FLICKR Page

I opened a FLICKR page in Iraq and just started using it.  I guess this is considered social media, but it does not connect with Facebook (at least as far as I can see) so I have not made a lot of FLICKR friends.  If someone does know how to connect FLICKR with Facebook, please let me know.
Here's the page.

The Barnstormers

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my hometown for the last 25 years has a professional baseball team called the Barnstormers.  They are a minor league team.  My family has been to several games on different occasions.  I haven't yet been to a game.  I am not a fan of stick and ball sports in general, but they are the local team, so I hope to get to a couple of games before the long baseball season ends.

It will have to be a night game, because if I have that much free time during the day, I'll be on my bike.

Anyway, one of my neighbors has taken her kids to several Barnstormers games and said they are a lot of fun.  Then she said, "but it's sad reading about the players, you can tell they are on the way down in not-so-great careers."

So. . .

They may not be starting for the Red Sox, but they are professional players.  They get paid to play ball.  How many people ever get a chance to play pro ball or get paid to play any sport as a professional?  I know that there are tens of thousands of people who wish they could play pro sports for every one who makes it.

When she was making that comment, I thought about the 50 miles I rode today, part of more than 200 I rode this week trying to get to the point where I can just finish a race.  Nobody among the thousands of masters amateur racers I ride with gets paid.  Really hot shot riders get free jerseys and bike parts, but nobody quits their day job.

In amateur sports, as in the Army, the big dividing line is between those who do and those who don't.  Often when I ride with a group of fast riders who are not racers, somebody will tell why they don't race.  Usually, they are worried about crashing.  I always tell them they made the right decision.  Racers crash.  If you don't want to crash, you should not race.  Frankly, you should not ride fast or on roads either, but that's another topic.

In the same way, there is no safe way to serve.  Get a guarantee for the safest job and a computer somewhere will spit out a requirement for your job in the middle of the hottest conflict.  Enlisting means serving as needed.  It can be dangerous.

And like racing, it is clearly not for everybody.

Awards from Iraq Presented at Last Drill Weekend

Four Companies had award ceremonies on Sunday morning, June 13.  Bravo, Delta, Echo and Headquarters & Headquarters Company gave awards to soldiers in separate ceremonies during the morning.  The photos of these award ceremonies are at the links below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/echocompany2104avn/sets/72157624312464546/ HHC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/echocompany2104avn/sets/72157624186988175/ Bravo Co

http://www.flickr.com/photos/echocompany2104avn/sets/72157624284559498/ Delta Co

http://www.flickr.com/photos/echocompany2104avn/sets/72157624187167973/ Echo Co

Freedom Salute Pictures

On Sunday, June 13, 2-104^th GSAB received a Freedom Salute ceremony honoring soldiers who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom last year, returning home in January.  All deployed soldiers who could attend the ceremony were honored for their service.  Photos of the ceremony are available for download on a FLICKR page maintained I set up in Iraq.  To view all the photos and download yours, just click on this link.

There are 273 photos in this set.  Please add identifying info to your picture or pictures and feel free to share the pictures with family and friends.

Adoption Begins

Our kids:  Lauren, Jacari, Iolanthe, Nigel and Lisa.

Yesterday we officially became the foster parents of Jacari Waddell.  The adoption could take up to another year before the paperwork is completed.  In the meantime, Jacari will be with us.

Our family now has five last names for seven people.

More Change of Command Pictures

Chaplain LaVoie making the Invocation

Master of Ceremonies SSG Shawn Rutledge

HHC Change of Command

Out-going Commanders after the ceremony

Delta Company

Changes of Command June 13 2010

CFour companies in 2-104th Aviation got new commanders on June 13, 2010.

Here are pictures from the ceremony.  Military tradition passes the company guidon flag from the first sergeant to the outgoing commander to the battalion commander to the new commander and back to the first sergeant.  The four soldiers stand at the four points of the compass facing each other with a flag flying between them.   

