Great Book by Brit Chinook Pilot

I wrote a review for Books and Culture of Sweating the Metal by Alex Duncan, Chinook Pilot in Afghanistan:

NEIL GUSSMAN

Sweating the Metal

Happy 50th Anniversary to the Chinook helicopter.

Happy 50th Anniversary to the Chinook helicopter! This month, the huge, twin-rotor aircraft capable of carrying 40 soldiers and tons of cargo marks 50 years of service in the US military and in the air forces of more than two dozen other nations.

In 2011, the Chinook was in the news around the world. On May 2, the Chinook helicopter on the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden extracted the Navy Seal team as well as the crew of the ill-fated Blackhawk that crashed on landing at the Bin Laden compound. Bin Laden's body left Pakistan on the Chinook. The Chinook's size made it possible to complete the mission when the primary Blackhawk was down.

In August, that same colossal size (a full 99 feet from the front of the forward rotor to the back of the aft rotor) made a Chinook a big enough target that a single Taliban gunner with a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) could bring the copter down. More than 30 Navy SEALs, Afghan commandos, and crewmembers were onboard for a night mission. All were killed.

But neither of these incidents is typical of the tough-under-fire utility of this hulking helicopter. For a rousing description of flying a Chinook in combat, look no further than Sweating the Metal by Chinook pilot Alex Duncan. Written at a breathless pace, the book shifts easily from technical descriptions of aircraft and procedures to clipped dialogue and action-packed combat narrative.

Although Duncan never goes three pages without using the f-word, he does spare his audience transcription of the speech of British soldiers. Both when I served in Germany in the 1970s and in Iraq in 2009, I trained with British troops. Their ability to cram properly pronounced foul language into every sentence surprised even the most foul-mouthed American soldiers.

A British sergeant leading an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) briefing in Iraq pronounced the "ing" clearly when using the f-word as a verbal adjective for each of the 30 IEDs he showed us. Duncan uses the f-word five times in one three-line paragraph to convey the alarm of one of his crewmembers who landed under fire in the wrong place, but for the most part he limits himself to a few per page. When I try to describe life in the army, particularly the 77-man tent I lived in for three weeks in Kuwait, I find it is a tricky balance to convey the profane speech without coming near transcription. Duncan does a good f-ing job.

Another balance Duncan tries to strike on every page describing combat is the use of acronyms. Soldiers in general and aircrew in particular have an opaque language of acronyms that is real speech to them. I currently serve in a Combat Aviation Brigade, and I find pilot jargon beyond incomprehensible when they speak to each other. Readers who have never flown in a military aircraft will be turning repeatedly to the seven-page glossary at the end of the book. Since some of Duncan's jargon is peculiar to the RAF, I found myself looking up LCJ (Load Carrying Jacket), CAS (Chief of Air Staff or Close Air Support depending on context), and a few others.

Duncan writes in the first person. So, when he is angry the reader can feel the warm temperature of the page. In Chapter 14 (of 40), he talks about waiting for a seat on a flight home. This is one of the chapters with high f-word density, including spelling out the acronym REMF. I will leave it to the reader to look on page 105 or Google it. The chapter is about the hassles of combat soldiers when they are marooned on a large base with non-combat soldiers.

The dispute dates back at least as far as the era of King David, who is recorded in Scripture as commanding that those who guard the baggage get a share of the spoils along with the frontline troops. Duncan clearly would cut the REMFs out of the distribution of any benefits. Yet he makes clear in this chapter that the soldiers he disparages live through daily mortar and rocket attacks, eat dust, and regularly deal with the contempt of people like him.

Many of the missions Duncan flies are what the US Army would call MEDEVAC. The Brits have their own acronyms. Several chapters describe rescuing wounded soldiers under direct fire. I read one of these chapters to my 12-year-old sons. They were caught up in the excitement, but it was a lot of work for me translating those acronyms into something the boys could understand, not to mention bowdlerizing the text and substituting exclamations.

When Duncan mentioned weapons, the boys' questions led me into a ten-minute digression on the M60 machine gun mounted on the Chinook's tail ramp and the miniguns mounted in the doors. They were so excited with what tracers are and how they look when they arc to the ground that we barely got back to the story. They especially liked the British nickname for the 3000-round-per-minute miniguns: Crowd Pleasers, the Brits call them. The next night we went back to Tom Sawyer.

Duncan is very good at technical explanations. Little by little, the reader learns technical details of the controls and instruments of the Chinook helicopter. Page 135, for example, features an excellent description of Night Vision Goggles (always called NVGs by the crews). We also learn chapter-by-chapter about life at home in Britain as well as on the big base at Kandahar and on the forward bases. One cumulative effect of Duncan's descriptions was to make me jealous of British deployment. Tours for US soldiers are one year long. British flight crews spend two months in country. Ground troops, six months.

In the course of the story, the reader gets a sense of how pervasive American popular culture is in the life of British soldiers—and really for all English-speaking soldiers. He says "Let's get out of Dodge" over the intercom, knowing the crew will understand his intent. Same with "Captain Obvious" and many other references to American movies, American songs, and so on, no doubt including some that I am too old to recognize.

And speaking of popular culture, Duncan mentions the DVDs that are everyone's favorite at their base on Camp Bastion: The HBO Series Band of Brothers. Soldiers can be as cynical about war films as doctors are about hospital dramas, but I have never heard a bad word about Band of Brothers. The men I served with in Iraq and Duncan's mates all at some level want to follow Major Dick Winters from Normandy to Berchtesgaden in World War II.

While these descriptions gave me a real feeling for Duncan's life, they helped to make the book too long. The climactic scene when Duncan's Chinook is hit by an RPG begins almost 220 pages into this 300-page book. If the book were shorter by a third, tightened by a ruthless editor, it would be even better.

That said, I would happily recommend Sweating the Metal to anyone who wants to get a good sense of the war in Afghanistan and what it's like to fly the biggest helicopter in the Army inventory.

Neil Gussman is communications manager at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. He blogs atarmynow.blogspot.com.

NASCAR at my Day Job

Sometimes I post on the blog where I work.  This time about NASCAR and Octane.

And while I was looking up something else, I saw this: radio interview just for those of us who are well past the age to join AARP.

Amazing Race

My sister is a personal trainer living in the Boston Area.  She thinks that the two of us should try to compete in The Amazing Race which begins a new season tonight.  I haven't ever seen the show, but will watch tonight's episode.  If any of you are fans, let me know what you think.

Happy 50th Birthday Chinook! Flood Rescue Videos

Happy Birthday Chinook!!  The big helicopters mark 50 years of service today.
You can follow links from my battalion's Facebook page if you want to know more.

Scroll down and you can watch videos of our helicopters rescuing flood victims two weeks ago.

By the way, if you have not LIKEd our page yet, please do so, and send the link to your friends.  I post all the pictures from drill weekends on the battalion page and my page.

