Thursday, September 3, 2009

Who Fights This War? Workaholics

Deployment is a great refuge for workaholics. I have watched the work habits of leaders here and they do fall into two very groups. One group tries to maintain a balance between work and relaxation time, whatever that relaxation is. The other group works themselves into the ground and, frankly, loves it.

When a soldier is deployed, especially a leader, that soldier can leave all of the striving for balance and complexity of modern life behind. No spouse, no kids, no social obligations, no choice really on working out--it's part of the job. So for the person who really prefers the monomaniac lifestyle, here it is with no guilt.

We show up at the motor pool at 0550 to get our work assignments. Most of us are eating breakfast outside out of plastic clamshell containers and joking around as the day begins. The mechanics work till 2pm or longer if the work dictates. The men who run the motor pool stay till 5pm, sometimes into the night. At home they would have to feel guilty about their families, friends, community, but not here. They can just keep working. Across Iraq the workaholics have the great relief of public praise for their out of balance lives. And when they get home they might even like to have some balance for a while.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Book Groups

My book groups have been together long enough to show some consistency. They also are very different groups with different people attending.

The Monday night CS Lewis group is in its 5th week reading "The Weight of Glory." The CS Lewis group is an older crowd than the Tuesday Night Dead Poets Society. In fact this week's CSL group was five people: three Army, two Air Force. Four men, one woman. And by rank, two captains and three lieutenant colonels.

Tuesday night was the intro to Aeneid by Virgil. That meeting was a dozen soldiers and airmen with three officers and nine enlisted. Most of the enlisted are in their 20s. There are a two sergeants in their 30s. So the 800-year-old and 2100-year-old books attract the young people and the older people read CSL.

Five of the soldiers go to both groups, but the only person never to miss a meeting is one of the chaplains in our brigade. He also asks the best questions and makes some very good comments. For instance, when we read CSL's "Why I am not a Pacifist" he brought up the people in dictatorships who have no option but passive resistance. It was outside the scope of CSL's essay, but an important way to look at non-violent resistance.

It's two hours of very good conversation every week.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Cold Wave--Poop Ovens

Today the temp at 0500 was 77 degrees!! Winter is almost here. It was 118 by lunch, way down from highs over 130, and the wind was howling out of the northwest at 25mph which was bad riding west on the bike, but good in the motor pool because the wind blows the sweat away.

Last week we moved into a different motor pool. It is a much better place to fix trucks than the last place with maintenance tents on concrete pads instead of working on rocks. We still walk on rocks between the tents and the offices, but work in something resembling a canvas garage open on both ends.

But the other place was next to an office building so it had an air-conditioned latrine CHU right next to our rock-strewn maintenance area. The new place only has Porta Potties. Until yesterday, the Porta Potties were located in another area in the large field of motor pools we are in. We had to walk more than 400 meters to get to the tan-colored-plastic latrines. No it is a 150-meter walk to the Porta Potties.

The plastic latrines have air vents at the top, but they are hot inside. On a 130-degree day they could get to 140 degrees on more. No more air-conditioned break from the heat. Get in--get out is the best plan for the poop ovens. We work in t-shirts. When I know I am going to be in the "oven" for more than a 30 seconds, I take off my t-shirts. I get so hot inside the oven that walking out without a shirt actually feels cool.

I am learning so many things I hope I will never use again once we leave here.

Monday, August 31, 2009

More Brits

Tomorrow I ride with the British contractors assuming they don't have a mission. A few nights ago sat with a couple of contractors near my age. They were from the United Kingdom. One from England, the other from Northern Ireland. The Irish guy was from out in the country, but near Belfast. He has been a contractor since 2004 and doing consulting work he could not talk about.

What he could talk about was the work arrangements. He has been flying back and forth from home every six to eight weeks withe six weeks off in between work stints. He said they "work our asses right into the ground every day we are here, then give us time to recover at home. So we have a real family life." The English guy echoed his comments saying the American contractor system means a lot of guys fatten up their wallets and ruin their marriages. American contractors tend to work six months or more then take a few weeks off and come back again. If it is just a year, it's OK. But these guys had been here since 2004 and felt very connected with their families.

They said their companies don't allow the perpetual working that Americans do because they don't want their workers distracted by deteriorating families and everything that goes with it. Made sense to me.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

My 500th Post--Meet Arab Singles??

