Going Home--Day Two

I am still in Kuwait. In fact, I am still at the Air Force base where we arrived.
So after the 6-hour, 200-mile trip yesterday beginning at 0800, I have not moved.

But I did get up at 0500 to find the 24-hour chow hall is not quite open 24 hours and was actually closed till 0530. I could not wait for that and make my 0600 briefing, so I ate a turkey sub at Subway. At 0600 we had a 45-minute gathering to get our flight itineraries. We meet again at 1245 to go through customs outside (forecast high 118) in our uniforms (long sleeved so we don't get cold).

After we go through customs, we load on buses to go to the commercial airport. After that five-mile trip we will wait in tents (although these are air conditioned) until 830pm. At that point we will board the aircraft to the US which will stop somewhere between here and Atlanta for gas and arrive about 0830 Saturday morning. Then at Noon I will fly to Harrisburg, then home.

After this, a commercial flight to anywhere in the world is going to be a piece of cake. On the way back we do roughly the same thing, except losing time so it is longer on the clock. I can't wait.

(This post won't go up on the internet until we have arrived. I don't say anything about troop movements until they are over. --Neil)

Chaplains: Then and Now

During my first enlistment, the chaplains I met were mostly from mainline Protestant denominations including the kind of Baptists who go to seminaries as well as Catholic priests. A chaplain in the 1970s was, in my experience, a well-educated mid-30s and older guy who was well-read, but not scholarly, not very fit, and liked the company of soldiers.

One of our chaplains is exactly that, mainline denomination, pastor of a large church in a small town back home, struggles to stay fit and watch his weight, is affable and friendly. His sermons tend to exhortation and have no hard edges. He went to a denominational seminary, but did no post-graduate academic work.

But every other chaplain I have met so far would have been too strange for the 1970s Army. If the culture was all in a swirl outside the gates, the 1970s chaplains were the recruited in the 60s and were not campus radicals.

Before we left, the chaplain for our battalion was a short, intense Greek Orthodox priest who looked vaguely familiar when I met him. When he introduced, I got one of the biggest surprises of my first months back in the Army. Fifteen years ago, our Greek Orthodox chaplain was the assistant chaplain of Franklin and Marshall College. In matters of politics he on the Left, but he was called to serve with soldiers after 9/11 and had already been on one deployment. In fact he left our unit to go with the Stryker Brigade just a few months before we deployed.

The chaplain at the most recent contemporary Protestant service I attended raised his hands to praise the Lord while the rock band played up front. He preached on sin and called people who wanted to commit their lives to The Lord to come up to the front of the Church. In the 1970s the Evangelical pastors had to be rather circumspect about altar calls. This intense career chaplain, who looks like he could serve on the line with his armor troops, conducts his service just as I assume he would back home.

Another chaplain who I see in the DFAC and out on the bus stops is also an Evangelical. He is a guy who can identify with soldiers. One time I was sitting with him in the chow hall he was talking about how much he is looking forward to the next Dan Brown movie. He loved the DaVinci Code movie. He also liked the Matrix movies. He watches a lot of movies. He plays video games. Again, hard to imagine him serving in the 70s Army.

I have attended the Catholic service at 5pm the last two Sundays just to hear the homily by one of the Catholic priests. This chaplain loves New York. He was educated at Columbia, taught philosophy at Fordham, and after his beloved New York was attacked, decided to serve. He was deployed before and just volunteered to extend his current deployment for another year. He is a big, cheerful guy who looks more at home in camouflage than priestly vestments. (By the way, I have been to three different services with the priest wearing vestments. It still looks weird to me seeing those long white, or purple, red robes worn with combat boots.) While this chaplain preaches at the main base on Sunday, he is not on base during the week. He flies out to smaller bases in the surrounding area to do pastoral counseling at the forward bases.

In addition, there are Gospel services with lay ministers who preach. That is one thing that is exactly the same as the 1970s. When I was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany, in the 1970s, the most lively service was the Sunday night Gospel service. It's the same here. Back then the minister was an sergeant first class from our tank battalion. Here he is a retired first sergeant who came back as a civilian contractor. The choir leader is a staff sergeant. She is on active duty.

