Bicycles in Thailand at the End of the Viet Nam War

From my uncle who served in Viet Nam several times and other parts of South East Asia for almost a decade:

This is another Thailand story but a very ordinary one. At Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in 1974 bird colonels had staff cars, the rest of us whatever we could find. The Thais, seeing an opportunity, opened for business on the base selling (very) used Honda mopeds, provided repair services and sold gasoline by the pint, actually probably a half liter. A moped will run for a long time on a half liter of gas. Guys would buy a moped, ride it daily everywhere and sell it back when they rotated away.

The counter culture was bicycles. The BX did a bustling business in Japanese bikes. Most guys, me for instance, bought a bike, dutifully had the Air Police mark various parts of it stamped with an ID number--bike rustling was a big issue-- and rode it everywhere as if it was a car. After a while guys referred to their bike as their "horse." Korat was as as flat a table, being in the central highlands of interior Thailand, so a bike was ideal. The difference from mopeds was that most guys took their bike home when they rotated away, fully intending to ride it. I did. When it arrived I discovered that the seat stem had been replaced with one that was too large and driven in with a hammer. I had to use a wheel puller to extract it. Didn't matter. I never rode that bike once I got home. Eventually, I gave it to some charity when I was cleaning out the garage.

Lapsed Evangelicals

In other posts, I have written about the choirs and the services at Church and how different it is from civilian life. Of course, one of the big differences in the Chapel versus home is the number of women. More women than men attend Church for the very good reason that women are more likely to be poor and disadvantaged than men, and the Church ministers to those with needs--material and spiritual. And for the same reason, the Church has more old people than young people.

So Chapel services are about 90 percent male regardless of denomination, which more or less reflects the population. But considering that 80 percent of the military is under 25, the soldiers attending Church are, by Army standards, somewhere between old and ancient.

So where are the kids? Avoiding Chapel just like their college-bound counterparts avoid Church. In fact, I've talked to young men who were active in youth group, went to Church every week and chucked all of it right after basic training. You want to go to Church during basic because those who don't clean the barracks.

I asked one young man I have known for a while about why he never goes to Chapel after being in Church every week. He said that everybody went to youth group because they hung out there, but they were all getting drunk on Friday and Saturday. He said that a lot of things they were taught turned out not to be true. And he was sick of feeling phony.

It was hardly the first time I had heard that. The Lapsed Evangelicals are actually fairly easy to spot. They are among the leaders in getting in trouble, but they are genuinely polite when I get one of them for a work detail. The bad kids whine and complain by reflex. The LEs break the rules, but generally accept the punishment and are good soldiers.

They still have the culture game to play when they go home. More than one of the LEs avoided that problem by going to Europe, Hawaii, or some other place rather than home for leave. A lot of studies say they will come back to the Church when they have kids. I'm not sure. The guy I talked to today and other LEs are rejecting what they see as a fraudulent subculture for what they see as real life.

And an aggravation of that perception is some of the people they see in the Army who attend Church. There is choir member known for having fits in the workplace, a guy who got relieved for incompetence as a squad leader and believes (and talks about) many conspiracy theories, arch conservatives who talk about Liberal conspiracies, and a whole collection of strange people. There are, of course, some of the best people in the unit--soldiers who work uncomplaining in the worst conditions this deployment has.

One of the things I most looked forward to on this deployment was meeting more of the kind of believers I served with in Germany. But my last overseas assignment was before the Evangelical Church was swallowed by the politics of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and the Christian Right. The Army reflects the nation it recruits from and even the LEs vote straight Republican. They may be doubting God and rebelling against their family, the Church and (particularly) their youth group, but the don't go so far as to become "Librals." The LEs that go to college do that.

Riding in the Dark

I've got another riding buddy who gets stuck in meetings till a few minutes before dark but really wants to ride so I go with him. He has got a five watt (dim) headlamp. I have a blinking LED headlamp that is bright enough for on-coming cars to see us, but even though I am getting close to 200 laps of this place, I miss a gouge or a hole once in a while.

It is a lower intensity workout because we can't sprint in the dark--not actual dark, we've got a quarter moon and lots of security and airfield lights.

Although the rifle halves in the pack seemed like a good idea, my back hurt from riding strictly on the seat. I will have to solve the rifle barrel whacking my helmet problem before I can carry the rifle in backpack.

