Happy New Year

As this new year begins, the flight companies of my unit are on the way to or are already in Afghanistan.  If you follow me and my unit on facebook you have seen now photos going up in both places.  Several soldiers are posting and sending photos from training and from Afghanistan. Our MEDEVAC unit was in a feature story on army.mil about a new program they are testing to save more soldiers.  Here's the link to the story.

Wish I was along for the ride, but not this trip.  I will continue to write about life in the National Guard until May of 2015 when my enlistment extension is up.

Here a picture from the army.mil story:

Happy New Year!!!

Stewie Caldwell and the Magic Roach Clip

One of my best friends when I was stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah was Stewart "Stewie" Caldwell.  He was a smart, funny kid from San Francisco with a bright yellow Superbeetle who smoked a lot of weed.  We worked in live fire munitions testing.  I worked connecting the missiles to the testing equipment, Stewie was one of the ammo handlers who brought the missiles to the test-firing range.

Stewie and I would hang out together in the barracks and went to Salt Lake City almost every weekend so he could resupply his stash and we could meet girls who were possibly more interested in Stewie's stash than in us.

On one of these trips, a sudden Rocky Mountain blizzard blew out of the west turning I-15 white with zero visibility.  Then the gas pedal broke.

The pedal!!!

It came apart and we were idling downhill trying to think of what to do and how to get off the road so we would not be crushed by a semi.  I am not sure which one of us came up with the idea, but the throttle was operated by a cable that went all the way back to the engine in the rear.  There was a bit of cable sticking out of the floor with a crimped piece of metal on it.  Stewie kept his Roach Clip hanging on the dash.  A minute later I was upside down under the dash.  I put the roach clip on the throttle cable and became Stewie's throttle.  This was tricky in the snow with a stick shift, but he would ask for more or less gas and after a while, I could get the throttle in about the right place.

The next challenge was going through the gate.  Stewie showed the air policeman the broken gas pedal and said it was my turn to be head first under the dash.  They let us in the base!

Stewie would never go anywhere without a roach clip before it saved our lives.  Now he also bragged about his roach clip to every girl he tried to impress.

My Unit's Facebook Page Nearing 500 "Likes"

Over the holidays I will be putting captions on family photos.  The pictures were taken at the departure ceremony for Alpha Company and at our unit's Christmas party.

Here's the link if you haven't yet "Like"d the page.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy any other holidays you might like.

Neil

In Sunlight and Shadow by Mark Helprin

On the train to Philadelphia yesterday, I finished Mark Helpin's latest novel, In Sunlight and Shadow.  I came pretty close to crying.  Helprin is a soldier who writes love stories.  In this most recent book, the central love story was vivid, between two people iridescent with love.  The love story is set in New York, from the eastern end of Long Island to the reservoirs north of the city.  And it is a love story about New York City, set in the years just after World War 2.

For those who have read other of Helprin's books, this one is more down to earth.  The exaggerations in A Winter's Tale, in A Soldier of the Great War and A Dove of the East rival Mark Twain in being colossal and very American.  In Sunlight and Shadow, the hero lives for love and honor and finally is caught between the demands of both.  The same choice comes to the hero of many of Helprin's tales, but in the latest novel, the choice is more vivid and final.

If you think modern literary novels have squishy irresolute heroes (if they can be called heroes) and you would like to read a love story with strong admirable characters, this novel is for you.  As is almost everything Mark Helprin writes.

Getting Promoted with a Splash!

Specialist Daniel Krott was promoted to Sergeant at formation today, December 8.  He is being led in pushups by his supervisor, SSG Elizabeth Barger.  Giving him the traditional ice-water shower for new Sergeants is SGT Joseph Diebert and SGT Jeff Guckin.

Three other sergeants read the NCO Creed to the company formation before the big splash.  PFC Robert Woodring on the left read the promotion order.  SGTs Jeana Frederick, Rene Kicklighter, and Francis League read the NCO Creed.

SGT Krott was promoted by CPT Aaron Lippy, 1SG Jeff Huttle and SSG Elizabeth Barger.

Alpha Company Flies to Training Base

On Friday afternoon I was standing on the south side of Muir Field on Fort Indiantown Gap PA watching eight Blackhawk helicopters take off together on their flight to their training base.  Alpha will train for deployment to Afghanistan when they arrive in Texas.

On this bright, clear afternoon I was standing with the families and friends of the eight aircrews flying away from home for a year.  Wives and Moms were the most obviously sad.  Fathers tried to remain composed, but a couple of the grandfathers were very emotional.

I took a lot of family pictures before the final ceremony and will post these on line soon.  If things had worked out differently, I might have been going to Texas with Alpha.

 Families

 Flying to Texas

 Putting away the flags after the Blackhawks disappear from sight

Inside the Two-Ton Bubble

 Once on my daily circuit around the airfield at Camp Adder, Iraq, I was in a sandstorm so strong that it stopped me on the bike.  Because I can “track stand” the bike, keep it upright when standing still, I held the bike in place for a minute then jumped off.

Curled up in a ball, back to the wind, I thought about what to do next.  I could turn around and fly back in the other direction, but I would eventually have to turn the north then back to the east, then get stopped again.  Just then, one of the special ops black Suburbans pulled up and told me to get in.  They said, “Dude, get inside.  This storm’s gonna last all day.”

I got inside and they drove me to battalion HQ. 

Today I was riding in a 20 mph wind with 30 mph gusts.  I was going up a shallow hill at 6 mph—way slower than normal, but straight into the wind that was the best I could do.  Many cars rolled past me on that mile-long stretch of PA Rt. 999.  I was thinking about how many times I heard about people “In the bubble” during the political season just passed.  Here I was, the perfect example of why people stay in a bubble—it sucks being outside!!!!

The people in the cars going past me were getting no exercise, they were missing a clear, cold, clear brilliant late Fall day.  Compared to keeping my bike upright and rolling uphill into a headwind, their lives were DULL.

Let’s assume, most of them wanted it that way.  After a while I did.  I turned back early and rolled to the bike shop to buy a better pair of cold weather gloves and hang out in the warm shop for a while.

For people who are in bubbles of belief, their avoidance of facts has an effect similar to being in a two-ton, two hundred horsepower car in a head wind.

Mr. Bubble, looking out through the windshield, can see everything the guy on the bike does, but Mr. Bubble does not experience the world as it is.  He is in a climate controlled, sound-deadened environment moving fast enough that he seldom sees the messy details of reality. 

One of the great things about serving in the Army is realizing—even in America—that individual freedom can only be preserved by people who give it up.  And that health and safety for many means that some must risk their lives. 

I am sitting in a comfortable, well-lit room, in a centrally heated house writing on my unbelievably powerful computer which is connected to the whole world through an incredibly reliable cable modem.  I love my bubble.  But I know it is a bubble which is more than I deserve and much more than 98% of the world will ever have.

Happy Thanksgiving!