OJ Simpson on a Russian Train: Book 9b of 2016, "The Kreutzer Sonata" by Leo Tolstoy

If OJ Simpson fled the scene of murdering his wife and her (possible) lover on a train instead of in a white Ford Bronco, then told the story to a fellow passenger, the story would be "The Kreutzer Sonata" by Leo Tolstoy.  The jealous Russian husband, like the football player, was acquitted of murder, but guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

Whether the wife and the suspected lover were actually lovers is in doubt in both stories.  The murder weapon in both cases is a knife.  But in the Russian story, the lover gets away.  The jealous husband in the Russian story is not a former NFL running back, so he only stabs his wife.

The story opens with a half-dozen passengers discussing love and marriage in a compartment on a slow-moving train.  The argument, like so many arguments everywhere and through all of time, is based on misunderstanding the subject they are arguing about.  In this case, Love.  A very modern (in the 1890s) woman and her friend say marriage should only be based on Love, by which they mean Romantic Love--mutual attraction between the man and the woman.

An old man in the compartment asserts that marriage can only be based on a strong man controlling a weak woman and keeping her from following her natural inclination to sleep with every man in the village.  He says a marriage based on Romantic Love is doomed and that Love in marriage is "learned."  Tolstoy makes very clear the old man thinks it is perfectly fine for men to sleep with other women, just not the reverse.  When confronted about his double standard, the old man goes quiet.

Into this lively argument steps the Podnischeff, the recently acquitted murderer of his wife.  He asserts "with glowing eyes" that Romantic Love leads to tragedy, and says why he knows this.  Most of the other passengers, finding out they are riding on a slow train with a murderer, leave at the first opportunity, but the narrator sticks around to hear the story of the murder.

In the Podnischeff's story of the murder, Tolstoy makes clear the problems with basing a marriage on Romantic Love.  But Tolstoy also questions marriage itself.  However they get together, can two selfish people spend years and decades together and still love?  Tolstoy's own marriage answered that question with an emphatic No!

By the time he wrote this story, Tolstoy was 61 years old and becoming more of a radical both in his politics and his religion.

There is no military angle to this story, but it is clearly a story written by a soldier.  Love, death, passion and tragedy are intertwined in a way that I find in many authors I love who were soldiers.  

Book 9a of 2016: "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy

Why is a story about the life and death of a middle-aged, middle class, mid-career, mid-19th Century Russian bureaucrat on a 21st Century American Military Blog?  I'll tell you.

First, Leo Tolstoy was a soldier.  He served on the front lines in the brutal Crimean War near Sevastopol in some of the heaviest fighting.

Second, I am a soldier.  So I react to stories as a soldier.  And what I read is what at least one soldier reads.

Third, this time is my fifth reading of this wonderful story since I first read it in 1983.  It gave me a vivid picture of how suffering can be good and a haunting picture of what death can mean.

Soldiers face suffering and death as part of their job, but this story is not just an acknowledgement of that fact, it is a meditation on both.

Now to the story.

"The Death of Ivan Ilych" opens at Ivan's funeral.  In a scene only a career soldier or other government bureaucrat could appreciate, we first meet Ivan's best friend.  He is scheming about how to leave the funeral as quickly as possible and get to a card game.  At the card game, the discussion is about the vacancy left by Ivan's death.  Who gets Ivan's job?  And what of the vacancy left when someone moves into Ivan's position?

At the funeral Ivan's grieving widow begins wheedling and scheming to be sure she gets as many benefits as possible now that her husband is dead.

In the military, the best plan for advancement is to volunteer for leadership in the most dangerous jobs.  Lots of vacancies open up.  And the ambitious soldiers will speak quite matter-of-factly about who gets the next rung up the ladder of success when a vacancy opens.

After this tragic-comic opening of the story. We get a brief biography of Ivan.  He is ambitious, moderately successful, and strives to be correct in everything.  Just as he achieves a big promotion and prominent success, he falls ill and his life unravels.  In the final days of his suffering, he is cared for a selfless servant named Gerasim.  The care Gerasim gives him and the wrenching suffering push Ivan to question whether he lived as he should, and at the end, reject the life he lead.

Many fans of Tolstoy and scholars think "The Death of Ivan Ilych" is the best of Tolstoy's huge body of work.  I have read "Anna Karenina," "War and Peace," and many of Tolstoy's short stories and remain convinced that "The Death of Ivan Ilych" is his best work.

