Must Be Typewritten!!!!

Today I rode to the gate to fill out the paper required for each visitor. Two of my kids are coming to visit on Friday and a friend from work is coming here on Saturday. I rode the two miles to the visitor's center, walked inside and asked for the form. The officer behind the desk handed me a different form than the last time I was there. I asked for a pen. She said, "The form has to be typewritten." I made an exaggerated gesture for looking for a typewriter. "You need to put this information on a form and return it here typewritten or printed. No more handwritten forms. They are hard to read."

In case this sounds like a reasonable request, it is only a hardship to soldiers in transient barracks--the soldiers just going to or returning from Iraq. Soldiers assigned here can drive to the gate. Transient soldiers who walk two miles to the gate and find out the policy changed have to walk back, use the one printer per 100+ soldiers and walk or scrounge a ride back.

But it does keep the clerks who handle this particular form from dealing with the hardship of hard-to-read forms handed in by soldiers returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan. What could be more important than that?

Who Fights This War? Military Intelligence Sergeant

During late summer this year, Staff Sgt. Timothy Opinaldo was part of a joint operation of intelligence analysts from Task Force Diablo and 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division to train and integrate Iraqi analysts. Together, they provided intelligence support for a joint operation pursuing and detaining insurgents.

For Opinaldo and the other members of Task Force Diablo, this joint operation trained their Iraqi counterparts in the American method of intelligence work, which is very different from the Iraqi model. The analysts and their counterpart unit, the 10th Iraqi Infantry Division, are trained for nine weeks. American analysts are trained for 18 weeks.

“Their army is officer-centric. An individual Iraqi analyst works on just one piece of a large intelligence project,” Opinaldo said. “The officer in charge controls the flow of information. He creates the picture from the pieces the individual analysts provide. In the American model, analysts keep the larger picture in view when working on any individual piece.”

Opinaldo worked with Sgt. Bradley Dickey, Maj. Brett Feddersen, and 1st Lt. Carolina Kelley on the project in addition to analysts from 4-1 AD. While the Americans trained the Iraqis in their model of intelligence work, the Iraqis gave their counterparts some valuable lessons in Iraqi culture.

“The Iraqis gave us information that allowed us to better evaluate situations,” Opinaldo said. “They told us there are few weddings in the summer heat and none during Ramadan. Weddings are low-key and humble with minimal 20th Century influence. Iraqis don’t fire machine guns at weddings.”

“We also learned that every large group is not necessarily bad guys,” he said. “Three days of large feasts mark the end of Ramadan.”

Opinaldo had to re-adjust to eastern physical closeness during his month with his Iraqi counterparts. He previously deployed to Afghanistan and remembered how different eastern and western men are about touching, but he still had to adjust. “When you shake hands, you are not letting go for five minutes,” he said. “One guy held my hand during an entire meeting.”

Opinaldo also made clear that fussy eaters can’t do intelligence field work. “They share everything,” he said. “If they offer food, you have to eat it.” Opinaldo said tea is a past time with Iraqis and they drink both tea and coffee very strong. Despite all that caffeine, the Iraqis are much more concerned about relationships than time efficiency. “The first 60 minutes of every meeting includes about five minutes of work,” Opinaldo said.

By then end of the month, Opinaldo and other members of the team were making jokes, an important indicator of how close their relationship had grown. Many of the men they worked with were fathers and referred to each other as ‘Abu’ with their child’s name. Opinaldo was “Abu Alana” because his daughter’s name is Alana. In one of the jokes they shared, the Iraqis called Opinaldo “Abu Dickey” because he was Sgt. Dickey’s immediate supervisor. Dickey is also most of a foot taller than his “father.”

With a month of working face-to-face with his Iraqi counterparts, Opinaldo got a chance to really learn the culture. “It was the best month of the deployment,” he said. “No question

Real Frugality

Now that I am home from a year neck deep in socialism and spending way less money than is my usual habit, I have a better idea how much money I spend on life, the universe and everything. And I am already feeling guilty about how much I want to spend--not that it will slow me down much.

In Iraq I bought exactly two meals during the entire tour: two pizzas at Ciano's. The only money I spent was for phone cards, maybe $20 a month, Internet $88 per month, and one or two lattes each day at Green Beans, $150 per month, and books, maybe $15/month.

The standard by which I compare my profligate self is my frugal wife Annalisa who spends nearly nothing--except the occasional huge amount of money to be more energy efficient, like buying a Prius or renovating our house to insulate and air seal it, plus completely change how it looks. The house is beautiful and more energy efficient now.

During the year I was gone, our lovely new home had no TV in it. My son was already excited to see me then his sister pointed out Dad would be watching TV again and Nigel was ready to declare my arrival a national holiday. "Awesome, TV," was his response to the news.

But TV is not just TV. I want to watch the Tour de France and the Formula 1 World Championship. I had a TV when I left, but it is 27 years old and has sat in a corner for a year. Most like I need a TV. Even a modest one: $400. Dish Network is on sale for one year for $24.95/ month. I am sure there are taxes and fees that bring it over $30 and a DVR system will be another $5 per month. And Dish has French-language programming for another $7 per month.