On August 22 last year I logged onto a site called geekadelphia that has a very favorable article about a new museum at the place where I work. It also has big ads next to the actual content of the site. The first time I logged onto geekadelphia.com the ad headline said, "Meet Arab Singles." Which lead to a site called Arab Lounge.
The woman in the ad was definitely not wearing a burqa--actually not much of anything but a leopard bikini top and a smile. But my first reaction was "I really don't want to meet Arab singles!!" Who decides what ads go on these sites?
So I was going back through the 506 posts and my sites and cleaning out the ones I started and never finished.

Except this one. I have wondered once in a while how Google decides what ads to put on a site. I logged onto Geekadelphia just now and got an ad for geek t-shirts. So why do I get an ad for American t-shirts in southern Iraq and "Meet Arab Singles!" in Philadelphia? I would expect the reverse. I am not responding to either ad. My wife is very frugal and would be horrified at paying retail for t-shirts when yard sales are full of them. And I am sure she does not want me meeting Arab singles.

So with other posts cleaned out, this musing on web ads is officially number 500. In related numerical updates, my blog has had more than 31,000 visits since last June. And since today is August 30, I should be a civilian in 153 days (January 30) or less if things go well with the demobilization process. That means I should have 650 blog posts before the site takes a sabbatical--I post every day I am on duty so hopefully my post rate will drop to twice a month plus 15 days in the summer.

Actually, I do plan to keep blogging about my return to being a real civilian. It's really going to happen. I can smell the bakery bread and the lattes already.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Bike Dudes

This morning my bike buddy and I went out for the morning loop around the perimeter and saw two civilians riding past on the main east-west road on the north side. I chased and towed my riding buddy up to what turned out to be two Brits. They are part of a team that flies outside the wire and no one knows what they do--at least none of us mechanics. Anyway, one of the guys is really strong. They were both riding 24-speed mountain bikes with front suspensions and disc brakes.

As we catch up to them we are just passing the last motor pool on the north side and turning south toward the mostly nothing area. It is the smoothest, fastest pavement of the whole perimeter. The big guy and I took turns at the front. At the end of the 1.5 mile straight saection we looked back and our buddies were riding together 150 meters behind. We slowed up for the dirt stretch and rode 18 the rest of the way around post. It turns out they ride 30 to 40 km every morning at 6am when they don't have a mission. Thy run in gym if the dust is too bad, but said they usually get out five days a week.

They said they most likely have a mission tomorrow, but I am going to ride at 6am anyway, just in case they are on the road. I can only ride at 0600 three days at the most. Otherwise I have to be in the motor pool at 0600. It's great to have more people to ride with.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Sergeant Hamster


By tomorrow evening I will have ridden around the 10-mile perimeter of Tallil Ali Air Base more than 130 times.
With a varied ten-mile loop, some traffic, the wind, the dust and the other difficulties of my repetitive ride, I hardly think of it as a hamster wheel when I am riding, but when I think about circling the same loop every day and adding up how many times I have ridden this circle--then I start to feel like a rodent way down the food chain. Or a man imitating the rodent.
On the north side of the base where I live and work there are buildings, huge generators, sometimes heavy traffic, pedestrians on sidewalks and the road, and flags snapping in the breeze.
On the east, west and south side of the base, there is mostly nothing. Here are a few views of my daily ride across the south and turning north on the east end of post:




Thursday, August 27, 2009

Issue 3, Dark Horse Post Newsletter

I finally figured out how to post the newsletter on the blog. Here it is. If you actually want to read it, send me an email and I will forward a copy.










Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Thank You to Several (actually 22) People

To Sarah Reisert for Propel Packets and razors (not to be used together) and for sending me a weird web site every Thursday.

To 2LT West's Dad for sending copies of Inferno, we just finished reading it in the Tallil Dead Poet's Society.

To Brigitte Van Tiggelen for sending copies of Aeneid which we are starting next Tuesday as well as for the copies of The Weight of Glory we are reading now in the CS Lewis book group.

To Larry Wise for putting hand grips on the 29er bike so I won't burn my hands on the 130+ degree days and the other bike repairs.

To my Uncle Jack for connecting Viet Nam to the current war and reminding me how much I would have loved to tell my Dad about all of this over a cup of coffee.

To my sister who was upset when I enlisted in 1972 and no happier this time but is very brave.

