Maundy Thursday: My Day to Volunteer

On this day 11 years ago, Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, I decided to call an Army recruiter and re-enlist.  It was mid-April. I would turn 54 two weeks later.  I called three local reserve recruiters, but none answered the phone. The fourth one I called was Kevin Askew of the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. He answered the phone. 

The path from there to the picture below was beyond bumpy, but by August 15, I re-enlisted. 

Two years later, on my 56th birthday, I stepped out of a C-17 cargo plane and onto the airstrip at Camp Adder, Iraq, my home of the rest of 2009.  

Two years later, near Easter of 2011, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan with Alpha Company of 2-104th Aviation.  It did not work out.  They left late that year, I did not.  Then two years after that I volunteered to go with a Stryker Brigade from the 28th Infantry Division, again to Afghanistan.  President Obama himself cancelled that deployment in early 2014 as part of his plan to cut troop strength in that longest of America's wars.  In May 2016, I was a civilian again.

Last Fall I went to a meeting in Philadelphia for people who want to move to Israel. It was just a couple of months after Charlottesville and I was exploring my options.  The woman I talked to could see I was not ready to move to Israel right away, so she suggested a program called Sar-El.  It's a program for people who are "past military age, but would like to help the Israeli Defense Forces."  That sounded wonderful.  To qualify, I have to fill out all the forms that show I am eligible to be an Israeli citizen, but I don't have to apply for citizenship. So today I got out the long form and started filling it out with a the goal of spending a month in 2019 as a volunteer on an Israeli military base helping out with repairs or in any way I can. 

While those of us who volunteer live and work on an Israeli base, we wear IDF uniforms.  My family just laughed when they found out I would be wearing an IDF uniform.  One of my daughters suggested adding memory to my phone for selfies.  Yes, after wearing the uniform of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army in three eras, I would love to wear an IDF uniform. 

Clearly, Easter/Passover week is my time to start something new. 

Tankers vs. Non-Tankers: the never-ending discussion among armor crewmen

  

So much of the Army is competition, especially the combat arms parts of the Army where men are confined together in small armored spaces and have endless hours to “talk shit.”

When my small armored space was the turret of an M60A1Patton tank, one of the subjects that came up among us young sergeants was the question: Who is a Tanker, and who is a Non-Tanker?

Before gunnery, I was a Non-Tanker. Not only had I never qualified on Tank Table VIII (Tanker’s final exam), but I had transferred from the Air Force. A Wing Nut is not a Tanker.  So I was in the Limbo of those who simply never had been to annual gunnery.   Worse still, I enlisted in the Army in June 1975 after leaving the Air Force. Because I carried over my rank as Specialist4, I started as a gunner in 1-70^th Armor. I made sergeant in February and, partly from a shortage of sergeants, got my own tank crew right away.  Not only was I a Non-Tanker, I was the Non-Tanker in Charge of his own crew.

That first year, I fired “Distinguished” at tank gunnery at Fort Carson, Colorado, in April 1976.  Because I qualified near the top of the battalion, I was allowed to be part of the discussion of who was a Tanker and who wasn’t from that time forward, at least until 1978.

Every competitive job or sport has a group of insiders who discuss for hours, especially when drinks are involved, their equivalent of who is Tanker, and who is a Non-Tanker.  Whatever the field, the insider is competent, the outsider is in some critical way incompetent.

I have not been a Tanker since 1984, but the intense discussion came back to my mind in 2014 when I read the book, “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro. The central character is a butler in one of the “Great Houses” in the time between the World Wars when the butler had a household staff ranging between a platoon and a small company.  At one point in the novel, a dozen butlers gather for drinks and have an intense discussion of what a butler is, what are the critical skills, who were and who currently are the greatest butlers, and, of course, who among those not currently in the room are mere pretenders. 