For those who read the Nick and Nora Nordstrom story, Lenore Skenazy, formerly of the New York Post, now of freerangekids.com is interested in their story so they may become minor celebrities.

I did stories about medics that should be able to go up soon as "Who fights this war?" stories. From the email and comments I get, those are the mst popular entries on the blog.

I did have one guy say I should write less about bicycling. Sorry, this is my blog, my life, and that life includes bicycling!!! BTW--2,850 miles on Tallil Ali Air Base so far! I should be at 3,000 by October!

Biking to Work on the South Side

Roadside Sign on my Route to Work

Part of my new job is an office on the south side of the base. It is a 4 or 6 mile ride depending on wind direction. When I worked in the motor pool it was a one-mile ride, so I did not have to think too much about carrying a weapon, but now having the M-16 digging into my back every day I was trying to think of some better way to carry it. One of the aircraft mechanics said, "Break it in half and put it in your pack." He was right. I have to switch packs though. With the smaller pack I used today the barrel of my rifle stuck out just far enough that it hit the back of my helmet when I stood up to pedal. With the larger pack, the whole weapon will be inside.

An M-16 breaks in two pieces in about 10 seconds with just two pins so it is an easy solution to the problem of how to take my gun to work every day. When I ride around post for exercise in PT uniform I am exercising so I don't have to carry the weapon. MUCH easier that way.

Who Fights This War?

One of my regular riding buddies is a senior colonel in the armored brigade headquartered here. He has only been riding a couple of years, but is an avid and competitive runner and likes riding a lot. He is 46, planning to retire after this tour, and looking forward to riding in Colorado where he and his wife plan to live.

During the Gulf War in 1991, he was a platoon leader in charge of five M-1 tanks during the invasion of Iraq. By the time he went through the armor officer training in the late 80s, the M1 had completely replaced the M60A1 that I served in back the 70s. But we are both old armor guys (No tanks here at Tallil) and sometimes talk about tanks.

He is very animated when he talks about crossing the desert in an M1 and some of the battles he fought before that brief war ended. He has a look that is so happy that it shows through a helmet and sunglasses even when we are riding 18mph side by side when he talks about the Gulf War. "Our tanks were in charge of the battlefield," he said. "We could engage targets effectively at 3000 meters--they couldn't hit us at half that distance."

The other night he told me about on particular engagement when a company of Iraqi infantry were surrendering, moving toward his vehicles from a position a few hundred meters away. Suddenly the group of surrendering soldiers got fired on by other Iraqis concealed behind them. Iraqi tanks appeared at 2000 meters out. He and the other tank in his section fired on the infantry in ambush with machine guns, the other three tanks fired on the approaching Iraqi tanks. "We got the two Iraqi tanks with first-round hits," he said. "One was 1980 meters, one was 2340 meters. I saw the hit on the near tank. The turret flipped 10 feet in the air and landed beside the hull."

We then started talking about firing tank rounds and how cool it was that was firing fin-stabilized solid shot ammo with a 5700-foot-per-second muzzle velocity. He is currently involved in reconstruction and all of the very unwarlike things that soldiers do in this war, but when the talk turns to tanks, he is a happy guy.

Ramadan

This morning my wife wrote:
Eid Mubarak to you (or, happy Eid)!  How strange it is that you are in Iraq and don't even mention that most holy of holy days in your blog!  Is that because your base is so American that the holiday makes no difference, or is it because you're trying to focus on one small part of your life at a time?

In Bonchek [residential hall at Franklin and Marshall College], we had a standing-room-only crowd for the Eid dinner we hosted.  That's partly because we don't have many chairs -- but we really did have 70 people lined up for food, and everyone had a lovely time in spite of the wait.  Many of the international students talked about how they hadn't had a chance to get together yet this semester, so this was a grand reunion for them; but many Americans intermingled and got to eat yummy food as well.


I knew it was the end of Ramadan because two Jewish friends of mine mentioned that Rosh Hashonah was starting this weekend--Islam and Judaism use a lunar calendar for holy days.

I suppose most everyone in this ambiguous war thinks it would be a relief to fight as their grandfathers did in World War Two. They fought German or Japanese soldiers. The enemy wore uniforms and was always the enemy. Here we don't have an identifiable enemy. Once in a while a real enemy will fire a rocket or mortar at our base, but to very little effect and at very great danger to themselves--so it doesn't happen often.