To Matt Clark who spent the worst hour of this year with me--he drove me to the airport for the return trip to Iraq.

To my roommate for putting up with "livin' in a friggin' library."

To Kristine Chin for editing all three issues of the Dark Horse Post. The current issue will go out tomorrow.

To Amy Albert who wrote me a few days ago asking if she could help by sending us stuff and will be sending some of the future books for the book group.

To Meredith Gould for various reality checks she has given me about life, the universe and posting.

To Robin Abrahams for the Clerihew contest and for sending the her book Mind Over Manners (available on amazon.com!) and to Marc Abrahams for asking (bemused) questions no one else asks.

To Jan Felice and Scott Haverstick for laughing at me as well as with me about this whole Iraq thing.

To Abel Lopez and Brother Timotheus who have been my friends so long they take this whole Iraq thing in stride.

To Lauren, Lisa, Iolanthe and Nigel for being proud of me even though having their Dad gone for a year was not in their plans.

To Annalisa for dealing with everything back home, taking care of Nigel and letting me know when the blog posts go too far.

And now the bad joke. . .

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Envy Again

So I went to the guy I wrote about a few days ago and told him I envied his job--he has no responsibilities except public affairs for a unit of 600 soldiers, which is one of my jobs. He also has the use of an SUV which would be nice to have in the middle of a day or to go to meetings without being drenched in sweat from a bike ride. But having told him, my envy is more properly jealousy. I wish I had what he has but I do not want to take what he has. Envy has that dimension of wanting to take from its object.

Anyway, he said he negotiated his deal before the deployment started--somehting that would be difficult for me at this point.

And speaking of sin, I was up larte last night writing a post about two soldiers who are in different ways unable to do their jobs, but are covered up by the Army system that wants the numbers to look good on paper. I took the post down again because looking at it in the morning it was uncharitable and it violated my OPSEC rule about identifying soldiers. There were enough specifics to identify people and that is not what I should be doing.

And then another friend pointed out last night that my year in the desert is hardly the spiritual experience I hoped for. She is right. When I return to America, I will be deliriously happy to resume whatever I can of my life as it was--family, friends, work, racing, pub night. My spiritual life will need as much cleaning up as my dust filled lungs after my year here in the desert.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Inspired to Ride, and NOT to Ride

In the last couple of weeks, my main riding buddy has pushed me to go faster in a couple of ways. He has his own bike here, a mountain bike with 21 speeds. He has full off-road tires, so the advantage of having gears is balanced by the rolling resistance of his tires. Last week he wanted to do sprints. We did several hundred-meter sprints on the back side of the ten-mile loop. I have a mild dust-induced throat infection, but had a great time. Yesterday he rode in the morning and was having trouble maintaining speed, so he suggested I take the half-mile-longer road near the IED training area and he would go straight past the air strip. The idea was I would catch up to him just before main post. Well he was feeling bad and I was feeling good so I caught him sooner, but that two miles gave me the exhilaration of the chase. He is going to be here toll April, so I should have someone to ride with three days a week for the rest of the tour.

Before the other story, a milestones update:
As of today I have ridden almost 4000 miles this year including 2100 miles here in Iraq.
I don't have an exact number here, but I am now over 150,000 miles since I started riding seriously in 1986, the year I quit smoking. Of those miles, 75,000 are since January 1, 2000. If I go back to racing there is a good chance I will increase my total miles to 200,000 miles within the next 7 years.

In our brigade is a young medical officer who rides an exercise bike incessantly. I asked her if she ever thought about riding on the road. She said she did, but that it is dangerous. I suggested riding here because bases are so much better than civilian life. She said she had thought about it, but then one day she was riding the bus and the bus pulled out in front of a bike and almost hit the bike.

At least that was the view from inside the bus. I was the rider on the bike. From my perspective, about half the bus drivers are South Asians who come from cultures with no tradition of chivalry. The traffic laws follow Darwin's rules. The bigger vehicle has the right of way. Bikes yield to everything. I dealt with this all over Asia. Here on base the bus drivers know if they hit a guy with ARMY across his chest they are gone and lose their job. But their instinct is to pull out in from of the little vehicle. So when they do it, I just keep pedaling. They back off, cursing me in whatever language they speak. But the more I do it, the less I have to do it. They get the idea that this is not Mumbai or Bangkok and buses do not have absolute right of way over bikes.