Back at home, my favorite thing to eat is bread from a bakery. I eat a loaf almost every day. I miss Starbucks at Stonemill Plaza. In fact, I miss all that stuff. I had a moment when I thought I might try to be frugal, but that falls into the category of people who think about getting in shape and then don't ride, run or go to the gym when anything else conflicts.

I am already starting to suffer from the tyranny of choice. I want choice, but every choice has a moral dimension. Should I watch car racing? Should I drink lattes? should I eat fresh bread? This three weeks of confinement to the base makes the flavor of real life all the more sharp and desirable. I may feel worse about spending money later, for right now, I can't wait. I have spent the last eight months six thousand miles from home and can't wait to eat bakery bread, watch car racing and drink designer coffee any time I want to.

Catch 22

My Uncle Jack who served in Viet Nam responded to my post yesterday. Here's our messages:

Sgt. Nephew,
I feel your pain and I applaud that you have kept your daughters out of public schools, aka government indoctrination centers. That said, knowing you are a devoted reader and lover of literature I recommend the greatest anti-government/military book extant: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. I'm also an avid reader but mostly on the surface level. I seldom look for the symbolism buried deeper in the text. It took me a couple of readings of Heller's book to realize he was using irony, if that's the right word, to illustrate the lunacy of government and especially the military. Rather than an expose' or an angry diatribe he used subtlety to insinuate his point without bludgeoning his readers. By doing so, he engaged a far larger audience and perhaps changed the minds of people who never suspected what he was up to. If you haven't read it, try it.

The movie alluded to this in a few scenes but mostly treated it as a comedy farce.

Uncle Major,
I loved the book and did not like the movie for that reason—it kept the farce and lost the point. Catch 22 also makes the point that in all bureaucracies, paperwork is reality and reality means nothing. This worked out decidedly to my advantage in my 2nd enlistment. I was never a resident of PA but got a better deal from the PA recruiter. I gave him a PA post office box—P.O. Box 334, Brownstown PA. When I went to get out in 1979, I thought I was going to Massachusetts. They would not ship my stuff to MA. I would have to retain a civilian lawyer to prove I was an MA resident because my DD Form 4—even though Ma and Dad were living in the same house I enlisted from in 1972 and lived in since 1957. It turned out I got to go to Penn State as a resident because of that form.
Joseph Heller would just smile.

Sergeant Nephew,
I wondered how you ended up in PA.

Welcome Home! Not So Much

All the time we were in Iraq and using internet at dial-up speeds we thought how great it was going to be to get back to America and have real high-speed internet. We would also have cell phones and text messages and voice mail and all of the lovely ways to keep in touch that we missed.

We are in the US. We are almost home. We have cell phones. There is high-speed internet--sometimes. The high temp today was 34, it will be 29 tomorrow. Our cell phones only work outside the barracks. We have been here at the transient barracks at Fort Dix for five days. The internet has been down for two full days and part of every other day.

I know I am bitching about very small things, but context is important. A dozen high-ranking officers and NCOs greeted us at the plane when we landed. I have no idea who they were. Many more will greet the rest of our unit as they arrive. Some of them will fly in from Montana, Connecticut, Illinois and other states or just drive from Pennsylvania. The travel expense to have all those colonels, command sergeant majors, and generals at the bottom of the ramps is far more than the cost of a few cell phone repeaters and reliable routers. If they spent the money that way, all of the hundreds of troops who drag themselves off the plane after an 18-hour flight could call home or see their families on Skype. As it is, they will flood into the barracks, open their computers and find the internet overloaded or down.

Of course, there is NO chance the internet will be upgraded instead of the welcome home ritual. Another group that welcomes us are Viet Nam veterans who got no welcome home themselves. They tell us their mission is to make sure no US soldiers arrive in America without a welcome. I understand why they are doing it. I flew home to Logan Airport, Boston, in bandages during the Viet Nam War. I heard "Baby Killer" but how could they know I never got closer to Viet Nam than Utah? I got injured in a missile explosion in that state. I got no welcome home. Those combat veterans got no welcome home.

So it's great that we get these gestures of freezing dignitaries thanking us for our service, but for most of us, the fact that we come home, have bad cell phone service and bad internet just adds to the indignity of being confined to base and not even allowed one beer or dinner off base back in America--no matter how long out processing takes.

At times like this it is painfully clear that the Army is just another government bureaucracy. It spends tens of thousands to do what makes sense for its own purposes and won't spend a few thousand in a way that would really make the returing soldiers happy and more comfortable.

I have worked since I was 12. I got one of those life-time earning reports from Social Security a couple of years ago. When I got it, I calculated that my part of sending my two daughters to Lancaster Country Day School from kindergarten through the 12th grade works out to 20% of my lifetime after-tax earnings. Both of them are in private Liberal Arts Colleges now and doing very well. I have kept them out of a goverment-run institution for their whole lives thus far. Every time I get in one of these situations where it is painfully clear how bad government programs can be, I feel better about those tuition bills.

Who Fights This War--Command Sergeant Major

Today's post is a guest post by the commander's assistant writing about the Task Force Diablo Command Sergeant Major.