The Journey Home Begins

It's getting close to 9pm so the temperature here in Kuwait is just dipping below 100 degrees. It was only 113 today when we arrived at 1pm, but the body armor and helmet we are required to wear for the flight from Iraq to Kuwait make it feel even warmer. An hour after we arrived we were allowed to turn the body armor in at a storage warehouse so we don't have to wear it here. In fact, I turned in my weapon yesterday so I am feeling like a very successful dieter!!! Those pounds just melted away (fr a couple of weeks anyway).

The entire trip from Iraq to Lancaster should take three days, four at the worst. It will take more than a day and maybe two days just to get from the front door of the passenger terminal at Tallil Ali Air Base to taking off in Kuwait--I will spend more than a day and maybe two traveling the first 200 miles from Iraq to Kuwait, then hopefully cover the remaining 6000-odd miles from Kuwait to Lancaster PA.

The trip really began at 9pm last night. I went to the Air Force passenger terminal to find out when my flight to Kuwait would leave. They said I had a report time of 815pm Thursday evening and I would fly out at 1115pm, arriving just after midnight. That plane was full with more than 50 soldiers on R&R leave. There was also a flight at 1130 this morning. I changed my mind five times about taking that one, then the ground crew reassured me I would not lose my seat on the night flight if the day flight had problems, so I took it.

For those of you who think commercial travel is a pain, here's my trip to date:
0800--My platoon sergeant drives me to the terminal in a maintenance truck. I wait in an air conditioned room for 40 minutes, then
0840--The Air Force clerk at the desk collects ID cards and makes up a flight manifest.
0855--We are called to the scale to get weighed with our gear and bags for the flight then we go outside to a tent to wait for our plane. The tent has a vent, but it is already 100 degrees and climbing and we are wearing our uniforms, so we all remain as still as possible and wait.
1045--The plane is 30 minutes away. We go outside and line up to be counted. Then we sit in a pallet storage area because it has shade. It is now 110 degrees.
1115--The plane lands, the cargo is unloaded--just one pallet and we line up again. This time we put on our 35-pound body armor, helmet and bags. We stand in the sun, then ten minutes later the loadmaster says there is manifested freight on the way. We have to wait. So we go back to the pallet shed. The tent is 20 feet from the pallet shed. The air-conditioned building is 30 feet away. We are not allowed in either one. So we sweat. The temp is creeping toward a high of 118.
1150--Pallet arrives. It gets loaded. We put on armor and line up again. Then we walk to the plane--a C-130 Hercules which is lucky for us. The plane is half full and we can slouch in the webbing seats. We must wear the body armor and helmet all the way to Kuwait. We sweat.
1240--We land in Kuwait. The frieght is unloaded and we wait on the plane for a bus. Since we are on the ground out of Iraq, we can take off the body armor. Not everyone does because if you take it off, you have to carry it and it is easier to carry on your back than in your hand. I leave it on. I am reading a new book of Orwell's essays called "All Art is Propaganda." The other folks on the plane are listening to IPods or waiting. No one is talking. We are all strangers and no one is happy.
1300--The bus arrives and we drive to the transient holding area. The bus is air conditioned--Ahhhhh. After a 20-minute bus ride, we arrive for in-processing in Kuwait. Because there are only seven soldiers on R&R leave, the initial inprocessing is quick. They tell us not to write on the bathroom walls or have sex in the tents then sign us into the base.
1330--We walk a quarter mile over rocks to storage warehouse for body armor. A very good natured young captain waits for me as the other soldiers walk to the warehouse. They are walking fast because they want to be rid of the armor. The bone spur in my heel is getting worse and I am walking slow. The captain asks if I am having trouble. I tell him about the bone spur and he seems releived it is not anything worse. I really need to get this thing fixed.
1345--We fill out all the papers and get rid of the body armor. Next we go back to the tent where started and fill out another form. Then we walk several hundred yards the other way and turn in those forms to the people who will arrange our travel.
1405--Now we get tents. Billeting office has three clerks. It takes 10 minutes to get tents for seven of us. Up to this point I was thinking I had screwed up by taking the early flight. Then I remembers that I would have been doing all this paperwork at 2am with more than 50 people instead of just 7. It would have been cooler, but it would have been the middle of the night. And since our report time if 6am, I would have gotten to the tent at 230 am, woken up everyone else in it, then slept very badly worrying about missing the 0600 briefing.

230pm--dropped my bag in the tent and went to the chow hall. Ate a sandwich, went to the Green Beans coffee place, drank a latte and read the newspaper. Then I went bakc to the tent and went to sleep.

