a land navigation course in the back of an LMTV--a big Army truck.  Very much like the one below.

Here is the view from inside:

The ride was short and pretty smooth for the back of a truck.  When former soldiers and retired soldiers talk about why they would never want to be back in the Army at my age, riding in the back of trucks and sleeping in open-bay barracks are among the things they never want to do again.

Ever!!!

Not to mention my recent meals.  Like these hot meals served in the field:

Or for that matter, the MRE I had for lunch:

Even if people of my age mostly don't like this kind of living, I am having a lot of fun.

At least for one more year.