By Specialist Andrea Torrano Magee

Command Sgt. Maj. Dell Christine has proudly served in the Army for twenty-nine years. He not only enforces uniform standards in Task Force Diablo, he embodies them. He understands the importance of leading soldiers by setting the example. Once around him for any length of time, one can note he is always sporting a fresh haircut and immaculate uniform. His standards don’t end with just adhering to uniform regulations.

He is a leader who encourages troops to do their best and succeed in whatever they do. He has learned throughout his career that friendship, safety, persistence, and perseverance are what help soldiers be leaders and complete the mission with success. He is not the typical Command Sergeant Major. When one thinks of a Command Sergeant Major, they think rough, gruff, steady, intimidating and tough. Although he does exude all those qualities, he works with soldiers in a different way than most people that attain his rank. When he says he has an open door policy, he means it. He is patient, level headed, and a well rounded leader who has a sincere concern for each and every soldier in his command. His warm and open attitude and personality invite soldiers to talk to him, and they do.

As a result, many soldiers see him more than just the Command Sergeant Major.

He demonstrates many traits that successful leaders possess because he is able to work with so many different personality types. He is stern when he needs to be stern and a great listener when someone needs an ear. Often, he will stop by Lt. Col. Scott Perry’s office and round everyone up for lunch. He recognizes the struggles that we all face on deployment and has said, “You don’t realize it now, but you will miss this place. If you don’t miss the place, you’ll miss the people.” After his deployment to Afghanistan in 2003 he found that he missed eating lunch and dinner with his friends.
“The people that we see day in and day out, share meals and jokes with will work their way into your heart,” he said. “Although we are happy to see our friends and family we left behind, we will end up missing our friends that became our family on the deployment.”

He can be hard to find. He is often traveling across the base, checking in with troops and making sure everyone is okay. He often starts his day at 0400hrs with a 2 mile or more run, then he goes to his office and works well before anyone else shows up. LTC Perry usually works well past midnight, finally falling asleep a few hours prior to CSM Christine waking for the day. Their schedules overlap and it works well for the command.

CSM Christine’s day is usually packed with meetings, taking care of soldier’s issues, advising LTC Perry, and checking on troops. His day normally doesn’t end until well after 1800hrs. He usually eats lunch and dinner with the command staff. He goes to the early service at Chapel every Sunday (0900 hours, not early for him) and has coffee with Capt. Aaron Lippy at God’s Grounds after the service. He believes faith is such an important part of being whole and helps people rise above tough situations. CSM Christine will be starting a new job at Fort Indiantown Gap upon the Task Force’s return to the United States, and if it’s like anything else he’s done, he will be a great success.

Who Fights This War? -- Me

My commander wrote about me for the latest issue of the newsletter. Thought you might like to read it.