620pm--Got up and went to dinner. Met a nice group of guys at the Post Chapel near the chow hall. Went to their Thursday night meeting for while, then got on line and started writing this post.

930pm--going to bed soon. More tomorrow when I find out my flight details.

SUVs are Status Symbols Here

Most of the thousands of soldiers on Tallil Ali Air Base walk or take buses or ride in the back of 5-ton trucks to get where they are going on a post that stretches across dozens of square miles of sand and rock. A few hundred soldiers and airmen ride bicycles. Senior maintenance soldiers get 'Gators: four-wheel-drive golf carts made by John Deere and other manufacturers.

Senior officers, sergeant majors, commanders, and many garrison staff soldiers get SUVs. For Explorers, Chevy Suburbans, GMC Yukons as well as full-size crew-cab pickup trucks by the big three American automakers. The SUVs are the real status symbols around post. SUVs fill the parking lot of the DFAC for each meal near the end of the dining hours when the senior officers eat.

The SUVs are either light silver or white--colors that reflect rather than absorb the heat of the Iraq summer. Hybrids and high-mileage cars may be the cars to own back at home--at least for those of us who live in cities, but here a white or silver SUV is the vehicle to drive.

KBR is Much More Than What is on the News

Before I was here in Iraq, my association with the initials KBR was with whatever bad news was reported about insider contract deals and some sort of shady arrangement that had Dick Cheney in the background like the Emperor in "Star Wars."

But here in Iraq, KBR are the initials on the red ID tag lanyards of the people that are behind all the good stuff for soldiers here at Tallil Ali Air Base. KBR people run the 24-hour House of Pain gym and make sure it is clean, cold water is available and all the various soldier-led classes are scheduled and supported. They run the weekly 5k race, they staff the cyber cafes, the free-phone rooms, the library, the rec centers, the DFACs, they fix the air conditioners, and now they are starting to leave.

In the month I have been here Brook, Jelena, and Steve among many other KBR people have helped me to find the people who run every activity the soldiers in my unit have asked about or wanted to do. The KBR folks are cheerful, helpful and really interested in making things as good as possible for soldiers. But as the KBR contracts expire and others come in to replace them, some of my favorite people are worried about their jobs. It will be a shame if the folks who most want to help soldiers are replaced and cut instead of retained. In the future I will not think of the contract lawyers at KBR, but the smiling faces who serve me food and set up Spin class.

The Silent Guitar Player on the Bridge

On the path between my trailer park home and the gym a 20-foot long wooden foot bridge spans a dry, rock-filled stream bed. The long-timers (who were here last year) say that during the fall rains, the dry stream beds actually fill with water. I've never seen it.

The last four nights as I cross the bridge coming back from the gym or coffee shop a tall (6-foot, 5-inch) soldier in PT uniform (gym clothes) has been standing on the bridge strumming a 12-string electric bass. He has no amplifier, he is just picking the strings.

Last night, curiosity got the better of me and I asked him why he was on the bridge. It turns out that his massive guitar weighs almost as much as body armor (35 pounds) and he supports the guitar on the bridge while he practices for a return to the stage in the fall.

One of our mechanics, a specialist, was the lead singer (if that's the right word) in a metal band before we deployed. He is a huge, bald guy in his late 20s who also kickboxes when he is not singing about eating dead babies or whatever metal songs are about.

But the big, bald dude on the bridge is a 45-year-old captain. He is also a disciple of Metallica, but it seems somehow stranger to me that a middle-aged officer in an active Army armor unit would be a metal performer, than a 27-year-old mechanic. When I wrote about the Gospel Rock Band yesterday, I did not mention that two of the five members will be gone in mid August. The Captain told me one of the chaplains asked him about playing in the Gospel rock band. The captain won't be singing Gospel. He told me he has a residence in Hell.

One of the things I like about being around soldiers is that they tend toward extremes. In a place like this, people don't equivocate. The soldiers that go to Church are there because they want to be. And the soldiers who hope for a home in Hell are ready to tell anyone who asks.

Choir Update--Home in a Week

To the list of choirs I wrote of earlier, I have to add the choir at today's contemporary service at Adder Chapel (from Anthrax to Adder--what's next?). Actually, it's no a choir, but a rock group in camouflage. The two lead singers play amplified acoustic guitars, they are backed up by an electric guitar, an electric bass and a full drum set. These guys really rocked too, they are from units all over the base. One of the singers is an infantry captain, the other is an engineer sergeant. All but the bass player are big guys, over six feet tall and 200 pounds. These are not skinny teenagers with a garage band. They sang contemporary hymns then a completely rock arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" that had me singing along at the top of my lungs.