For those who know of my love for Dante's Divine Comedy, you know I can tell you the relative merits of each of the seven translations I have read.  The same is true of Bible translations.  Richmond Lattimore's New Testament is the best translation available in English.

Not so much with Ivan Ilych.  I like the translation I just read by Pevear and Volokhonsky, but I was not bothered by other translations.  So get a cheap copy on Amazon and read the best of a very great writer.

Russians Introduce New Tank, Armata T-14, While We Mothball Armor

Last year, the Russian Army showed the world a brand new tank at the parade celebrating the Russian victory in World War 2.

The new tank, the Armata T-14, represents a real advance in tank technology.  Russia plans to build more than 2,000 of these new tanks for its Army over the next five years.  

Designing and building new tanks means Russia plans to make tanks central to its battle plans in the future, differing sharply from U.S. and other western armies which are slowly removing armor from their war plans.

From 1976 to 1979 when I served as a tank commander in the U.S. Army in Europe, we trained to fight an overwhelming invasion by Soviet forces who vastly outnumbered us.  The war never happened, but we believed it would.  And we prepared for a desperate fight.  If you want to know what that war might have looked like, read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy.

Our tanks were better, but they had a lot more tanks.  Almost everything we knew about our tanks and the Soviet tanks in battle we learned from reports of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War or Yom Kippur War.

One of those reports gave a breakdown of casualties by position in the tank:

• Tank Commander 60%, mostly hideous face and neck wounds.
• Gunner 20%, the gunner was the aiming point both sides used when they fired armor piercing rounds at enemy tanks.
• Loader 15%
• Driver 5%

Another way to break down those figures:  95% in the turret, 5% in the hull.

The T-14 has a fully remote-controlled turret and sighting system.  The three crewmen are in the hull of the tank.  Enemy tanks will, of course, aim for the hull, but it is easier to protect the hull than the turret.  Also, tanks seek places where they can hide the hull behind earth and walls and just expose the turret to fire.  These hull defilade positions as we called them will protect the crew while allowing the guns to fire.

The two main uses for tanks in modern warfare are to:

1. Fight other tanks.
2. Break though enemy lines and attack their supply lines.

By upgrading their tank force, the Russians are signaling they expect to be fighting an armored war, or they plan to use armor to punch a hole in enemy defenses and send an armored force to wreak havoc with supply lines.

Either way, they are expecting to fight in a place where they can transport large numbers of tanks easily.  That means along their own borders or in neighboring countries.  Sending tanks across oceans is slow and expensive, even for America.  The Russians clearly expect to fight in a place where trucks and trains can carry their tanks close to the battle.

In the next post, I will talk more about the specifications of the Armata T-14 and compare it to the U.S. Army's M-1 Abrams tank.

Great Story About How the Cold War Did Not Become a Hot War

The sub in the picture is a current Russian nuke boat.

In a story by Robert Krulwich on Nat Geo, we get the story of Russian nuclear submarines and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The story is here.

For those of us who served during the Cold War, the vivid thing in this story is the layers of restraint in the Soviet system.  During the Cold War, America faced a civilized enemy.  Our civilizations differed, but each side wanted to be the superior civilization.

Our current enemy, Islamic Terrorists, have no civilization and are the enemies of all civilization.

I very much miss having a uniformed enemy with a 1000-year-old culture.

At Home Dad: With Five Baby Mommas!!

On the Thursday before Easter in 2007, I called Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Askew, the recruiter for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, and started the process of re-enlisting in the Army.  That chapter of my life will end in just over a month.

Earlier this week, one of my Conservative friends asked me what I was going to do now that I was no longer working and was leaving the Army.  I told him I was going to be a stay-at-home Dad receiving a government check:  Social Security.

He quickly said I earned my government check from working and it's not like I had kids with five different women.

As soon as he said it I burst out, "Yes I do!!  My six kids have five Baby Mommas!"  In addition to my two biological daughters, I have a step daughter, an adopted daughter and two adopted sons. They are all legally my kids, but they all have different mothers.  My six kids really do have five Baby Mommas.

And that is my post-Army career.

Facebook After Terror Attacks, A Big Thumbs Up

In 2001, when Islamic terrorists attacked America, I was frantic for two days trying to get in touch with friends who worked in the area of the World Trade Center.  Some worked on Rector Street, less than two blocks from WTC.  Others worked near Wall Street less than a mile away.