By Lt. Col. Scott Perry
During a play in 1639, Cardinal Richelieu uttered the phrase, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” He was certainly not the only to have this opinion, joining greats like Euripides, Shakespeare, and Thomas Jefferson. The sentiment has been germane through the ages, and the current era is no different.
Although serving in a Task Force consisting of awesome strength, firepower and mobility, it is a camera and computer that Sgt. Neil Gussman aims in order to shape the face of the modern battlefield. While bullets and brute force may subdue the most tenacious enemy, over the course of history, opinions, sentiments and perception have been used to greater affect in influencing kings, dynasties and nations. As an accomplished writer, this is something Neil Gussman knows well.
Even so, I had to ask myself, who is this world-influencing neo-gladius whose stories seem to touch the world as easily as he qualifies with his assigned weapon?
As I have learned through my interaction with him, Sgt. Neil Gussman is an eclectic series of mutually un-supporting disciplines, dichotomies and passions that somehow have blended into an exceptional communicative force.
Neil Gussman was 56 years old as of May 2nd, but he doesn’t mind that you can’t keep up with him during Army physical training. And don’t even think about challenging him in a bicycle race. But I’m getting ahead of the story and Neil wouldn’t appreciate that.
Like any other red-blooded American young man, Neil had a passion for fast cars and racing. For those who can appreciate such things, he once owned a ‘69 Cobra Jet Torino featuring a 428 C.I. power plant with a factory 735 dual-feed Holly carburetor and Hurst 4 speed shifter. When he owned a TV that he kept in the basement, the only thing he was interested in watching was NASCAR during the good old days of Cale Yarborough, Alan Kulwicki and Dale Earnhardt Sr. For the purist in Neil, that all ended when the sport departed from bias ply tires.
No problem.
There were other fascinations to occupy the time of this undefined thrill seeker. He had suppressed a motorcycle obsession because his father opposed them. Once on his own, he started out with a Honda 175 and soon was risking his life on the likes of VFR 700s, Interceptors, Hawks and other popular crotch-rockets of the late ‘80s. After a disappointing day at the track he determined he wasn’t practicing enough and he gave up riding having decided he wasn’t really good enough to race.
Neil joined the Air Force in 1972. The next year, he spent over a week in the hospital after being blinded by shrapnel at Hill Air Force Base, Utah during a live-fire exercise of interstage rocket detonators. Incidentally, he had grown up nominally Jewish, but became a Christian while recovering from the blindness. He left the Air Force in 1974 but joined the Army in 1975 as a SP4 Tank gunner and progressed to Tank Commander stationed at Fort Carson, Colo. and Wiesbaden Germany. In 1979, he left the military to go to college.
After departing the service, he used his GI bill benefits to attend Penn State University where he completed his BA in Humanities and an MA in American studies consecutively. After graduating in 1985, he started working for an advertising agency. He noticed others in the agency were out of work when their client left. Recognizing the volatility of the advertising world, Gussman set out to find his own clients. Being familiar with chemistry and calculus, he decided to write about technology for continuous employment and covered electronics until the ad agency acquired a chemical company account. Concentrating on chemistry, in 1998 he became manager of global communications for Millennium Chemicals and was travelling overseas every month. Having no interest in managing as he puts it, “free form-people who each want to rule the world,” in 2001 and 25 countries later, he left to work as a consultant. Now he is the communications manager for the Museum and Library of the history of chemistry and early science which he characterizes as a science museum for grown-ups. The non-profit Chemical Heritage Foundation was founded in 1982 and is located in a 160 year old building located next to the Liberty Museum and Independence Mall in center city Philadelphia.
Having given up motorcycles, he got serious about bicycle riding in 1992 when he logged 8,000 miles. In recent years he’s been racking up over 10,000 miles annually. In April 2007, he broke his neck while riding at 50 MPH down Turkey Hill in Lancaster, PA. The crash resulted in 10 broken bones including three vertebras. Now his 7th vertebra is from a cadaver. His riding repertoire includes cycling on five continents and if you spend any time at Tallil with your eyes open, you no doubt have seen Sgt. Gussman on a bike. He shipped 2 here, bought 2 others since we arrived and he’s met his goal of riding 5000 miles at Tallil Iraq.
I’m sure Neil doesn’t think he’s obsessive or particular. But, how else do you describe a person who goes to a 300 year old Presbyterian Church because he can’t help but criticize the sermons of anything newer? And how else do you explain a person who has organized a spreadsheet enumerating of all the books he’s read as well as an accounting of all his broken bones? -- 32 by the way. An avid athlete, it’s no surprise that he also charts all his physical activities including the mileage he’s run, ridden, pushups, pull-ups, sit ups, etc…
At the age of 54, Neil Gussman re-enlisted in the Army in August 2007. He joined an aviation unit because he was concerned about joining a ground unit, thinking he couldn’t keep up with the 20 year olds. His assessment was wrong. His 26 year old, commanding officer put Gussman in charge of remedial PT to train all in the formation who are unable to pass the test—most of them half his age.
Gussman always wanted to be a writer but prior to college read only science or religious books. Since his first class at The Pennsylvania State University where he read Dante’s Inferno, he has been involved in a love affair with literature. Sgt. Gussman now reads an average of 25 books per year and is hosting 2 separate reading clubs while in Iraq. USA Today recently featured his efforts. When home, he reads other’s stories to his wife and four children; while he’s in Iraq he writes the story of Task Force Diablo’s mission for others to tell the world.

From Sweating to Freezing

It certainly is cold here. When we left Iraq it was much cooler than when we arrived, but I was still riding in short sleeves. It was in the 70s on cool days, mid to high 80s on hot days. Here at Fort Dix it is below freezing except for about 5 hours in midday when it is just above freezing. If I were not so close to home I would be homesick for the creature comforts of Iraq. In Iraq the internet was slow but it worked. Here it is fast, but down more than it is up and that's with only a few of us using it. It will be permanently unusable when hundreds of us are here. And especially so because the on-line gamers will be back and hogging whatever bandwidth they can dominate. And because we are newly arrived in a new Army bureaucracy, I do not have government internet access, because everyone involved in the cooperative process of establishing access show who is in charge. So I can't do the work that I getting inquiries about from Iraq.

But enough bitching. I have already seen my wife here. My kids are coming up tomorrow. Several of my friends in the local area are planning to visit. I can call anybody on my cell phone. It is wonderful to be back and I will get used to the cold.

Back in America--But not Home for 3 Weeks

Yesterday afternoon we landed in America. But I am not home yet. I and everybody else who is out processing from Iraq and Afghanistan cannot leave post until all the paperwork is done. I am in the advance group so we will be on Fort Dix for another three weeks.

But at least we are in America. It is nice to be in my home country even if I can't go home. The Army is a great place to learn patience--or to find out you can't.

This morning in the welcome before 7 1/2 hours of briefings, a colonel told us he thought he was ready to go back to civilian life after his first deployment in 2004. He returned to his job as a marketing manager for a large pharmaceutical company. In a meeting that was dragging on because everyone was waiting for someone else to do something, he stood up and said, "Enough, it's time to make a God-damned decision." He decided to be full time in the Army after that.

I can imagine that in the nasty days of 2004 the transition from life under fire to life in meetings was abrupt. For me, the last few months have almost been life a planned transition back to "the world." I have been working in an office, more importantly a quiet office, with very polite people around me. The Army would blow in and out of the doors when there was an emergency, but then calm resumed.