As with any clique, one’s place is never permanent. In January 1978, I took a job at Brigade headquarters and stayed there for rest of my tour.  I became a “Non-Tankin’ MotherF*#ker” immediately.  I got out at the end of 1979 and went to college. In 1982, I joined Alpha 6-68^th Armor for two years.  I made staff sergeant, became a section leader and as an active duty soldier in a reserve unit, I was back to being to being a Tanker! But in 1984, I got a job offer that would make it impossible to be a reservist, so I left the Army. Although I re-enlisted in 2007, I was in aviation and so was a Non-Tanker ever after.

In many ways, being a tanker really was, “The Best Job I Ever Had” and discussions about who was or was not a Tanker was one of the ways I knew how deep into my that job I was. 

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Blackhawk Helicopter at Sunset, Ali Air Base, Iraq, December 2009

Today I was looking at photos from my tour in Iraq in 2009-10.  Near the end of the tour, the days were shorter and winter sun shone on the aircraft.  I took these photos at sunset on the airstrip on Camp Adder, Talil Ali Air Base, Iraq.  

Every Week in Cold War West Germany, Gas Mask Drills

Every week during my three years in Cold War West Germany, 

the Tankers of 1-70th Armor had a MOPP drill. Gene Pierce, Abel Lopez and Don Spears

are in the motor pool celebrating MOPP Level 1. 

With Russian Nerve Agent VX in the news, I remembered donning a mask and occasionally putting on full protective gear every week when I was stationed in Wiesbaden in Cold War, West Germany in the late 70s.  An alarm would sound and we would mask wherever we were and continue to work.  

Most days, if we were on post we were in the motor pool.  If we were tightening end-connector bolts or checking ammo racks, we masked and continued with the task in hand.  I had taught classes, including Chemical, Biological, Radiation classes when the alarm sounded and had the odd experience of seeing a room full of men stand and mask, then resume their seat.  It is difficult to be understood wearing a mask, so I dismissed the class.

It really sucked for those who had been waiting for food in the huge consolidated mess chow line then were not able to eat it.  

We did not often go to full MOPP gear (Military Oriented Protective Posture) because they were controlled items and had to be signed for.  Of course, when the drill was going to be full MOPP we knew it because it had to be issued in advance and carried everywhere: charcoal-lined suit, boots, gloves, everything.  

The Soviets had millions of pounds of VX gas they manufactured before they had a nuclear bomb and kept making for years after.  I wrote about the leader of the VX program in the Soviet Union recently, a man named Boris Libman who shows just how bad life can be for a hero of the Soviet Union.

With Soviet nerve gas back in the news, the Cold War is back in our lives.    

Chaplain on Every Convoy, Every Remote Fire Base

Chaplain Timothy S. Valentine 

During the first few months of my deployment Camp Adder, Iraq, in 2009, my favorite chaplain, and the favorite chaplain even of many other chaplains was Father Timothy S. Valentine.  He was also the only Catholic chaplain on a base awash in Evangelical Chaplains from Wisconsin and Texas.

Father Valentine packed the stone-floored one-story building that was the chapel for every faith. There were three different Protestant services every Sunday and an occasional Jewish and Muslim service when a Rabbi or Imam visited.  The Catholic services were every Sunday afternoon unless Father Valentine was on a convoy or flight.  Catholic services became intermittent after Father Valentine got transferred to Baghdad in the fall of 2009.

Every unit knew Father Valentine because he went on convoy missions and brought services to every remote fire base in southern Iraq.  He flew to remote areas and seemed to be everywhere in the huge, desolate area between Baghdad and Kuwait that Camp Adder provided air and logistics support for.

Many soldiers who never went to chapel services knew Father Valentine. He was the guy who saw 9-11 from his window at Fordham University and left his professorship to volunteer for the Army.  He served more than a decade, including two combat deployments to Iraq, and two stints at the United States Military Academy at West Point as Regimental Chaplain and adjunct faculty. He left the Army in 2014 and is currently the Chaplain and Co-Chair of Theology at Canterbury in New Milford, Connecticut.