The ceremony is a dramatic moment for those involved.  Often the out-going commander is leaving his  first command.  The in-coming commander has been a platoon leader or other small unit leader before, but often is stepping into his first actual command.  

These change of command ceremonies are especially poignant for the men involved.  Every one of the out-going commanders led their unit in Iraq.  The new commanders are taking the place of combat commanders--always big boots to fill.

Battalion Formation                                                          














Capt. Shamus Cragg B Company, 1-150th 

Capt. Nate Smith B Company

Capt. Ward takes command of HHC

1st Lt.  Zettlemoyer commands D Company

From Larry King While I was in Iraq

One night when I was in the Coalition DFAC in Tallil, I saw a re-broadcast of a Larry King Live program that showed me just how infuriatingly shallow CNN can be.  I expect it from Fox News, but there on CNN was Larry King interviewing Jenny McCarthy about vaccines and autism.

With heartfelt sincerity and a winning smile and an utter lack of scientific training or evidence, McCarthy presented her case that vaccines caused her son's autism.  On the 2nd half of the show, doctors from leading childrens hospitals explained in a very kind way that McCarthy had no evidence her beliefs.  I remember thinking at the time that this is exactly why kids want to get on American Idol--celebrity makesd you an expert in EVERYTHING.

As those doctors found out, it is very hard to criticize the mother of an autistic child.  But here is some very proper criticism: http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/203348/autism-and-the-madness-of-crowds

Getting Ready for a Guard Weekend

This weekend I will be taking more pictures.  Many soldiers will be getting awards from the Iraq tour.  The official change of command ceremony for the battalion will also be tomorrow.

In addition we will have a post-deployment health assessment.  We will be asked a bunch of questions about our health as well as how much we drink and whether we are angry, depressed or have nightmares.  That's all pretty standard.

The interesting thing is the logistics.  Up until a few weeks ago, we could fill out an assessment form on line.  Then the on-line version was closed to National Guard.  There is also an 888 number, but that is the plan B.  The plan A is that we all load up on buses tomorrow and ride over to the VA Medical Center in Lebanon to fill-out the form with counselors on site.  The full time soldiers say that they cut off on line access because the state planned for us to complete the assessment in person.  They authorized work on Saturday and Sunday to get this done.  If we don't show up, the state will be angry because they budgeted for staffing and if we don't use the program they will have wasted money.

So in the tail-wagging-the-dog world of the Army, we will all load up on buses and stand in long lines so someone in state government will not be seen as wasting money.  We are state civil servants.  Most of us are too low in rank to come to the notice of the state bureaucracy, but the top leaders of the PA National Guard are very much part of the state government.

From the time I re-joined, I have heard many of our leaders say "appearance is reality" a truism that, like stereotypes, is true most of the time at the shallowest level.  We do many things just for appearances and many of them involve riding buses.

Different Work Environment

I have written before that my civilian job is WAY different than my military.  One was is by gender.  I work on the fifth floor.  I am one of three men who work on this floor with 11 women.  And the two guys are out of town more than I am.  So I am often the only guy on the floor.

Many of the meetings I go to I am the only guy.  Or I am one of two guys among six or seven women.  Many of the women are in their 20s or early 30s so, as in Iraq, I am older than their mothers.

You could ask, "What's wrong with that Gussman?  Wouldn't you rather be in a room full of pretty women than with a bunch of guys?"

Sure, except I have to make sure exactly where I am before I make a joke.  Jokes among the men I hang around with primarily soldiers and bike racers, are put down jokes.  Some are coarser than others, but they they are part of marking territory, saying who is better than whom.  When I made a joke in the motor pool, it was at the expense of someone else.  And it was better if there were a half dozen others around to laugh at the object of the joke.

At work, we make jokes with no put downs, or a self put down.

In Iraq, if my roommate Nickey Smith had his friends in the room and I walked in he would say, "That's my Roomie.  'Cause of him, I live in a f#&king library.  Can you believe he don't listen to music.  Nothin'!!!!!!!"