And now I have three weeks of paperwork in America instead of the usual rush. I can't wait to be a civilian again. I'll just be serving one weekend a month from now until they throw me out for being to old (age 60).

Who Fights This War?--Task Force Commander

As his digital watch silently records the time passing midnight Lt. Col. Scott Perry sits at his desk hand writing letters in response to cards, letters and gifts he receives from folks back home. Some of them he never met. “They took the time to write and thank me for my service,” he said. “The least I can do is answer in kind.” He usually gives in to sleep and goes back to his CHU between midnight and 0100 hours. Time! Best use of time. Lack of time. Perry is always aware of time.
In the morning he is up early and back in the office. “This is an awesome responsibility commanding a combat Task Force,” he said. “I need to be on top of things. I wouldn’t sleep at all if I could dispense with it.”
Each day begins with a calendar review with his assistant Spc. Andrea Magee. She keeps the calendar for Perry and for Maj. Joel Allmandinger, the Task Force Diablo Executive Officer. Allmandinger and Magee also begin their days with coffee: the first one in makes the first pot. Perry does not drink coffee. “I am not going to let something like that own me,” he says of caffeine.
Even though he refuses caffeine, Perry is a bundle of energy. He explodes into a room, moving faster than anyone else around him and asking questions as he strides through doorways. “Magee! I am going to the TOC. Tell me where I am supposed to be at 11,” he says as he walks through his office door around Magee’s work area and out the front door of the building 739, the Task Force command post. Magee has had six months of practice and can spin 180 degrees from the NIPR (non-secure) computer on her desk to the SIPR (secure) computer on the table behind her and answer Perry as he passes by her desk and before he hits the door.
Magee’s meticulous schedules only last until the second crisis. At the first crisis—a downed aircraft in need of recovery, a Red Cross message—Magee switches Allmandinger into the critical meetings Perry will miss and pushes the routine appointments back. It’s the second crisis that brings down the whole schedule.
When Perry is handling the first emergency and Allmandinger is already in a meeting with the brigade commander, when the next crisis hits the whole schedule is gone.
Sometimes it is a mission. Perry and Allmandinger are both Blackhawk pilots on rotation in the Adder missions. Sometimes they are on call for the Adder reserve mission. When reserve goes active, the pilots on call go on flying status.
“When I am flying I am totally focused on the mission,” he said. “It gives me a chance to clear my mind, focus on flying and get myself ready for the next crisis.”
In addition to the round of meetings and appointments that fill his day, Building 739 has a steady stream of visitors wanting to see the commander on a matter of considerable importance to them. When someone without an appointment enters the building they have to pass by Magee before they reach the commander’s office. She asks politely what they need to see the colonel about and usually offers to make an appointment if the subject is not urgent.
Others go to Allmandinger’s office first to get a preliminary reading on whether the request merits a meeting with the commander and if so, when. Both Allmandinger and Magee act as gatekeeper’s for Perry. Sometimes gently, sometimes firmly.
Perry admits to being a chronic workaholic. In civilian life he is the Pennsylvania State Representative for the 92nd congressional district and owner operator of a mechanical contracting business. His usual work pattern was to work at both jobs from early morning until well into the night, go home, then start over again.
The deployment changed the work environment from Central Pa. to Southern Iraq, but the schedule is the same.
One usual habit of a workaholic that Perry does not share is eating at his desk. Despite the obvious time saving of eating from a to-go plate while working, Perry and his staff stop work at midday and in the evening and eat lunch and dinner together. The people at the table vary, but as few as six or as many as sixteen will eat and make jokes together—usually Warriors Dining Facility (DFAC)for lunch and Coalition DFAC for dinner. Few other units have this kind of cohesion in the staff. Eating together often with friends is one of the great benefits of deployment that do not carry over into civilian life.
When he returns from this deployment life is going to be very different. Before deployment his family was just he and his new wife—quite an adjustment after 45 years of being single. Now when he returns to America his eight-month-old daughter will be waiting and sixteen-hour work days will not be an option. He will be back in the legislature with critical state and national elections on the horizon, back in business, a husband, a father for the first time, and they are hoping to move to a larger home.
Perry loves high performance cars, used to race, and talks about what car he should drive next: his Corvette will look a little awkward with a baby seat. He also loves clocks. He wears a digital G Force watch here because he breaks regular watches in the cockpit. But at home in a suit he wears simple, well-made analog watches. He has three fine timepieces in his home, clocks with precise German-made movements that announce each second with a firm “tick.”
With the little time left in the deployment, Perry will finish paperwork, get in final flights, plan for life after deployment, and get ready to make sure the 700-plus members of Task Force Diablo get home to their families. And there will never quite be enough time.

