Who Fights This War--Trading a Guitar for a Gun

The following story got published in our division newsletter and on their web site and by the end of the day yesterday was on the web site of the Department of Defense and was highlighted on the Secretary of Defense news page.
Nick was one of the guys who went through the Live Fire Shoot House when I did.

Seven years ago, then 18-year-old Nicholas Raia of Altoona, Pa., brought his trumpet to an audition for the Pennsylvania Army National Guard band. He aced the audition and until last summer was member of several performance groups within the band. Over those seven years he performed more and more with the band and ensembles playing the guitar for recruiting events and celebrations. For more formal military ceremonies he now plays the baritone—a small tuba.
After seven years in the band, Raia, now a sergeant, decided to take a year away from performing and volunteer for a combat tour. Since mobilization in January, Raia has served as a door gunner on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation Regiment.
“I felt that after 7 years in the Guard, it was my turn to do my part overseas,” said Raia.
To get ready for the transition from full-time student and weekend band member, Raia volunteered for additional training in weapons. In June 2008, Raia attended the Small Arms Master Gunner course at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. To prepare for hand-to-hand combat he completed the week-long Level One Combatives Course in July. At the end of September, he was one of 10 Soldiers in the first class trained in the new Live-Fire Shoot House also at Fort Indiantown Gap.
His transition from band member and college student to door gunner had difficulties training could not help.
“It was a decision that I struggled with for a while,” Raia said. “It’s one thing to tell your loved ones you are being ordered to leave and a totally different animal entirely when you are trying to explain to them that you are voluntarily leaving.”
Over the years he was in the band, Raia came to believe he should deploy with a combat unit.
“Our job (in the band) is unique in that we are in the public eye often, and we often get thanked for our service by people in our audiences,” Raia said. “I would find myself conflicted, because while it is true that we, as a unit, were serving our country in the way in which we were meant to serve, I also felt as if I should be doing more.”
Raia had several friends in the Guard who deployed overseas at least once in their careers. He said he felt those were the Soldiers who truly deserved to be thanked.
“I felt that after seven years in the guard, it was my turn to do my part overseas,” he said.
His final decision to deploy was met with mixed emotions.
“My unit could not have been more supportive of my decision,” Raia recalled. “They helped me get everything on the military side of the house in order prior to my deployment and have made it a point to ensure it would not affect me negatively upon my return.”
His friends, on the other hand, were confused by Raia’s decision.
“Many of my friends are not in the military and I think that makes a big difference,” he said. “People in the military think a little differently than those who are not and most of the Soldiers in the military today could probably easily understand the feeling of responsibility that compelled me to deploy.”
“My family worried about me and they were not real thrilled that I would volunteer to leave them for a year to go to a combat zone. Raia continued. “My family has been super supportive of my decision. Any previous uncertainty or worries has given way to pride in what I am doing.”
Before deployment, Raia completed all the requirements for a bachelor’s degree at Penn State with a double major in Criminal Justice and Psychology. He plans to bring together all of his training, experience and education by becoming a police officer after deployment—except on National Guard weekends when he will be back on stage or in formation at ceremonies in the 28th Infantry Division Band.

Camp Garry Owen Flight Pictures

Before we even took off, the weather was getting bad.













Just north is a river--and trees!!!













Camp Garry Owen

The poop oven--note the screws in the toilet seat--not very comfortable.


















This tent is Home Sweet Home for a dozen soldiers.

Flying to Camp Garry Owen

Today I had a fast round trip to one of the bases near the Iranian border. We have fuelers and a MEDEVAC unit at Camp Garry Owen so I went to shoot pictures for an end-of-tour video. I'll try to post some tomorrow after I download them. Camp Garry Owen is small and crammed with soldiers. The facilities are crude--they have dry porta-potties they call poop ovens. Without the blue water, those things smell really bad. The one I saw they had some problem with the toilet seat for which the answer was to screw the toilet seat down. Luckily it was the kind that has a separate urinal, but anyone sitting in this plastic chamber has the head of a self-tapping screw in each cheek of their butt.

Sgt. Matt Kauffman gave me the Garry Owen tour in a Gator with a nearly flat front tire. He showed me the PX--a semitrailer, the new coffee bar--which had an excellent latte, the local market--no one was around but the tea service was out, the gym--newly expanded, the chow hall--a plywood shack that used to be open air. We drove on gravel so deep it was soupy. Matt runs six-minute miles, but not at GO. It's too hard to run on gravel so he runs on the treadmill in the gym.

The flight was exciting. I shot pictures on the way up. We passed over a palm grove, a river and a canal. When we landed we touched down for a moment, went up then settled back down. On the way back the weather was clear when we left but from five minutes away we were in a brown cloud at 1000 feet of altitude in every direction except straight up. What a mess. My eyes still hurt now. And I was sitting where the wind hit so I was rattled all the way back. In fact, I would stil1 be at Garry Owen enjoying the local cuisine if I were not on a pair of birds with a full bird colonel inside. He needed to get back so we went. Tonight they predicted Thunder storms but the sky just cleared.

I was thinking today I am actually leaving this country relatively soon and for the very first time I thought I might miss living here. Don't worry, I'm getting out of here as soon as I can. But at 1000 feet and 125 mph watching the brown cloud and shaking like a kite in a crosswind, I started thinking of things I liked about being here. More on that another time.