Nickey would then make a joke about how fast I was going to bounce in and out of the room.  Usually I was changing to ride or workout.  While I was changing I would make a joke about how much Nickey was going to miss my white ass when we went home.

I don't make jokes like that at work now.

The Army Job I was Supposed to do is Open

It's strange to think about it, but the job I enlisted to do way back in 2007 is open at Fort Indiantown Gap.  Every week I get a list of open Army jobs in Pennsylvania.  For the last eight weeks, the list has included a job with the exciting title "Survey Team Member."  This is job is for a sergeant who is in charge of keeping  WMD detection equipment calibrated and ready for use.  He (the job is not open to women, potential for closer combat) also uses the equipment in the field--which could be a football field, baseball field or other place where a WMD might be used.

But even if I wanted the job, I am too old.  The same arcane rules which keep me from passing my Iraq educational benefits too my kids also prevent me from taking a full-time Army Guard or Reserve job.  I need to have five years left on my current enlistment to be eligible.  But I can't have five years on my contract because that would take me past age 60.  I could actually serve five years, but each of the years after age sixty requires a different waiver that cannot be granted except on a one-year basis.

So I can't take the job and I can't give one of my kids the education benefit, because the five-year rule applies in both cases.

In the Army, paperwork always trumps reality.

Talk Radio Defenders are Polite

Today the "In My Opinion" editorial in the Lancaster Sunday News was a response to my editorial of May 30.
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/257742
And the first four letters to the editor were also responses to my editorial.  Only the last and shortest letter was positive.  But everyone was polite.
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/257737

Strawberry Fields Forever

On Saturday I went strawberry picking north of Lancaster at Shenk's Berry Farm.  For Nigel and Jacari this meant both the accomplishment of picking a few pounds of strawberries and the added bonus of eating all you want as you go along the rows.  The boys went first up parallel rows.  My wife and I followed behind the boys to pick the hundreds of strawberries they miss.

In the rows next to us were two young women.  My wife talked to them for a while about canning, then they returned to their main topic of discussion.  They were talking about the upcoming marriage of one of them.  The soon-to-be bride was telling her friend how much her fiance would have to change when they were married.  He spends too much time with his friends, etc.

One of the things I did as a father of three girls was to convince them that the silliest fantasy American girls have is that they can change a boy or a man.  My daughters seem convinced that they have to find a guy they like as is, and enjoy the relationship, or move on.  One of the more painful passages to read in CS Lewis's The Four Loves concerns a wife whose life program is to change her husband to suit her, and what sort of man he becomes.

Of course, many woman also end up in bad relationships because they use their maternal instinct to pick a guy.  Relationships in which a smart, competent woman has a grown, male dependent begin with a woman who says "No one understands him but me."  The truth is, everyone understands the creep except her.

When I was in Iraq, there were guys who were happy to be baking in the desert sun rather than listen to their wives "bitch about everything."  I know very well that I am not perfect and I do not know any perfect men. But a wife who's complaints can make Iraq look good has her reward.

Riding with Mike Zban & Cat Hollenbach

Today I had an off-site meeting and got to ride the with the Thursday Daily ride.  Three of the five of us were former employees of Godfrey Advertising. I worked there from 1985 to 1998.  Mike Zban and Cat Hollenbach both worked at Godfrey from the early 90s until a few years after I left.  Both run advertising agencies of their own in Lancaster now.

When Cat and her husband Matt came to Lancaster they were accomplished mountain bike racers.  They had been thinking about riding on the road.  Both of them got road bikes.  We started riding together at lunch and on Saturdays.  The office was in Centerville in the early 90s.  We had a route back and forth across the ridge between Centerville and Columbia we called the "Thousand-Foot Lunch Ride."  It was about 1000 feet of climbing for an 18-mile ride.

Matt and Cat both became great road racers.  In 1997, Cat was on the winning women's amateur team at the 24 hours of Canaan, West Virginia.  That was Team Alloy Nipples.  Later in the year, Cat was the winner in the Altoona Stage Race, the biggest amateur road event of the year in the 90s.  Matt was on the top amateur team at Canaan in 1997 and on one of the top teams in the men's Cat 3 Road Race.  My family went to the Altoona race and handed water bottles to Matt's team and Cat's team.  Today Matt is still racing, Cat is still a strong rider, but is not racing.

