Meeting an Old Friend from Iraq

Staff Sergeant Jeremy Houck

Today I walked home from Physical Therapy along the Fruitville Pike. As I crossed the big Belmont Square intersection, a broad-shouldered, bearded guy in a hard hat, reflective vest and military sunglasses strode toward me and said, "Neil!"

It was Jeremy Houck, my squad leader when we were in Oklahoma training to deploy to Iraq . Jeremy was amused at being in charge of a sergeant almost twice his age and helping me to re-acclimate to military life. Jeremy helped get me through urban combat training and with becoming a ground mechanic. Jeremy worked as an electrician and had an associates degree in electrical engineering.

He now owns a company that subcontracts installing communications cables. He was supervising his crew when we met up on the Fruitville Pike.

After we returned from Iraq ten years ago, Jeremy deployed to Afghanistan almost immediately. He eventually had five tours as a soldier and a contractor before leaving to run his own business. He now has a fleet of trucks working across the Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

Here's more of his story from a decade ago. He was dressed differently today, but the shades were the same       .

At the good-bye dinner in late January 2009, the night before 2-104th board the planes to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, my family and I sat with...

New Life Begins: Osteoporosis Confirmed

Yesterday I got the reading from the Dexascan bone study I had almost two weeks ago.  I have osteoporosis in both femurs and in my lower back.  I also have arthritic degeneration in my wrists and ankles and the knee that was not replaced.

So, as I wrote two weeks ago, a new life begins now. My family doctor is an avid cyclist and half my age.  He said, "Once you recover from the broken arm, maybe you could ride more--well--no more fast descents." If I thought I was good at moderation, I might consider riding, well, moderately.

But I am not.  I ride for the sensation of turns and descents. And my most recent crash was at less than 10 mph on a closed bike trail, a freak occurrence--a stick in my front spokes.

So I will do whatever the doctor says and if I can restore bone density, I may consider riding again, but for now, it's moot anyway.  My splintered elbow will not sustain any sort of shock for two months or more.

I am still hoping to visit Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2021. And in the coming years, I want to return to my favorite cities and walk them. 

Watching All of The Jason Bourne Movies

My son Nigel Gussman and I just finished watching all five of the Jason Bourne movies, in a week. In the first movie, the Bourne Identity, Matt Damon was 31. By the fifth film he was 46. And now Nigel and I watched the first hour of "Ford vs. Ferrari" in which Damon is 49.

Since I had never seen Matt Damon in a movie before I saw Ford vs. Ferrari last November, it was interesting to see him age in the Bourne role and then be firmly in middle age as Carroll Shelby.

The Bourne movies are a Cold War relic even though they are set in the 21sr Century. They trace a nearly perfect assassin through the awakening of his conscience, plus he uncovers the deepest of Deep State conspiracies!!

My friend Cliff is also watching the movies. He will watch the last one this weekend. We were Cold War soldiers so the conspiracy culture is home ground for us. Cliff was most disturbed by movie four, "The Bourne Legacy." Matt Damon is not in that movie. Bourne is a tough Army Captain recruited to his role as an assassin. In the Bourne Legacy, Jeremy Renner plays Aaron Cross, a recruit who could not meet the minimum aptitude requirement and is give pills to make him smarter while he also takes pills to make him a physical marvel.

We both disliked the Frankenstein aspect, the idea that people could be engineered not only to superhuman strength but to superhuman intelligence. And if you miss the pills, you become weak and dumb. And the whole idea that the Army takes men who can't meet the minimum standard, sneaks them in and turns them into supermen is a sad view of the military.

On a lighter side, if you like car chases, the Bourne movies destroy dozens of cars from around the world. The Moscow chase scene smashed a truly international array of autos. And in Vegas, a murderer in a stolen SWAT vehicle plows though traffic like a snowplow, upending dozens of cars in a minute on the Las Vegas strip.

Old Age is a New Adventure

Two weeks ago, surgery restored my smashed left elbow to something like its previous shape. The next morning, after surgery, another doctor gave me some stunning news: I needed to start taking large doses of Vitamin D right away and when I get home, call the hospital and come back for a Dexascan.  The doctor said I had low bone density, a significant Vitamin D deficiency and said I should join an osteoporosis support group. 

