Ten Years Ago: Closer to Re-Enlistment, One More Step

On May 1, 2007, all the paperwork was approved for my re-enlistment, except one more approval. Jessica Wright, The Adjutant General of the Pennsylvania National Guard, had to sign a waiver for me to re-enlist.

By the official calculation, I had eleven years and two months of prior service. On the following day, May 2, 2007, I would turn 54.  With the enlistment age up to 42 and eleven years of prior service, I still needed Wright to waive the one additional year because I would be 54 before the paperwork could be signed.

So Kevin Askew, my recruiter said I should just take it easy and wait. These waivers could three months.

And thankfully that is just about how long it took.  I got the waiver July 27. I did not actually re-enlist until August 15.  When Kevin called and told me I had the waiver in July, I told him I was going on a business trip to Europe August 3 and would take the oath when I got back.

But we both knew the real reason I was waiting until mid-August was that I would not get off the neck brace I had been wearing for three months until August 1.

On May 9, 2007, my re-enlistment hid the speed bump which I keep referring to.  On May 9 of this year, I will write about why the three-month delay was just perfect.

Visited My Former Unit

Echo Fuelers training for deployment to Afghanistan in 2012

I visited my former unit for the first time since I left the Army last year. I showed up at 4p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Most of the soldiers were getting ready to go home after a 3-day drill weekend that included the always-traumatic APFT--Army Physical Fitness Test.

One soldier I saw was Jeff Kwiecien, a flight medic who recently broke his leg pretty badly. We talked about living with plates and screws. His plates might come out in a year.  He working hard to return to full use of his broken leg.

Matt Kauffman and Bruce Reiner at Camp Garry Owen, Iraq. Jeff Kwiecien just hanging around.

Then I walked over to Echo Company. A group of guys outside their orderly room was talking about who flunked the APFT. Matt Kauffman saw me and said, "Tell these guys how fast you ran the two-mile when you were in Echo."  I told them and then Matt made clear how incredibly old I am.  So then they were talking about: Who is slower than a 60 year old. They also mentioned guys who were faster.

When I joined Echo Company Matt had recently joined the Army.  We ran together in training and he was my partner in Combatives--the Army version of fighting unarmed.  Matt is tall stronger and was 22 years old when we were in Combatives.  I lasted a minute before he pinned me in the dirt.  We were in Iraq together. We also were together in the summer of 2011 when I trained to go to Afghanistan, but ended up not going. Matt went.  Now he is one of the senior fueling sergeants in Echo Company.


Matt Kauffman in Afghanistan

I was also joking with Bruce Reiner.  He is the guy I wrote about walking a long way for a flush toilet in Kuwait. The link is here. He is in his mid 50s and has taken my place as the oldest guy in Echo Company.

I also saw Jordan Bannister in battalion headquarters.  She was NCO of the Year last year, leads the Color Guard at ceremonies and very good shot. She is an administrative sergeant. She put together the paperwork for my last attempt to get an extension. If it had gone through, I would be in the Army right now, but definitely getting out this month.

Jordan Bannister                                                                  Cathy Green

I also saw Cathy Green, the brigade medical officer.  She was telling me about her civilian business making and repairing costumes and other clothes.  We were also talking about protesting, because she is an officer and cannot in any way take a public political position.  

One of the big weekend events was a change of brigade command.  My last commander, Colonel Dennis Sorensen is retiring. His executive officer Howard Lloyd is taking over as the new commander.  I talked with both of them and a dozen other soldiers as I walked through the halls of the armory.

Howard Lloyd

Dennis Sorensen

Just before I left, I talked with Dell Christine.  He is up on all the latest threats and security issues around the world.  I told him about my upcoming trip and he said, "You better be careful. I don't want to see you TV in jail or worse." Senior leaders in the Army get plugged into all kinds of information about terrorist threats. I suppose if I read all that stuff, I would not go on my Eastern European bicycle trip in June and July.  I'll be sure and let Dell know I made it back alive.

Dell Christine

I was hoping to see my former boss Travis Mueller and Chad Hummel in Echo Company.  Maybe another time.  

Riding in Hong Kong: Hostile Buses, a Big Hill

[Before my ride from the Adriatic Sea, to the Black Sea, to the Baltic Sea this summer, I will be writing about the places I have ridden around the globe that may be more dangerous than where I will be riding in June and July.]

Hong Kong island viewed from Kowloon on the mainland

Between 1998 and 2001 I made a half-dozen trips to Hong Kong.  Usually the trip to Hong Kong was just a stop on a longer trip from America, to Europe, to Singapore or Perth and then through Hong Kong on the way back to America.  My first trip to Hong Kong was early in 1998, less than a year after Hong Kong was re-united with China.  I was told to be very careful that the bustling center of free enterprise in Asia was going to be more subdued under Communist rule.

