Twas the Night Before Basic. . .

. . .and in a Kenmore Square bar,

I drank way too much

And Frank drove my car.

This long-haired drunk smoking a cigarette is me, just forty years and a few months ago.  I've been so focused on getting an extension to stay in the Army, I forgot that Feb 1 was the 40th anniversary of my initial enlistment.

On that auspicious evening, my best friend Frank Capuano, my sister Jean and others I cannot remember took me to a basement bar in Kenmore Square, Boston, for pitchers of beer before I left for basic.  In Boston in 1972, 3.2% beer was legal for 18 year olds.  

So we drove to Boston and I drank way too much--something that has always been easy for me.  I can get drunk on three beers.  I got really drunk.  Enough that I fell off my chair onto the sawdust-covered floor.  One of the bouncers decided I had enough and carried me up the stairs over his shoulder.  The bouncers wore vertical-stripe red and white shirts.  Looking at the shirt and bouncing caused me to throw up on the bouncer.  He tossed me into the alley.  

I was up at 6am to go to Logan Airport for the flight to basic.  Not a great beginning.  But it turned out OK.

By the way, we tried to get in the Ratskellar across the street.  Aerosmith--a local bar band at the time, was playing at the Rat.  But they wouldn't let us in.  So we settled for K-K-Katy's.

Thanks to Everyone Who Voted

"Home from Iraq" is a finalist for the 6th Annual Milbloggie Awards this weekend in at the Military Blogging Conference Alexandria VA. I won't be able to attend because I have a big weekend with the boys.  

Now that I got the extension, I guess I can enter the contest for two more years.

Thanks to all of you who voted, especially to Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority at the University of Richmond--my daughter Lisa is a member and asked her sisters to vote for her Dad.

 

Veteran Event at Richmond Intl. Raceway

My sons and I went to a veteran event at Richmond Intl. Raceway.  We got to see a great race, meet drivers, and eat lots of food.  The event was courtesy of driver Brad Keselowski.  Report is here.

Planning for a Very Odd Future

Now that my extension through May 2015 is all done except the confirmation paperwork, I can start making more concrete plans about the future.

Or not.

I will be 62 in May of 2015 and hope to spend part of the 2015-2016 academic year in Rwanda with my wife and three or four sons.  I want them to live in a black-majority culture to experience how different that is--especially for their white parents.  And Rwanda has the advantages of being among the poorest and at the same time most bicycle crazy countries on the planet.  The country is healing from the mid-90s genocide through both sides--Hutus and Tutsis--cheering for the national bicycle racing team and their international bike race, The Tour of Rwanda.

If all goes well, we will go there for a semester.  My wife will lecture on math at the University of Kigali, my sons will do there best to attend high school Kigali, the capital, and I will teach English as a Second Language with a definite emphasis on bicycle vocabulary.  Rwanda has great roads that are keep smooth from lack of heavy vehicle traffic.  Thousands of young men build their racing muscles dragging heavy loads behind and on their bicycles.  For these young men to become racers they have to be literate and learn both the bike and the complex tactics of racing.  Hopefully, I can help.

If it turns out I go to Afghanistan before I get out, I will have just that much more experience in a poor culture.

Since I will be some form of retired by then, it is good to know that the cost of living in Rwanda is very low.

I GOT THE FULL 2-YEAR EXTENSION!!!!

The battalion Command Sergeant Major called me today and left a message saying, "I have good news, call me back."

He did have good news.  The Pennsylvania Adjutant General signed a two-year extension of my enlistment.  My new discharge date is 30 May 2015, just after my 62nd birthday.  So I now have three years and a month before I will officially be a civilian again.

Chinook Flies Sideways During Sling Load Training

Days Like These are Why I Want to Stay In!!!!

Friday night I got a text message from our operations officer:

0730 at west field for first CH movement.

That was all the info I had.

I drove to West Field arriving at 0720. When I arrived two Chinooks sat in the middle of a large field.  Along the north edge in front of the tree line were more than 200 soldiers lining up in groups getting ready to fly to hill tops on the ridges on the north side of Fort Indiantown Gap.

As the infantry lined up, Chief Witmer put me on the second aircraft so I could take a picture of the first aircraft landing and the troops running off. The plan did not work out--at least for pictures.  The first aircraft was so fast it was flying away from the landing zone before we arrived.

So I did not get the pictures, but for the first time I had the experience of landing on top of a cliff in a Chinook with the tail wheels on the cliff and the nose wheels off the edge while 30 infantrymen ran out the back of the aircraft.  The landing was very smooth and so was the hover while the infantrymen ran down the ramp and off the aircraft, but I could look out the forward door gunner's window and down the side of the cliff.

It was very cool.

The two Chinooks flew several more sorties ferrying tropps up to Media Ridge.  I recently exchanged my cracked Blackberry for an iPhone so I took movies of some of the landings and takeoffs.  I will post them later this week.  I climbed on the last flight returning from Medina Ridge.  The troop exercise was over by 11 am.  But the days excitement wasn't over.