September 11 and September 19 were both supposed to be days that we could be attacked. We weren't. Who knows why or why not. But in the meantime we do live in a very American place, with a 22-mile perimeter of fence patrolled by Americans with big guns. So my wife and her colleagues in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were a lot closer in fellowship and spirit to Ramadan than those of us who live a kilometer from the Ziggurat of Ur.

We are in a hostile place with an enemy we neither see nor can identify. I might go to the Ramadan party on campus next year. This year I am glad it passed without anyone getting hurt.

My New Job--Then and Now

Abel is the dancer in the middle. 1-70 Armor Motor Pool, Weisbaden, West Germany, 1977.

As I mentioned Saturday, I have a new job. Not, of course, in the sense of I am moving to a different base or even eating in a different chow hall or, God Forbid, wearing different clothes. But I will be doing public relations work full time for our battalion. For those not keeping score on my work life, until Saturday my duties were the following list:
--Squad Leader
--Maintenance Team Leader
--Echo Company Public Affairs
--Battalion Public Affairs
--Morale, Welfare, Recreation NCO
--Drug Test NCO

My new duties:
--Battalion Public Affairs
--Echo Company Public Affairs
nothing else!

My best friends from the 70s, Abel Lopez and Cliff Almes will think this is very funny, back to the future, circle of life, reincarnation or whatever metaphor you use for history repeating itself.

On December 23, 1977, one year and three months into our three-year deployment to Germany, our new brigade Command Sergeant Major had an NCO meeting at 1030 hours. Hundreds of us filled the base theater. Our CSM, by the way was 48 years old and could still do the weekly brigade 4-mile run. All of us were astounded that someone that old could still run. He was a tank gunner in the Korean war according to some of the legends surrounding him.

Anyway, the CSM wanted a line company sergeant to be the brigade public affiars sergeant. He did not want "ragged-ass sissy Army journalist writing about real soldiers." I had a story on his desk before he got back from lunch. I got the job. And most everyone in the tank company I left was some level of envious.

So 32 years later, eight months into taking a year off from public relations to serve my country, I am full-time PR again with a very limited wardrobe and drastically reduced salary. Cliff and I are going to be talking Wednesday night. Cliff really liked Germany by the way. He is Bruder Timotheus, part of a Franciscan Brotherhood in Darmstadt Germany in a place called the Land of Canaan. Cliff was my roommate in 1978 until he got out to become a novice at the monastery where he still lives. I will try to call Abel also. He was commander of the tank next to mine in the first platoon of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 70th Armor. He is now a retired fire captain in San Diego.

Half Marathon the Next Morning

WITH MY RUCK--READY FOR THE MARCH

The first thing I noticed when I got out of bed this morning was my age. It took a while to get out of bed. After the run yesterday my heel ached. I expected worse this morning. But when I stood up for the 200-meter limp to the latrine, my heel felt OK. Swollen. Sore. But not too bad. No sharp ache.

My thighs hurt a lot. The front of my shins hurts some. I have upper body aches, but no special pain in my heel. I think this means I can run again. I may even be able to do the 5k Wednesday race. There's a chance that two months of rest from running combined with stretching may have helped me adapt to the bone spur. I don't know. But it is weird not to have acute pain on the bottom of my heel.

Now having said all that, it hurts to get on the bike, it hurts to pedal the bike, it hurts to walk. And some Delta guys are doing the Ruck March, so there can be a Delta, Echo competition during the October 3 half marathon.

Great news for me, at least for now, that all the pain I am having is just what you would expect for an unprepared participant in a half marathon. When I walk down the two stairs in the front of my CHU my legs ache and I lean against the wall.

And they gave us a really cool medal for finishing inside 3.5 hours.

Marathon Man

This morning my alarm went off at 0405. I dragged myself out of bed and walked to the latrine to shave and brush my teeth. I was thinking as I walked my heel feels great and I am about to screw it up. Three weeks ago I signed up for the US Air Force half marathon. The plan was that I would walk the 13.1 miles with a few aircraft mechanics and see if I could walk the distance in under 3 1/2 hours. In two weeks our base is having a parallel event with the Portland Half Marathon. Several of the guys in my unit are planning on walking it as a Ruck March--that's a march in boots with a 40-pound pack. I said I would try to do the Ruck March which led me to sign up for today's event.

In addition, some Delta Company aircraft mechanics said they would walk the half-marathon distance. So I thought I would have a good walk. Luckily I brought my iPod. Just as this deployment seemed like a good idea until I actually arrived, the marathon walk seemed rational until it started. The Delta guys were gone at the started. They lined up at the back, said they would walk, then started running.