They were so wrong.  This vibrant city pasted against a cliff on an island just south of the mainland was more alive 24 hours a day than any city I have ever visited. In every way it was an exciting and dangerous place to ride a bike.

The city itself is mobbed with traffic, much of it buses. The two main types of buses are the lumbering double deckers and the screaming minibuses. The turbodiesel engines of the smaller buses seemed always to be at full throttle.

The real bicycling challenge though was above the city.  I usually was in Hong Kong for just two or three days. Each day I would ride from the city up the mountain to Victoria Peak on Stubbs Road and Peak Road.  These long, steep roads were a series of switchbacks that rose above the city passing the houses of Hong Kong millionaires. English-language academies nestled in the trees along this road.  After the long climb up, I had a blazingly fast descent.  As I dropped off the mountain into the city I carried some of the speed from the descent and hit the six-lane Hennessey Road at more than 35 mph.

After descending the mountain on a two-lane road, I was in heavy traffic on Hennessey, between  lumbering buses and darting motorbikes.  One day, I came down the mountain and started to pass a big orange bus in the right lane. The bus was two stories of flat steel on its left side.  Hong Kong, like most former British colonies has right-hand drive. The middle lane was empty when I passed the back end of the orange bus, but then another double decker started turning into my lane. The mid-afternoon sun disappeared as the distance between those buses disappeared.  I pedaled liked I was in the final sprint in a Tour de France stage.  As I passed the bus on the left, the driver looked at me and kept moving right.

In China, bicycles a lower class transport.  Worse, Asia has no tradition of chivalry, so ties in traffic go to the bigger vehicle.  I shot past the orange, slower bus and swerved in front of it to escape being crushed.  I kept pedaling and did not look back till I passed under a yellow light and the buses had to stop.

I was so jazzed, I went up the hill again. Too much adrenaline to waste.

A Hong Kong Double Decker Bus

The Double Decker Buses own the Hong Kong streets

While I had the occasional near miss with a double decker bus, I had daily trouble with the minibuses. These buses are often full beyond their 26-passenger capacity. These 10,000-pound vehicles are powered by a 3-liter turbo diesel engine mated to a five-speed manual transmission.

From a traffic light, I would pull rapidly away from these overloaded buses, pissing off the driver who hates all bikes. I would get a great sprint workout riding as hard as I could while hearing the turbodiesel screaming behind me, the driver shifting at max rpms to have the best chance of squashing me under his wheels.  But he and I both knew, someone would want to get out of the bus before he could complete his plan to make a spandex smear on a Hong Kong Boulevard.

The Evil Minibus

Despite the evil buses, I loved riding up and down from the Peak.  There is a cable car that goes straight up mountain and beside it an old Army trail with a 35% grade.  Hong Kong is crowded, beautiful and an amazing place to ride.

Looking down to Hong King and Kowloon from the Cable Car

Dante's Inferno in Iraq: A Podcast

This post is just a link to a podcast on Sectarian Review. The podcast is about the Dead Poets Society Book Group I led on Camp Adder, Iraq.  Also on the podcast is a professor who teaches Dante every year.

That group started almost eight years ago in July 2009.  Here's the link.

Ten Years Ago Today: Cold War Soldier Does the MEPS Duck Walk

Doctor at MEPS shows recruits how to Duck Walk

Ten years ago, I woke up at 0400 (4 a.m.) with about 40 other recruits to take the physical and the other tests that would allow me to re-enlist.  Everybody except me and one other guy were between 17 and 20 years old.  I sat with the other Old Guy at breakfast. He was 29 years old, I was 53. We were the old guys.

During that day at MEPS (Military Enlistment Processing Station) we got blood tests and probes stuck anywhere they would fit.  I knew all that was coming. But my big worry was the duck walk. We had to squat down and walk across a room, about 20 feet, in a squat, with our hands on our hips.

At the time I re-enlisted, I was an avid bicycle racer. I was in shape, good shape "for my age." But the Duck Walk worried me. I might be in good shape for my age, but the Duck Walk is easy for any reasonably fit 18 year old, not so easy for those of us over 50. As it turns out, it was not so easy for my new 29-year-old friend.  We lined up with a half-dozen kids in the third Duck Walk wave and waddled across the room.  The other old guy and I grunted, struggled, wobbled but finally made the distance. We were slowest finishers by a lot.

The Duck Walk Outdoors

We passed. We high-fived each other and made the kids laugh, and whisper about WTF the old guy was doing enlisting.

