November 9, 2001

The road to my enlistment is longer and more twisted than I thought. I got laid off from a dot-com job in 2001. Here's what I wrote the next week:

Friday, November 9

Can lightning strike twice in the same place? Certainly. Especially if the place in question is prone to storms. So, Friday, November 9, is a place in time I will try to avoid.
November 9, 1973, just after 9 a.m. was my first lightning strike. I was connecting wires to detonators at a U.S. Air Force missile test site in Utah. Someone turned on the power, and my world turned bright blue and white. Several minutes later I was strapped in an all-terrain ambulance headed for the first of six eye operations that would eventually restore my sight. Along with the eye operations, I had surgery to reattach two fingers on my right hand and to remove wires, screws and various pieces of metal from my face, arms and chest.
It was Friday. I had planned to ride my motorcycle up into the mountains for the weekend. My plans changed.
On November 9, 1973, I woke up an agnostic. Before the day ended, I believed in God and a few months later, I went the whole way to become a Christian. I would have preferred a smoother path to faith, but at 20 years old, I test-fired missiles for a day job and rode a motorcycle in mountains of Utah for recreation. I was not inclined to listen to a still, small voice—blindness was the right size for God’s megaphone.
Fast forward 28 years. Friday, November 9, 2001, just after 9 a.m., lightning struck at the same place in time. My supervisor took me to a vacant conference room to tell me I no longer had a job, effective immediately. Twenty-eight years before (almost to the minute) I had no faith and no obligations. This time I had faith, a house, a wife, four children and am part of a faith community. Now that I am listening to Him more closely, God can be more subtle. The moment of crisis is over and I can still see just fine. All my fingers are attached and when I shave I don’t feel metal scraping.
But I was not listening as well as I could. The long hours and hectic pace of my job frustrated many of the good impulses I had to serve people in need. If it was my job that tied my hands, then God just cut the ropes clean through.
For most of the year since I started my current job, I have felt uneasy, felt I should be doing something else. But good pay and great co-workers made it hard to leave. Now I am more free to listen. And I can exercise faith in a way I never have before. I worked summers and weekends since age 12 and have never taken more than two weeks off in the 36 years since. Work has defined me. In recent years, I have tried to keep work locked in a compartment away from the rest of my life. I have had some success at this, but at the expense of commitment to my work.
Now I have the opportunity to find work that either serves people in need more directly, or that keeps me closer to home and more involved with my family and community. Wherever God leads me in the coming weeks and months, I’ll be thankful for the time I have had to think, reflect and to reconnect with friends.
But I will also be careful. Friday, November 9, happens again in 2007, 2012 and 2018 before the next 28-year interval ends in 2029. One thing I am sure of: If I am still alive on Friday, November 9, 2029, I am staying in bed.

What Me Worry?!

OK. The most likely outcome of my shoulder evaluation will be: Sergeant Gussman is a Go for deployment. But I have nagging doubts. I am dealing with a bureaucracy and I am currently a No Go. To do nothing is the default setting for paperwork of any kind. So on the 20th I will take the results from my surgeon's evaluation directly to the "No Go Counselor" (really--that's a job title) handling my paperwork.
I'll continue to be optimistic--and make sure my paperwork is correct.

My Wife's Holiday Letter. . .Is Amazing

My wife's letter to family and friends:

One of my resolutions for 2008 to was refrain from complaining about being busy.  That’s a surprisingly hard resolution to keep, I discovered.  Like many people I know, I like to brag about being indispensible and overworked, so when people ask me what I’ve been up to lately, I have to bite my tongue to curb my own self-importance.  And just like dieters who find that people urge them to have one more helping just-this-once, I kept bumping into well wishers who fondly greet me with a, “So, have you been very busy lately?”  I finally learned to respond, “My life has been rich and full.”

Which it has. 

This year I taught a bunch of fun courses, ran a summer workshop, organized the Grand Opening of Bonchek College House here at Franklin & Marshall, and did other things at work that made me happy and kept me out of trouble.  I have one more semester as the don of the House, and then I’ll go on sabbatical.  In spite of the fact that I promised not to complain about being too busy this year (Is it 2009 yet?  Can I complain now?), I admit that I’m looking forward to May when I’ll have time to read, spend time with friends, and do math again.  In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to be grateful that my life is rich and full. 