In Iraq, a very funny soldier who hated wearing PT belts on base created a PT Belt fan page that has more than 16,000 fans.   

Firing the M203 Grenade Launcher

Continuing with my Heaven in Camo weekend, this morning I got to fire a half dozen rounds from an M203 Grenade Launcher--the standard grenade launcher for all army units.  M203 is the designation for the entire weapon. The grenade launcher itself is the 12-inch tube underneath the barrel of the rifle  or carbine it is attached to.

The weapon fires 40mm grenades and loads like a shotgun.  We fired dummy rounds.  The live rounds are high explosive and have a kill radius of 5 meters so you don't have to make a direct hit to be effective.

300 on the Fitness Test!!

I got the maximum score on today's Annual Physical Fitness Test:  300!  55 pushups and 80 situps in two minutes each and 22 minutes to ride 10k on the bike.  The bike is pass/fail.  I had 28 minutes to pass.  The last five times I took the test I scored between 288 and 297.  It was great to finally get 300.  If you are wondering how I could ride the bike--above age 55 I get my choice of running, walking, or riding.  Once I got the max score on the other two events, I did not want to mess up like last time and run 20 seconds too slow and miss 300.

For the rest of the day, I took pictures of a blackhawk and a chinook picking up Officer Candidates School trainees and went to the battalion picnic with Nigel and Jacari.  After that I talked to a couple of friends at the armory and rode 30 miles.

Life doesn't get much better than that!

PT Test and Picnic This Saturday

The first day of drill this weekend begins with the annual Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) in the morning, then the battalion picnic in the afternoon.  My sons are going to the picnic.  They will spend the morning at Jacari's former foster Mom, who lives six miles from Fort Indiantown Gap.

I have a lot of wonderful days in my life, but a day that includes working out, riding my bike, competing, eating grilled meat, hanging out with the boys--life doesn't get much better than that!

Except next month when will have a three-day drill and get to fire rifles and maybe machine guns.

When SFC Larry Christman said, "Gussman thinks all this training is an amusement park" he had my number.

My Commander in the New York Times

LTC Joel Allmandinger in the New York Times

Another Warning Order--and NASCAR Tickets

Flooding across eastern Pennsylvania is bad enough that I got another warning order about activating the Guard for flood control.  What a mess!!!  They evacuated Wilkes-Barre today.  Rivers are cresting way above flood stage all across the mid state.

On the plus side, if I don't get activated my oldest daughter got me and my sons tickets for the Richmond NASCAR race.  Richmond is arguably one of the best tracks on the circuit:  short, fast, wide enough for passing.  I hope we get to go!

On WGAL TV Last Night

In a series about 9-11, the producer wanted someone who served during Viet Nam and in Iraq.  It's a still-photo montage.  Nicely done.  Video here.

Writing About Presidential Candidates at Work

I occasionally write for a blog at work called Periodic Tabloid about the history of science.  Today's post is about how very modern the views of many Republican candidates can be.

I Went to a Movie!!!

Ok.  Not a big deal for most of you, but the second to last time I was in a movie theater was in 2005 to watch "The Devil Wears Prada" with my whole family.  Meryl Streep is as mean as two buckets of rattlesnakes in that movie.  It was a lot of fun.

I also remember the last two movies I saw, though I could not watch the second one to the end.  When I deployed, my roommates insisted that I had to watch "Full Metal Jacket."  I liked it a lot more than I thought I would because the guy who went crazy in basic training was Vincent D'Onofrio, later the star of "Law and Order: Criminal Intent."  The other movie they wanted me to see was "300."  They thought I would like it because it was historical.  It was horrible.  It was the battle of Thermopylae made into a cartoon.

The last time I was in a movie theater was to see "Restrepo" with a friend who just returned from Afghanistan--and was on the way back.  This documentary of life at the worst outpost in Afghanistan kept me staring at the screen.

The movie I saw yesterday was "Senna" the story of three-time Formula One World Champion (1988, 1990, 1991) driver Ayrton Senna da Silva.  I took my sons Nigel (Named after 1992 World Champion Nigel Mansell) and Jacari to the movie at the Bourse Theater in Philadelphia.  Since I did not read about the movie in advance, I did not realize half of it would be subtitled.  Senna is Brazilian.  His main rival, Alain Prost is French.  The boys can't read fast enough to follow subtitles, but there was a lot of historic car racing footage so they could enjoy at least half of the movie. And since this the second time I have been to a theater with Nigel (Devil Wears Prada) and the first with Jacari, they were fascinated with the whole idea of Dad in a theater.

They sat on either side of me in the third row, far in front of the other patrons.  And at the end they were both whipping their heads back and forth between me and the screen.  Senna died in the Imola race in a 170-mph crash.  I remember the race.  A rookie driver died in qualifying the day before.  It had been almost 10 years since a Formula One driver died in the car and Senna was, in most fans eyes, the best driver in the world at the time.  

When a car crashes, it is swarmed by the corner workers, the men and women who stand just behind the fences and wave flags, then run to crash sites.  Most times they workers are doing everything they can to get the driver out of the car.  And you see the swarm just after the crash with the camera at track level.  then they switch scenes and show the car from the helicopter a moment later.  Instead of the swarm, they showed a half-dozen corner workers six feet from the car with their backs toward the stricken machine.

When the corner workers do that, the driver is dead.  I started to tell the boys thats what the corner workers body language meant, but instead, I started to cry.  The boys had never seen that either.  They started to cry.   The movie ended a few minutes later.  They were Ok.  I wanted some time to think.  so I told the boys to double knot their sneakers we ere going running.  We ran back and forth across the Ben Franklin Bridge--1.5 miles each way across the bridge and a half-mile back and forth to the bridge.

Should you see the movie?  Only if you are a racing fan.

Speaking of the boys, I am starting a new blog today.  My wife and I are driving to State College to talk to the social worker of a boy who may be our next adopted child.  The blog is Adoptive Dad.  Just as the Senna movie is mostly interesting for race fans, this new blog is mostly for parents I would assume.

I'm SHRINKING at Gap

Tonight after we left the Apple Store, I went three stores down in the Park City Mall and got a new pair of Gap Boot Cut Jeans.  The jeans I currently own are Gap Boot Cut Jeans size 34-34.  

I tried on a new pair of the same size.  They were huge.  I bought size 32-34.  They fit fine.  Did my waist shrink two inches in the five years since I bought the last pair?  Not likely, I weigh 4 or 5 pounds less, but that's not two inches of waist size.  

It turns out Gap has joined every other retailer in shrinking putting smaller size labels on larger clothes.  So the 32 waist jeans I bought today are about the same fit as the 34s I bought in 2006.  We live in a fat country.  Maybe in 2016 I will buy 30-34 jeans.

Writing Checks

My wife pays all the bills in our house, so I don't write checks.  I don't think I have written a check in a store in the last decade, certainly not in this millennium.  But I do look out for people who still write checks.  I live in Lancaster County PA, so people really do.  In grocery stores the best way to avoid a check writer is by going to the automated check out line.  No one who writes checks in public would be in that line.