Who Fights This War?--Task Force Commander's Assistant

In 2009 her life has gone through more changes than a chameleon walking on a rainbow. Spc. Andrea Magee, 27, of Pleasanton, California, began the deployment as Andrea Whitacre working in flight operations for Task Force Diablo. Also, when the deployment began she was engaged for a year to Staff Sgt. Jeremy Magee, a former Marine Sniper who is an Air Traffic Controller attached to 28th Combat Aviation Brigade.
In March, things began to change. On March 18, they changed more. That was the day Andrea and Jeremy got married. They were going to wait, but waiting meant living in separate CHUs for the entire deployment, marriage meant the same CHU. So they were married in their ACU uniforms in Commanche Courthouse. During the next month they made plans to share a CHU at Joint Base Balad.
Then in mid-April, the commander of 28th Combat Aviation Brigade decided we would not be going to JBB, but to Tallil Ali Air Base. So after a couple of weeks in tents in Kuwait, they got their CHU at Tallil in May. Then in June another change. Andrea became the assistant to Lt. Col. Scott Perry and Maj. Joel Allmandinger, the commander and the executive officer of Task Force Diablo. Andrea went from shift work in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to maintaining the schedules for Perry and Allmandinger, as well as removing some of their paperwork burden.
Her first instruction in her new job was that
nothing she hears in the command building gets repeated outside. She also found out that one of her important duties was controlling the traffic into the commander’s office. “Not everyone who wants to see the commander right away actually needs to,” she said. Another important task was rebuilding the schedules of the commander and executive officer when a crisis throws the whole schedule off for hours or a whole day.
“If one of them is on Reserve and gets called to fly, the other has to cover the most important meetings and everything else has to get pushed to the next available date,” Magee said. “And the call always comes a day when both of their schedules are packed.”
Magee currently has more than 60 credit hours in college and plans to finish a bachelor’s degree and attend Officer Candidate School within the next two years.

Who Fights This War? Executive Officer and Racer

On September 11, 2001, Maj. Joel Allmandinger was visiting his parents in Tehachapi, California, with his wife and two children. He was on terminal leave after eight years on active duty as an Army Aviation Officer and a Blackhawk pilot. The 1993 graduate of West Point was ready to be a civilian. He is a strong advocate of free enterprise and was ready to go to work for a Fortune 500 Company and start on the road to the top of corporate management.
Then he heard the horrible news from New York, from the Nation’s Capital, from a field in western Pennsylvania. The nation he swore to defend was under attack just as he finished eight years of peacetime service. It was nearly a week before regular airline service was restored. On September 16, Allmandinger and his family flew home to Macungie, Pa. As soon as he arrived, he drove to Fort Indiantown Gap and signed up to serve in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
Allmandinger began his civilian career and is on the path he sought. When he left for this deployment, he was a Key Account Executive for the Kellogg Company, one of the largest food producers in the world. He is responsible for a significant part of Kellogg’s business with Giant Food Stores in Pennsylvania, an account worth tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for Kellogg. He plans to return to that job when Task Force Diablo’s deployment ends in January.
During his tour in Iraq, Allmandinger served as Executive Officer for Task Force Diablo. He flew Adder missions weekly, attended the many short and long meetings that go into running an aviation battalion, and worked every day until crew rest requirements forced a day off. As executive officer, Allmandinger was in command whenever the commander was flying and when Perry was on R&R leave.
The major’s day begins before 0600 hours with a long morning run or bike ride followed by weight training in the gym. Allmandinger was on the bicycle racing team at West Point and has won running races here and in Iraq, including the 15k Boilermaker run in July. He also was the first finisher to both ride and run in the Task Force Diablo Biathlon in November. After his workout he faces a full day of meetings, crises, last-minute changes, and problems resolved. Every day is packed with activity through early evening and sometimes well into the night. This is Allmandinger’s second deployment. He served in Kosovo in 2005-6. He also must find time to fly in addition to his other National Guard commitments and balance all of this with a demanding job, family life, working out and training for bicycle racing.
Deployments are not the best plan for career advancement, but he decided more than nine years ago that he would do his best to keep his life in level flight whichever way the wind blows.

New Year's Eve--2009 by the Numbers

What an odd year for a 56-year-old guy who works at a museum. This year I have lived in two US states and two middle eastern countries--Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Iraq and Kuwait. Lance Armstrong wrote a book titled "It's Not About the Bike." If I wrote that I would be lying. so the first numbers are about the bike.
Miles: 7100 total
PA--500
OK--1300
Kuwait--100
Iraq--5200
I competed in four races. Three in PA while I was on leave, one in Iraq.
I rode four bikes outside PA. Two I bought for the trip and broke them both. The single speed 29er and track bike are in Conex containers on the way to America. The post chaplain at Fort Sill OK loaned me his bike while I was there (May the Lord bless him!) I bought a $100 bike for the two weeks I was in Kuwait in the spring, broke it and traded it for a latte at Starbucks. I bought a bike for $250 in Iraq in December after I broke the 29er. I sold it the day before I left for $250 and threw in a pump.

I read only 15 books this year--lowest total since I started keeping track. And almost all of them were re-reads: six by CS Lewis, Inferno & Purgatorio, Aeneid, and The Three Musketeers (an old edited French version). New to my reading list were George Orwell's Essays, another of John Polkinghorne's books on theology and physics, and The Audacity of Hope by President Obama.

The unabridged Democracy in America is my first book for 2009. I am halfway through The Oak and the Calf by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and a second (very different) abridged French version of the Three Musketeers and should finish them during the long hours in Kuwait.

