New Year's Eve--2009 by the Numbers

What an odd year for a 56-year-old guy who works at a museum. This year I have lived in two US states and two middle eastern countries--Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Iraq and Kuwait. Lance Armstrong wrote a book titled "It's Not About the Bike." If I wrote that I would be lying. so the first numbers are about the bike.
Miles: 7100 total
PA--500
OK--1300
Kuwait--100
Iraq--5200
I competed in four races. Three in PA while I was on leave, one in Iraq.
I rode four bikes outside PA. Two I bought for the trip and broke them both. The single speed 29er and track bike are in Conex containers on the way to America. The post chaplain at Fort Sill OK loaned me his bike while I was there (May the Lord bless him!) I bought a $100 bike for the two weeks I was in Kuwait in the spring, broke it and traded it for a latte at Starbucks. I bought a bike for $250 in Iraq in December after I broke the 29er. I sold it the day before I left for $250 and threw in a pump.

I read only 15 books this year--lowest total since I started keeping track. And almost all of them were re-reads: six by CS Lewis, Inferno & Purgatorio, Aeneid, and The Three Musketeers (an old edited French version). New to my reading list were George Orwell's Essays, another of John Polkinghorne's books on theology and physics, and The Audacity of Hope by President Obama.

The unabridged Democracy in America is my first book for 2009. I am halfway through The Oak and the Calf by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and a second (very different) abridged French version of the Three Musketeers and should finish them during the long hours in Kuwait.

By a rough calculation I have written more than 75,000 words on my blog and am just short of 50,000 visitors too my blog since I started keeping track in June of 2008.

Since August I have written more articles than I ever have in my life. The 16th weekly issue of the newsletter goes out Monday. I also wrote four newsletters for Echo Company and had stories picked up by many Web sites and newspapers--none cooler, of course, then the New York Times "At War" blog on Thanksgiving!

Although many are different angles of the same shot, I have taken more than 5000 pictures. It will be very strange to have no camera when I leave active duty.

Counting each take off and landing as a flight, I have been on two dozen helicopter rides, mostly on Blackhawks, but also on the big Chinooks. It was the Chinooks that turned out to be the best single photo subject. It was wonderful watching them hover, six feet above a container with a flight engineer on top of it who hooked the 5,000-pound load, jumped to the ground and ran through the hurricane-force winds as the big helicopter flew away with 2.5 tons dangling 20 feet underneath.

I bought just two meals the whole time I was in Iraq--pizzas at Ciano's. But I bought a few hundred lattes at Green Bean's. The last one was free. I am sitting in Green Bean's in Kuwait writing this post.

I fired a lot fewer rounds this year than I did as a Cold War tank commander in the 1970s. But then we were training for a real war that seemed immanent. Now we are in a real war that is ending.

Oh right. And I made 387 blog posts in 2009. I will continue posting every day until we are released from active duty. Then I am going to take a break during the 17 days I am still on terminal leave. And when I am finally and officially a civilian again, I might write about some of the stuff I can't write now.

Happy New Year.

One Step Closer

Today we flew to Kuwait by way of Basra stopping at three bases before finally arriving at the transient base. We will be here for several days and, just as when I was stuck here for seven days in July, I won't know when I will leave here until I am on an airplane. Several times on the last trip, my name got called, I was on a manifest, I dragged my bags up to the meeting area, I was ready to board the bus then. . ."Sorry. Come back at 0500 hours."

But it's OK with me. We are on the way back to America. I am out of Iraq. I have lots of work to do, assuming I can do it using personal computer on a wireless hookup. Sometime in late January this year will end and I can go back to being a civilian again. I liked some of this year. I hated some of this year. The parts I hated probably helped me grow.

One thing it confirmed for me is how very difficult and very worthwhile it is to build community. It is very clear very fast that even people who think of politeness as optional, a sort of window dressing in life, rapidly find that politeness of some kind is necessary to live in close quarters. And they believe more strongly every day that if politeness is not natural it had better be enforced by someone.

An hour ago we moved eight of us moved into a 16-man tent, filling the all the available bunks. The lights are supposed to stay on 24/7, but if everyone agrees, the lights can go out until someone needs them. We may or may not have lights out, but if we do, it will be because 16 men agreed to shut off the lights at a given hour and turn them on again when needed.

It's very likely (though not certain) I will spend New Year's Eve and Day in a transient tent without any of the usual celebration. Certainly no alcohol. But it won't dampen my spirits. In a month or so, I'll be home.

Who Fights This War? Public Affairs Officer, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division

Today I have a guest post from Maj. Myles Caggins of the 4th BCT, 1st Armored Division. We have had a chance to work together on a few projects and even to talk politics.
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Twelve months ago I was in Washington, D.C. having just finished my graduate degree requirements from Georgetown. D.C., the most powerful city in the world, is an easy draw for the media and the military. In contrast, Contingency Operating Base Adder just south of Nasiriyah, Iraq is relatively unknown and military operations here seldom gain wide-spread press attention.