Just now I am sitting in the Apple store waiting for my appointment with a Genius (the repair guys in the Apple store).  While waiting in the Apple line--seated at a stool with my laptop using their WiFi--I saw a guy at the Genius bar paying for something his teenage son got repaired.  The guy was writing a check!!  First time for everything.  I have never seen a check written in an Apple store.

Savage Hot Air

Tonight I couldn't sleep so I went to the gym.  The students are back in class, so the gym is open from 6 am to Midnight.  On the 0.7-mile drive to the gym I tuned to the "Savage Nation."  This talk show is at the extreme of bad taste in the world of talk radio.  In that two-minute trip Michael Savage (born Michael Weiner) said, "Whoever put the Navy SEALs on a slow Chinook helicopter that can't turn should be tried for murder."

Pathetic Asshole that he is, Weiner is not restrained by facts.  The Chinook is the fastest of the Army's four main helicopters:  the Blackhawk, Apache Longbow and the Kiowa.  As to its ability to turn, I have ridden in Chinooks both in the US and Iraq.  They can land in tiny Forward Operating Bases and take off spinning around in barely more than their own length.  Chinook pilots can fly their 60-foot aircraft (99 feet from blade tip to blade tip) 50 feet or less off the ground at 160 knots.  The Chinook is a great aircraft, but it is not rocket proof.  The loss of the SEALs, the air crew and other soldiers was a tragedy.  But if a dozen SEALs and four crewmen had been shot down in a Blackhawk would our nation have mourned less?

Like any right-wing talk show host, the 69-year-old Weiner spent the Viet Nam War accumulating degrees and deferments.  Had he paid attention to anything military when he was 19, he might have noticed the Army fielded a new helicopter in September of 1962--The CH-47 Chinook.  That helicopter celebrates its 50th anniversary in service this year.  Now in its sixth version, the F Model has been in service with the Army since 2007.  In July Bravo Company of my unit became the first Army National Guard unit equipped with the new helicopter.

We live in a country that allows Westboro Baptist Church members and ignorant fools like Savage Weiner to address the public.  Conventional wisdom says that is a good thing.  I must be too old to remember why this is good.

Get by with a Little Help from My Friends. . .

On Monday I called my high school classmate Marty Anderson.  We reconnected at the reunion after 40 years.  Marty works for Boeing in their Chinook helicopter assembly plant in Ridley Park (Philadelphia) PA.  Marty served for 30 years, much of that as a Chinook pilot and rose to the rank of Colonel.  There were not a lot of veterans in my Boston-area, Viet Nam-era high school class, but one made Navy Captain and one made Colonel, so that's pretty good for 12 kids out of 370.

Anyway, Marty offered to help me stay in part age 60 if there was anything he could do to help.  But it is beginning to look like I won't be staying into my geriatric years.  Next Tuesday, September 6, I am taking a day off from work with my wife to meet the social work of the next boy we may be adopting.  Actually, we are at the beginning stages of adopting two more 12-year-old boys.

On Tuesday we will meet the social worker for Emarion who currently lives with a foster family in the Erie area.  The other boy is named Wenky Pierre.  He lives in Haiti.  So I will have a small army of my own.  But I will definitely stay through May of 2013 when my current enlistment is up.

No Call for Irene

On Friday I received several emails about a possible need for volunteers if Irene turned out to be a bad storm.  It wasn't.  I never got a call.  It would have been exciting to get called up, but it is better for millions of my neighbors that there was no reason to call up additional National Guard soldiers.

Irene stopped trains along most of the Northeast Corridor so I will be working at home today.  We had no damage at all.  If you were in Irene's path, I hope you were just as fortunate.

Expertise is SO Entertaining

One of the very odd things about the current wave of populism sweeping America is the "I am as good/smart/whatever as anyone else" sentiment is the opposite of what soldiers really admire.  And calm expertise is what the civilian world admires about soldiers.

Navy SEALs were cheered and admired across America on May 2 when the news was confirmed that two quick shots ended the life of Osama Bin Laden.  Two months later when 21 Navy SEALs died in a Chinook shot down over Afghanistan a woman I worked with said, "What a waste.  All that training and they died like that."  I reminded her (gently) that the Chinook crew, the Afghan commandos and the other soldiers on board that ill-fated helicopter were a great loss their country and their families.  But I understood what she meant.  The SEALs are so clearly at the top of their game.

We all know what expertise looks like in sports.  It's Sam Fuld horizontal in the air catching a fly ball.  It's Barry Sanders eluding five tackles in as many seconds and looking like he could run full speed sideways.  I love expertise.  When I broke my neck I was lucky to have a great neurosurgeon be on call.  No one is a populist when they have cancer or heart disease.  The want the best surgeon, not one who is as good as anyone else.

I had an expertise moment when my wife and drove our sons to visit their aunt Francesca in Ithaca NY.  Annalisa reads aloud during car trips.  She started by finishing a book about the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi.  She then read Tom Sawyer till she noticed me getting bored listening to the explanations of the unfamiliar words in this book.

So she read the book Zen To Done by Leo Barauta.  Annalisa carries a Franklin Planner, really uses it and is one of the most organized people I have ever known.  She reads all kinds of self help books, but organizing and time management books are among her favorites.  Zen To Done borrows a lot from the very famous Getting Things Done management system, but also borrows from the Franklin Covey system.

I thought Annalisa would just read this very short book.  But she stopped on nearly every page to explain the shortcomings of what she considered a very thin and ill-conceived time management system.  The ZTD system is based on ten habits, which I would have accepted at face value, but Annalisa knew what was wrong with every one.  If I remember correctly, two were not really habits.  She was animated for much of the five-hour drive home reacting to the obvious (to her) flaws in the the ZTD system.

I only heard of the system because my friend Brother Timotheus in Darmstadt said he liked some of the book.

I love expertise and I love the expert I married.  I hope she decides to write her own time management book that really does meld the best of Getting Things Done and the Franklin Covey systems.  Because clearly ZTD does not own the field.