By a rough calculation I have written more than 75,000 words on my blog and am just short of 50,000 visitors too my blog since I started keeping track in June of 2008.

Since August I have written more articles than I ever have in my life. The 16th weekly issue of the newsletter goes out Monday. I also wrote four newsletters for Echo Company and had stories picked up by many Web sites and newspapers--none cooler, of course, then the New York Times "At War" blog on Thanksgiving!

Although many are different angles of the same shot, I have taken more than 5000 pictures. It will be very strange to have no camera when I leave active duty.

Counting each take off and landing as a flight, I have been on two dozen helicopter rides, mostly on Blackhawks, but also on the big Chinooks. It was the Chinooks that turned out to be the best single photo subject. It was wonderful watching them hover, six feet above a container with a flight engineer on top of it who hooked the 5,000-pound load, jumped to the ground and ran through the hurricane-force winds as the big helicopter flew away with 2.5 tons dangling 20 feet underneath.

I bought just two meals the whole time I was in Iraq--pizzas at Ciano's. But I bought a few hundred lattes at Green Bean's. The last one was free. I am sitting in Green Bean's in Kuwait writing this post.

I fired a lot fewer rounds this year than I did as a Cold War tank commander in the 1970s. But then we were training for a real war that seemed immanent. Now we are in a real war that is ending.

Oh right. And I made 387 blog posts in 2009. I will continue posting every day until we are released from active duty. Then I am going to take a break during the 17 days I am still on terminal leave. And when I am finally and officially a civilian again, I might write about some of the stuff I can't write now.

Happy New Year.

One Step Closer

Today we flew to Kuwait by way of Basra stopping at three bases before finally arriving at the transient base. We will be here for several days and, just as when I was stuck here for seven days in July, I won't know when I will leave here until I am on an airplane. Several times on the last trip, my name got called, I was on a manifest, I dragged my bags up to the meeting area, I was ready to board the bus then. . ."Sorry. Come back at 0500 hours."

But it's OK with me. We are on the way back to America. I am out of Iraq. I have lots of work to do, assuming I can do it using personal computer on a wireless hookup. Sometime in late January this year will end and I can go back to being a civilian again. I liked some of this year. I hated some of this year. The parts I hated probably helped me grow.

One thing it confirmed for me is how very difficult and very worthwhile it is to build community. It is very clear very fast that even people who think of politeness as optional, a sort of window dressing in life, rapidly find that politeness of some kind is necessary to live in close quarters. And they believe more strongly every day that if politeness is not natural it had better be enforced by someone.

An hour ago we moved eight of us moved into a 16-man tent, filling the all the available bunks. The lights are supposed to stay on 24/7, but if everyone agrees, the lights can go out until someone needs them. We may or may not have lights out, but if we do, it will be because 16 men agreed to shut off the lights at a given hour and turn them on again when needed.

It's very likely (though not certain) I will spend New Year's Eve and Day in a transient tent without any of the usual celebration. Certainly no alcohol. But it won't dampen my spirits. In a month or so, I'll be home.

Who Fights This War? Public Affairs Officer, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division

Today I have a guest post from Maj. Myles Caggins of the 4th BCT, 1st Armored Division. We have had a chance to work together on a few projects and even to talk politics.
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Twelve months ago I was in Washington, D.C. having just finished my graduate degree requirements from Georgetown. D.C., the most powerful city in the world, is an easy draw for the media and the military. In contrast, Contingency Operating Base Adder just south of Nasiriyah, Iraq is relatively unknown and military operations here seldom gain wide-spread press attention.

At least not until December 18.

This day Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our nation’s highest ranking military officer visited my brigade at COB Adder. Mullen was traveling with seven members of the Pentagon Press Pool among the 20+ other staffers and security personnel in his entourage.


Serving as an Army Brigade Public Affairs Officer my job is to tell the story of the 4,000 Soldiers assigned to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division. I want audiences to know who they are and most importantly what they do in Iraq in 2009.
Gone are the days of U.S. Soldiers kicking down doors and rounding up IED makers, terrorist mortarmen, and other outlaws. In today’s stability operations environment, we are simply here to advise and assist Iraqi Security Forces.

Most readers of this blog believe that. However, if I stood in downtown Nasiriyah and tried to explain “stability operations” doctrine the local citizens would be skeptical of the message and the messenger—and of course 30% of what I say would probably be lost in translation.

Imagine if some dude from a foreign Army pulled up in your driveway in a 10’ tall armored truck; stood in your front lawn with body armor, an assault rifle, and a team of security then stated “I’m your friend, I come in peace.”

Needless to say, I might come off to be a Kevlar-clad Joe Isuzu to the average Iraqi. Remember him here and here.

So on my next post, I’ll explain the solution to gaining and maintaining a positive perception for American forces in southern Iraq…and how I changed the price of oil 2% with one quote on December 18.