The Chaplain, whom I met the day before at the DFAC, is a very straightforward evangelical who admires Billy Graham and has an altar call at the end of the service. He had his hands in the air while the band played--unusual at Chapel services except the Gospel service.

And in somewhat related news, if my flights go well, I should be listening to the Wheatland Presbyterian Church Choir one week from today. I get 15 days leave which for me starts when I land in Atlanta after leaving Tallil. This also means if it takes extra time to get back, it is not charged to me as leave. I will have at least 13 days at home, since the first and last day include getting to and from Atlanta.

We Get a Combat patch

As of 0900 yesterday morning, all the soldiers in our unit are authorized to wear a combat patch. This is a patch worn on the right sleeve and is the unit you served in combat with. The left sleeve is the patch for the unit to which you are currently assigned. So I and many of my fellow soldiers have the same patch on our left and right sleeves. If a soldier has been in combat with more than one unit, he or she can pick which unit is on the right sleeve.

Many people have multiple deployments and tend to put the coolest patch or their favorite unit on their right sleeve. A few of the mechanics in our unit have been deployed with 82nd or 101st Airborne and wear those patches instead of the our Keystone patch. When I went to my most recent Army training school, one of the instructors was a female generator mechanic who was taken from her unit in Afghanistan and deployed to another country which she could not even name with a Special Forces unit. She is entitled to wear a Green Beret patch--and did.


How proud are some soldiers of their combat patch. One of my teammates when I was on Green Mountain Cyclery of Ephrata was a soldier who had served in the 2nd Armored Division during the first Gulf War. He had a scale replica of the "Hell on Wheels" patch (Patton's division) tattooed on his right shoulder in exactly the spot where the combat patch would be on his uniform.


Our Keystone patch is all red when it is on the dress uniform. Because 28th Division units had so many casualties in previous wars, the red Keystone is also called the Bloody Bucket. It is only a historical reference now.

Riding in the Running Race

Photo by Jelena Bozic, Tallil Ali Air Base

Every Wednesday at 0600 is the “First Light 5k” race at the “House of Pain” gym. For almost a month now I have not been allowed to run because of a bone spur in my right heel. So while I can’t run, I have volunteered to be the “Pace Bike” for the weekly event. The course has six right turns and two lefts on double oval so every week for the first few weeks, someone would get lost. One new racer who claimed to be able to run under 18 minutes for the 5k got off course while in the lead, so the pace bike is actually useful. I also like being at the race since almost forty of Echo Company’s hundred soldiers run every week. The top runners in the company are training for the Army 10-miler in October. We will have a team. But the majority are training for a passing time or a better time on their two-mile run. In any case Echo Company is about 1/3 of the field most weeks, but is out of the prize categories.

The organizers—the base Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) office—give medals to first and second place in 10-year age groups from under 30 to 50+ and medals to the overall male and female winners. I got a medal in the only race I ran because that week the usual winner was on leave. The overall winner for the last three weeks is a 55-year-old warrant officer who runs between an 18-flat and 18:30 5k. So my medal was a matter of good timing. There is supposed to be a lieutenant who is currently on leave who runs a 17-minute 5k, but for now the old guy rules.

In Chapel Choirs Men are the Majority

SOME MEMBERS OF THE TALLIL GOSPEL CHOIR AND DANCE CHOIR

At first glance, chapel choirs look and sound like their civilian counterparts—except they are several octaves lower. Women are the majority in churches and choirs everywhere reflect that. But in the chapel choirs, we see all the variety of the civilian world, with men doing most of the singing.

At Fort Sill, the choir in the Anthrax Chapel for the protestant service was one young lieutenant with a guitar who sang a solo every week and provided the music for the hymns.

In Tallil, every faith community has a choir and they are as different as the denominations they represent. At the Sunday evening Catholic service, the choir was three men, one with a guitar, leading the singing for a service with almost 100 soldiers. At the contemporary Protestant service in the Air Force area, they had a 6-member choir with a keyboard and several other instruments and PowerPoint Hymns for a congregation of 25.