Different Reunions

Last year I went to the 70th Armor reunion, this year to my 40th high school reunion. I wrote about the reunion on the Stoneham High School Facebook page as follows:

The reunion was a wonderful event. Better than I could have hoped. Not just because Murrie, Chickie and the other organizers put together a great event, but because after 40 years I am finally old enough to appreciate what a great thing it is to reconnect across decades.
The first person I talked to at the pre-event mixer was Pat Daly. He told Frank Capuano and I just how tough his childhood was. I had no idea. The more important thing he said--if I can quote correctly--we were all fucked up in our own way. Which was very true for me.
Coming to this reunion let me see that I shared a very difficult part of my life with some really great people. We were trying to figure out who we were while the rest of our country was trying to figure out what kind of world we would live in.
For me, basic training was a relief from life as a teenager. Everyone in the military seemed to know what they were supposed to do.
I did not get to talk to even a quarter of you and hope to talk to all of you in future reunions or mini reunions. But for those I did get a chance to talk with--Mike Katz, Pat Daly, Mark West, Gary DePalma, Dottie Crocker, Beverly Smith and others, I got a chance to see how they got through the turmoil of teenage life in the 60s and early 70s and lived good lives. I also talked to some of the spouses brave enough to come to somebody else's reunion. Murrie's wife was delightful to talk with. Next event I will be their. Thanks again for a great evening.
Neil

I realized today that one big difference in the reunions is that the 70th Armor reunion was almost entirely officers. They remembered a different unit than the one that we sergeants served in. At my high school reunion, we were all enlisted--just trying to get though it.

I am very much looking forward to the next high school reunion, but I will pass on future 70th Armor reunions.

I would love to go to a reunion of all the enlisted men in Bravo Company, 70th Armor.

By the time anyone has a reunion of my current unit, I'll probably forget I went to Iraq.

Firing the MK 19 Grenade Launcher

During last drill Echo Company set up and ran the MK 19 range.  The weapon is a belt-fed, fully automatic grenade launcher, mounted on a tripod or on a vehicle.  In combat it fires 40mm high explosive rounds at a rate of more than 300 rounds per minute--although the actual rate is 60 rounds per minute when feeding new belts of ammo into the weapon.  It can fire effectively up to 2000 meters and put rounds on a point target at 1500 meters.

We fired the non-explosive training rounds on Range 36 at Fort Indiantown Gap.  The range looks down into a valley from up on a ridge.  All of the gunners had 32 rounds each and were able to put effective fire on vehicle targets at 500 meters.

The Viet Nam Vet from My High School Class

From Murrie Hubbard, USMC

I also belong to a FB group called "The Walking Dead", which is the nickname of my Marine Battalion from Vietnam and Okinawa during 1972-73. I just posted the below captioned in that group, as I knew my Marine Brothers would be honored to learn that they had been recognized at our 40th Reunion the other night. Thought I'd share it with you...

I graduated from Stoneham High School in Stoneham, MA in 1971. I had already been sworn into the Corps' 180 day delayed entry program in Boston, MA on New Year's Eve of 1970, and then left for P.I. 15 days after HS graduation. There were 364 graduates, only 12 of whom eventually became military veterans, and only 3 of us, to include 1 female, who became United States Marines. As you all of you ...know, very few wanted anything to do with going into the military at that time, and even fewer into the Marine Corps... And of the 12 veterans from my class, 8 were Vietnam Era veterans, and I ended up being the "ONLY" one of the 364 graduates from my HS class who actually spent some time within the designated Vietnam combat zone by that time, and that was off the coast of the DMZ in the Gulf Of Tonkin as part of two BLTs' 1/9 between 6/72 and 1/73. Anyway, the reason for this story is this: When my class recognized certain graduates for significant things at our 40th Class Renunion this past Saturday night, they recognized me for being the only Vietnam veteran in the class, and also told everyone in attendance the story about how The Walking Dead received it's nickname from Ho Chi Minh in the '60's, that the 1/9 had the most KIA's between '65-69 during Vietnam than any other single Marine Battalion in history, and that we were the last Marine battalion to leave the Gulf Of Tonkin just after the peace treaty was signed in Jan of '73. Needless to say, I was extremely proud and wanted to share this with everyone. Semper FI Brothers, Murrie

Class of 71 Reunion--Going Home

Last time I wrote was about going to my 40th high school reunion.  After driving all day Saturday from Lancaster PA I arrived in Stoneham MA.  I got a real Boston traffic welcome too.  Since it was Saturday, I decided to go through the city of Boston.  I drove through the infamous Big Dig on my way to Stoneham.  Just I left the city I saw I-93 was squeezed down to two lanes for a bridge replacement project.  

I got off the highway in  Medford thinking I could go through the two center to Stoneham.  Bad idea.  Medford was jammed with hundreds of cars with the same idea as I had.  Since I always have a bicycle with me, I stopped at a donut shop on route 38 and circled around in Medford until I found a good back road into Stoneham.  I arrived a half hour early so I parked at Robin Hood Elementary School (my elementary school!) and road around the streets in the area of Stoneham where I grew up.  

I went to the reunion with my best friend from High School, Frank Capuano, and his wife Diane.  They live in Stoneham.  Diane works in Stoneham,  Frank designs medical devices.  His current commute is to Rhode Island!!!  I know its not a long commute, it may be shorter than my 70-mile commute to Philadelphia.  But Frank commutes from the north side of Boston to Providence.  That's a long commute in Boston traffic.

I am at 300 words and haven't even gotten to the reunion yet.  Next post more reunion.

Class of 1971 Stoneham High School, Stoneham, Massachusetts

Here's the latest update from Murrie Hubbard on the service of my classmates.  Either or 11 or 12 of the 371 graduates in our class served.
Since my first enlistment was USAF, I guess I could be double counted in who served where.  It is interesting that we got all five branches with just 11 people.

As far as we know right now, we have a total of 11 military veterans from our class, and there could be a 12th (George Zanni), but I've never been able to confirm whether he really had served time in the Marines or not.  If any of you know anyone else who is a veteran, in addition to the below list, pls let me know before our reunion this coming Saturday.  

 

As you can see, the USAF was best represented by the Class Of 1971 (4), followed by the USMC, and we have served in all 5 branches of the military.  We have 3 designated war veterans, 2 retired high ranking officers, and at least 4 out of the 11 of us who have various types of service-connected disabilities.

 

1)   Murrie Hubbard, USMC, disabled, Vietnam war veteran

2)   Neil Gussman, USA, Iraq war veteran and Vietnam era veteran, still serving as well as seeking a tour in Afghanistan 

3)   Alan Jones, USAF, Iraq war veteran, still serving

4)   John Holmes, USCG, retired Captain and Iraq era veteran

5)   Marty Anderson, USA, retired Colonel and Iraq era veteran 

6)   Joanne LeFave, USMC, Vietnam era veteran

7)   Walter Carroll, USMC, Vietnam era veteran 

8)   Pete Lang, USN

9)   Richard Warren, USAF, retired/disabled, Vietnam era and Desert Storm era veteran

10) Dan Mahoney, USAF, retired/disabled, Vietnam era veteran

11) Michael Brown, USAF, retired/disabled, Vietnam era veteran, seriously injured and medically retired as a result of being involved in USAF plane crash around 1981   

 

Who Fights Our Wars: Contractor on the Way to Afghanistan

On the flight home from Kentucky yesterday, I was seated with a 27-year-old named Matt who was on his way to Afghanistan.  He will work in S-2, military intelligence, as a contractor.  This will be his third time serving in Afghanistan.  The first time he was a 19-year-old gunner on top of a Humvee.  At age 24 he had retrained and was in an intelligence unit in Afghanistan.  Now he was on his way back with no weapon and much higher pay.  I know he is not serving in the sense of being a soldier.  But IEDs don't discriminate and he will be working 12 hours a day, seven days a week in a very dangerous place.