At least not until December 18.

This day Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our nation’s highest ranking military officer visited my brigade at COB Adder. Mullen was traveling with seven members of the Pentagon Press Pool among the 20+ other staffers and security personnel in his entourage.


Serving as an Army Brigade Public Affairs Officer my job is to tell the story of the 4,000 Soldiers assigned to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division. I want audiences to know who they are and most importantly what they do in Iraq in 2009.
Gone are the days of U.S. Soldiers kicking down doors and rounding up IED makers, terrorist mortarmen, and other outlaws. In today’s stability operations environment, we are simply here to advise and assist Iraqi Security Forces.

Most readers of this blog believe that. However, if I stood in downtown Nasiriyah and tried to explain “stability operations” doctrine the local citizens would be skeptical of the message and the messenger—and of course 30% of what I say would probably be lost in translation.

Imagine if some dude from a foreign Army pulled up in your driveway in a 10’ tall armored truck; stood in your front lawn with body armor, an assault rifle, and a team of security then stated “I’m your friend, I come in peace.”

Needless to say, I might come off to be a Kevlar-clad Joe Isuzu to the average Iraqi. Remember him here and here.

So on my next post, I’ll explain the solution to gaining and maintaining a positive perception for American forces in southern Iraq…and how I changed the price of oil 2% with one quote on December 18.

For Nigel--Blackhawk Banking Left

Yesterday I was on an all-day flight that lasted into the night. It was the first time I flew in a Blackhawk at night. I flew in a Chinook at night, but I was up inside the fuselage and could not see out very much except through the tail door.
I was sitting right behind the door gunner on the Blackhawk and could see all the countryside on the final leg of our trip. The desert is prettier at night than in the brown dusty day. The shallowest ripples look deep in the dark and trace out shapes that are much more interesting than simple sand ripples and ditches.
The trip went from here to Kalsu for hot fuel (with the engines running and rotors turning) then to Baghdad and a visit to one of Saddam's bombed out palaces. I'll try to put a few more photos up soon.
After Baghdad we flew up to Joint Base Balad, where we should have gone back when we got here. It's a beautiful base. Oh well.
Then Back to Kalsu in the fading light, then back to Tallil in the dark. I was not told till the night before I had to go. I had a lot of work to do the next day and asked the commander if he really wanted to me to go. He said, "This is a war Gussman. You're going." So I went.

Who Fights this War--Coach on the Range

During the two days Echo Company ran the marksmanship qualification range on COB Adder in November, Sgt. 1st Class Jason Guinn, 30, strode back and forth on the dirt mound where the shooters were firing. Guinn adjusted a body position here, made a suggestion there, pushed in an elbow, all to help soldiers to qualify with their M16, M4 or M9 personal weapons.
Guinn served for four years on active duty as a Marine before joining the Army National Guard. “We don’t spend enough time on PMI (Preliminary Marksmanship Instruction),” said Guinn, NCOIC of Operations for Task Force Diablo. “In the Marines we moved out to the range for two weeks every year. We would a full week just practicing different firing positions.”
Guinn serves full time in the Army National Guard and is planning to work as a Readiness NCO in 28th Combat Aviation Brigade after this deployment. He currently has the additional duties of Master Weapons Instructor and Master Marksmanship Instructor for the 28th CAB. During his service with the Marines from 1997 – 2000 Guinn was a Master Marksmanship Instructor. “In the Marines, marksmanship can be a primary duty. In the Army it is always an additional duty,” said the Enola, Pa. native.
In addition to weapons training in the Marines, Guinn has received six months of advanced weapons instruction from several Army schools, including the five-phase Master Weapons Instructor School which he completed in 2004. He is currently on his third deployment. He went to East Timor with the Marines in 1998. He went to Kosovo with Bravo Company (Attack) 1-104th Aviation in 2005-6 before his current tour with Task Force Diablo.
Guinn says “practice makes perfect” in marksmanship as in many areas of life. He practices partly through competition. He has earned the Governor’s Twenty tab for marksmanship and competed in international events. He is especially proud of being a member of the team the beat the highly rated Italian Special Forces team.
Later this week, on December 3, Guinn will be conducting a marksmanship class for his staff in operations. “It’s a full day just to go over the fundamentals of shooting,” he said.

For Nigel: The Best Picture

One more sling load photo because I did not include the best one. This is the one of the ground crewman setting the hook.

For Nigel: A Chinook Sling Load

A few days ago, three Chinook helicopters hovered 20 feet above the north runway waiting for the signal to fly over to the south ramp and pick up sling loads. The Chinook can haul a container with thousands of pounds of stuff underneath and fly. These pictures show some of the views I had. It was tough to get some of the pictures because Chinooks are named after the near 100mph wind in the mountain west. For the picture looking up under the Chinook with the sling load, I laid down on the airstrip 100 meters ahead of the Chinook as the sling was attached and took the shot as it flew over me.