Big Day for Russia--Bad Date for Me

The biggest holiday on the calendar in Russia and many other former Soviet States is May 9.  These countries celebrate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany on the day the Nazis surrendered to the Russians, May 9, 1945.

The soldiers in the photo above are fighting at the Battle of Kursk in 1943.  This was and is the largest armored battle ever fought and the Soviet Army won, turning the the tide against Germany.

While this day is great for the Soviet Union, Russia and the free world, it is a bad date for me.  Eight years ago today, I had the most and worst injuries I have had on one day in my life.  If you don't know the story it is here and here.

Because there are only 365 days in a year, many days will have multiple meanings.  So the coincidence that my worst wreck and the greatest Russian victory are on the same day is just a coincidence.

So in the spirit of this day, I will practice my recently learned Russian language skills and race my bicycle at Smoketown Airport this morning.  What else would someone do on a sunny Spring Saturday morning?

Silly Punk Mother F**ker: 1st Sgt. Robert V. Baker

When Bravo Company, 1-70th Armor went to Germany in 1976, our First Sergeant was Robert V. Baker.  Top Baker was a veteran of both Vietnam and the Korean War.  He was not old enough to serve during World War 2, but none of us believed it.  Top Baker to us was REALLY old.  Nearly 50 according to the unit clerk who peeked at his records and told everyone just how old Top Baker was.

Top Baker was a very sharp guy and a very good tanker.  But this tall, thin, graying soldier had a wandering indirect way of speaking that drove us crazy on several occasions.  Once in the Spring of 1977 we were in formation on a cold morning in short sleeves because the Army said it was summer.  Top Baker told us one of the washing machines in the barracks was broken and could not be repaired any time soon.  With great gestures, but without actually looking at us, Top went on for almost 20 minutes talking about washing clothes in Viet Nam which led him to remember that the maintenance people responsible for that field laundry facility were a bunch of "Silly Punk Mother F**kers."  Once he wound himself up to using SPMF we knew he would be talking for another ten minutes at least.

I personally got the SPMF treatment once when during major maintenance of my tank.  We turned in all 63 rounds of main gun ammo.  It was during this part of my life that I started signing documents with an "N" followed by a wiggly line.  The Army required 63 signatures of the tank commander for ammo turn in and 63 signatures to reload the tank.

The trouble this particular time was one of the rounds was missing.  I was signed for that SABOT service round.  I was an SPMF and Top Baker was going to make sure that I was busted right down to SPMF Private!!!

It was a clerical error so I did not get "busted right down to Private."  I noticed to my great relief that during the period in which my sergeant stripes and my future in the Army were in jeopardy, Top Baker never referred to me as a "Non-Tanker."  Anyone could make a mistake and be an SPMF until the mistake was corrected, but a Non-Tanker was a fundamental flaw.

Whew!!!

I heard at the 70th Armor reunion that Top Baker passed away not long after he returned to America in the early 80s.

Even when I was shivering in the cold, waiting for Top Baker to wrap a 20-minute digression on washing machines in the Army, Top Baker was one of my favorite first sergeants.

Who Fights Our Wars? Southern Men

I don't know the soldiers in this photo, but I do know that if we could find the home address of every one of them, two out of three would be from the eleven states of the Old South or from the West--between the Rockies and the Sierras.

At the reunion dinner of the 1-70th Armor last Saturday night, those who attended were mostly officers plus a few senior enlisted men.  We served together from 1975 to 1979, the first years of the all-volunteer Army following the end of the draft.

Military service has always been more honored in the South than in the rest of our country, but until the Vietnam War, the draft meant that soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines came from all over the country.  I enlisted in 1972, during the last year of the draft.  Already, anti-war sentiment was so strong in the Northeast where I am from, that I seldom heard a Boston accent on a military base.

By the time the draft was over and I was a tank commander in the 1-70th Armor, the military had become a very Southern organization.  More so among the officers than among the enlisted men.

In 1980, 1407 students graduated from Harvard University.  Two of them joined the military.  Five of them took blue collar jobs.  One of them was an apprentice to a some who hand-built chairs.

But in the same year, more than 40% of the male graduates of Baylor were in ROTC and joining a branch of the military.  I served with guys from Alabama and Georgia who said almost half the boys in their graduating class joined the military.

A total of 371 students graduated with me from Stoneham High School near Boston in 1971.  A total of 12 of us ever served in the military.  Two of us enlisted during the Vietnam War.

As I met and reconnected with people at the 1-70th Armor reunion on Saturday night, everyone I spoke to was from the South or the West.  Many of them served in Vietnam.  All of them began their training to become military officers during the Vietnam War even if the war ended by the time they were commissioned.

On Sunday morning when the reunion ended, I rode northeast from Gettysburg back home to Lancaster.  As far as I know, I was the only one who would be North of the Mason-Dixon Line by the next day.  Many of the men at that reunion survived jungle warfare in Vietnam, then we all waited together for the Soviet tanks just over the East-West German border to fire the first shots of World War 3 right at us.  Some of them went on to serve in the Gulf War.  A few of us even went to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But as much as I am Yankee and would live in New York or Paris if I could live anywhere, I have spent more than 40 years admiring the way the American South has supplied our nation with soldiers and leaders, especially since the end of the draft.