Matt and I talked about flying long distances, hassles, chow, rockets, heat and dust.  We also talked about civilian jobs.  Matt lost his jobs when he came back both times.  The employers had been supportive and intended to keep his job, but they went out of business.  Like many soldiers, Matt is taking the contracting job because he will make more than $100,000 mostly tax free for the year he works in a war zone, and because he can't find a job that pays $20,000 back here.  Matt and his wife have no kids.  He is thinking of starting a business with the money he makes in the coming year.

When we landed in Charlotte, we each hurried off to connecting flights wishing each other well.  I hope his year goes well and his plans work out for him.  He went on inactive status with his National Guard unit.  If he returns to his unit and the war does not end, he will be back in Afghanistan as a soldier within a year after this tour.

40th High School Reunion in Two Weeks--2 Combat Vets in Class of 71

In two weeks I will be driving to Stoneham, Massachusetts, for my 40th High School Reunion.  One of the organizers is Murrie Hubbard.  He, Chickie Taylor, Tom and Diane Mayo and others worked to put the event together and track down many of our classmates.  In the course of getting reacquainted with many members of the class of '71, Murrie found out he and I were the only combate veterans of our class. Several others served.  Marty Anderson joined in 75 just after Viet Nam and rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army.  Mike Brown was a career Air Force sergeant.

But at age 18 Murrie Hubbard USMC went to Viet Nam.  On my 56th birthday, I stepped of the plane at Tallil Air Base, Iraq.  Funny that the only two veterans in our class served so far apart in space and time.

It's Murrie's birthday today.  Happy 58th birthday Murrie! See you soon.

Who Fights Our Wars: Staff Sergeant Jeremy Houck

At the good-bye dinner in late January 2009, the night before 2-104th board the planes to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, my family and I sat with Sgt. Jeremy Houck and his parents.  Jeremy sat with next to his Mom on one side and my daughter Lisa on the other.  Lisa was a senior in high school.  When we all had our food, Lisa had green beans, mashed potatoes (no gravy) and salad.  Jeremy loked at her plate and said, "Where's your dinner?"  Lisa told him she was a vegetarian and did not eat meat.  Jeremy said, "I am a carnivore.  I don't eat vegetables."  For much of the rest of dinner they made jokes about each other's eating habits.  During the deployment, Lisa sent me brownies, but included a protein brownie for Jeremy in one batch and a can of Spam in another.  Jeremy at the brownie and the Spam.

From training for the deployment in PA, through training in Oklahoma and Kuwait, to the deployment itself, Jeremy was out in front of all kinds of training.  He led PT at 0530 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in Oklahoma and was a convoy commander in Oklahoma and Kuwait.  He went down the rappel ropes as many times as he could and went over and and over in the Humvee rollover trainer.  He could help other soldiers with all kinds of basic skills.  His smoking kept him off the top of the PT score list, but he always scored high.  

When we got to Iraq, Jeremy was right at the center of a dispute that lasted the rest of the deployment.  He is an electrician with a degree in electrical engineering.  When we arrived in country Tallil was not ready for us.  Echo lost two maintenance squad leaders on the second day.  Jeremy went from maintenance squad leader to electrician.  He worked full time for the rest of the deployment getting power to maintenance hangars, operations centers and headquarters offices.  The motor pool wanted him back.  Jeremy was in the middle.  But he and the rebuild team did some great work across the base throughout the deployment.

Jeremy helped me personally more times than I can count.  In one particular instance, he kept me going when I was ready to quit.  Before deployment, Jeremy, Sgt. Kevin Bigelow and I were three of the first ten soldiers to go through the new Live Fire Shoot House at Fort Indiantown Gap.  This was in the fall of 2008, just a month before I had surgery to repair four ligaments in my right shoulder--left over damage from the big bike accident in 2007.  First day we had to fire and M4 on full auto with one hand.  I shoot right handed.  I was going to quit.  Jeremy convinced me I could do it.  He was right.  I made it through and had a lot more confidence going into the deployment because I finished that course.

Jeremy is in Afghanistan now.  He is with an engineer unit.  He volunteered almost as soon as we returned to America.  When he comes back Lisa and I will take him out to whatever kind of carnivore dinner he wants.

Who Fights Our Wars: Captain Bryson Meczywor

During the July drill weekend, Captain Bryson Meczywor passed command of Echo Company 2-104th to his long-time executive officer, First Lieutenant Brian Marquardt.  Meczywor assumed command of Echo in November of 2008 just as we were getting ready to deploy to Iraq.  He had just three months to get to know his soldiers in Echo in Pennsylvania before many new soldiers were added to our ranks at Fort Sill OK.  Meczywor interviewed every soldier under his command.

The commander who preceded Meczywor was older (not old like me, but almost 40!) had family and work problems and was not very involved with the unit.  Meczywor worked full time as a recruiter, was just 25 years old, had prior enlisted service in the artillery, and was all Army.  I don't think he scored less than 300 on the PT Test during the entire deployment.  He dove into everything Echo from his first day in command.

Echo Company maintains motor vehicles for the 2-104th Aviation Battalion, fuels the aircraft, cooks the food and, if necessary, provides ground security for the battalion.  From train up at Fort Sill beginning at the end January of 2009 to Annual Training in June of this year, Meczywor pushed Echo to do more than what the regulations require in every area.

In Iraq, the 110 or so men and women of Echo Company set up fueling operations in FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) covering about a quarter of the entire area of the country of Iraq.  Echo soldiers rotated in and out of Normandy, Riflestock, Garry Owen and other bases fueling every kind of aircraft that could land in their FOBs.  These 24/7 fueling operations were rocket and mortar targets--especially Garry Owen.  Meczywor flew all over Iraq and was on the ground with his soldiers wherever they were assigned.

Echo trained harder than any other company in weapons and security operations both in Fort Sill and in Kuwait.  We never were called on to provide convoy or perimeter security in Iraq, but Echo was ready.

The day before we left for Iraq, Meczywor told us we were being assigned to a different base in the south, not the base where we originally assigned.  This change would leave Meczywor in a terrible position for the first month of the deployment.  All of our equipment was 200 miles away from Tallil Air Base at Balad Air Base.  Meczywor went to Balad to get our equipment while we moved into a base without facilities for Army Aviation.  Higher headquarters took away some of the best Echo NCOs to rewire buildings, build and remodel facilities and get aircraft maintenance facilities in working order.  At the same time, Echo troops were setting up fueling operations Iraq.  He kept all of these operations going and then started over a month later when the motor pool, company headquarters and two of the fueling operations were moved.