Children one-through-four are doing well.  Lauren and Io have gone their own ways.  In the order that I listed them, but not the other way around, they are halfway through their sophomore years at Juniata and Bryn Mawr; they are majoring in social work and classic languages; they are playing soccer and acting in the “Rocky Horror Club”; when they’re home for the holidays they enjoy shopping in New York and going square dancing with their fathers. No, definitely not the other way around!  Lisa is running fast, perhaps to catch up with her sisters.  She’s applying to colleges and enjoying her senior year of high school.  And Nigel is wiggling and squirming his way through third grade, learning his multiplication tables and telling anyone who asks him about his favorite subject:  “Math”.  So I must be doing something right.


Greetings, and Happy 2009!

The quest for child number five in our family is still plodding along.  We’ve filled out all the paperwork, including financial statements, life histories, and a dozen criminal background checks.  We attended classes, photographed our family as it currently exists (see the picture here), and had our home study. When they ask us what kind of child we’re looking for, we say “hyper, to keep up with Nigel.”  Now we’re just waiting for the social workers to type up the final reports and enter us into the system.  The wheels continue to grind slowly. 

Neil and I took an inadvertent one-year break from reading books to each other, because we got caught up (I am embarrassed to admit) in watching DVDs from two old television series.  We have also been spending time running and walking together in the evenings, which is less embarrassing to admit – or it would be, if I were in a little better shape.  I pretty much manage to keep up with my guy, and that’s saying something because keeping up with Neil isn’t particularly easy to do through all the plot twists in his life. 



If you recall, when we last left our hero Neil, he had recovered from a devastating bicycle accident and joined the Pennsylvania National Guard.  In this year’s series, Episode 1 opens with Neil getting news that his unit will head out for Iraq in January 2009.  There ensues the physical fitness test, which Neil passes despite his advanced age and recent injuries.  In Episode 2, Neil, who joined the military partly to escape materialism, gets a packing list for overseas and realizes that he can take two bicycles and his espresso machine.  Jubilation follows.  Then, in Episode 3, our hero begins to have shoulder problems—his loyal viewers discover that the old bike accident tore up his shoulder more than his doctors originally realized, and he has surgery to repair his rotator cuff.  He heals well, and is running and on the bike again in no time.  Episode 4 opens with a new physical fitness test.  Can Neil pass?  Alas, no: he’s declared “non-deployable” because his shoulder isn’t yet healed enough to do 22 push-ups.  But wait!  He’s actually “temporarily non-deployable”!  He gets a chance to try again on January 20, just before his unit heads out.  Like any good television show, the season ends on a cliff hanger:  will Neil go to Iraq?  Will his espresso machine go, too?  If so, will he leave it there and come back as frugal as his wife? Tune in again next year to find out!

Lancaster has been a hot-bed of political activity this year; our little Norman Rockwell-esque town got to host many visiting political dignitaries, including Chelsea Clinton, Barack Obama, and the team of McCain/Plain.  Nigel spent the year doting on Obama, and in fact he goes to sleep on an Obama pillow at night now, and Nigel’s mother (me) was so inspired by Obama’s acceptance speech that I memorized the Gettysburg Address, even though the world will little note, nor long remember, that I did so.  Rather, it is us who shall be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us: that our Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.  Three cheers for government of the people, by the people and for the people!

Hugs and kisses, and wishes for a rich and full New Year!

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That's it! Best wishes for the New Year.

Some Forms are Worth Filling Out

I am just two generations away from my grandparents getting off a boat from the Old Country, so I like helping immigrants.

I've heard the critics: Who? How many? From where? Focusing on who gets in, we can lose sight of how our own lives are changed by those who fulfill their dream of coming to America.

In December 1994 when death squads exacted revenge for generations-old offenses in the former Yugoslavia, Vladislav and his 9-year-old daughter Branka escaped Bosnia and came to Lancaster to find a new life.

They came to America with a suitcase and a passport each.

At the time they arrived, Branka's mother was being held in an internment camp: a prisoner-of-war camp for civilians.

Almost as soon as they arrived, Vladislav went to work at any job he could find.
No job was too dirty or menial.

Through local churches and relief organizations Vladislav and Branka got money for rent and food and they also got help with the many papers that people who struggle with English are asked to "Read and Fill Out Completely."

Vladislav needed money and was determined to earn all he could. He knew that to get his wife out of detention and out of Bosnia, he would need money. His house, his cars, and all he had before the war were wrecked and burned before he left Bosnia.

Slowly, steadily, he saved money. A year later as Christmas of 1995 approached, he was beginning to sound confident.

The calls and faxes were paying off.

He believed Branka's mother would be in the United States sometime in 1996. Vladislav was also delighted with his latest job.

He had found a place near Lancaster that paid him $1 each to tie together handmade Christmas decorations. He said they hired women who would make 10 or 15 and then go home.