During today's ride, Mike Zban reminded me of a ride when, in his words, "You dragged me and one of my friends all over the hills of southern Lancaster County."  I rode with Mike when he started riding.  He got strong fast and is now a top Cat 3 racer on one of the best teams in central PA.  Mike was kind enough to ride in front of the pace line during most of the ride from Turkey Hill to Columbia and to hold the speed of the ride down when we climbed up to Highville.

It was a lot of fun to get back to riding with more friends.

Military Future

It's June and the Army Old Age clock is ticking faster for me.  Without a waiver from the commanding general of the PA NAtional Guard, I will be a civilian exactly three years from yesterday.  My discharge date is May 31, 2013.  I will not be retired on that day.  I am reliving my father's Army Career in many ways.  He lost his pension when the age-in-grade law caused him to be mustered out with 19 years service.  The Army retirement requires 20 years to get any benefits.

I will have 17 years in 2013.  I would have to stay until I was 63 to get a retirement, at least as far as I understand the rules, and that would require three consecutive waivers.

Not likely.

But I knew that when I needed a waiver from a general officer to get in three years ago.

In the short term, I also have to decide what to do for the remaining three years.  A public affairs officer in the Stryker brigade would like me to work in his office--he does not have a staff writer--but does not have an E5 slot.  I am not at all interested in an E4 slot.  The vast majority of people I deal with on a regular basis know there is some difference between a sergeant and a general, but both are in charge of soldiers, so it's not all that different.

For older people, Beetle Bailey cartoons may be part of their picture of Army ranks.  The general and the sergeant both order Beetle around.  How much different could they be?

So I want to stay a sergeant.

I have thought about trying to join an armor unit.  It would be kind of cool to begin and end my odd Army career in a tank.

Getting Back Some Speed on the Bike

A year in Iraq left me in generally better shape than when I left, but I am way behind on bike training.  This long weekend I started to train to actually get back some fitness.  On Saturday, I got up early and rode to Philadelphia.  I covered the 72-mile distance in 3 hours and 48 minutes.  That's 24 minutes slower than my best time a few years ago, but better than I thought.  It is also the first time I rode more than 40 miles in one ride in more than a year.  In Iraq I usually rode just 10 or 20 miles at a time because of the dust.  I took the train back to Lancaster.

I had the departure time for the train wrong and rode harder than I needed to.  I wouldn't have pushed myself that hard if I knew the right time for the train.

On Sunday I rode the daily ride with Jon Rutter, the reporter who has been writing about my return to the Army for the Lancaster Sunday News.  He had never done Scott Haverstick's daily ride and wanted to see the course.  So I got 30 more miles in Sunday.

On Monday I did one of the traditional Lancaster Bike Club rides climbing steep hills in Ephrata.  Except, I only did two of the four big climbs, then rode back on state highways.  I was wiped out.  But when I got home, my I rode six miles with my son Nigel on the tandem and Lisa on her bike.  Then Nigel had enough so Lisa and I did nine more miles.  Then Lisa ran five miles while my wife and I planted trees in the yard.  Lisa finished her run about the same time we got the last tree in the ground.  So we ran three miles with Lisa.  After that Nigel and Lisa and I did a few pushups and situps.

My last activity was reading a book.  I did not actually opened the book.  Two hours later when a big thunderclap woke me up, the book and my glasses were on the bed beside me.  

Editorial in Today's Sunday News

I wrote an editorial in today's Lancaster Sunday News about Conservative Talk Show hosts who never served in the military.  I like the headline they wrote.



Radio/TV patriots snipe from safety of homefront

I was surrounded.

I was taking fire on all sides.

No, not from Iraqi insurgents, but from the conservatives I was eating lunch with in a dining facility or DFAC on Tallil Ali Air Base in Iraq.