Within 100 meters I was alone at the back behind 300 airmen and 100 soldiers who were running into the dark distance. So I started listening to a Teaching Company lecture. Thirty-five minutes later I was at the two-mile mark and the other walkers had disappeared into the distance. The trail truck was 20 feet behind me, idling its diesel engine as it followed me at 3mph.

So I started running. In about half a mile I was ahead of the next runner so I did not have to listen to the truck any more. I ran three more miles tried to walk and started running again. I ran another two miles, walked a mile then ran again until two miles to go. I felt good. I caught up to Delta, then walked the last two miles.

Lucklily they handed out medals at the finish line because I had to go to a company meeting. On the way I could either change or have breakfast--no contest.
I had eggs, creamed beef on a biscuit, French Toast sticks, fresh oranges and kiwi slices, coffee, mango juice and pineapple juice. I ate everything.

Before the meeting the commander told me I had a new job. More next post.

Who Fights This War? A Single Mom

Until September 11, 2001, Michelle Delta made family her first priority. On that terrible Tuesday Delta was a 35-year-old single woman living in her own house in Bridgeville, Delaware. In the months that followed, she decided to give up her shop supervisor job and put America at the top of her priority list and, with no military experience at all, joined the Army National Guard in May of 2002. In August she went to basic training. “I was very naive,” Delta said. “Soldiers were heroes. I am not sure what I really expected, but when I got to basic training I was in a holding area with more than 20 girls between 18 and 21 years old. On the other floors of our training area were hundreds of young men the same age. They were kids.” All through basic Delta helped to take care of and watch over the ‘kids.’ In basic Delta received extra responsibility because of her age and rank—her college degree allowed her to join as a Pvt. 1st Class. All of her drill sergeants were younger than her. It was not easy for her to go from living half her life as an independent adult, to getting yelled at “…by a cocky little punk younger than me,” she joked. But she has the kind of personality that galvanizes with hardship. Her father died when she was eighteen leaving two younger siblings with her step-mother. When her step-mother passed in 1994, Delta became legal guardian of the two. “You do what you have to do,” she says. Delta’s life changed from that point. “The kids had problems. You lose your father and mother at an early age and it is tough to move on.” Deltas’ sister was shot five times in 1996 and managed to survive. By the time Delta left for basic, the children were in their early twenties and on their own. Delta trained to be a CH-47 Chinook aircraft mechanic, came home and landed a job as an Army technician for the National Guard. She went from almost 36 years of civilian life to working in uniform full time. In 2005, Delta went to school to be a flight engineer. She was a sergeant and finding that the military is not always an easy place for a woman. “Yes we are all soldiers but we are not always treated equally” she said. “You have to choose your battles wisely”. In 2008 her unit got the alert order for deployment and in January of 2009 moved to Fort Sill, Okla., for pre-deployment training. In one of the quirks that lead to jokes that never stop, Staff Sgt. Michelle Delta is a flight engineer in Delta Company. “The Delta jokes are just part of the deal,” she says with a weak smile. In April, her unit arrived in Iraq with the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade and was station at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq. “We were supposed to be going to Balad, but were redirected when we arrived in Kuwait,” she said. Once the birds and support equipment arrived in, all of the flight operations had to be set up, then the night missions started. “Sometimes we fly five nights in a row and get to be airfield boss on the sixth night. Other times the sandstorms move in and we don’t get off the ground but it gives us a chance to work on our aircraft. We usually work long days and it’s tough on everyone.” Since starting the deployment Delta and her fellow Chinook crew members have prepared the ships for missions, the door gunners mount and arm the three machine guns on each bird and make sure the pilots’ weapons are ready for use. The cockpit crew does the pre-flight inspection. Delta says “We are all a team and each of us has our section of responsibility”. Their day is just beginning when, for most of the other soldiers, the day is winding down. The aircrews sit together the whole length of two or three tables with eight soldiers on each side at the dining facility. They laugh, joke and speculate about where they might be going and whether they will be flying. Weather and last-minute changes cancel some missions. After dinner, they return to the large company headquarters building near the airstrip and wait for the mission. If the mission goes, Delta and her crew will usually fly hundreds of miles in heavy body armor peering through night-vision devices manning their weapons. They will move cargo or passengers to many different locations through-out the night. If the mission is scrubbed they go back to the flight line in the dark, dismount the guns, and tie the bird down for the night. “If the mission is scrubbed and we leave early, it gives us a chance to go back and do laundry,” Delta said. “When we fly, we get back late, do all the post-flight work, daily inspections, and grab a few hours sleep before we are back again.” Delta loves what she is doing but has not decided on whether she will stay in the National Guard as a career or not. “I am 43 now. I will be 56 when I get out, if I stay for 20 (years),” she said. “That’s a long time and this can be a physically demanding job. But I am going back to my technician job for now. I’ll see what the future holds when I get back.”

