Command Sgt. Major Christopher Kepner Named Top NCO of Army National Guard

In a ceremony yesterday one of my favorite people in the Army was named the top sergeant of the Army National Guard.  Christopher Kepner is now the Command Sergeant Major of the entire Army National Guard.

He will move to Arlington, Va., and serve full time in his new job.  You can read my interview of Kepner here. He is a strong leader and has strong opinions on leadership.  The fist time I heard him speak it was at a leadership meeting for all the sergeants in the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade:

He led an NCO Development course for all the sergeants in the brigade.  He began that course saying,

“You need to do only two things to be a leader in the United States Army. 

First, keep the men safe as much as possible.

Second, make sure your soldiers maintain standards in every area.

And how will you know if you are doing these two things?

You will eat lunch by yourself for the rest of your career.”

Book 14 of 2016: The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
― Dorothy Parker

 

In 1978, Clint Swift, a staff writer on the Stars and Stripes newspaper in Darmstadt, West Germany, acted on Dorothy Parker’s advice and gave me a copy of The Elements of Style.  Click on Clint's name for a longer version of that story.

In the four decades between then and now, I have re-read Strunk and White at times when I start to learn a new language and when the self doubt common to all writers starts to attack my mind.  The Elements of Style, like a good coach, reminds the player that practicing fundamentals is the way to stay at the top of one’s game. 

I also start to use “one” as a pronoun after re-reading Strunk and White because it is the original and best gender-neutral singular pronoun and is a lovely, if stuffy, way around saying “he or she.”

If you are not a writer, or don’t aspire to be a writer, reading this book is like reading about the specific rules for a sport you don’t actually play.  It can be interesting, but will be not captivate. 

For a writer who has wrestled the alligator of grammar, the wit and brevity of Elements of Style will help you navigate the choppy waters of fluency.  

How the Military Draft Works--Just in Case it Comes Back

Today is the 72nd Anniversary of D-Day, the biggest amphibious invasion in world history.  The brave men who fought and died that day were a mix of volunteers and draftees. Whether they volunteered to go or were told by the government to report for duty, they led the way to free Europe from the Nazis.

From the comments I have received recently when wrote about the draft, it is clear the commenters don't understand how the draft works.  From a very good Wikipedia article on the subject, here is the key line on how the draft works:

From 1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means. 

The military draft is just one part of the effort to recruit soldiers, sailors airmen and Marines (This is not a typo, Marines is a proper name, the others are adjectives, very cagey on the part of Marines). Whether there is a draft or not, if enough people volunteered to serve in the military to meet the national quota, the draft would effectively end.

One of my commenters was furious at the idea that someone would take the place of a person who got a deferment, but that is exactly what happens.

Let's say the Army needs 100,000 new recruits for the year 2025.  They have enough drill sergeants, enough barracks and enough equipment to feed, clothe and train these soldiers.  If there is a draft, the Army recruits all the soldiers it can, then fills the rest of the vacancies with draftees.

In many countries there are few or no deferments, especially for healthy young men.  But in America, deferments were rampant in the Vietnam War era.  When a draftee claims a deferment, the Army reaches further down into the eligible draftees to fill that place.

So if the Army recruits 75,000 and wants 25,000 more, they will send draft notices to the top 25,000 draft eligible people.  When 10,000 get deferments, the Army sends out 10,000 more notices, and so on until the quota is filled.

Whatever the excuse, whether the draftee is Amish or just too cute to crawl in the mud every deferment means the space is filled by another person.  So not only does someone take the place of everyone with a deferment, but they take the place of that draftee in the first year.  If, like the current Presidential Candidates, they took multiple deferments, the man who took their place went to the Army in the same year as the first deferment.

Without the draft, the Army has to change and lower it standards to fill its ranks.  The only way I was able to re-enlist at 54 was because the Army raised the maximum enlistment age to 42 in 2007 and lowered it again in 2010.  In 2007, the Army was desperate for recruits, so they raised the recruiting age, and lowered standards for education.  I got in.  If there was a draft, I would not have had a chance.  An 19-year-old would have taken that place.

Recruiting is a zero-sum game.  If the draft comes back and the government allows Vietnam era deferments, then poor kids will take the place of rich kids, just like during the Vietnam War.  And yes, the draft is a zero-sum game.  Open spaces will be filled.  And they will be filled by those who have no means to avoid the draft.

Dad's Biggest Payday Ever Thanks to Muhammed Ail

My Dad was a soldier during World War 2 and a middleweight boxer before the war.  After the War he went to work for a chain of grocery stores that eventually opened a three-acre warehouse in Charlestown, Mass.  Dad was a driver and a warehouseman for Purity Supreme Grocers making about $150 per week in 1964, not bad money at the time.

Dad played poker a couple of nights a week and confined his gambling to cards, except for an occasional bet on boxing.  In January and February of 1964, the talk among the Teamsters where my Dad worked was all about the Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston fight.  Most everyone he worked with was sure that Liston was going to pummel the loudmouth Clay.  My Dad was equally sure Clay was going to knock out the older fighter.

In the weeks before the fight, bookies were giving ten-to-one odds in favor of Liston.  Dad had a savings account he called his "Swiss Bank Account" where he kept his poker winnings.  He told me after the fight that he had withdrawn several hundred dollars to bet on Ali.