For Nigel--Blackhawk Banking Left

Yesterday I was on an all-day flight that lasted into the night. It was the first time I flew in a Blackhawk at night. I flew in a Chinook at night, but I was up inside the fuselage and could not see out very much except through the tail door.
I was sitting right behind the door gunner on the Blackhawk and could see all the countryside on the final leg of our trip. The desert is prettier at night than in the brown dusty day. The shallowest ripples look deep in the dark and trace out shapes that are much more interesting than simple sand ripples and ditches.
The trip went from here to Kalsu for hot fuel (with the engines running and rotors turning) then to Baghdad and a visit to one of Saddam's bombed out palaces. I'll try to put a few more photos up soon.
After Baghdad we flew up to Joint Base Balad, where we should have gone back when we got here. It's a beautiful base. Oh well.
Then Back to Kalsu in the fading light, then back to Tallil in the dark. I was not told till the night before I had to go. I had a lot of work to do the next day and asked the commander if he really wanted to me to go. He said, "This is a war Gussman. You're going." So I went.

Who Fights this War--Coach on the Range

During the two days Echo Company ran the marksmanship qualification range on COB Adder in November, Sgt. 1st Class Jason Guinn, 30, strode back and forth on the dirt mound where the shooters were firing. Guinn adjusted a body position here, made a suggestion there, pushed in an elbow, all to help soldiers to qualify with their M16, M4 or M9 personal weapons.
Guinn served for four years on active duty as a Marine before joining the Army National Guard. “We don’t spend enough time on PMI (Preliminary Marksmanship Instruction),” said Guinn, NCOIC of Operations for Task Force Diablo. “In the Marines we moved out to the range for two weeks every year. We would a full week just practicing different firing positions.”
Guinn serves full time in the Army National Guard and is planning to work as a Readiness NCO in 28th Combat Aviation Brigade after this deployment. He currently has the additional duties of Master Weapons Instructor and Master Marksmanship Instructor for the 28th CAB. During his service with the Marines from 1997 – 2000 Guinn was a Master Marksmanship Instructor. “In the Marines, marksmanship can be a primary duty. In the Army it is always an additional duty,” said the Enola, Pa. native.
In addition to weapons training in the Marines, Guinn has received six months of advanced weapons instruction from several Army schools, including the five-phase Master Weapons Instructor School which he completed in 2004. He is currently on his third deployment. He went to East Timor with the Marines in 1998. He went to Kosovo with Bravo Company (Attack) 1-104th Aviation in 2005-6 before his current tour with Task Force Diablo.
Guinn says “practice makes perfect” in marksmanship as in many areas of life. He practices partly through competition. He has earned the Governor’s Twenty tab for marksmanship and competed in international events. He is especially proud of being a member of the team the beat the highly rated Italian Special Forces team.
Later this week, on December 3, Guinn will be conducting a marksmanship class for his staff in operations. “It’s a full day just to go over the fundamentals of shooting,” he said.

For Nigel: The Best Picture

One more sling load photo because I did not include the best one. This is the one of the ground crewman setting the hook.

For Nigel: A Chinook Sling Load

A few days ago, three Chinook helicopters hovered 20 feet above the north runway waiting for the signal to fly over to the south ramp and pick up sling loads. The Chinook can haul a container with thousands of pounds of stuff underneath and fly. These pictures show some of the views I had. It was tough to get some of the pictures because Chinooks are named after the near 100mph wind in the mountain west. For the picture looking up under the Chinook with the sling load, I laid down on the airstrip 100 meters ahead of the Chinook as the sling was attached and took the shot as it flew over me.

Who Fights This War? A Father and a Son

It’s a very proud Dad who has a child that follows him into his profession, so Sgt. First Class Gary Williard of Delta Company, Task Force Diablo, is a doubly proud man. Williard has two professions and each of his two sons has chosen to follow Dad into one of those professions. Williard is a retired police officer and Army National Guard aircraft maintenance platoon sergeant. His older son, Gary Jr., joined the Tower City police force where Dad retired in 2006 as chief of police. His younger son is Sgt. Joshua Williard, of Bravo Company, 628th Aviation Support Battalion. Joshua worked in the next hangar over from Dad during much of the deployment and is currently completing his deployment with final processing in America.

“I pinned on Joshua’s sergeant stripes when he got promoted here on August 27,” said Gary Sr. “That was quite a moment for me.” Joshua said he plans on a career in aviation maintenance with the Army National Guard.

The Williards are a close family. Gary Sr. and Joshua managed to get the same day off, Friday, through most of last summer here in Iraq. They watched bow hunting and deer hunting videos and football together on their day off. Gary Jr. worked for his Dad for five years in the Tower City police department before moving to the Pennsylvania State Police where he has worked for seven years. Williard and his wife Dina ran an automotive repair business together. Now they have apartments which they rent. “Dina runs the apartments while I am away,” said Williard. “With Joshua and I deployed and Gary Jr. busy with work she’ll be very happy for us to come home.”

Gary Sr. began his military career in 1976 as a prop and rotor mechanic for the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and remained with the Guard through his entire career. He had an eight-year break in service from 1982-90 and after returning to the Guard has worked in maintenance on many aircraft. Gary Sr. previously deployed in 2003-4 to Kuwait in both aviation maintenance and security roles. “Even on deployment, I was still a cop,” said Williard.