The traditional Protestant service in the Army chapel had a keyboard player and three singers and also had hymns on PowerPoint on a screen. The Sunday afternoon and evening Gospel services are the choir showstoppers. They have 30 men and 10 women backed up by a half-dozen drums and other instruments in front of a congregation of more than 100. A mostly male Gospel choir sounds like any other Gospel choir until they crescendo at the end of a song. Thirty male voices almost shouting shakes the walls of low, concrete Adder Chapel. In addition to the drums, clapping and singing of the main Gospel choir, the same group has a dance choir that performs at the beginning of the service. This choir is mostly women in black costumes with white gloves dancing to Gospel music and performing passages of Scripture.

One other thing that happens to those who attend multiple services at the Chapel is that all services are held in the same rooms at different times. So one week I heard the Gospel choir raise the roof and the next week listened to the three-man choir at the Catholic service in the very same room. It would certainly save Churches in America a lot of money of they had every Church in the neighborhood meet in one building at different times.

I hadn’t thought until this moment that I have gone from Anthrax to Adder, a deadly disease to a deadly snake. Army chapels may have good choirs, but they need help with their names.

The Chapel Menu is as Long as the Chow Hall Menu

Pro Deo et Patria is the Chaplain's motto

The Chapel here at Tallil can't cover every spiritual practice, no organization can, but they try. The first service on the Sunday morning schedule is Orthodox, I have not been to the service, but I believe the Romanian unit provides the priest. Next in rapid succession are traditional Protestant, Catholic, contemporary Protestant, Latter Day Saints, and then repeat services are held in the evening.

On Friday Muslim and Jewish services are available, followed by LDS and Jewish services on Saturday. Every day of the week there is Mass, intercessory prayer, choir practice, praise and worship service, Christianity 101, and other beginner Bible studies. The schedule is changing because a new unit is running the base. I am hoping to get one of the chaplains to start a mid-week Bible study for soldiers who are familiar with the Scriptures.

If the Chapel services are varied, the Chaplains and lay ministers cover a wider range. I'll write about some of them soon.

Boom, Boom, Yawn

We began the Memorial holiday weekend by being woken up at 3:54 am by a series of explosions. Rockets fell near the fence on our side of the base. After the blasts the sirens wailed and we all went out into the pre-dawn light to check in and be counted--100% roll call after an attack. Most everyone went straight back to bed inside our 12-foot blast walls, and everyone knew we were safe because once they fire, they have to hide or an Apache helicopter will get them.

The only complaint I heard was one of our platoon sergeants. He was looking forward to Spin Class (bicycling in the gym) and knew that by the time everyone was accounted for, the 0530 class would be cancelled.

Later, around 1100 hours, several of us were unloading shipping containers in the motor pool when we heard two big explosions about 600 meters away. The tall thin mushroom clouds in the relatively still air said these were big artillery or mortar shells. The first had a brown cloud--probably hit a dust pit, the second was white and thinner. It must have hit concrete.

As the clouds dissipated we decided to keep working until the sirens wailed. They never did. We found out later these were controlled explosions--they just forgot to tell us. Again, the only complaint was from two soldiers, one on his first deployment, one on his second, who did not want to be in a blast shelter in the heat.

Many proverbs say that stress brings out the true character of a person, whether good or bad. In a place like this, it's good to know I am with people who yawn at missile attacks and complain only about the inconvenience.

Food, Fiber, Friends and CS Lewis

Last week it became clear to me that the endless bounty of food at the DFAC (dining facility) was not providing me with enough fiber. So I went to the only store in town--the PX--and found that they sell every conceivable sugared snack, but no high fiber food. Coincidentally, I got an email from my 20-year veteran uncle asking if there is anything I need. I asked for a case of Grape Nuts cereal.

I was already eating the top five high-fiber foods on the web lists. Then I thought I could go on sick call. But that thought only lasted a second or so. I don't mind going on sick call for a bone spur or an acute illness, but the medical unit is mostly staffed by women in their 20s. So I did not want to go on sick call and explain my problem.

As usually happens when I think about human interactions for more than a minute, something from CS Lewis comes to mind. I remember reading in more than one of his essays that we are apt to judge a man as having a spiritual problem when he really just suffers from chronic indigestion. So rather than go on sick call, I asked for help from a nearly-50-year-old ex-Marine who sometimes sits in the DFAC and yells back at the TV news when "Liberals" are on. It turns out he has had digestive trouble for many years and had lots of good advice plus a huge stash of fiber supplements. And he was happy to share. I am going home in 11 days, so I will be able to go to a real store and get all the fiber that America has to offer, but in the meantime, I got by with a little help from my friend.