But from inside the bus looking down on the guy who is getting closer to the bus every second until the driver backs off, it looks scary. I did not try to explain anything to her or admit I was the guy. I just said that an exercise bike is fine for aerobic fitness.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

A No-Wind Situation

For the last few days the wind died out almost completely here at Tallil Ali Air Base. The good news is I can ride the perimeter of the base faster than usual because I can ride a fairly steady speed slowing only for the across-the-road ditches, missing stretches of pavement and stop signs. Here as on every base it is AWESOME to ride where people can lose their jobs over their driving. But it means I have to obey the law also (Jan and Scott: No kidding. I stop for stop signs!!) So I circled the 10.2-mile perimeter road in 33:52 on the 29er and 31:40 on the Trek. I also did the 15k (9.3-mile) route in 29:11. These are as fast as I have ever gone around post. At first I was thinking 'Not even 20mph, I must be falling apart!' But with bad roads and single speed bikes I do have a disadvantage.

The bad news is that no wind causes two odd effects that have left me with a nasty sore throat and hacking cough. The first is that when there is no wind the dust rises from the ground near dust. It's weird. I was half-way around and going fast so I did not quit but sucked a lot of dust into my lungs. Now I am paying for it. The second problem is the burn pit. When the wind is out of the west, the toxic fumes from burning all of our throw-away utensils drifts away to the East on the usual West wind. Yesterday as I finished the lap a light breeze form the East blew the smoke from the raging fire in the burn pit across the base--and a across the road I ride on. Nothing like ending the day with polyethylene smoke!!

Even though the wind makes me struggle to ride 7mph when it howls out of the west at 30mph, I suppose it will be better to have the wind. It will also help with the temp. Today at lunch time it was 133 degrees (56 Celcius). And with no wind at night it is almost 90 degrees before dawn.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

New Camera -- My Photos On Line


One of the benefits of the Public Affairs work I do for the battalion and brigade is they gave me a very cool camera. It's a Nikon D200 DSLR with a NIKKOR 18-200mm zoom lens. With this camera, I am shooting pictures of soldiers at work and writing 1-3 paragraph extended captions to go with the photos. The story/photo is then published on an armed forces web site so local newspapers can download photos/stories of soldiers in their area. It is a public access site, just click here. You will see a dozen photos with captions posted yesterday. There should be many more in the coming months.

Friday, August 21, 2009

My Job and Envy

CS Lewis wrote in many places that the trouble with writing about the Devil, in his book the Screwtape Letters, was that thinking too much about the Devil hurt his own spiritual life. So I have been writing about envy a lot lately concerning the on-line article about our brigade and have been seeing how much envy is in my own life.

First, let me make clear that all the fuss I made about my job here had no real outcome. I thought one of the good things about a year on active duty would be I would lead some kind of Simple Life. I would have a job. I would do that job and leave it when I was done. As it turns out, I have a primary job as a squad leader and as Sergeant Tool Bitch in the motor pool, but when they are done, I am also the battalion public affairs sergeant, the PA sergeant for our company, I put together the newsletter, and have a couple of other additional duties. Beginning recently, I do the newsletter and some of my other work during motor pool hours. No Simple Life for me.

Which brings me to Envy. Our brigade is primarily two battalions. The guy who does the PA work for the other battalion does not have another job. He just writes and takes pictures. And every time I have seen him lately he is driving an SUV. So he only goes to the motor pool when his air-conditioned vehicle needs service. I am seriously envious of him.

And I am also the subject of envy. Since I became militant about doing my PA work at least partially during duty hours, I have been in air conditioning working on the newsletter or battalion PA work when my fellow motor pool soldiers are out in the sun. And this week has been particularly hot because the wind has died down. So they think I am doing nothing because I am working partially inside.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Life, Bladders and Scheduling

As the father of three girls, all of you who have kids, or have been a kid, or known a kid, know I had one kid who had the bladder capacity of a squirrel. That child was my youngest daughter. When she was potty trained, I was sad--at least at the prospect of driving places more than three miles away. Because she would inevitably need a pit stop. Trips to see grandmothers in Massachusetts and upstate New York meant at least three bathroom stops. Actually, I didn't mind because I like to drink coffee when I drive a long distance, and so I had an excuse to stop.