We listened to the fight on the radio, I don't remember why we could not watch on TV.  But Dad was right.  Ali KOed Liston and Dad won enough money to buy the only brand new car he ever owned.  One of his poker buddies owned a Chrysler dealership in Reading, Mass. He had a new car on the lot for more than a year that nobody wanted.  It was a blue 1962 Chrysler Newport sedan, the absolute basic model.  It had hub caps instead of wheel covers and it had a three-speed manual transmission with a stick shift.  My Dad bought the car with his winnings from the fight.  Dad never said how much he won, but it was clearly more than $2,000--the biggest payday he ever had.

  
Shortly after that fight, Clay changed his name to Muhammed Ali.  My Dad remained a fan.  "He's a loudmouth, but he is not all talk.  He can fight," was my Dad's view of the Ali.

History Made Wonderful! Podcast Review: The History of Rome

At a recent meeting, the group leader gave us some “get-to-know-you” questions.  One was “What’s your favorite group/singer and your favorite song.” 

I answered immediately:  Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and their song “I Hate Myself for LovingYou.”  

But I haven’t listened to that song in months. Questions like this remind me that most people listen to music when they drive, work, exercise or commute. 

Really, I should have said my favorite “singer” is Mike Duncan; my favorite song is his “The History of Rome” podcast.  The podcast was launched on iTunes in September 2007 and was an instant and enduring hit.  I did not begin listening until 2013, long after the final episode was on iTunes, but the podcast was still in the Top 50 on iTunes at that time.

In nearly 200 episodes (179 numbered episodes, some with multiple parts) Mike Duncan guides us from the founding of Rome through the Republic, Julius Caesar and the Civil War, then through the many great and terrible Caesars who followed to the end of the Western Empire in the late 400s.  Duncan did not try to chronicle the Eastern Empire through its end in 1453.

I have read and re-read the Aeneid, including reading it in Iraq.  I love history well told and “The History of Rome” is 70 hours of solid information by a great storyteller.

If you have not listened to podcasts and are interested in history, “The History of Rome” is a great place to start. And the series has its own Wikipedia page.

Re-Enlisting In a Parade: Army Love

In the early 80s, I was a tank commander in the 68th Armor, a reserve unit in Reading, Pa.  We trained at Fort Indiantown Gap, but had a couple of M60A1 tanks and other vehicles in an armory in the city of Reading.

Each year, the 68th put a vehicle or two in the parade through downtown.  Like most reserve and guard units, members of this unit were neighbors and some were life-long friends.  The year I joined, everybody was talking about one of the gunners in the unit who re-enlisted in spectacular fashion the year before.

Billy loved tanks, loved the unit and wanted nothing more than to be a gunner.  He had served four years on active duty, then came home in 1978 and served two years in the 68th Armor.  He wanted to re-enlist, but his wife insisted he get out.  So he left the Army in 1980.  The following summer, in 1981, Billy came to the parade with his wife and young son.  A dozen members of the 68th were riding in the back of a deuce-and-a-half truck, waving at the crowd.  They saw Billy and all started yelling.

Then his best friend said, "C'mon Billy!  Jump in!"  His wife was furious.  Billy looked at the slow-moving truck, at his wife, the jumped the barrier and ran to the truck.  A dozen hands pulled him up and beaming Billy re-enlisted the following week.

Who Hates Amish and Mennonites? World War II Veterans and their Families

When I moved to Lancaster County in 1980 to go to college, I was surprised to find people who hated the Amish and Mennonites.  Who could hate people who drive buggies and farm with mules?

World War II veterans.

From 1981 to 1985 I worked on the dock at the Yellow Freight break-bulk terminal in East Petersburg, just north of the city of Lancaster.  As I got to know my co-workers, they mostly fit in three groups:

1. Former athletes, either amateur or college, with a career-ending injury, but who could still load trucks.
2. Vietnam War veterans and other former service members.
3. Farmers who needed the extra money a Teamsters job provided.  We made $12/hour.

It was the third group who first told me about how their father or their uncle or their neighbor served in World War II and how the family ended up selling the farm while the soldier was away at the war.  The buyer of the farm was often an Amish or Mennonite farmer who did not have to serve in the military and made a lot of money growing food for the war effort.  

Nearly forty years later, those resentments were as acute as at the end of the war.  "My father did his duty.  They stayed home and made money."  Most of the men I spoke with had some variation of this statement, usually laced with swearing.  

Envy destroys communities.  When one guy gets something and the other guy doesn't, hatred follows. Whether pacifists are sincere or not, they start life well ahead of the soldier who goes to war.  In yesterday's post I quote C.S. Lewis on why he is not a pacifist. You can follow the link or read it here:

Lewis describes the life of a soldier on active duty in a war:
All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally,
 is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. 

Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. 

Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. 

Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. 

Like exile, it separates you from all you love. 

Like the gallies [jail], it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. 

It threatens every temporal evil—every evil except dishonour 
and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it. 

Then he describes the life of those who avoid service, 
whether by pacifism or other means:

Though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism 
threatens you with almost nothing. 

Some public opprobrium, yes, from people whose opinion you discount 
and whose society you do not frequent, 
soon recompensed by the warm mutual approval which exists, 
inevitably, in any minority group. 

For the rest it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, 
among the people and in the surroundings you know and love.