Tanks for the Memories

Shortly after joining Echo Company I realized that part of my suffering in 2009 would simply be showing up in the motor pool. The glacial pace of motor pools, the problems that can only be diagnosed by experienced mechanics, the whole fellowship-of-the-falling-apart-truck is something that excites me just as much as death-metal music, sitcoms, comedy movies, and zombie movies.

So I spoke to my squad leader already about the form 4100 evaluations we will be receiving in the fall, that's when Sergeants are evaluated for promotion to staff sergeant. I am already at the top grade of 63J so I will have to be retrained to be promoted, as an air conditioning mechanic, a wheel mechanic, or a generator mechanic.

Right.

So I had the bright idea of submitting my paperwork in my job specialty from before 19E--actually 19E30, tank commander/section leader. That way when we got back to the states I could revert to the job I had when I left in 1984, get familiar with the new tanks and finish out the final year of my enlistment working on a vehicle I get to shoot at least a couple of times per year.

Wrong.

An armor unit just moved in. I had a latte with one of their soldiers last night and ate dinner with two soldiers today. They both told me about a "chat" they had with their sergeant major saying tanks are being phased out in the Middle East and probably someday from the Army in general.

It makes sense. Tanks were invented in World War 1 as land battleships. They dominated land combat in World War 2, were massed to fight World War 3 in Europe, then in Viet Nam, Afghanistan (Soviet) and our wars, they are not exactly central.

So I'll have to think of something else. As tanks disappear from armor units, the soldiers who want to stay in armor will compete for fewer and fewer slots. So at least for me, by the time I get home, tanks will be on the way to being just memories.

Sensing the Sun as I Ride

Every time I ride I am aware of the sun. Whether the solar orb is low on a bright cold horizon in a Pennsylvania winter or the searing sphere straight up in the in the southern Iraq sky, the sun dominates my riding.

I have been thinking a lot about the sun with the passing of my mother-in-law. Her area of professional study—solar astronomy—helps me to focus my wandering thoughts as I ride alone around Tallil Ali Air Base. As soon as I get away from traffic, I review consciously what my unconscious already knows: it’s 6pm, the sun is in front of me, south is to the left, my shadow points back to the east, the shadow is long so sunset is an hour away, and so forth.

Because the earth orbits the sun on a tilted plane, the sun looks different on every part of the earth in every season. In Pennsylvania, the sun is never straight up in the sky. Even at noon on June 21 (the longest day) the sun is 15 degrees below vertical passing through due east and due west almost two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset. Also in Pennsylvania and across the northern latitudes, the length of days vary dramatically over the course of a year, from more than 16 hours in mid June to just over eight hours in mid-December. In the north the sun creates long shadows, hundreds of feet long on bright days near dusk and dawn.

In Iraq, just ten degrees of longitude south, the sun looks very different. Here the sun is almost (but not quite) straight up on the sky at noon. But there is an odd respite from the blazing sun at dawn and dusk. In most of the US, the sky is bright (in a clear sky) shortly after it clears the horizon. Here the sun is obscured until it has been up almost an hour and for the last hour of the day. The heat of the day starts an hour after dawn and begins to subside before sundown because the air is so full of dust that the sun almost disappears and becomes just an orange glow an hour before it sets and is hidden for the first hour of the day.

The effect is enhanced further because we are on the eastern end of a wide time zone. The sun rises before 5 am and officially sets by 7 pm. So the sky gets suddenly dimmer at 6pm before dark just after 7pm. Because we trained at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, before coming here, the body clock effect was even greater. Fort Sill is at the western end of a time zone at roughly the same longitude. The day is the same length, but in mid-April as we left Fort Sill, sunrise was after 7 am and sunset was well after 8 pm. When we landed in Kuwait, the day was the same length but started before 5am and ended before 7 pm.

When I traveled more the sudden change is the sun was even more dramatic. I once traveled Edmonton, Alberta, in July. On a Saturday evening at 7pm I started a 5000-foot climb up to a lake in the Rockies west of Edmonton. At 50 degrees of longitude in July, the sun did not set until after 11, long after I climbed to the lake and rolled back down to the rental van. I visited Singapore several times. Just two degrees north of the equator, the sun is the same year round. The sky is dark until just before dawn then in just 15 minutes the sun is bright and fully visible, going straight up till noon then dropping stright back down—and disappearing just as quickly at night—no long Pennsylvania sunsets in Singapore.