Now that I am in my mid-50s I have to go to bed late and wake up early to avoid stumbling across 200 yards of gravel in the middle of the night to the latrine. Lately, I have been staying up till almost midnight and getting up at 0445, so even at my age I can sleep through the night. Even so, when I wake up, I do a fast stretch for the bone spur in my heel then limp quickly across the gravel to the latrine.

My roommate, on the other hand, is the opposite of my youngest daughter and I. He can wake up, get dressed, brush his teeth outside our CHU, walk to the bus stop 1/3 of a mile away, ride two miles to the motor pool, step off the bus and then use the latrine at the motor pool. Amazing. By that time, I would be in tears or in a puddle, or both.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Newsletter, One More Comment on the Patriot-News Article

For the last few days I have been working in earnest on the company newsletter. This will be the third issue of five, maybe six, we will send to the soldiers and (hopefully) the families of soldiers in this unit. If you want a copy of either of the previous newsletters or the one I am working on now, email me at ngussman@gmail.com. This issue is mostly about the half of Echo Company that does refueling--the company I am in is about half refuelers for helicopters, half vehicle maintenance, plus a few cooks, supply and administrative soldiers.

The comments have stopped on the Pennlive article, but I was emailing a friend and it reminded of on big difference between training for the Cold War in the 1970s and our current situation in Iraq: We are six months into this deployment and have not lost ONE soldier. Back in the 70s we had a joint NATO exercise called REFORGER. About 150,000 NATO troops would manouver on the East-West German border. My recollection is 30-50 soldiers died during each REFORGER. A lot of it was jeep rollovers. No seatbelts back then in tactical vehicle. Two infantrymen attached to our unit in 77 crawled under an M-88 tank recovery vehicle to sleep and keep warm. They were crushed in their sleeping bags when the 57-ton vehicle moved on an alert order.

We'll most likely all go home alive and those guys are worried about who has longer work hours or better chow. Dante puts Envy deep in Hell.
That's why.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Response to Army Morality


B52 BOMBER TAKING OFF

I received this email from a Viet Nam vet writing the moral dimension of his war. I thought you would like it as much as I did:

We deployed as a unit in the Summer of 1968: A B-52 Bomb Squadron, a KC-135 Air Refueling Squadron and various maintenance and support units and personnel. The B-52's were based in Guam with a detachment in Thailand. The KC-135's were based in Okinawa with detachments in Thailand and Taiwan. Both Guam and Okinawa had large populations of resident US citizens (round eyes), AKA "American League," and open access via commercial airlines for more. Thailand and Taiwan were vibrant economic cultures with lots of ways and places to spend money and meet members of the indigenous opposite sex, AKA "National League." The atmosphere in all these places was Fly and Party. You were doing either one or the other. A phenomenon developed in which guys were writing home, saying in effect, "I'm being good, but guess what Joe did!" It's no surprise that Joe's wife soon got a full briefing.

As it turned out, the same sort of thing was happening back home. The wives left behind were partying too, encouraged by flocks of party animals flying in on weekend cross-country "training" flights to bases where the cats were away and the mice were ready to play. I personally began receiving anonymous letters keeping me up to date on my wife's activities and upon whose couch my 4 year-old daughter had spent the night.

When we returned home after six months the divorces began. In all, among just the flight crews and the flight line maintenance troops there were 40 divorces. For some of these guys it was a second divorce, the first having occurred at a different base after a similar deployment. My marriage began to disintegrate during the interim before the next deployment.

In the Summer of 1969, we did it again. This time before we departed the Chaplain included in his "God be with You" briefing,remarks to the effect that we were not our brothers' keepers; it was not up to us to write home and chronicle the misbehaviors of our friends. When we returned from this second deployment the unit was taken out of the line for upgrade to a new aircraft, the FB-111, AKA MacNamara's Folly. The effect of the second deployment on crew force matrimony was diffused by hundreds of personnel reassignments.

There is one funny story worth relating. In 1968, a major typhoon (hurricane) blasted through the western Pacific. The island of Guam, home for dozens or even hundreds of B-52's was threatened. A sanctuary had to be found for them all. International negotiations were conducted at the State Department level to assure governments, such as China and North Korea, that this was strictly a matter of safety, not aggression. So, in due time a flock of B-52's arrived at our KC-135 base in Taiwan and the crews were billeted at the largest hotel in the nearby city of Taichung. Whoever made the arrangements was unaware that the hotel was a notorious brothel. I'll leave the rest of the story to your imagination. Such is the fog of war.