I wrote a post mentioning Chaplain Valentine when I was in Iraq, about how his reputation endured and was a standard other did not measure up to.  The post is here.

I had not thought about Chaplain Valentine for a while, but next week I am going to try to get in touch with him. I will post an update, especially if we can get together for coffee or a visit.

Seeing Paris in a New Way from Saint-Germain-en-Laye

The top of the Eiffel tower and Mont-Valerien seen from Saint-Germain-en-Laye 

Today I saw Paris in a new way, a new view of my favorite city. I saw it through the eyes of one of my favorite authors.  In his new book “Paris in the Present Tense” Mark Helprin writes the story of Jules Lacour, a 75-year-old cellist who lives in the village (commune) of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, more than ten miles west of Paris, on the third reverse bend of the Seine River as it snakes west from the center of Paris toward the English Channel.  Until today, I had never visited that village. Near the end of the book, Jules Lacour looks at Paris from the place I saw it today. It is as lovely in person as Helprin’s description.

Hotel de Ville (City Hall) Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Like most residents of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, I traveled to the village on the regional commuter train RER A from Paris.  When I stepped from the train, the escalator took me to the west side of the huge park Les Parterres—manicured grounds and trees stretching from the Grand City Hall east and north for a half mile to a bluff the looks back toward Paris.  From that bluff at the Terrasse du Chateau, a magnificent promenade more than 100 feet wide stretches north from the village for more than a mile. 

The Bridge at Le Vesinet-Le Pecq

When I walked to the edge of the bluff, I was high above the Seine, looking down on the bridge at Le Vesinet—Le Pecq. To the south is Versailles. Nearly due east is the peak of the Eiffel Tower. The city of Paris itself is obscured by the Mont-Valerien just west of the Tower and the city.  In the book, Jules Lacour was looking in this same direction toward Paris.

Restaurant Maison Fournaise

As I looked, I saw my own history of visiting Paris over the past twenty years unfold in front of me. Three miles east from the bluff where I stood was the next full bend of the river at Chatou.  On the east edge of Chatou is a tiny island in the Seine: Ile des Impressionistes. On the island is a small impressionist museum and the Restaurant Maison Fournaise. When I worked for Millennium Chemicals in the late 1990s, I was in Paris several times a year.  The Paris office was in Rueil-Malmaison just across the river toward Paris from Chatou.  The sales manager in that office was a serious gourmand who took me to the best restaurants in Paris so I would know where to entertain visiting journalists.

For me, the best of all the restaurants he showed me for an event or dinner was Maison Fournaise. Not only was the food good, this restaurant serves lunch and dinner on the porch that is at the center of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting “Luncheon of the Boating Party.”  Both for Millennium and for my next employer, I rented this porch for an evening meal watching boats pass on the Seine as we ate dinner. My guests from other countries were delighted with this lovely place they had never heard of.  Even some Parisians did not know of the little restaurant under the bridge at Chatou.  In addition to being the scene of the Renoir painting, the restaurant has several sketches on the wall covered with Lucite. These sketches were the work of Renoir’s young friend Henri Matisse. The young Matisse was in love with a bar maid who worked at the restaurant. He was often short of money and occasionally paid his bar tab with drawings on the walls.

The same train RER A passes through Chatou and Rueil-Malmaison back to Paris.  So several times I stayed in hotels in that area, a delightful surprise for the people who tracked my expense reports, because I stayed for less than $100 per night, when the sales team was in Paris at double or triple that price. 

Another 3 miles east toward Paris is the village of Suresne on the east side of Mont-Valerien, the hill between Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Paris.  I stayed several times in Suresne, also for less than $100 a night. I stayed there because I always had my racing bicycle with me on trips to Paris. Just across the bridge from Suresne to Paris is L’Hippodrome on the west side of Bois de Boulogne, the huge park in the southwest corner of the city. 

