Doing Nothing, 7 Days a Week

Those of you who read detective novels may have noticed a dog that isn't barking in my recent posts. It has been almost a month since I wrote about us doing anything. That is not because we are on a Top Secret mission. It is the opposite. As you know our assignment was changed just before we left and long after our bags and baggage had been sent on to Camp Cupcake. So instead of moving in where another unit was moving out and taking over their assignment, we are starting from scratch in a place that was not quite set up for us. So we are building a motor pool in a few unused buildings that are not exactly suited for what we do.

So we are painting, building shelves and tables, wiring buildings for telecom and computers, and generally cleaning out dust-filled unused spaces. Since we are in a war zone, we can't actually do nothing. We have to be ready for emergencies, so we are on duty seven days a week, rotating days off in shifts.

When a big unit like ours changes course, the support people like us have to wait for equipment to arrive and start needing maintenance before we have work. So we clean, paint, pull security duty, and try to get ready for when the rest of the unit needs us. Until then, we will be busy doing nothing, seven days a week.

What the PT Test Doesn't Measure

I will be starting remedial PT (Physical Training) again next week for the soldiers who failed the last PT Test and need to get ready for the next one. In Iraq, more than in Oklahoma, the gym is one of the few things to do so I am able to divide the group into two groups:
1. The self-motivated ones who know what they need to work on, have a workout partner and have committed to a plan to pass the test.
2. Those who need some level of push or they will stay as motionless as possible, usually in front of some sort of video entertainment.

For group one I already have five individual plans of action and will check in regularly. For group two, I will be taking over a SPIN class on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of each week at 0530. The less motivated will join me in the SPIN class pedaling for an hour bright and early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Our entire company does a 5k race each Wednesday morning and individual squads do PT Monday and Friday morning early.

THE PT TEST ISN'T EVERYTHING. . .
It is my job to help get these soldiers ready to pass the PT test, which I think is very important. But over the last three months I have noticed that the PT test does not necessarily predict who will be the best soldier, especially for tough, dirty jobs. There are certain jobs for which I ask for Group 1 soldiers who have failed or barely passed the PT test. When we load and unload and hundreds of duffel bags; when we have to carry dozens of machine guns, barrels and tripods; whenever there is a job that requires lots of muscle and little speed, I am looking for some of the big guys who struggle to reach their required time on the two-mile run or the required number of sit-ups, but can lift lots of weight easily and will work for hours.

The PT test is a good measure of fitness, but not such a good measure of brute strength or willingness to work long hours. And there are many times in this manual labor job where the race is neither to the swift nor to the agile but to the big guy who can barely run two miles in 17 minutes but can bench press 350 pounds.

. . .BUT IT IS IMPORTANT
One more note on the Group 2 soldiers who bitch about PT, many of whom need to eat less in addition to working out more: These same guys watch a lot of war movies and really don't seem to see the connection between fitness and being a soldier. In fact, when 70 of us lived in one tent and there were no secrets anywhere, I started to notice that the guys who hated PT were the ones who tried to look "bad" in the group photos. Young soldiers are perpetually taking photos of each other, like all of their generation. I noticed the same guys who shirk every dirty job and grumble about PT were the ones who had their weapons prominent in the photos they were in. They like the look and idea of being a soldier. Maybe they somehow believe that if the worst happens they will have a Hollywood transformation into movie-hero fighting machines.

My guess is they will just be out of breath.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

Every place soldiers gather, whether official or unofficial meetings, if there is a video screen and few minutes, Achmed the Dead Terrorist is likely to be on that screen. If you have not seen this character by puppeteer/comedian Jeff Dunham, enjoy. If the link does not work, just go to You Tube and search for Achmed the Dead Terrorist.

Bike Line to the Rescue from 6000 Miles Away

Some avid bicyclists really love bicycles. The love them as machines, love their design and engineering, love them as objects.
Not me.
In fact when I started racing Joan Jett's song "I Hate Myself for Loving You" was still a hit. I started listening to that song to get psyched for those first races. I like going fast, I like competing, but I see the bike as the necessary and occasionally as an instrument of torture. The song seemed perfect for my relationship with my bike.
So while I can do some work on a bike, I don't work on my bikes if Bike Line of Lancaster is open. They know what they are doing and the bike gets fixed properly.
But there is no Bike Line of Tallil, Iraq, so three days ago when I bent a spoke and knocked my wheel out of true, I called up Bike Line to tell me how best to fix the bike taking no chances on breaking the spoke--which would take ten days to get here in the mail.
Jeremiah from Bike Line told me which spokes to adjust and by how much and what to look for to keep from breaking the wheel or the spokes. It worked. The wheel is nearly straight and I rode on the bumpy roads and gravel here without incident.
It is clear that the road bike I brought for Camp Cupcake is not the right bike for the rock-strewn sand pile I am in now.
Since the only bikes I can buy here are $150 beaters, Bill and Jeremiah found me a single-speed mountain bike at a reasonable price which I should have in a couple of weeks. It has 29-inch wheels and wide knobby tires which should be much better for riding on sand and gravel.
The bike is a GT PEACE 9R. I'm sure it will be pretty strange riding around a combat air base with a weapon on my back and a bike that says Peace on the seat tube.