Who Fights This War--Our New Flight Surgeon

Maj. Kevin Scott, 44, joined 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion this month as flight surgeon, replacing Lt. Col. David Doud, who returned to the U.S. recently after completing his tour. Scott has served as the flight surgeon for the 628th Aviation Battalion since 2006.
Scott is a neurologist with a civilian practice at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, but Scott did not start his military career in medicine. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1986 and served as an officer in a military police unit at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he completed airborne, air assault and ranger training. He parachuted into Panama in 1989 when the U.S. captured Manuel Noriega. He served with the 82nd Airborne in Operation Desert Storm.
In 1992, he returned to civilian life to pursue a medical career. He first went to graduate school in physiology in New York then to Wake Forest for Medical School, graduating in 1999. From 2000 to 2004 he trained as a neurosurgeon then returned to the military in 2006 with an age waiver.
“I wanted to serve after 9/11,” Scott said. “But I decided to complete all of my medical training first, then come back.” Scott served at Camp Taji, Iraq, in 2007.

USA Today Coincidence

In the afternoon of the day the USA Today article was published we had our first rocket attack in almost four months. One rocket hit out out in the desert, one hit a CHU in the civilian housing area, and one was a dud but smashed a generator on impact. I was on the other side of the base when they hit. So after no attacks for four months, they send rockets on the day that USA Today says there is not much to do and the war is over.

On the day of the missile attack, several mechanics were returning to their living area and saw the dud missile as it was streaking down. They saw the impact and saw the missile was a dud.

In an attack, the first thing every soldier should do is hit the dirt. One of the dumbest soldiers I have ever known decided that hitting the dirt was not necessary for him. So instead of taking cover, he trotted over to the missile with is camera to get a picture. A sergeant from headquarters saw the stupid soldier and ordered him into a shelter.

I have worked with this guy and am quite confident he will do something like this again. He is the sort of person who is intent on proving he is as smart as everyone else, which leads him to do more dumb things. We will all be lucky if, in the course of doing something inane, he does not get anyone else hurt.

Since Army humor is coarse at best, it did not surprise me that the comments about the soldier climbing on the generator were unsympathetic--most were along the lines of "Well I guess it would be bad if he got blown up, but it would serve his dumb ass right."

"Gay" in the Military

So many gay jokes spin through air in the motor pools on ranges and in the chow halls that I missed a common, but less crude use of the word "gay" in the military. (As far as I can see, the usage varies little from the Army among airmen and sailors stationed here.) Most gay jokes are put downs in which someone accuses someone else of being the passive partner in a homosexual act. So after a thousand or so of these jokes, it occurred to me that a different and also common usage was to ask if something was gay or too gay. In that case, the question was simply: am I making a decision based on emotion when I should be basing my decision on facts?

A senior sergeant asked, "Is that gay?" when he was asking me whether he should be concerned with the feeling of his adversary in a dispute over who should get a job they both wanted. The answer was complicated, but the question was simple: should I let feelings guide my decision or should I take the action that benefits me at his expense?

Of course, the underlying question is, "Am I being feminine when I should be masculine?" usually expressed as "Am I being a bitch?" so the use of gay is consistent with its more coarse uses. And since I am interested in language, my small insight led me to pay more attention to usage around me and I heard the "Is that gay?" question several more times in the days that followed.

So now I could ask myself, "Is it gay to pay attention to that kind of thing?" Except, I am not supposed to ask--or tell. And re-reading this post, the joke I was trying to make did not work either. Oh well.

Who Fights This War--Retiring to a Gun in the Sun

If you’re looking for retirement advice, don’t ask Master Sgt. William Foster, 55, a door gunner in Company B, 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation Regiment. The former Punxsutawney, Pa., police department patrol sergeant did not move to Florida and did not take a part-time job like many retirees. ‘Punxsutawney Bill,’ as he is known in the town he has lived in all of his life, decided to volunteer as a door gunner and go to Iraq for retirement.

Granted, he got the sun retirees crave back home. But most retirees don’t load a Gator with a half-dozen guns six days a week in the afternoon sun and help prepare a CH-47 Chinook helicopter for a long, possibly all-night, mission.

Although Iraq is low on the list of destinations retirement planners recommend, Foster believes this is the right place for him to be and the right time for him to be here. “My younger son deployed just ahead of me as a sniper with 112th (a Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit in the 56th Stryker Brigade),” said Foster. “I wanted to be here at the same time, even if we were not in the same place. My older son is working on a master’s degree in San Diego and my daughter is at Lock Haven University in physician’s assistant training. They are all doing great. It was a good time to go.”

Before deployment, Foster served nearly half of each year as a marksmanship instructor for the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. “I have been leading training since 1996,” he said. “After a while you have to get out from behind the podium and use the weapons in the field.”

“We (Pennsylvania’s Marksmanship Team Unit) instruct active-duty Army. I did not want to stand in front of those guys without first-hand experience in Iraq,” said Foster, who plans to return to marksmanship instruction after deployment. “God-willing and the body doesn’t fall apart, I’ve got another five years until I turn 60.”

Foster first enlisted in 1972, served four years, went to college, was commissioned in 1979, and served as an officer until 1996 when he resigned his commission. He started over again as a sergeant and was promoted to master sergeant this month by Maj. Gen. Randall Marchi, 28th Infantry Division commanding general, in a ceremony in Iraq.

Foster plans to retire in Punxsutawney and have weekends free to do as he likes and get involved with his beloved community as a volunteer for the first time in forty years.

“I am going to make weekend plans. I haven’t done that since high school,” said Foster. “In fact, I may grow a beard. I haven’t had facial hair since high school either.”