Riding around L'Hippodrome, Bois de Boulogne

Every day the 2-mile road that circles L’Hippodrome is closed to traffic for training races from 10 a.m. to dark.  As often as I could, either in the morning or the evening, I rode in those training races.  From Suresne I just rolled down Mont-Valerien and started warming up to ride in packs of cyclists that sometimes reached 30mph on the flat road around the horseracing track. 

From L’Hippodrome, I rode through the park which is enclosed by another loop in the Seine, then along the south (Left) bank of the river toward the place I love best in the center of Paris: the area that stretches along Quai d'Orsay and then south and up on Boulevard Saint-Michel. This is an area of bistros and bookstores: crowded bistros and crowded bookstores. Shakespeare & Company, Gibert Joseph, and dozens of little specialty bookshops line the roads in this area near the Sorbonne and Jardin du Luxembourg. 

Boulevard Saint-Michel

Of course, every love story has a shadow of loss. In my case, on the east end of the lovely Ile de Cite is the Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation—the memorial of the deportation of 200,000 Jews from France. This underground monument is beautifully made and wrenchingly sad.  It testifies that every one of the 200,000 Jews who went to the death camps had a life and hopes that were wrenched away by Nazis. 

The Deportation Memorial

In “Paris in the Present Tense” Jules Lacour and his parents hide from the Nazis from shortly after Jules is born in 1940 until his fourth birthday when the family is discovered.  His parents are killed; Jules survives. At the book’s end Jules struggles against the revival of anti-Semitism in France 70 years later. 

A Ride West from the Memorial to Saint-Germain-en-Laye

As I returned to the city, I imagined myself riding from the Deportation Memorial to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  I would begin on the Ile de Cite at the memorial site, riding through the park and across the island.  I would look west in the direction of my birthplace and home far across the Atlantic Ocean. I first pass through the Paris of love of learning at Boulevard Saint-Michel on Quai d’Orsay, past Pont Neuf and a dozen other unique and lovely bridges toward and past the Eiffel Tower. After that I would ride through Bois de Boulogne, to L’Hippodrome and for a lap or two join the racers perfecting their craft.

As I leave the training race, I immediately cross the Seine and ride up to Suresne and over Mont-Valerien and down into Rueil-Malmaison. There I ride past the gleaming glass and steel suburban building that used to be my Paris office.  I cross the looping Seine again with a detour from the middle of the bridge, down the ramp to Ile des Impressionistes and Maison Fournaise.  Back up on the bridge I pass over the Seine. If I glance south on the west end of the bridge, I can see the next island south of Chatou, Ile de la Chaussee, where the story “Femme Fatale” by Guy de Maupassant is set.  In moments I pass through Chatou and into Le Vesinet.  In front of me I can see the hill of Saint-Germain-en-Laye rising to the west. 

Now I cross the Seine to the west for the last time on the bridge, Le Vesinet-Le Pecq.  Mark Helprin made this crossing forever comic for me in the book. This bridge is the place his crude and insanely rich housemates speed across the Seine toward Paris on matching black Ducati Pingale motorcycles.  I ride though Le Pecq and up the hill toward the village center of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and its massive city hall. 

For the view back to Paris, I ride slowly on the lanes across the park to the edge of the bluff above the river.  The bridge at Le Vesinet-Le Pecq is below and slightly south.  I can glimpse Chatou, Ile des Impressionistes, and Rueil-Malmaison through the trees in front of me. Mont-Valerien hides Paris, all but the top of the Eiffel Tower and all of Suresne and Bois de Boulogne, but I know they are in the present moment, the present tense, in front of me.

Green Beans Coffee in Newark, Terminal B

At Camp Adder, Iraq, my favorite place was Green Beans Coffee.  Today I am in Newark Liberty Airport and saw a Green Beans coffee for the first time since I got back from Iraq.  And they give military discounts.  Coffee is free for soldiers.

The story of one of the baristas is here.

Good to know they are successful here as well as on American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.