Monday, August 17, 2009

Winter is Almost Here!!!

Last Wednesday I woke up at 0530 and checked the temp on the bike. It was 79 degrees. The first time I had seen a temp below 80 since I have been in this country. By 0700 it was already 91 degrees, but at least it was below 80 for a few minutes.

This morning it was 79 degrees at 0630. I didn't check at 0530, it could have been 77!! And the high temps are lower also. Today, I rode to the south side of the base at 0930 and it was only 112--I was carrying a 20-pound pack and my weapon and wearing my uniform with long sleeves so you needn't worry. I stayed warm. In the afternoon around 2pm I rode back. It was 122. Two weeks ago it would have been 129. By 5pm is was down to 117 and by 6pm it was 112. Right now it is below 100. I have heard it gets cold here in January. I'll wait and see.

In other drama, a friend of mine wrote last night to say that there were two openings for door gunners and I should apply immediately before the openings were public. In the morning I talked to another well-informed member of that company and heard the slots were actually filled but the names weren't public. Oh well. It would be a lot of fun to fly, but it really is too late now. So I will continue to work in the motor pool and my various additional duties. This week I will be working to write the company newsletter by Monday. The commander wants it to be distributed by the end of the month and my stateside production editor says I have to send it early next week to get it done by the end of the month.

For this week we are reporting to work at 0600 instead of 0700 so I should get to sleep soon.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Comments on the Comments

My last several meals in the DFAC, the topic of conversation has been
the article on Pennlive.com about our brigade and all the negative
comments on it. I got an email from a friend who has never been in
the military that sums up the feelings of many people here:

"Those people are bitter and have absolutely no shame about
airing dirty laundry. Those are some seriously detailed comments and a
lot of insubordination. I think the whiners are the "kids" in their
20s who have grown up with Facebook and Twitter, where you just post
before you think. I couldn't get past reading five posts, because all
of it basically said the same thing. It's like the snowball effect for
complaining. Once someone starts, it becomes an avalanche of 'I have
it worse than you do'."


A friend from Europe said, "Apparently they are Americans first and soldiers second. Individual freedom is some kind of demi-god in America and an excuse for a lot of bad behavior."

On the good side, the comments are starting to swing back toward, "Shut up."

And life goes on here. I was in a maintenance hangar a few nights ago after a very proud platoon sergeant left a note saying her soldiers would be removing and servicing the drive train of a Blackhawk helicopter and also removing and inspecting the engines from a Chinook helicopter. She was right. Soldiers were over, under and around those helicopter power trains. I got some good pictures despite the weird lighting in the maintenance hangar.

Despite the impression those comments give, there are a lot of soldiers working their butts off here in Tallil and at the other sites where our brigade is stationed. And even the people who have it relatively good are still here wearing long sleeves and carrying a weapon when the temp climbs near or over 130 F at Noon.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Artist's Revenge

All the years I worked at Godfrey Advertising in Lancaster I saw how frustrated artists would get when their clear, coherent designs came back from clients. Sometimes modified, sometimes all but ruined, almost always worse. Because it takes good taste to evaluate art, but clients usually just had money.

We must wear either ACU fatigues or PT uniforms. The one caveat is that we are allowed to wear a unit PT shirt. So one of the three members of our unit with artistic ability volunteered to design the t-shirt. He clearly drew the short straw. A woman in my squad designed the coin that our commander and first sergeant present for people who go beyond the norm. She was designing just for the command staff. The t-shirt will be worn by everyone. So when the design was complete, not just a pencil concept, the artist began to get lots of advice from people who outranked him.

The t-shirt falls under my control to some extent because I am the Morale, Welfare and Recreation NCO. So for $800 I got to do something I never could do at an ad agency. I told the specialist who was getting buried with advice that I would front the money for the first order and to go ahead with the design as is. We are only getting enough t-shirts for half the company with the initial order, so I am sure I will get my money back--hopefully in time to pay the credit card bill. But if not, I still got to move the process along and leave the artwork the way it was designed rather than let a committee change it. In three weeks or so we will be stylish at PT.

Canvassing Shows Just How Multicultural South Central Pennsylvania Neighborhoods Are

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