After the needles, latex gloves, turning and coughing and eye charts, we got dressed and went to another part of the building for the aptitude test.

This was the third time I had taken the entrance exam. In 1972 when I first enlisted in the Air Force, and again in 1975 when I re-enlisted in the Army, I took the test. Back then it was on paper. Today it was on a computer.  By the time we left the test room and returned to the waiting area, we knew the results.  No waiting.

When I walked back to the testing room, the Navy Chief Petty Officer in charge of the test stood up, walked around his desk and shook my hand in front of the group.  He said, "You just got the highest score of anyone we tested this year.  Congratulations! You qualify for any job in the Army, Hell, any branch of the service based on these scores."

Then he added, "But at your age, there are damn few schools that will take you. But good job!"

I thanked him.  He was right.  Everything good in the military has an age limit.  But I knew that coming in. I was just happy I passed the Duck Walk.  Now more paperwork.

Chemical Weapons: Feeble in War, Powerful Against Civilians

Nearly a hundred civilians died in agony this week and hundreds more will be crippled by a Sarin gas attack in Syria.  Murdering unprotected civilians is the most effective way to use chemical weapons.  Since they were introduced 102 years ago, they have been a failure on the battlefield, but a terrible success against civilians.

German Captain Fritz Haber gave the command to release chlorine gas from hundreds of cylinders at Ypres in April of 1915. At that moment, chemical warfare became part of the horrors of trench warfare for the remainder of World War I.

Chemical weapons were not used in World War II, or subsequent wars, except the Iran-Iraq War in the late 80s. Military leaders soon found that chemical warfare is less effective than kinetic (bombs and bullets) warfare.  With the additional problem that the winners often cannot occupy the territory they take.  An area contaminated with Sarin or other nerve agents will take weeks to decontaminate.

While they are not very effective against trained, protected soldiers, chemical weapons work very well against civilians, particularly in cities.  Closed, crowded spaces are perfect for chemical weapons. Subways, meeting halls, sports arenas are all perfect places to use chemical weapons.

In 1977, one of my additional duties as a tank commander in West Germany was CBR NCO. I was the Chemical, Biological, Radiation Weapons Sergeant for our unit.  Each month I gave and hour-long class in a different weapon of mass murder and how to survive.  Although we tank soldiers had a better chance of surviving than ground troops, everyone knew that in a war with gas and nukes and weaponized bugs, we were going to die.

At the end of each class I would yell, "On your feet!"  The room stood up and I presented the doomsday scenario of the month.  What should we do if our position is hit with a nuclear weapon? Or what should do if we are attacked with artillery shells full of nerve gas, the kind that will kill you even if you get a drop on your skin?

The soldiers answered in unison, "Sergeant Gussman, we will put our heads firmly between our legs and kiss our ass goodbye!"

We walked out laughing, but no one thought these weapons were anything but terrifying. They still are.

Ten Years Ago: Re-enlistment Paperwork

At Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 2009 running the Army Physical Fitness Test

in a gas mask. My official job was Chemical Weapons Decontamination Specialist.

In the last blog post, I finally made the call to begin the re-enlistment process. After calling the recruiter, I pulled together all the documents I could find to confirm my prior service, scanned them and sent them. 

Two days after the call, I was the dog that caught the car.  I thought, “What now?!!”  What was I going to do if I actually got back in the Army. I thought about volunteering for some sort of chemical weapons job.  Most everyone dislikes chemical weapons in principle and in practice.  Wearing a gas mask and chemical protection gear is somewhere from uncomfortable to horrible.

But the fact that most people don’t like the chemical weapons branch made it attractive. It fit with the idea that I was replacing my failure at community service with Army service.  

Part of my thinking in re-enlisting was that I would join a Type A group of people in community service.  I had tried volunteering with local charitable groups. I failed. The people who run food pantries and women’s shelters and adoption support groups are really nice people. 

They drove me nuts.

When I volunteered, I just wanted to do something useful: Stack boxes, sort cans, something. But volunteering with nice people means a lot of hand-wringing. Also in the first years of the new century the economy was good. It was artificially good as it turns out, but in 2007, the economy seemed good, the terrorists had not attacked again.

I wanted the organization I volunteered for to have a goal and fight for it.  The Army was in two wars and needed soldiers.  The change in recruiting age that would allow me to get back in was proof the Army really needed soldiers.  By simply showing up I could definitely do one thing that I had done in 1972: Show up.  If I was in the Army, the Army needed to recruit one less soldier. 

So if things worked out and I got back in, I would volunteer for chemical weapons protection of some kind.  But first I had to get in.