Last year I was deployed to Iraq with the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, Pennsylvania Army National Guard. I knew I would be in the minority when I voted for Barack Obama for president, but sometimes I really felt like an Army of one — the one white, male Obama voter among the thousands of soldiers and airmen on base.

We were real curiosities for each other, the conservatives and I. The most ardent among them listen to Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and others tell them that liberals are cowards and trying to destroy the nation and who knows what else. But there I was sitting in the DFAC, my rifle under my chair, serving in the Army. The radio/TV patriots were home in America where they had always been and always will be.

I was arguing with some of the best men and women I ever met. While we disagreed on politics, they were the kind of men and women who left home to support their families and maybe make their lives better. When we were done hassling each other about politics, we could go back to complaining about the heat, or the garrison, or talking about what we were going to do when we got home.

It did seem strange to me that these soldiers and airmen, many on their second and third tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, would give such respect to men who never served. Often someone would say that the president should be a veteran. If, as usual, Fox News was playing on the DFAC TVs, I could point to O'Reilly or Beck and say, "They never served. Why should they be the ones to say who is and isn't a patriot?"

Foreign visitors often see the strangest things about America more clearly than we do. Recently I was talking with an Israeli writer working in America. He thinks America is a great country, but he does think it very odd that all of the leading radio/TV patriots in America have not served in the military. Odder still that in America you can be a draft-dodger and be calling someone else a coward on your daily show.

Israel has compulsory military service, so the situation is different, but no one in Israel who avoided military service could pretend to be a paragon of patriotism.

In 1972 when I first enlisted, my enlistment meant a poor kid would not have to be recruited or drafted to take that place. Military service is a zero-sum game. If enough people walked in off the street to fill the ranks, the thousands of sergeants on recruiting duty could go back to leading squads and platoons.

When Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh avoided the draft, a poor kid who could not afford to duck the draft took their place. When a draft-dodger said the Vietnam War was the "wrong war," that implied they would serve in a "right war." But if other Americans are fighting and dying, how can that be a wrong war for a patriot?

I can understand avoiding the draft if you are anti-war. I can't understand it for someone who is yelling about patriotism on the radio, or accusing others of cowardice on TV.

I don't think the war in Iraq was the "right war." Reasonable people still disagree about whether we ever should have invaded. I did not volunteer and serve because Iraq was the "right war." I went because, just as in 1972, if I went, one less person had to be recruited.

Although they are too young to be draft-dodgers, I also wonder why Beck, Hannity, and for that matter Ann Coulter, did not at some point take a temporary pay cut and show us liberals how brave conservative media mavens really are. Coulter and Hannity were born in 1961. They could have enlisted any time between 1979 and 1996. Coulter is an attorney and may still be able to get a waiver before her 50th birthday next year.

Born in 1964, Beck had from 1982 to 1999 before he became too old for an initial enlistment. Technically, Beck could have enlisted during 2006, when the Army raised the enlistment age to 42. That way he could have been in "the surge" instead of just talking about it.

I would not want to return to a draft. That we can fight two wars and patrol the world with an all-volunteer force that is less than 1 percent of our population says volumes about how good our military is. But I do think that those who accuse others of cowardice should have served themselves, especially Savage, Limbaugh and O'Reilly who avoided the draft and let someone else fight and maybe die in their place.

Read more: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/256882#ixzz0pPvijEuJ

70th Armor Reunion

Tonight I spoke with Sam Rushing who is organizing a reunion of the 1st Battalion, 70th Armor, Wiesbaden, Germany.  I served with Bravo Company of the 1-70th from 1975 at Fort Carson, Colorado, to 1979 in Germany.  the reunion is for anyone who served with the battalion from 1976 when we arrived in Germany through 1984.

The reunion will be held from July 23 - 26 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  It's the same weekend as the Pennsylvania Senior Games, so I may have to fly in for just a day or two.

It will be great to see people I served with during the 70s!!!