None of my friends were hurt in the attacks, but for two days I had no way of knowing that.

Currently, I have friends in Brussels.  When I heard of the attacks on Brussels, I did not even try to make the futile phone calls I made on September 11, 2001, I got on Facebook.  Within an hour, the first of my friends updated her page to say that she and her entire family were fine and that she was going to her son's house to see her granddaughter.

In November, I did the same with the Paris attacks.  Although phone service was swamped with traffic, several friends updated their pages.  One of my friends was SCUBA diving in Turkey.  I remembered thinking when Cedric when to Turkey that the trip could be dangerous.  When I say his SCUBA update on November 15, I was thinking 'I'm glad he decided to leave Paris in November.'

Thanks Mark Zuckerberg.  I love your invention.

My Final Flight on an Army Helicopter

Returning to Flight Operations after the trip to Johnstown:  Sgt. Jay Rocourt, crew chief, 

and pilots Chief Warrant Officers Rich Wienches and Greg Gallerizzo.

In February I flew to Johnstown and back on a Blackhawk helicopter.  I thought at the time it would be my final flight, but I was not sure till this month.

It was a smooth, uneventful flight across Pennsylvania on a beautiful Winter day.

I had a great view of the entire mid state during the flights to Johnstown and back.

These photos show the crew performing post-flight maintenance, and refueling.

And this is the Crew Chief Jay Rocourt in Johnstown telling the Base Commander with complete sincerity that the pilots were performing post-flight maintenance when they were actually at the local Subway getting lunch.

"I Solemnly Swear My Sleep Bag is Green"

This afternoon I finished turning in my Army field gear, all the stuff we use to carry ammo, equipment and food, as well as the our tent and sleeping bag.  More properly our sleeping bag system.

Of the more than 100 pieces of field gear the Army gave me since 2007, I turned it all in except two ammo pouches.  I had to pay for them.  Today I got a Turkey Hill money order for $41.26 to reimburse the Army for my missing ammo pouches.

My other discrepancy was my sleeping bag system consisting of five pieces: two sleeping bags, two carry bags and a cover.  I had all of the pieces, but they were green.  They have been green since 2007 when I received them.  They will continue to be green until they wear out.  But my clothing record says my sleeping bag system should be black.

Sooooooooooo.  That's a problem.

In fact, I had to write a statement swearing before two witnesses in the presence of an officer that my sleeping bag is green.

Which I did, "I Solemnly Swear My Sleep Bag is Green".

This form I filled in is a Department of the Army form 2823.  It is a sworn statement about anything.  Usually loss.  The supply clerk told me he helped to fill out a sworn statement for a soldier who lost the 'scope sight on his rifle.  That was serious.

During the 44 years I have been in and out of the Army, I have never filled out a sworn statement before.  I never lost a truck, or a tank, or a machine gun.

At this second-to-last drill weekend, I finally filled in a sworn statement to attest to the color of my sleeping bag.  It is green. I swear!

A proper end to a long career!

 

Tasks, Conditions and Standards--How to Do Everything!

Tasks, Conditions and Standards is how we learn to do everything in the Army.  If you are assigned to be the machine gunner in a rifle squad, the first thing you will do is get to know your machine gun:  the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW).

Before you fire the SAW in combat, you will go through many different Tasks, Conditions and Standards blocks of instruction to learn the weapon, maintain the weapon, fire the weapon and fix the weapon.

Are you an Army cook and you need to fry eggs?  There are Tasks, Conditions and Standards for that. A scientist friend pointed that in the computer world this is algorithm thinking.  Break down every task into steps, clearly define the steps, evaluate.

A complex operation pulls together dozens and dozens of different Tasks, Conditions and Standards and turns that into one smooth operation.  The posts I did recently on Tank Gunnery represented hundreds of individual bits of training from how to zero each of the three weapons on the tank, how to drive with the hatches open and closed, how to determine range, how to maintain the tracks on the vehicle, etc.

When we pass the tests at the end of Tasks, Conditions and Standards, the Army says, "We got Skillz!"

After Army--Back to Bicycle Racing

I never stopped riding when I joined the Army.  In fact, I rode 5,100 miles on Camp adder in Iraq and organized a bicycle race.