South of equator is the weirdest riding of all. When I rode in Australia and South American I could not get used to the sun crossing the northern sky. If it is Noon in Australia and the sun is on my right shoulder, I am riding WEST. That is just wrong. I could get lost in an empty parking lot in the southern hemisphere just because the sun is on the wrong side of the sky.

The other association I have with the sun is as a source of light and light’s place as the ultimate reference of all physical reality. When the Apostle John wrote about light he could not have known that 20th century physics would show that the speed of light is one of the fundamental constants of the universe--the one that determines the ultimate reality of space, time and energy. Several years ago a read a book by a Cornell physicist (and agnostic) David Mermin called "It's About Time" which explains relativity physics very well and showed me why light is so central to to faith--it really is the symbol and the substance of physical reality and the closest thing in our daily experience to physical reality.

I love the sun in all its complicated glory and in the spiritual glory it symbolizes. Now it's time ot get my uniform on and go to the motor pool.

More on Staying in Touch

In an earlier post I talked about how much easier it is to be in touch with home than it was in the days before email when phone calls were expensive. The mechanics of keeping in touch depend on the base, but here are my preferred methods.
1. SKYPE. Skype is an internet phone service that allows video to video communication with other Skype users as well as direct dial to land line and cell phones. It costs about $100 per year for unlimited Skype to Skype calls whether video or not. I don't use the video very often here because we have limited internet bandwidth and the video eats up all the bandwidth I have--and then some. But the voice to voice is pretty reliable and effectively free. I have called all over America and Europe (from Germany to San Diego) in the three week we have been here for about $10 in phone service charges. Most of the calls are free. The average is a penny or two per minute. I call from my room, so it's convenient and fairly reliable.
2. Every base here has trailers (CHUs) with a dozen phones on each wall. These AT&T calling centers allow phonecard and credit card calls to America. The phone card can be as low as 20 cents per minute. The great thing about the AT&T phones is they are clear and reliable. When I really want to talk without interruption or repeating words, I walk over to the AT&T call center. Also, AT&T cards make great gifts for soldiers--they work everywhere and are cheap and fast to mail--just in case you were looking to buy a soldier a gift.
3. There are call centers with free phones on post, computer centers that have a 4-cent-per minute internet phone service called SPAWAR, that you can use from call centers. The free phones are time limited and go away without warning. I haven't tried SPAWAR because I am happy with Skype.

The Neighbors Might Be Moving

Right across the street from the Coalition DFAC (Dining Facility) is the Romanian Army barracks and motor pool. This group of our allies has named their facility Camp Dracula more for us and the Brits than themselves. I ride past the sign a couple of times a day (at least) and smile. Camp Dracula is one of many decorated blast walls around Tallil. And the rumors say the Romanians will be going home soon. Too bad. I will miss Camp Dracula.

If there are a few dozen decorated blast walls here, there are hundreds and hundreds in Kuwait. Every unit that goes through Kuwait in 2 or 3 weeks tries to paint a blast wall in a "We were here" gesture. I was saving many shots of the best blast walls in Kuwait because I thought I would be writing about the blast wall our unit decorated. The sad story of that is the change in plans and a late start meant our soldiers did not have time to finish the blast wall. Among the whole battalion it was five Echo Company soldiers who attempted to finish the blast wall art. They may be sent back to finish it or they may finish it as we leave Iraq. But in the meantime, here are several examples of the highest expression of this folklore/art.