Meczywor gave me my favorite extra duty of my army career in Fort Sill when he put me in charge of remedial PT (physical training).  For the time we were in Fort Sill, I was the sergeant in charge of fitness training for the 40 soldiers who flunked the fitness test when we first mobilized.  We got most of the soldiers who flunked at least to a passing score.  When I joined, I was worried I would have trouble keeping up physically.  Being in charge of remedial PT reminded me I could make it whenever I doubted myself.

It's hard to be a good leader without being an SOB.  As much as I respect Meczywor as a leader, we had our difficulties.  We butted heads when I moved to battalion headquarters in the middle of deployment. He didn't want me to go and made his feelings very clear.  It was a compliment of sorts.  He thought I was worth keeping in Echo or we would not have had a problem.

Our deployment was more drama than action, but I very much believe that if things had gone badly, Meczywor would have shown how good he and Echo really were.



 

Bear-ly Made Ride Down Gold Mine Road

After drill on Sunday, I rode up and down Gold Mine Road north of Fort Indiantown Gap.  The 5-mile climb has many challenges, but until today, they all had to do with the road itself.  Gold Mine Road is a left turn of Route 443 north of Lebanon.  As soon as you get on the road it drops steeply for about 30 feet, then starts the long climb up.

The first mile is mostly up, but has a couple of short descents and is mostly out in the sun.  Mile two is the beginning of the woods that line the road all the way to the top.  Mile two gets steeper until it is 17% just before the crest at two miles.  Then the road drops steeply down for a half mile.  Very steep.  The second time I rode down this stretch I hit 57mph.  Today I hit 54.  At the bottom of that drop, the road goes up for just under 2.5 miles to the Lebanon County line.

I rode up, turned around and flew back down.  In three minutes I was making the difficult climb up the steep half mile in the middle of the hill.  At the top I went straight down through the tight, steep right and left down to the edge of the woods.  When I went around the last turn and came out of the woods, I clamped on the brakes (at 40 mph) and pulled off the road.  A hundred yards in front of me was a big black bear on all fours stopped in the middle of the road.  He was facing across the road to the west, but stopped with the yellow line running under his belly.

He stayed where he was. I stayed where I was.

Then two cars came down the hill.  They slowed as they approached the bear, but didn't stop.  When the first car got very close, the bear ran into the trees on the west side of the road.  I turned around and rode back up the hill about 200 yards.  I wanted speed.  I turned around and pedaled hard to the spot where Mr. Bear ran into the woods.  I couldn't see him.  I kept going.  I know that I would lose in any encounter with a bear.

Last week they warned us about bears in Wyoming and I never saw one.  I didn't expect to see one in PA and there he was!

Back from Vacation

For the last week, I was in Jackson, Wyoming, with my in-laws on a family vacation.  Every year my father-in-law, Hall Crannell, arranges travel and lodging for 15 or more family members.  The Crannell family is a very frugal bunch--as evidenced by my wife's blog Miser-Mom.  We ate meals together every day, taking turns cooking dinner.  Hall cooked most of the breakfast meals, and lunch was leftovers and cold sandwiches.  I cooked hamburgers and hot dogs for my turn.  Other nights were salmon and stroganoff (a little weird I know--it was a request), pasta, and other fare for fifteen folks.

Now I am back to playing Army.  More tomorrow.

Counting Down

I realized today that I was paying more attention to the coverage of the space shuttle's last flight than I might have otherwise.  What I was listening to is the shuttle program expiration date.  I kept hoping that NASA would change its mind and extend the aging shuttle program another few years.

Obviously, I was thinking the same about the "Gussman in the Army" program that has an expiration date of 22 months from now.  I had so much fun at summer camp that I realized the next summer camp is my last one--unless I get a waiver to serve over age 60.  I will age out in May 2013.  If summer camp in 2013 is actually in the summer, I will be out before it begins.

You might be thinking that I got in on waivers and I have many people who would support me staying in, but that was in 2007and early 2008 when enlistments were down, the economy was up and the Army needed more people.  Now the reverse is true and it is not likely to change in time for me.  The brigade command sergeant major told me about another CSM who tried for a waiver to go on a deployment that would put him over age 60 before the scheduled end of the deployment.  He took a general out to dinner to plead his case and did not get a waiver.

But I won't give up trying.  Who knows, maybe things will get better or worse in a way that will make one more old soldier necessary for the mission.

Flying Army

Today I got up and put on my uniform at 5am.  I did not have a drill weekend, I flew on vacation to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  This family vacation is an annual event paid for by my very generous father-in-law Hall Crannell.  He flies the whole family to a vacation spot for a week.  He has three daughters with families, so with the kids, he buys 15 - 17 tickets depending on the year and rents the vacation place.  This year is Jackson Hole.  I have missed a few for work reasons.  The best one I missed was in 2006:  a cruise to Alaska from Vancouver!!!!  

Anyway, I flew in uniform which may or may not be the right thing to do, but I haven't asked and no one told me I shouldn't do it.  The practical advantages are obvious.  We flew from Philadelphia.  My wife, my sons and I were whisked past the waiting line for the security checks to the scanners.

On the first flight, I was seated next to a master sergeant going to annual training.  He said when he was going to wear the uniform on the return flight.  He enlisted in 1977, five years after I did, but long enough back in history that he ate C-rations for years.  We both agreed that people who complain about MREs should have to eat C-rations.

There were a few open seats on the first flight, but the flight from Chicago to Jackson Hole was overbooked and I was the only one with a seat assignment.  We all got seats, but in different parts of the plane.  The boys sat together and got a 12-year-old girl as the third person on the row.  The three of them had a great trip.  My wife got a seat alone where she could read.

A few minutes after take-off on the trip to Jackson Hole, the flight attendant asked me why I didn't want to sit in first class.  I told her no one asked me.  So she moved me up to the front of the plane.  I had already eaten so when they served the first class lunch, I brought the sandwich back to the boys.  They can always eat a second lunch.

In 22 months I will be a civilian again unless I get some kind of waiver to stay longer.  No more flying in uniform after that.

Getting the TOC off the Ground

This group of shots shows the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) Troops getting the tent ready to raise the roof.

Raising the Roof of Operations

At the beginning of Annual Training the Operations Section (S-3) set up a full Tactical Operations Center (TOC) in a tent near the ranges at Fort Indiantown Gap.  Because the equipment inside the TOC includes classified material, I could not take pictures of the TOC in operation.  But in the next post I will show you pictures of the setting up the TOC tent.

Camo in the Metro

The Combat Aviation Battalion I drill with, like most line battalions is commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel and has fewer than two dozen commissioned officers (lieutenants, captains and majors).  Because we are an aviation unit, there are also a few dozen warrant officers.  From Sunday night until last night I was in Washington DC at the Biotechnology Industry Conference--a trade show for the the biotech industry.  I had several occasions to ride the Metro, the DC subway system.  Lots of officers ride the Metro from every branch of the US military.  I am sure I never saw an enlisted man of any branch.  I guess in the area of DC and northern Virginia, there are more officers than enlisted men.
I've been to DC many times.  I guess I did not pay attention to the rank of the uniformed subway riders before.

