An Old Friend's View of an Old Soldier

On the way home from New York City Thursday night, I called Abel Lopez, one of my two best friends from when I was on active duty in the 1970s. If I haven't mentioned him before, Abel left active duty in 1978, a year before I did. He was the commander of the tank next to mine in Bravo Company 1-70th Armor in Wiesbaden. We talked a lot about faith and about life, the universe and everything when we served together and have kept the conversation up for past 32 years. 

Abel and I seldom see each other, but talk every month or two about our current views of the same things we talked about back in Germany. He went home to Chula Vista in San Diego County and became a Federal Fire Fighter. He recently retired from the fire department. I talked to Abel on the 100-mile drive from Trenton to Lancaster, from just over the Pennsylvania line to my driveway. If you think it is wrong to talk on a cell phone while driving you should stop reading now. 

Anyway, the first thing Abel asked when I got on the phone is what I think the summary of my year in Iraq is. "I don't know," I said. We talked for a long time. He, like my friend Meredith Gould, think I went a very long way to prove L. Frank Baum (Author of the Oz books) was right, "There's No Place Like Home." One of my goals in going to Iraq was to become less tied to the life of luxury I was leading. 

That didn't work. My previous posts on the things I have done, bought, etc. since my return to America make it pretty clear that self denial is not one of my strengths. Abel thought that if I write a book about this year, it ought to be for all the people he sees in California who get to be our age and think they can reinvent themselves. They need to figure out how to do the best they can with who they are. And given the considerable lengths I went to in finding out how much I liked my life, I could make fun of my self in a big way writing that book. It also fits with my sister's advice to write one of the currently popular "One Year" books. 

I do know now that joining the Army and serving in Iraq is a great way to clarify what you really want from life--at least it was for me. It also made very clear that goodness has so many forms that one life and one place can never support it all. It is yet another thing that draws me to life beyond this life. I love the beautiful, civilized, literate world I returned to. 

Today I went to the Evolution Table at F&M and enjoyed the conversation of 22 professors and local professionals about current developments in Life Science. Tuesday I return to work with co-workers who have an average of 2.2 college degrees. But I already miss the courage and laser focus I met every day among the men and women I served with in Iraq. I clicked my heels three times, I traveled a long way, but I can't figure out which end of the trip is Oz.

Adjusting to Beauty

Adjusting to being back "in the world" is an odd process with stops and starts. Today I was in New York. I drove to Trenton then hopped on a train and got to spend the day with several different interesting people. That part was just fine. But since these people were in different parts of the city I had several views of this vibrant metropolis.

The most jarring was the Brooklyn Bridge. I took the Park Street line to one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. I walked up the middle on the tourist path. There was a point where those cables sweep up in a beautiful arc--it is where the group of walkers are clustered on the right of the path in the photo above. At that point of the bridge I looked up along those cables. The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud in sight. It was cold. The wind was blowing straight across the bridge deck at more the 20mph. The flag above the bridge pointed straight north.

I stopped and stared up for a long time. I walked a little further, but I was still staring so I stopped again. The bridge look so majestic and tall and clean. The sky line in every direction was brick and glass and steel. Planes and helicopters flew overhead. Boats made there slow way under the bridge in the shipping channel.

Everywhere I looked was a contrast to the low, dirt-covered, place I left. Trees and grass grew everywhere the concrete did not cover in New York. At Tallil the lawn was gravel. My senses were overloaded. I was in civilization. This is home.

Liars and the Dentist

Today I went to my own dentist for a check up and cleaning. They had a cancellation so I got in right away. As she was getting ready to clean my teeth the hygienist asked why I had not been in for more than a year after getting regular check ups. I told where I had been and she said, "That's the first excuse I have heard in a long time that I believe."

Then she asked me about how the war was going, but since she was cleaning my teeth while she asked, she answered her own question. "You never get the real story from the media. They just say what they want to. They make it up."

When she took a break I said I thought the media had a very tough job. "Many people they deal with are lying, shading the truth, and making things up. Reporters have to figure out what part of the things they say are true and why they are saying them. It would be like having patients who walked into your office, smiled and denied they had teeth. Or walked in with a broken tooth and said 'Nothing is wrong.' Or say 'flossing is proof that the government is trying to control our lives.'"

Going back to her earlier comment she said, "But patients do lie to me. I get people coming in after no check ups for five years saying, 'I was here last year.' and there records are right here on the counter. And people come to me with bleeding gums and say, 'I floss almost every day.'"

She went on to say that she can't tell the people who don't floss they are lying so she has to say something like, "Let's work on your flossing technique."

I came away with a new respect for the difficulties of her job. She also told me that when she gives the patients who neglect their teeth a thorough cleaning they go to the receptionist afterwards and say they do not want "that hygienist" because she hurts them. I hope looks at the media a little differently now that she knows how much news sources and dental patients have in common.

Adjusting to Life at Home

Yesterday on the training ride there is a place where we usually slow down as we turn from State Highway 441 onto a narrow road with a creek on one side and a steep tree-covered hill on the other. The hill is dark all the way up to a north-south ridge so if there is any sun it is bright on the top of the ridge and dark all the way down to where we ride the road. Just after we turned onto this road Matt Hollenbach said, "Neil, look up there, three deer, no four." I looked and there they were, right on the ridge line standing parallel to the road.

They were back-lit, standing still and silhouetted from their hooves to their horns. They could not be better targets if they wore orange vests with bulls-eyes. What I should have seen was how beautiful nature is here compared to the dust, rock and vermin that is nature in southern Iraq. But as I looked at the deer and the afternoon sun and the trees, my first thought was "Get off the ridge you idiots! One shot and you are dinner!"

I suppose it will take a while before my view of a natural scene does not include range, target description, and rules of engagement.

When I first returned to America after serving on the border in Germany, I would occasionally be driving along a country road and look at the fields and tree lines in front of me as fields of fire for a tank or see places where a tank could be "hull-down" with it's hull protected from direct fire but with a clear view for the gunner's sights.

Speaking of riding, I really prefer riding without an M-16A4 rifle on my back.

Back to Training Rides

On Friday I wrote about my first ride back with the daily ride crew. Today I rode farther and faster than on Friday. On the Friday ride at mile 20 my voice was gone and I was crawling up the hills. Today I rode fast enough to sort of keep up while the regular guys rode slower than usual. But even on the last nasty hill into Millersville I rode to the top of the hill steadily.

It will be a long time before I overcome a year of flat riding and get in shape for climbing hills. One additional incentive for me to get in shape for the coming season is a change in the age group divisions. For years the age groups have been even decades: 30+, 40+, 50+ and occasionally 60+. Next year the ages will be 35+, 45+ and 55+. I am 57, so I will be only two years older than the youngest guys in the race, not seven years older. So I won't be the old guy completely at the back of the pack. I might do OK in some races.

Combat Patch

One of the best things that happened to me in Iraq was covered under OPSEC until now. It would not seem like a secret, but we are in the process of being allowed to wear the combat patch of the 1st Armored Division. 4th Brigade of 1AD is in charge of the garrison at Tallil Ali Air Base/Camp Adder. When I served the last time I was a tank gunner in 1975 and a tank commander from 1976 to 1984. Although I was in tanks, I was assigned to mechanized infantry divisions so I always wore an infantry unit patch, never an armored patch. 

Now I can wear the 1st AD patch on my right sleeve. So after all these years, serving with an aviation unit in Iraq finally got me the opportunity to wear an armor patch. I wrote about the connection between 1AD and my unit on December 22 & 23. I already got a price for a tattoo. I have seen people get a unit patch tattoo on their arm where the patch would be on the uniform. But I am a bike racer. If I get the tattoo it will be in the middle of my right calf--the place where it is visible in a peleton.

Welcome Home Party

This afternoon was my Welcome Home party. In addition to my family, friends from work showed up--driving all the way from New Jersey in the case of Shelley Geehr and her family. Sarah Reisert made the long drive from Philadelphia. Jan Felice, Jim Pomeroy, Keith McIlhenney, and Scott and Barb Haverstick were here representing the bicycling side of my life. Several members of the math department at Franklin and Marshall College (including Arny and Tracy Feldman who provided the snacks) were here along with bicyclist and college president John Fry. Bruce and Carol Mawhinney and the whole LeDuc family along with the Whites, Eric and Lina Bierker, and Leslie Bustard from Wheatland Presbyterian Church. All my daughters came home from college so the house was very full.

At 6pm my wife disappeared upstairs to listen to Prairie Home Companion. I took the kids to Starbucks and then to the train station to put Iolanthe on the train back to Bryn Mawr. Reviving an old tradition Lauren, Lisa, Nigel and I went to the Park City Mall on Saturday night. We had done that for years leaving the house to Annalisa. Lisa and I went shopping for shoes for me while Lauren and Nigel went looking for a shirt for Lauren. Lisa said it was different with me shopping, since when we did this several years ago, the kids went shopping while I sat near the entrance to Sears and did homework for Greek or Physics or French or whatever class I happened to be taking that semester.

I am starting to feel more like I am really home.