Then and Now: Sergeant Sensitive

Echo Company is a maintenance support unit based in Central Pennsylvania and composed to a large extent of soldiers who are also mechanics. For the deployment the Army filled our ranks with other National Guard soldiers literally from across the nation. I could not have written this post before West Coast soldiers joined our unit. First a disclaimer: Sergeant Sensitive is more than one person, but none of those persons are female. The female NCOs in our unit, as you already know, are some of the best soldiers at PT and on the ranges and the ones who stay in know they must be in charge--and they are. As far as I have ever heard, they have no mixed feelings about the job of a soldier. THEN: During my first enlistment, Sergeant Sensitive was inevitable given the times and the draft. Because of the draft there were men in the Army who clearly did not belong there. Because of the times, those men were likely to be devotees of New Age spirituality, peace and brotherhood. In the 70s, especially the early 70s before the draftees had all left the system, I would run into a smart young sergeant who was trying to do his job in a cooperative way. “We should all be able to get along. We are all on the same team.” Since I was an agnostic at the time, I noticed by their manner of speaking that almost all of these men were believers, but had rejected some traditional faith from their childhood. The “Give Peace a Chance” mentality does not mesh with the creeds and doctrine of orthodox religion. They communed with God in Nature, the old-fashioned God who had rules and standards and was the head of an absolute monarchy was way too Old School. 2007: That was then. We are now eight years into the War on Terror and more than three decades away from the end of the draft. For a few years after September 11, 2001, there could have been soldiers who enlisted thinking there had not been a war for a while. But when I re-enlisted in 2007 I assumed that by now no one could be in the military and be unclear that being a soldier meant being a soldier in combat. Back in the 1970s people might have thought an Age of Aquarius could be dawning, but no one could think that way now—or so I thought. And while I was in central Pennsylvania, my assumption was correct. No soldier I met gave any indication that “Give Peace a Chance” was his anthem. (Just a reminder for the neutral pronoun crowd: I am using “his” correctly. Sgt. Sensitive is never a woman.) NOW: When we went to Fort Sill and soldiers from the West Coast joined our ranks. Soon I met Sergeant Sensitive. The first place I met him was on the rifle range. We were getting ready to go to the firing line and qualify with rifles. Sgt. Sensitive had 40 rounds of ammo in two magazines. He was getting ready to knock down 23 or more targets with those 40 rounds to show he was qualified as a rifleman. He came from a laid-back unit which he liked very much and landed in the company that does the most combat training in battalion. He was getting pushed hard to be a combat leader. But to be Sgt. Sensitive is to be convinced there is a "better way" than the Army way. He said, "They think there is no other way than yelling. They could, like, cooperate. I mean we can all work together. . ." In another incarnation, I met sergeant sensitive riding a rented bike at Fort Sill. He was happily out communing with nature. We had a five-minute conversation during which "like Dude" occurred more times than I can count. You could think, "So what?" These guys are National Guard, they are not making military careers, and it's not like we are front line troops anyway. But the random gods of the Army reach down and move soldiers like so many chess pieces. After a year of hearing we were going to Balad, here we are in Tallil. Some of us are rebuilding battered buildings, some of us are fixing vehicles. But others of us are on security detail. The soldiers on the detail are picked for various reasons, but they are not consulted about their feelings and what if sergeant sensitive is a team leader on alert status for guarding the fence? Any sergeant at any time could be the commander of a vehicle with a gun on top. If that gunner is hurt, the vehicle commander has to put another gunner up in the place that is going to be the first aiming point for an enemy. That decision, who goes next when things go bad can't be made cooperatively. In seconds, somebody has to get up in that turret. It will be an order, not a consultation. We practice telling soldiers what to do in the motor pool and on work crews and during PT to get them used to obeying and keep us in the business of keeping the soldiers moving when and where they need to. Of course, sergeant sensitive can be East Coast also. Two weeks ago, I wanted to put one of our best guys on a security detail in place of a guy who was not enthusiastic about it. I told the first sergeant I was thinking like a civilian. I wanted the best soldier from our unit to be on duty at a higher headquarters. Ten minutes later I had a loud argument with the indifferent soldier's squad leader and I changed my mind. Security is a rotten detail and the kid who screwed up should be sent back to do it right. That's the Army way. I was sergeant sensitive and decided to go with the Army way. Now I just have to be sure to turn the switch back to civilian in February.

Graduation Update

As noted in the Saturday post, the picture I had of Lisa without a broken nose was not current. You saw the current picture of Lisa with a broken nose from her final soccer game of the year. Here is her senior picture without the broken nose. She looks much better without white tape holding her nose in place.

I should have video from the graduation in a week or two. Lisa's whole class did a "shout out" to me since I missed graduation. Lisa and a few of her classmates are "Lifers" at Lancaster Country Day School--they attended LCDS since kindergarten. So I have known some of the kids in the video since they were fingerpainting.

Weather at Tallil Ali Air Base

If you want to know what the temperature is here at Tallil, the only weather service I know of that actually lists Tallil is the Weather Underground. He is a link to the Tallil forecast. Now if you want to see the temp here or the chance of rain (zero for quite a while), you can get it here.