As it turns out, the fir branches cut the hands of the workers and it was difficult to wear gloves. Vladislav showed up early each Saturday morning and stayed till they sent him home.

One day he made 200.

The next day at church he was grinning. His hands looked like they had been stuck in a blender, but he couldn't have been happier. The following year Branka's mother came to America--he got her out of the internment camp.

Vladislav got a full-time maintenance management job.

He wanted his daughter to go to a private school so she could go to a good American college. So he asked me to help him get her into the school my daughters attended.

I filled out all the paperwork for financial aid that would allow Branka to attend Lancaster Country Day School and put my name down as the contact person.

Vladislav kept careful records of his income and expenses so the multi-page form had all the proper information, including his first federal tax return.

Several weeks later I got a call from the agency in Princeton that makes financial aid decisions.

The polite woman on the phone verified the applicant information, the parents' current employment status — all the routine questions — then asked me with evident curiosity and some skepticism about an item under "additional expenses."

The item: "Phone calls, faxes and transportation expenses to get applicant's mother released from Bosnian Prisoner-of-War Camp $4,417.12."

She asked if this was true.

I said it was.

"I must tell you," she said, "I personally always disallow 'additional expenses.' People try to say trips to Disneyworld are educational experiences. But getting the applicant's mother out of a prisoner-of-war camp is nothing I've ever seen before. You may tell them we are granting the full amount."

Branka's application reminded that financial aid administrator why she got into her job in the first place.

And I have never had more fun filling out a form before or since.

The Engagement Present

Another story about my family and Fort Indiantown Gap

All around us are married couples obviously mismatched but just as obviously devoted to each other. The basketball player married to a woman barely five feet tall. The flight attendant married to a guy who will only travel on the ground. A stage actor wed to an accountant.

My father was a boxer, a soldier, a Teamster and a AAA league baseball player. He grew up in Boston in a big Jewish family and was a big guy with hundreds of friends. The brothers were a loud bunch. My mother was a quiet woman who read a lot and preferred quiet. She grew up on a farm outside a small town in western Pennsylvania. Meeting her future in laws she said, “Everybody talks and nobody listens.” When they married she was 24 and he was 39. Somehow they stayed together until my father died 37 years later. It was the war that brought them together in Reading, Pennsylvania. But it was the romance wrapped up in my father’s engagement present that helped to keep them together despite all their differences.

Scene: U.S. Army Administrative Offices, Prisoner of War compound, Reading, Pa., spring 1945. The camp, now the Reading Airport, was home to 600 German prisoners of war, mostly former members of the Afrika Corps. Guarding them is a Military Police (MP) company commanded by Capt. George Gussman. Civilian clerks and typists handle most routine administrative duties.

Bang! The thin door slammed open at the push of a burly soldier in the white helmet of an MP. In a moment, the buzz of the busy office dwindled to silence. Even on an Army base with a prison camp, a squad of MPs marching into an administrative office cut the buzz of conversation and the clackety-clack of typing. The first two MPs flanked the door, rifles at ready. Four more soldiers marched in behind, the last man carrying a wooden ammunition crate.

Without a word, they marched in close order to the back of the open office space and the gray metal desk of pretty, dark-haired typist. The sergeant at the front of the line called “Detail halt!” He faced the astonished typist and said, “Are you Arnetta Boul?”

The hush was complete. Arnetta was was a graduate of a one-room school in Mercer, a small town south of Erie. A wartime job on an Army base north of Reading got her off the farm and on her way to the life she only saw in magazines. She tried to answer but only nodded yes.

He coworkers, mostly typists and clerks, didn’t move. The MP with the wooden crate faced left, took two steps, faced right and set the box on the desk. “Compliments of Capt. Gussman, ma’am.”

The detail faced about without another word and filed out of the building. When the door closed the other typists ran to Arnetta’s desk. “Open the box.” “What’s in it?” “Is there a note?”

There was a note. Her name was typed on the envelope. The note inside was written in the in an oddly beautiful hand that made her smile and blush. It said:

Darling Arnetta,
Please accept this small token in honor of our engagement. With Love,
George

She flipped the wire closures, raised the lid and saw Hershey bars. Hundreds of Hershey bars. Rationing made chocolate, sugar, tires and all sorts of things hard or impossible to get. Arnetta loved chocolate, but allowed herself almost none since the war started. Almost all the chocolate went to soldiers. Gold was scarce also. George had proposed to her the previous weekend giving her a band from one of his cigars and promising a real ring as soon as the war ended. What more could she expect during this time of national self-sacrifice? She said yes.

George made a vague promise of an engagement gift, but this was stunning even for the garrulous commandant of the POW camp. Her doubts vanished.

