My First Writing Mentor: Clint Swift

The Army made me a  writer.  In several blog posts, especially this one, I have written about how the combination of inspiration and free time of soldiers in the field gave the chance to learn how to write.
A movie of my life would have me start writing, a twinkle would show in my eye as I looked to the future, and within a minute I would be transformed from Grunt to Gogol!

As you can tell from my current writing, I am still a grunt who wishes he was Nikolai Gogol, but when the Army gave me my first journalism job in 1978, the guy who helped me the most was a civilian reporter for the Stars and Stripes newspaper, named Clint Swift.  I met Clint when I visited the Stars and Stripes office in Darmstadt, (West) Germany.  I told him what I was doing and he took an interest in me and my unit.

He also gave me a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.  I read and reread the book several times over the next year.  Clint told me how news stories worked, explained the difference between news and feature stories, and helped me to learn the craft of journalism.  I am currently re-reading The Elements of Style.  I could not even guess how many times I have re-read it.
I looked on line to see if I could find Clint.  No luck so far.  I hope he is proud that I made writing my career.  I am sure he would be amused I am back in the Army.

Paula Poundstone Embarassed Me in Iraq!

Six years ago this month, Paula Poundstone made me collapse laughing.  She went on a rant about Pop Tarts on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."  It was so funny I literally fell on my face.  You can listen to her stand-up pop tart rant here.

It wasn't a long fall.  I wasn't hurt.  Except my dignity.  I was working out in the House of Pain Gym on Camp Adder in Iraq.  I was 56 years old.  I was surrounded by weight lifters in their 20s and 30s bench pressing 300+ pounds and listening to speed metal music.  I was listening to the "Wait Wait" podcast on my iPod.  It took 40 minutes to download on the anemic Camp Adder internet.

I had done just 10 of the 60 pushups I usually do when the host disparaged Pop Tarts as junk food.  Paula was outraged!!!  She went into a 2-minute rant on how Pop Tarts were in fact the secret of her good health and the greatest food ever.  On pushup 21 I collapsed laughing.

With the rant still on full tilt, I looked up and saw a couple of beefy metal heads looking at me.  More specifically they were looking at the old guy on the floor who collapsed doing pushups and was shaking.  They didn't know I was laughing.  For a second, I imagined myself trying to explain that I was listening to NPR and not Metal Music, then my senses returned.

I paused the rant, got up, and pretended I was done.  We could not wear headphones outside, so I grabbed my gear and walked over to my CHU (home) so I could finish listening to the podcast without looking like an old guy having a heart attack.

Clearly, Paula Poundstone made that rant on purpose just to embarrass me in the "House of Pain."