Photos From Drill Weekend

Frozen flight line

Cold in Johnstown

Inside a Chinook on the flight to Johnstown

On the Chinook

The walk back to the hangar

Lunch in Johnstown

Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way!!

Sometimes I wonder, 'Why did I re-enlist at my age?'
Or 'What am I doing in the Army at 60?'

Then I get a chance to do something that only a soldier would think is awesome and then I think, 'I re-enlisted because I love this shit!'

On Saturday, the boys and I gave one of my friends a ride to the Philadelphia airport.  We were in Philadelphia so it should have been a 15-minute trip.  No problem.

We got on I-95 and drove quickly past the stadiums.  I looked ahead at the long approach to the bridge over the Delaware.

We had just passed the last exit on this side of the Delaware River and all the traffic was stopped.  I was in the left lane.  It was a clear day.  I could see a mile ahead.  Just before the bridge itself all four lanes of traffic were stopped.

Nothing was moving and traffic was stacking up.  Within seconds we came to a stop.  I looked up the road at nearly a thousand cars four lanes wide.  And I got angry.  I knew at least one lane could get through no matter how bad the accident was.

I stopped the car and asked my passenger to get in the drivers seat.  I happened to be wearing running shoes, so I took off running fast along the left side of the road past all the stopped cars to the accident site.  Three cars were wrecked and twisted.  The left lane was clear.  A guy standing there was half-heartedly waving cars through.

I told him I am in the Army and can handle this.  He went back to help with the accident.

I pointed at the first car in line, waved my arm and put my whole body into the motion.  He moved, fast.  Next car followed.  I kept waving.  Third car the driver's eyes wandered to the accident.  I pointed straight at him and waved to get moving.  If his windows were down he might have heard me yell encouragement using short words with CK sounds.

I kept wave, the cars started merging and moving.  When anyone started gawking, I moved toward the car and waved to get moving.  One guy slowed.  His passenger rolled down the window and started video recording.  I stood between him and the scene and told him to keep moving in a way that indicated his IQ was lower than a bag of ball peen hammers.

It was so much fun.  Less than 10 minutes later, my car was passing the accident site.  I jumped in and we took off.

Thanksgiving weekend was a lot of fun in many ways, but that ten minutes on the approach to the bridge showed me why I should be a soldier.  I'm too old to be a cop.

Sunset at Muir Field, Fort Indiantown Gap

More Post-Flight Photos from Drill Weekend

Pre-Flight and Post-Flight Maintenance on a Blackhawk and an Apache

Back at Drill at 28th Combat Aviation--So Happy to be Back!

Went to drill this weekend just a week and a half after leaving Fort Meade.  So nice to be back at my unit!  I did not get up until 5:50 a.m. for drill!  Almost Noon compared to the student company at Fort Meade.

I missed the morning sling load mission and today's mission got cancelled for fog.  But I still got some good shots of the crews returning on Saturday and doing some drills on the airstrip on Sunday.

Our Class was Hit by a Cruz Missile

Senator Ted Cruz running away from fellow Texans to Cancun

We are learning to be Public Affairs specialists.  Military public affairs is, by nature, crisis public affairs.  The best practice is to be ready for every contingency.  So when a real crisis befell DINFOS, why did the center of public affairs not have a plan that put students first?

Our instructor said before the shutdown that having the same journalism instructor grade their students throughout the course was a priority at DINFOS.  Clearly not enough of a priority to keep the civilian journalism instructors here. 

Features is considered the most difficult part of the BPASC course.  Anyone paying attention to the news knew weeks in advance that the Republicans were going to shut the government down.  So why were the journalism instructors furloughed? 

In just one week we lost four students.  One of them was an otherwise strong student, a woman named student captain in the detachment, who got contradictory coaching from two new instructors and failed.  If students were really a priority, how could there be no provision to keep two instructors during the most difficult week?  Since it is clear the current Congress could shut down the government a half dozen more times before the next election, is there a plan to put students ahead when federal tantrums occur?

In public affairs, we had a contradiction that would have been funny if the participants were conscious of it.  One morning early on we were told how important it is to maintain our commitment to the DINFOS motto “Strength through Truth.”  The morning instructors told us that all we have in our relationship with the media is our own credibility.  If we lose it, it is difficult or impossible to recover.

Then in the afternoon, two Air Force instructors who are married to each other recounted how they handled the media the day after Osama Bin Laden was killed.  The story went on for a while with the two sergeants enthusiastically handing it back and forth.  But the important thing was the command message.  The fact that Fairchild AFB was on high alert and everyone was backed up at the gate for miles trying to get to work had NOTHING to do with Bin Laden’s death.

The sergeants knew the message was BS.  But they told us with glee that they met the media at the gate, they stayed on message, and were successful because none of the media at the gate reported that the high level of security on base was linked to events in Pakistan.

I work in PR as a civilian.  I understand their glee at getting a difficult command message through.  But most of the students are new to the field.  The message the students were murmuring at break: “Wow.  They lied their asses off.” 

Everyone in crisis PR knows a time will come when they must stay on a ludicrous message.  But this part of Public Affairs is not something the best practitioners take lightly.   In my own media relations experience, I know how difficult it is to make and keep relationships with reporters.  I would not use an example like this with basic course students.

Linking this incident back to the shutdown, the sergeants who stayed on command message at the Fairchild gate came up with a plan and executed it overnight.  So if two teachers in training could do that, I have to assume the whole of DINFOS could come up with a plan to benefit students in a month and execute it flawlessly.  The other alternative is that protecting the students from the shutdown was not a priority.