I have even developed a taste for grits and gravy--but I am NOT going to go as far as eating chitterlings, trotters or listeners.  To me, pigs are ham and bacon--that's it!

One Year at a Time--Now I'm in till 2016

My friend Barry Free joined me for what turned out to be a 100-mile re-enlistment ride.  Barry enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1968 and served till 1975.  He decided to accompany a younger guy on the trip to stay in the Army one more year.

We rode together from Mt. Gretna on some back roads onto Fort Indiantown Gap, then to the Aviation Armory where I signed the re-enlistment paperwork.  Sgt. 1st Class Dale Shade, who got the paperwork ready, was in charge of Public Affairs for 28th CAB when I was in Iraq.  He said he will help me to submit the paperwork for yet another extension next year.

As we rode west on Range Road, we passed several rifle and pistol ranges.  We were talking about how the rifle ranges and the weapons we use are the same as when he was in during the Viet Nam War.  Back then, Barry and I fired the M16 or M16A2.  Now my weapon is the M16A4.  Not a big difference.

We then rode to the Public Affairs Office on Fort Indiantown Gap where I introduced Barry to the folks who do the same work I do.  He met SSG Matt Jones, who I worked with for most of the time I was in Iraq, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Ted Nichols, and Majors Ed Shank and Angela King-Sweigart.

It was a great way to celebrate signing up for another year.

Army Bike Week! Riding to Re-Enistment!

This week will be Army bicycle week.  Last week, I thought I might be riding to the Pentagon tomorrow to ask them to reconsider turning down my re-enlistment.

No need for that trip.  Re-enlistment got approved.  And I need to re-enlist quickly so I can volunteer for a second annual training this summer.

So tomorrow I am going to ride to Fort Indiantown Gap and reenlist. Riding to Fort Indiantown Gap is 40 miles each way. I am going to leave it at nine in the morning and reenlist at noon. That should get me back to Lancaster in time to ride home from school with my son Nigel.

This weekend the 1st Battalion 70th Armor is having a reunion in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles away. On Saturday I will ride to Gettysburg, go to the reunion dinner, then ride home the next morning. With the other writing I will be doing this week I will ride more than 300 miles. I don't often get to ride that much and I don't usually have an army reason to ride so it will be fun to ride to stay in the army longer and then to see the guys I served with 40 years ago. I served with 70th armor in Colorado and in Germany between 1975 and 1979.

I'll try to get some reenlistment pictures tomorrow and reunion pictures on Saturday.

 

One More Year! In the Army Till I'm 63!

Today at 2pm I got a voice mail from SSG Steinmetz in the Admin section of 28th CAB to call her.  When I called she read me a line from a message from National Guard Bureau in the Pentagon saying that "SGT Gussman's request for extension for one year has been approved."  

With that I am staying one more year.  The journey that began January 31, 1972, with the guy in the picture below getting drunk in a bar in Kenmore Square, Boston. . . 

Saw the same guy straighten up, make sergeant and become an Army tank commander.  In the photo below I am on a field training exercise in Germany in 1977.

The guy in the photo above left the Army and went to college in 1980, then re-enlisted in 2007 and in 2009 deployed to Iraq--with a bicycle.

 And ended that tour with the guys below and "The best job I ever had."

One more year.  Thirteen more weekend drills.  I am hoping to do Annual Training twice this summer. 

Jackie Chan Saved Mother's Day for Me

Is Jackie Chan one of your heroes?  He's one of mine.  And I have never seen one of his movies.  But he rescued me in real life--at least in the sense of getting me home on time for Mother's Day instead of three days late.

How did he do that?

When I was flying to Asia regularly I flew Cathay Pacific whenever I could.  This Hong Kong based airline had the best service of the many airlines I flew during the three years I went overseas every month on business.

I was in Singapore in May of 2000 and was flying home through Hong Kong to Los Angeles.  The flights from Singapore to Hong Kong and then to America were Cathay Pacific.  When we boarded in Hong Kong there was a big commotion because Jackie Chan was in first class flying to the premiere of one of his movies in L.A.

The flight was uneventful until two hours past Japan when the plane turned around.

It was heading back to Japan.  It turns out an old woman who was going to LA to see her family died on the plane.  The 747 was headed back to Japan for the standard quarantine.  That meant 417 passengers would be looking for flights.  It could mean a three-day delay and I would miss Mother's Day the year we adopted our son Nigel.

But when we landed, Jackie Chan went out to talk to the Tokyo Airport officials.  Jackie Chan is as big in Japan as everywhere else in Asia.  He started signing personalized photos for all the officials.  When the deceased woman was taken off the plane, they refueled us and let us go!!!

No way that would happen without a real life Superhero.  I never got a chance to thank Jackie Chan for getting me home for Mother's Day.

He will always be a Superhero for me!!