Next time I ride the Metro, I'll see if I can find at least one enlisted soldier.

Bike Update: Mike Zban Wins Brownstown

My friend and former coworker at Godfrey Advertising, Mike Zban, won the Brownstown Road Race yesterday.  Mike and I have been friends and riding buddies since he was hired at Godfrey not long after he graduated from college in the early nineties.  He is a strong member of the Lancaster Masters Racing Club Thru-It-All Body Shop.  Having a friend win a race is almost as good as winning itself.  Also in the race from Thru-It-All was Jan Felice another long-time friend.  Jan got knocked out of the race after for of the six 5-mile laps when another rider crashed in the turn and turned Jan rubber side up.  I was behind Jan when he crashed.  I did not crash but was off the road and could not catch back up to the main field.  I finished, but was was well back of the leaders at the end of the race.

Brownstown is a great traditional road race course and a big favorite for me.  Brownstown was the only USCF race I did in 2009--it was the race I rode in when I was home on leave.

On Sunday, I raced at the Emrick Blvd Criterium in Bethlehem PA.  The course was a smooth, fast, one-mile D-shaped loop.  Not quite flat, but a gentle uphill toward the finish and a slight downhill on the front side.  Nigel and Jacari came to the race and cheered for me on each of the 23 laps.  The race took just under an hour so they were yelling about every two minutes and fifteen seconds.  The also cheered for my five teammates in the race and for a owmen's masters race that ran simultaneously.  The boys stood on the side of the road with the family of one of the women in the race and cheered for her also.

Nigel and Jacari got to eat at Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds, so they liked the trip even with the 80-mile drive to the race.

I Love Cell Phones, Even When I am in the Hospital

AARP Bulletin has a story about why people are moving from voice to texting.  I tell why I still prefer the phone.

My Commander in Bicycling Magazine

The editor of Bicycling magazine wrote an article about a guy named Joel who put him in pain on a training ride.  The rider is LTC Joel Allmandinger, commander of 2-104th GASB.

I have been in the editor's position many times, just hanging on to a guy stronger than me.

Visit to Boeing Chinook Factory in Ridley Park

On Friday a large group from Fort Indiantown Gap toured the Boeing Chinook factory in Ridley Park near philadelphia.

Boeing Photographer Alan Chalfin took my picture while I was taking pictures of our tour group.

Army Ends Saturday, Race on Sunday

I got home just before 5pm on Saturday from two weeks of Annual Training.  At 8am Sunday, I started my first race in more than a month, a criterium held on the west side of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster--which meant the back side of the course was one block from my house.

The Father's Day race used to be held at Greenfield Industrial Park on the east side of Lancaster, but after 20 years, the Park owners decided it was time for the racers to get  new venue.

Criteriums are my favorite kind of race--not that I am good at them, but they are a lot of fun for an ex motorcycle rider who loves fast corners.  The 0.8-mile course was a one-block-wide, three-block-long rectangle that is downhill on the backstretch and uphill on the front.  The start-finish line is near the top of the hill.  In just 20 miles we made 100 right turns.  From the uphill start-finish line, the first turn is slow, the second is faster, the third is fastest of all and the fourth starts uphill and is a slower.

Eleven laps into the race I was dropping off the back of the pack.  I would have quit if three of my kids were not cheering their lungs out.  Lisa, Nigel and Jacari were yelling "Go Dad!"  over and over each time I went past.  As I passed them at lap 11 I made a big effort to catch the pack.  The pack slowed down into the first turn.  By the second turn I was back on and for the rest of the race, I stayed in by resting on the downhill.  I got extra rest by staying 10 meters behind the field as they entered turn three either side of 30 mph.  They slowed entering the turn and stayed on the right side of the road.  I did not slow down and went to the left side of the road.  I would pass four or five riders every time.  A couple of times I passed ten.  As a result, I was mid pack up the hill.  I could lose ten places and still be in the pack down the other side.

On lap three the pack slowed so I went out front.  I had no other reason except to let my kids see Dad in front.  Jacari hadn't seen many races so he thought I would get some kind of prize for leading lap three.  Nigel and Lisa knew that leading early means you are less likely to win.

It was a great Father's Day finishing with the pack and several of my teammates.

Review of The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens

Here's a link to my review of the book in Books and Culture:
http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/2011/june/gussaman060811.html?paging=off

Or text here:

The Heart and the Fist

Humanitarian + Navy SEAL: no contradiction.

A week after Navy SEAL Team 6 killed Osama Bin Laden in a walled compound in Afghanistan, three books on Navy SEALs were listed among the Top 20 sellers on Amazon.com. Among them was The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL, by Eric Greitens (rhymes with "brightens").

Greitens' book is a memoir, currently a suspect genre. But military memoir is among the most reliable forms of the life-remembered story. Soldiers can tell horrendous tall tales, but the military keeps good records, and—as the 2004 presidential campaign showed—military exaggerations outside the barracks can provoke a rapid response.

The Greitens story begins with an ordinary boy obsessed with going to college. We are shown a few bumps on the road to Duke University, but college suits his natural curiosity. Then the story veers out of the experience of nearly every reader I could imagine. A Duke University sophomore from middle America drives to an urban boxing gym in Durham and starts doing pushups and sit-ups until he figures out what to do next. Within two weeks he has a trainer and spends the next three years working toward a Golden Glove tournament.

Wow!!!

Did I mention he earned a Rhodes Scholarship during the period he was hanging out in an inner city gym? If you were thinking Greitens took summers to rest with friends or family, at age 20 he spent the summer caring for refugees in Bosnia during the period of some of the worst ethnic cleansing. The next summer he was in Rwanda and Zaire caring for refugees of the genocide that claimed at least a half-million people. Although he would not become a SEAL for years after his experience in Rwanda, in the chapter on Rwanda Greitens tells the reader why he went from aid worker to combatant:

The international community had watched the genocide in Rwanda without lifting a finger. Ultimately, it had taken a military victory …[—]a Tutsi army that swept down from Uganda—to bring an end to the killing. We should have sent military assistance, maybe even U.S. Marines. Instead, too late, we sent money and food.

[W]e live in a world marked by violence, and if we want to protect others, we sometimes have to be willing to fight. We all understand at the most basic level that caring requires strength as well as compassion.

While earning a PhD at Oxford, Greitens worked with genocide victims in Bosnia and met Mother Teresa. Along the way he decided that humanitarian work needs protection, so at 26 he turned down a lucrative consulting career, joined the US Navy, and became a SEAL.