Inside the crate was an official packing list. “Confiscated: 608 chocolate bars from prisoners in Reading barracks.” Now she knew how he did it. The rowdy German prisoners had driven the two previous commandants to beg for transfers. The prisoners knew their rights and lost no opportunity to petition their American jailers for privileges. Then, all of a sudden, they got a commander who straightened the place up.

Capt. Gussman was the fourth of six sons of a Russian Jewish couple that escaped the pogroms of the Czar in the 1890s. He was 38 years old and had joined the Army just a year before he was too old to serve. German prisoners from the Reading camp worked on local farms and were paid five cents per day. Most of the prisoners bought American chocolate and cigarettes with their wages. One of the prisoners caused trouble for the guards on the farm work detail, so Gussman suspended the farm work. He also declared Hershey bars contraband. When no prisoners turned in their chocolate, Gussman led the guards in a search of the barracks. They confiscated 608 Hershey bars. Gussman made very clear who was in charge of the camp, and, despite the privations of war, he presented his bride-to-be with an engagement gift only Milton Hershey or a very rich man could match.

George and Arnetta were married at the base chapel, Fort Indiantown Gap on July 31, 1945. The legend of this amazing gift of plenty during an era of scarity lived on in their marriage and in their children. It is stories like this that keep us going; these stories are gifts of plenty that carry us through the inevitable times of need.
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I wrote this story for my kids. My Dad died before they were born and my Mom died five years in her 80s after a long illness.

From the Books & Culture Weekly Newsletter

John Wilson sends a weekly on-line newsletter about books and his bi-monthly book review magazine Books and Culture. He just posted my latest article (with Brigitte Van Tiggelen) on line.

FROM THE NEWSLETTER:
In two French-themed articles from the November/December issue of Books & Culture, David Hoekema of Calvin College celebrates the centenary of composer Olivier Messiaen, while Brigitte Van Tiggelen and Neil Gussman tell a story of "Technology in Translation." Neil, a regular reviewer for B&C, re-enlisted in the Army in 2007 and will be deployed to Iraq in January. Most of his fellow soldiers are young enough to be his kids. You can follow his story on his blog, Back in the Army Now (at 54).

Obsessed with the News

Russian soldiers in trenches

For the Holidays, some stories about my family. First, my paternal grandfather. I am obsessed with the News. I got that from Grandpa. Every morning I listen to the news. I read the newspaper on the train. I get a dozen Google news alerts every day in my e-mail. Am I obsessed with the news? 

Probably, but I have a good reason. My parents were daily news junkies. In my father’s case, his devotion to the news came from avoiding the mistakes of my grandfather, whose ignorance of world events led to the worst year of his life. Grandpa started his life in the Ukraine more than a century ago; he trapped ermine so he could make enough money for the bribes and the one-way ticket out of Tsarist Russia. He was one of the fortunate few poor Jews who escaped the slaughter of a million Jews by the Cossacks in the 1890s. 

In America he met my grandmother Esther, and together they started both a fruit business and a family. By 1910 the business grew and Grandpa had dealers in Egypt, Palestine, and Southern Europe. In the spring of 1914, Grandpa decided to visit his business associates. He sailed to Europe in much better accommodations than he arrived in two decades before. Grandma was nervous about the trip. She would be raising six boys by herself while Grandpa sailed to Europe. The boy’s names showed how comfortable the couple had become in America. The oldest were named Abraham and Emmanuel. The next four were named Ralph, George, Lewis, and Harold. 

While in Egypt, Grandpa decided to visit his old home near Odessa in the Ukraine. He arrived in August 1914, and, as usual, was not paying attention to the news. Shortly after he arrived, war was declared across Europe. The Jews in Russia who had survived the pogroms of the previous century were now drafted into the Russian army. Jews were not given any training as soldiers; they were simply dressed in Russian uniforms and sent into battle ahead of the “real” Russian soldiers to explode mines and make the Germans use up their ammunition. With the help of some old family friends, Grandpa escaped, but not by sea. 

The only way he could get out of Russia was through Finland. He walked more than 1,000 miles north across Russia as winter fell on this most forbidding of countries. Months later he reached a bridge to Finland and crossed at night under a hail of machine gun fire. Many others died around him, but Grandpa reached Finland sick and freezing. Back in Boston, Grandma had waited frantically for nearly a year before she got a terse telegram saying that her husband was alive and on his way back to America in a cargo ship. 

Grandpa lived 17 years after his escape from Russia until 1932. He never traveled again. My father and all my uncles became news junkies during the year Grandpa was missing and remained well informed on national and international events for the rest of their lives.