Thanks and Requests

Amy--The CS Lewis books arrived yesterday--Screwtape Letters and The Four Loves. We start the Four Loves on the first Monday in October. Thanks very much.

Susan--the Propel Powder, razors and SGT Reiner's M&M's arrived the day before yesterday. The M&Ms will be going up to Base Garry Owen the next time one of our guys gets a Blackhawk ride. Many thanks.

Ginny--I got all those amazon notices. I'll be looking for Purgatorio soon as well as dictionaries. Thanks much.

Shiri--I'll also be looking for dictionaries from you. Thanks.

Katie and Darren (and anyone else who wants to send stuff). The Education Center needs:
--a printer/scanner
--20 copies of the ASVAB (aptitude test) Study guide (send one, five, whatever)
http://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-ASVAB-2010-Services-Vocational/dp/1419550675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253217169&sr=1-1
--one and two-inch three-ring binders, lots, with tab inserts
--10 or more copies of the AFAST (FLIGHT) study guide
http://www.amazon.com/Master-Military-Flight-Aptitude-Tests/dp/0768927935/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253217367&sr=1-1

And I would like TUL Pens, black medium point and other colors also.

Thanks in advance

Neil

I was on the BBC World Service Last Sunday

On September 11, just after my blog was linked to the "At War" blog, a producer for the BBC World service called and asked if they could interview me for a story on military blogs and blogging. I agreed and the link blow is the result. It's a 6-minute interview and I am about the last four minutes. If you want to hear it, I should be able to email it from gmail--no size restrictions. But be sure if you want it you give me an Inbox that allows 8mb files.

Eight Minutes and Gone

From the time the Medevac call comes in, the first pair of Blackhawks in the rotation have fifteen minutes to be airborne. Actually, the standard for our Medevac unit is eight minutes, the Army standard is 15. When I heard the call at the Medevac hangar I went straight out to where the birds sit in low blast walls waiting to take off. The crew chiefs of both birds were already getting the aircraft ready for flight. The medic ran to the Evac bird, the door gunner ran to the chase bird.

Within three minutes the twin turbojet engines were screaming and the huge rotor blades were starting to turn. I walked along the revetment walls to the from of the aircraft so I could watch the takeoff from directly under their flight path. The main rotor turned faster and faster. I moved to a dead air spot where I was not being buffeted by the wind from the main rotors. The tail roters were spinning crazy fast looking like they might pick the whole aircraft up from the back.

Suddenly the medic bird took off. At first slowly upward, then twisting to the right it banked up into the air, straighten out and shot into the distance.

The chase bird was seconds behind following the same counterclockwise curve into the sky. These pictures are some of two dozen I took in about 20 seconds until the Blackhawks sped out of view.

Always Moving

I got back from dinner tonight and two other sergeants in our company were in the room. When I walked in I said hello and said I was just picking up the books for tonight's book group. My roommate said, "Our door is the net and Gussman is a tennis ball. He bounces in, he bounces out." I do. But I need to have different things with me for each activity, especially especially on book group days. Today we got done in the motor pool at about 230pm. I went from there to the Charlie Med hangar for a meeting then back to the room to change from the uniform to PTs. I did some writing, rested for a while (we get up at 0445), called a couple of coworkers back in the states about a meeting, then went to the coffee shop to read for tonight's book group and a few pages of French (Le trois mousquetaires).

Then I came back to the CHU dropped the books and rode the perimeter of the post. After that I made two more phone calls about work and then off to dinner. I need to have my weapon to go to dinner, but not a backpack, since they are not allowed in the DFAC. After dinner is when I bounced through the door on the way to book group. Now I am going to the gym then maybe make a phone call back to the states.

There is always some point in the night when my head starts to hurt and I know it's time to sleep. Not yet though.