The next year he was fighting in Fallujah. Greitens describes a suicide vehicle bomb attack that included chlorine gas. He survived the attack, got to a rooftop to defend his unit's position, then helped to rescue the wounded—in particular, a comrade who kept trying to put on his boots while he bled from a wound in the back of his head. I've been in that comrade's shoes, figuratively speaking. I once walked away from a missile test explosion peppered with shrapnel that would lead to six eye operations and reattaching two fingers. I knew my crew chief needed help and I knew nothing else. So I started walking the five miles across the desert to the base hospital and get help.

Although Greitens was gassed, he ran every day after the attack until the effects of the chlorine gas wore off many weeks later. Ran. After being gassed.

Did I say wow?

As I read about this amazing man, I thought about the amazing soldiers I served with during the Viet Nam War, in the Cold War, and in Iraq in 2009-10. And I thought about the not-so-amazing men and women I served with. I knew a few Rangers and Special Forces troops who could have been SEALs. But most of the soldiers I served with, even some of the best, would probably have rung the bell three times, signaling that they'd reached their limit, and gone for the coffee and doughnuts that temptingly await those who wash out of SEAL training. I know I would have.

Coincidentally, when I received this book for review, I had just finished a book on envy and was beginning to re-read Vergil's Aeneid. Reading Greitens' book, I could have repented of envy after every chapter. His story reminded me of Aeneas, Achilles, Odysseus, Hector, and the Seven Against Thebes. They were the élite warriors of their era. The Old Testament lovingly records David's Three and Thirty—the SEALs and Rangers of ancient Israel.

Then I thought about the thousands of soldiers each of those ancient heroes slew: the rest of the army. Reading The Aeneid, The Iliad, and the Book of Kings, it becomes clear that the role of most soldiers is to die at the hand of a champion or live to populate a new nation. Fall in battle or populate a village—all you have to do is stay clear of the champions and live through the war.

And that is my only quibble with this very well-told story: Greitens sweeps aside the heroism of all the lesser heroes of war. He writes, "I know—generally—whowon't make it through Hell Week (the toughest part of SEAL training). The weightlifting meatheads who think that the size of their biceps is an indication of their strength; they usually fail. The kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are; they usually fail." The list continues with preening leaders, me-first former athletes, blowhards, men who make excuses, talkers, and more—failures. Some of the best soldiers I ever served with were on this list.

Greitens says any 16 athletes can be trained to be killers, but that SEAL training, along with Army Ranger, Special Forces, and other élite training, gives these men the ability to use force with proportion. But with a few exceptions, American soldiers are the definition of proportional use of force when compared to any other army around the world and through most of recorded history.

I admire everything that Greitens is and all that he has accomplished. His book is a well-written memoir that shows just how good the best American soldiers really are, both with their hearts and their fists. But the rest of the military of the American military is, on the whole, a great fighting force.

Let me give one more example from my own experience. In 2009, I was stationed at Camp Adder in Iraq. The base commander was Colonel Peter Newell. In November 2004, Newell commanded the first battalion into the fight in Fallujah. He was among five soldiers who earned a Silver Star in that bloody day-and-night battle. The Army National Guard aviation unit at Camp Adder, the unit I served with, included an Illinois Blackhawk company that had flown for Newell in that 2004 battle. Newell's ground troops were regular Army, not élite units.

The Guardsmen were railroad engineers, aircraft mechanics, security guards, construction workers, and pilots in civilian life. They were up before the sun loading weapons getting ready to fly Newell's troops to the Iran-Iraq border. Sometimes they returned to the base wearing night vision goggles, then did post-flight maintenance under security lights before crawling into their bunks. In 2004, many of the same guys were flying into deadly fire in support of Newell's troops. As one Blackhawk pilot told me, "We flew 150 knots [airspeed], 50 feet off the deck [the ground], expending ammo on the 240s [door guns] laying down fire. That was flyin'." Between Fallujah in 2004 and deployment with us in 2009, he was one of the pilots for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

The men who wash out of SEAL training or never qualify for it in the first place are the warriors who perform dull and dangerous missions every day. King David of Israel kept the Three and the Thirty in the palace, but he called up the rest of the army when it was time to go to war.

Despite this one caveat, I am going to read The Heart and the Fist to my sons this year. They are 11 and 12. They should know how a great life is lived in the modern world, and I can think of no one I would rather have them emulate than Eric Greitens.

Neil Gussman is communications manager at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. He blogs atarmynow.blogspot.com.

Copyright © 2011 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

Land Navigation Training

Below are photos of a Cadet and a Specialist reporting to their company commander after successfully completing a land navigation course in the dense woods on the north end of Fort Indiantown Gap.  They were the first to finish, completing the course in 2 hours.  

While we were waiting for them to finish, I found out that the Warrior Leadership Course no longer includes land navigation and no longer makes the PT Test part of the grade for the course.

The change is recent.  I think it is stupid.  This course is supposed to train enlisted men and junior NCOs to be leaders.  Land Nav combines fitness with calculation and concentration.  The fitness test is an Army standard.  Even if Land Nav is no longer a skill in common use, it surely shows a lot abut the abilities of those who master it.  And the fitness test, leaders should be at the front, not be lagging.

OK  Done bitching like and old guy.

Combat Life Saver Training -- "Victims"

Combat Life Saver training puts a squad of soldiers in a realistic setting with victims both unconscious and screaming for help.  The soldiers have to treat the victims and get them out of harm's way.  Here are some of the "victims" at a CLS training site. 

Soldiers on their first flight

Pictures from my flight two days ago.

New Facebook Page, More Photos

I started a facebook page for my unit.  I am going to be putting photos up and info for soldiers.  Please go here and "Like" the page.  Thanks

http://www.facebook.com/pages/2-104th-GSAB-Army-Aviation/222631574431291

Flying with the New Guys

On Saturday I took a routine flight 30 miles northeast of Fort Indiantown Gap to a remote fuel site set up at the Joe Zerbey Airport near Pottsville PA.  They airport had an open house to let local residents see the army fuel trucks and the Blackhawk helicopter we rode up in.  The flight up was better than I expected.  The pilots took an indirect route through valleys at 100 feet of altitude rather than the normal 500+ feet of level flight.  The doors were open and I was sitting in the seat next to the open door so I had a great view. There were five young soldiers on the aircraft who were getting their first flight on a helicopter.  They had a ball.

None of us knew the flight back would be even better.

After an hour at the airport, we took off fast.  First we flew level gaining speed then went up hard.  When we got to 1000 feet we circled.  I had asked to take aerial photos of the fueling set up.  The pilots gave me a level circle to take the pictures, then they turned the Blackhawk almost completely on its side on the next pass over the field, then flipped it to the other side so the soldiers on both sides could have the experience of looking straight down from the open doors.

We were all laughing like we were on a roller coaster--which we were in a way.

On the 30 mile trip back we climbed, dove down hard and pulled back up turning almost sideways 50 feet above the trees.  At one point we landed briefly then climbed almost straight up to 2000 feet.

Below are the other soldiers on the flight and the two who sat opposite me: