Article in USO magazine "On Patrol"

The following article was published this spring in "On Patrol" the USO magazine.  I never saw it and the link is broken on the web site.  There is a pdf copy on line, but it is not easy to get to.  I also posted on a soldier stories Army web site.

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On a cold, wet morning in early May of 2008, I climbed into the back of a canvas-covered 2 ½ ton M35A2 “Deuce and a Half” truck for the bumpy ten-mile ride to Urban Combat training.  I was carrying an M16 rifle.  We were beginning combat training to get ready for deployment to Iraq in January of 2009.  I re-enlisted in 2007 after leaving the Army in 1984.  I had been a civilian for 23 years and now I was back.  Up to this point my service had been one weekend a month.  But climbing into that out-moded truck that would soon be retired even from National Guard use, I had a moment of doubt whether I really belonged with these guys less than half my age and a moment of déjà vu.

Thirty-six years ago, in February of 1972, I was 18 years old in basic training.  I climbed into the back of a Deuce and a Half truck.  They big three-axle trucks were new to the military then, as was the M16 rifle I carried at the time.  We all knew we could end up in Viet Nam, although the war was ending.  Riding out to the range made the war more real. 

And 36 years later, bouncing and lurching on rutted roads toward the range I wondered if I was really ready for deployment to Iraq.  I never left the United States during the Viet Nam War, but in one of those ironies that make the best war stories so good, I was the only one of the five guys I enlisted with to come home in bandages.  They served in Viet Nam and came home just fine.  I was on a live-fire missile test crew in the desert in Utah.  On November 9, 1973, some detonators went off and I was blinded in the explosion.  I had my sight back in a month after six operations to remove wire and small fragments from my eyes.  I retained as a tank crewman after that and served another nine years, mostly as a tank commander on active duty and in the reserves.

In 1984 I left the Army because I wanted to work as a writer and, although the reserves is billed as one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, the leaders spend a lot more time than that.  So I left the Army.

When America was attacked in 2001, I thought about re-enlisting, but I was too old.  At that time the maximum enlistment age was thirty-five.  Eleven years prior service meant I could enlist until age 46, but I was 48 when the terrorists attacked.  In addition, the baby we adopted the year before was not quite two years old. 

Five years later, in 2006, congress raised the maximum enlistment age to 42 for the Army.  It took a few months for me to find a recruiter willing to go through the waivers and hassles necessary to get a guy my age back in the Army, but Sergeant 1^st Class Kevin Askew was sure he could get me back in. 

The déjà vu comes and goes.  In a very digital world, the Army still runs on dog-eared file folders of papers and uses more clerks to shuffle paper in a 2000-soldier brigade than a civilian company with ten times that many employees.  Most of the men I served with in the 70s (there were no women in combat units back then) were from inner city or rural backgrounds.  Most of the men and women who enlist now are the same.  They want a job, they want the benefits for their young families, they do not have the money for higher education and want to go to college or technical school.

Inside the fences that surround most bases, the Army is very much the same as the 1970s.  But the first time stopped on the way home from a weekend drill to get coffee at Starbucks, I knew perception of the Army had changed completely.  In the 70s we did not wear uniforms off base if we could avoid it.  Now people thank me for my service almost anyplace I go.  I came home from Iraq through Fort Dix, New Jersey.  I took an Amtrak train home to Lancaster.  Several people I never met thanked me for my service between Trenton, New Jersey, and home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  A few of the guys I served with in Iraq had enlisted back in the 1970s.  They remembered very well what it was like to be a soldier back then.  Sometimes when a stranger thanks me for my service, I wish some of the men I served with in the 1970s could spend a day in the uniform now and get some of the gratitude that they missed back then.

Death and Motivation

In an odd coincidence, I watched episode 2 of "Band of Brothers" the HBO series with my two sons and talked with my daughter about her recent visit to a charter school in Harlem.  My boys are (almost) 11 and (just) 12.  Even though they don't have video games in our house, they play them with their friends.  In video games you die regularly and come back to life.  In the "Band of Brothers" they make painfully clear death has no re-dos.

The boys really like the series.  We will watch the whole thing together over the next two weeks.

On the same evening, I spoke to my daughter Lisa, a sophomore at the U. of Richmond about her Fall Break trip to NYC to see schools in Harlem.  One of these amazing schools she visited was located in the worst area of Harlem.  The school starts at 730 in the morning and goes to 430 in the afternoon, but the kids stay later if they need to finish their work.  They go six days per week, 11 months of the year.  More than 90% of the kids they graduate go to college.

The schedule is rigorous.  The work is hard.  So what is the biggest motivational problem for the school?

The student death toll.

Of the 1200 kids in that school, two to five die every month.  That's right, 2 to 5.  By the end of the year, that adds up to about 5% of the student body.