But I pretty much stopped being a bicycle racer.  From 2002 to 2007, when I re-enlisted, I rode 10,000 miles a year training to be just pretty good as a racer.  After my re-enlistment, not to mention breaking my neck in May of 2007,  I rode less.  And I did not ride with enough intensity to actually compete in races.  I still raced once in a while, but the peak of the racing season is May and June when I miss five weekends out of eight for Drill and Annual Training.

As I right this, I feel like a racer again.  Friday evening I renewed my racing license.  Yesterday, I rode south 50 miles with more than 5,500feet of climbing, then rode with my son for a few miles, then rode to my bike shop, Bikeline of Lancaster, to talk about a new bike.  My current race bikes date back to 2002 and 2003.  By May, I should be riding a new bike.

Today, it was supposed to rain beginning at 11 am.  So I had to ride in the morning.  I rode 35 miles giving me 100 miles for the weekend after 100km yesterday.

And this morning I signed up for the last Battenkill road race: 68 miles including several miles of dirt.  May 21.  I need more training.

Official Word Today: I Am Done May 3, 2016

It's official.  My Army career ends on May 3 of this year.  I first enlisted January 31, 1972, and have finally hit my Army expiration date.

I have drill this month, next month and my last official event will be the Aviation Ball, April 30.

I will miss being a soldier, but it is time to move on to something else.

In Our Army, The Generals are Fat, The Sergeants are Thin

In the Spring of 1977, a group of Soviet General officers made an inspection tour of our base in Wiesbaden, West Germany.  In October 1976, the 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division relocated from Fort Carson, Colorado, to what was formerly an air base in Wiesbaden.

Our 4,000 mechanized troops were meant to be a show of force to the Soviet Union by America.  We were reinforcing NATO.  Within 48 hours after we landed, we were on the border in our fully loaded tanks at Fulda, where World War Three was supposed to begin.

The following spring, a group of Soviet Generals toured our base.  My unit, 1st Battalion, 70th Armor, stood in formation in front of our tanks for the inspection.  One Soviet General spoke to us after the inspection.  He said, in English, that "In our Army, the generals are fat and the sergeants are thin.  In your Army, the generals are thin and the sergeants are fat.  I wonder why that is?"

I don't remember much else about that day, except that the sun was out--not the norm in Wiesbaden.  But that one line said so much about our respective armies.

The Soviet General command draftees from his own country and other Warsaw Pact countries.  They were underpaid, badly treated, hungry and hoping just to survive their enlistment.  The American Army was in the fourth year of being a Volunteer Army, which means professional army.  The men who made a career of the Army were divided between those who loved the military and those who just wanted the early retirement--LIFERS, we used to call them.

Even in the 70s, that General saw enough overweight soldiers to make his comment.  I was reminded of this because I have seen several of the Generals in the Pennsylvania National Guard at events recently and they are thin, tough and walk fast.  I also saw a Master Sergeant who hasn't passed a physical fitness test in this century.  He looks like the General in command of the New Jersey National Guard.

Another reason I thought of that Soviet General was a news report on Sputnik (Russian State News) announcing that the 1st Guards Tank Army has been reformed to defend Mother Russia.

We still have thin generals and too many fat sergeants.  And the Russian Army is recruiting more of those skinny draftees for a huge new Mechanized Army.

No Promotions For Me! DISENROLLED!

Last week, I received the following email from the Army's Learning Management System:

Subject: You have been auto disenrolled from STRUCTURED SELF-DEVELOPMENT - LEVEL 1  (1-250-C49-1 (DL)_)_01/01/2013_crscl000000000018597

You have been automatically dis-enrolled from ALMS Course  for Course Iteration (STRUCTURED SELF-DEVELOPMENT - LEVEL 1  (1-250-C49-1 (DL)_)_01/01/2013_crscl000000000018597)
because the allowable time set by the Course Manager for completion has expired.
If you need to complete this training, you must register for it again. If this is an ATRRS/CHRTAS managed course you must register in that system. All others can be registered for in the ALMS. Credit for course training completed prior to this action will be awarded in accordance with the policies of the respective Course manager. All required training will be reflected in your In-Progress Learning upon successful registration.

With two months to go in my current enlistment and a very small chance I may get a one-year extension, I will not get promoted!

Actually, since making sergeant, I have not wanted to be promoted.  If I made Staff Sergeant, I would be filling a career slot.  Some guy one-third my age could be taking the next step on a career with that Staff Sergeant position.  I would just get another $20 per weekend.

So I accept being disenrolled.

Soldiers are government workers.  We get government-language emails.