By the way--I bent the spoke because I jumped on the bike to run a quick errand just slung the rifle on my back with wrapping another strap around it. A pedestrin jumped in front of me. I stopped short and the barrel swung into the front wheel.
Barrel 1
Spoke 0

Updates and a Clarification

LEAVE: I won't be coming home on leave for my mother-in-law's memorial service. I asked several members of my unit if I could go on emergency leave and still go on my scheduled Rest & Recreation leave in mid-June. I got various answers from emphatic Yes to maybe.

Then I talked to the sergeant who actually handles leaves. She said if I take the leave now, I cannot take an R&R leave until every other soldier in my entire unit has taken a leave or turned it down. My wife said she would rather have me home at the time we agreed on than now, so I won't be coming home until June.

One of the sergeants in my unit who was deployed previously in 2005 said, "Guss, you did it backwards. I went home on R&R then my Dad died a month later. They have to give you both leaves that way." Army jokes are seldom delicate.

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RIGHT FOOT: The good effects of the cortisone shot in my heel lasted exactly one day. I have a bone spur. My foot hurts every time I step down. I am currently on a 2-week ban from running, but since the DFAC is 3/4 mile from my living quarters and the bathroom is 200 meters away, I have to walk on rocks several times a day even if I have the day off. What I should do is get the bone spur removed. But the Army is nothing if not the home of socialized medicine, so I will be getting new shoe inserts, new anti-inflammatory medicine and more cortisone shots before the Army doctors will be able to justify operating on my foot. The only variable in the process is how much I complain--which I will be doing often.

Because I could not do the weekly 5k race this morning, the first sergeant put me on what he was told was a furniture moving detail. He said I would just have to supervise the soldiers who would be moving the furniture. As it turned out, I was on a security detail with a 30-round magazine in my weapon. I spent most of the day standing on or walking on rocks--almost everything here is paved with gravel. My foot would have been better off if I ran the 5k.

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CLARIFICATION: A reader of my blog from NYC asked where I carry 30 POUNDS of ammo on my bike. It's actually 30 ROUNDS of ammo which weighs just over one pound.

Riding In Iraq

Here's some photos of me riding with a rifle. We keep 30 rounds of ammo in a magazine with us. Mine is in the green pouch on the butt stock. Slinging it over my back is easier than the pack, but strapping the rifle on the pack keeps it in place better.







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Sad Mother's Day in Iraq

In a sad coincidence of time zones, I was in Church in late morning yesterday listening to a Mothers Day sermon at about the same hour in which my mother-in-law Carol Jo Crannell passed away in her sleep in a hospice in Maryland. She had been ill for a long time, suffering from rapidly advancing Alzheimer's and some related complications. My wife had written me the day before about her care, but no one knew she was so close to the end of her life.

And that life was very impressive. My wife Annalisa is the oldest of three daughters of Carol Jo who, like their mom, have advanced degrees in science and math. Carol was a solar physicist at NASA Goddard, so I could truthfully say my mother-in-law is a rocket scientist. Her devoted husband Hall Crannell is an emeritus professor of physics at Catholic University. His field was particle physics, so between their two parents, the Crannell girls grew up meeting people who studied the largest and smallest spheres in the universe.

My son Nigel was just three when my mother passed away so Nana was the only grandmother he knew well. Carol doted on Nigel when they were together. In one of the happy side effects of the disease Carol suffered with, her loss of short-term memory meant she could happily watch Nigel play with his trains or repeat a story again and again. Carol was never bored with the repetitions of little children.

I may or may not be able to go home for emergency leave because in-laws are not quite immediate family, but my unit is doing their best to make it possible. Annalisa in her always practical way said if coming home for Carol's memorial service would cause me to miss my scheduled leave, I should stay here. That is the best plan.

I will let you know how things go.