More than a million soldiers have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  To date, about 6,000 soldiers have lost their lives in these wars or 0.6% of all soldiers.  If these wars had the same death rate as this relatively small school in Harlem, the death toll in these wars would already be worse than Viet Nam.

The unit I served with brought everyone home from Iraq--more than 2000 soldiers flying thousands of missions in helicopters.

Lisa said the teachers she met in these schools are amazing.  That is very easy to believe.  For all the problems with education, the best teachers really are miracle workers.

Lauren is Back in the Goal--and Whacked Again

Lauren called me Saturday evening to let me know she played the 2nd Half of the game between Juniata College and Drew College.  She didn't know she would be playing, but the doctor cleared her to play so she was happy to get back in the goal.

When she started in goal Juniata was down 2-0.  By the end of the game they lost 3-1, but Lauren felt she played well and made good saves--with her hands.

Then she told me she took a ball to her face.  She was seeing a black shadow in her eye.  Her mom and I worried about serious injury, but it turned out she just had some blood in her eye from the hit.  No bad problem, just a swollen eye with a red patch.

We had a chance to talk about her future.  In the short term, graduate school, in the longer term all the different ways she could do social work.  She hasn't yet decided which kind of social work she will do--adoption counseling, veterans assistance, probation, and others.  But she was clear that her career intent is to help people. so that is the important thing.

My Latest Book Review

I reviewed another book for "Books and Culture" magazine.  It is a history of science book.  It's most interesting chapter is an aside on the author's debate with Henry M. Morris, one of the founders of the modern version of Young Earth Creationism.
The book is titled Much Ado About (Practically) Nothing: A history of the Noble Gases.

I have another review coming out in the print edition next week, but it won't be on line for a month or two.

Staying as Long as I Can

Before and during the last drill weekend, I decided to stay in the Guard till they throw me out which likely will mean going to Afghanistan in two years or so.  Our unit should be getting new aircraft at the beginning of next year.  If all goes well, I hope to go with them.

When I started working full time in Iraq writing about soldiers, it became clear that in an ideal world I would have been in public affairs all the way through the training to get ready to go to Iraq.  That way I could have gotten information about every soldier before we went on active duty and written about the whole process--civilian, to soldier in training, to the desert and back again.

So I will write about all the training we do until plans for the unit become more clear.  Then I will have to get waivers both to stay in the Army past 60 and to deploy.  Our sergeant major thinks both waivers are possible, but nothing is ever a sure thing with waivers and exceptions.

On Monday when we were at the Corn Maze, PA State Senator Mike Brubaker was welcoming the veterans as we went in.  Later when we were eating he came over to our table and asked if there was anything he could do for us.  My wife said, "Neil wants to stay in the Guard and go to Afghanistan.  Can you help him with that?"  Sen. Brubaker called his aide over.  It turns out we live in a different senatorial district, but he said Senator Smucker would certainly be willing to help.  My commander in Iraq, Scott Perry, is the representative for the PA 92nd district, so maybe I will have other help getting a waiver.

At least now I can stop thinking about what to do next.  I will try to stay in as long as I can.  If I can't stay, at least I tried.  Next drill I will take an eight-hour ride in a Chinook and take pictures of aerial gunnery.  No matter how long I get to stay, I will get to do a lot of fun stuff while I am in.

Three-Day Drill Weekend

This drill weekend was a three-day Friday to Sunday weekend.  I will be posting pictures from the weekend.  I also shot video with a camera loaned to me by the WHYY Radio TV Learning Lab also known The Dorrance H. Hamilton Public Media Commons.

I shold be posting pictures in the next few days of pistol, rifle and machine gun ranges.  I should be able post video once Craig Santoro and the other folks at the WHYY Learning Lab help me figure out how to edit.

More posts in the next few days.

Today, my family got a free day at the Cherry Crest Adventure Farm in Strasburg, Pa.  They had free admission and free food for veterans today.

Another Half Marathon

Last Saturday I ran another half marathon--the Hands on House Half Marathon in Lancaster.  I ran it partly because it was close, partly because it was hilly, and because several friends from Church were in the race. It was a beautiful Saturday morning.  The race started at 9 am.  Just 1,200 people started the race, compared more than 15,000 at the Philadelphia event two weeks before.  Before the race started I hoped I could finish under two hours, but wasn't sure.  I felt better as the race went on and my pace was staying close to nine minutes per mile, so I thought I was going fast enough.

At mile nine, my left calf started to hurt and my legs started to feel heavy.  I thought I was keeping the pace up, but at the finish line the clock said 2 hours, 1 minute, 58 seconds.

Oh well.

I can try again soon.  There are several events reasonably close in the next two months.  My leg is recovering.  I ran three miles each of the last two days.  The winner in my age category finished almost 20 minutes ahead of me, so that goal is a long way off.