Second Hand Music

This morning on the train and the subway to work, I did not have my own iPod, so I listened to second-hand music radiating from the ear buds of a 20-something guy on each train.  The guy on the Amtrak train to Philadelphia was Hispanic.  The guy on the subway was Korean.  Otherwise they were identical.  They both wore sideways baseball caps, the both wore t-shirts and jeans.  The guy on Amtrak wore boots.  The guy on the subway wore hightops.

Both had music pounding their ears at enough volume that I could hear it from five rows away.  They reminded me of my bunkmate during the first week of pre-deployment training.  Then Pvt. 1st Class Eric Ward was 19 and went to sleep listening to metal music loud enough that I could hear it from the top bunk.  He fell asleep before me so I would shut it off when I went to sleep.  He was already snoring.  Eric was the first soldier to leave Iraq.  He hurt his knee playing football.  After that football was banned for Echo soldiers.

Usually, the Amtrak train is completely quiet, but it is a holiday weekend, so different people ride the train than the usual commuters.  The subway is always noisy.  I missed my iPod.

If you were wondering, I listen to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" and the "Political Scene" from New Yorker magazine.  I also listen to "Distillations" produced by my coworkers and my current audiobook is "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt.





 

The Poo Pond

From today's New York Times "At War" blog, Dexter Filkins on "The Poo Pond" at Kandehar Air Base.

Christoph Bangert for The New York Times The view of Kandahar Air Field, one of the largest NATO military bases in Afghanistan. The round-shaped lake in the middle of the base is where raw sewage is treated.

Visiting a city like Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the subject of human excrement is not something that ordinarily occupies much of your thinking. After all, unlike much of the rest of the country, Kandahar has toilets, even if most of them are just holes in the floor made of porcelain. As a pedestrian, the only issue that would probably prompt any thinking on this subject are the sewers that line Kandahar’s dusty streets; they are the open-air type. You’ve got to take care to avoid them, or you’ll fall in.
But avoiding the lake-sized pool of human excrement that fills a section of the sprawling American and NATO base known as Kandahar Air Field is something else. Avoid it you cannot. This I discovered recently while visiting the base itself, which occupies a chunk of chaparral just south of the city itself.
I had flown from Kabul to interview a senior officer about some things the military has in the works. Wandering through the base at sunset, I suddenly found myself enveloped by a terrible smell. What on earth? I thought. Did a sewage truck hit an I.E.D.?
Then I saw it.
“The Poo Pond,” as the servicemen affectionately call the place, is an enormous liquid pit for all the human waste at the airfield. That’s not a small amount: The airfield is a small city, with at least 20,000 men and woman at the moment, many of them having only recently just arrived as part of President Obama’s escalation. The pond is perhaps a hundred yards across. Its contents form a kind of brownish bog — a swamp, if you will. The swamp is cordoned off by a single rope and an array of warning signs: “Biohazard: Do Not Enter.” It’s not as if I was planning to!
I stared at the bog for a few moments. Not a trace of life stirred on the surface, not even a mosquito. Out there in the middle sat a decorative fountain, happily spewing and bubbling.
From this smelly sea wafts a never-ending cloud of stench, which sometimes sweeps far and wide across the base. What gives the pond its piquancy is its location. It has not been shunted to some far corner of the airfield — which is miles across, with plenty of open spaces — but rather sits squarely in the middle of the base, among the multitudes. Just across the road are several rows of barracks.
“Wow, who has to live next to that?” I said to two American service members as we drove near the pond in their S.U.V.
The two Americans — one man, one woman — smiled at each other like an old couple.
“We do,” they said in unison.
I looked out toward the pond, breathing through my mouth.
“Do you get used to it after awhile?” I continued naïvely. “Do you get used to the smell?”
“Never,” said the man, who was driving. “Not for a second.”
It should be said that the pond does, apparently, serve as some functions useful beyond the absorption of sewage. Taliban fighters often bombard the place with rockets, which sometimes explode and injure people. During one recent attack, an officer told me, a Taliban rocket struck the pond and disappeared inside.
It hasn’t been heard from since.