Wow!!

I knew this day was coming. Someday my bones would be frail enough that it would be stupid to ride a bike.  I did not know the day would be so soon. 

The strange thing, from inside my mind, was my feelings of excitement—not loss or panic.  Since the early 90s when I became bike obsessed, every day, every trip, every vacation, and all future plans were built around riding.  I took two bikes to Iraq on deployment. I took a bike with me on more than 30 business trips in three years between 1998 and 2001. 

One of the first things I thought about was how different the world would look if the bike were not part of the trip. I have been to Paris two dozen times in the last two decades. I have never been to The Louvre.  Because visiting the premiere museum in Paris takes all day and when I am in Paris some part of every day, I ride with the racers at the daily training race at L’Hippodrome in Bois de Boulogne.  One way or another, The Louvre never happened.

I then imagined myself walking across every bridge from the Eiffel Tower to Ile de Cite because I would not feel the need to ride. 

As I healed from major injuries several times over the last 30 years, my focus always was getting back on the bike.  When I broke my neck, I spent 90 days in the neck and chest brace. On the 91^st, I rolled down the hill I crashed on.  Now, I was oddly delighted that I would not be focused on getting back on the bike. It was a relief.

I knew Old Age would impose limits on me, like not riding, but I expected the limits to feel like fasting or waiting in line—deprivation.  But against all my expectations, I feel excitement. I have a new frame to view the world.  I started thinking about moments over the last five years when I began to deal with the effects of change from aging and other causes.

If I had to date the beginning of Old Age, I would say it was July of 2015.  On June 30, 2015, I retired. I had worked summers and Saturdays and sometimes after school since I was 12. I had a full-time job from my 18^th birthday until the day I retired. I have not worked a day since.  I have not missed it.  In June of 2015, I went on my last Army training exercise and took the Army fitness test for the last time.  Soon after, I left the Army. With the rise of Trump and his popularity among soldiers, I was glad to be gone.  It was a big change to no longer be a worker or a soldier, but after a half-century of defining myself as both, I was neither and I was unexpectedly happy.

I started meditating. I started taking Yoga.  After years of resisting both, I was open to both and began practicing. I am currently not doing Yoga in part because of COVID-19 and now because of my injuries but have been meditating daily for years.

Also, in 2015, my workouts changed.  The swimming and running that carried me through an Ironman race in 2014 were history for me.  Both shoulders had torn ligaments. My left knee ached and would be replaced three years later.  No more Army fitness test meant no more pushups.  The bike was my only workout besides yoga. 

And coincident with my own advancing age, in 2016 America became senile. America elected a racist who wanted to make America white again.

Since 2017, much has changed in my thought and spiritual life because America is in rapid cognitive decline. More on that soon.

After Reading "Ally" I Wished Romney Won in 2012

After reading “Ally” a memoir by Michael B. Oren, I was wistfully wishing Romney had won the 2012 election.  Oren was the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. from 2009 to 2013.  Reading his book reminded me of how much I disliked President Obama’s foreign policy.  On Israel, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and the Arab Spring, I did not like the way America interacted with the Arab World. 

Of course, I liked the Bush administration policy much less.  The Iraq War was an epic foreign policy failure. I liked the Obama foreign Policy far better than that of Bush 43. 

But reading Oren’s book reminded me that Obama was only better, he was not good.

Although foreign policy is necessarily the focus of Oren’s book, as I read, I began to image what would have changed here in America if Obama was defeated in 2012.

It would have been a defeat for the batshit TEA Party/Rush Limbaugh/Roy Moore/Evangelical/racist wing of the Republican Party. Romney and Ryan were RINOs according to the Sarah Palin radical idiot wing of the party. 

Romney in power would have been a sane and sensible version of Conservative, but the most important thing Romney would have done is killed any chance that the horrible racist pig now in office could ever be President.  Trump could not have run against Romney in 2016 and whoever ran as a Democrat would have run against a moderate version of Conservative. 

If Romney served eight years, the despicable, deplorable core of Trumpism would be older and weaker. A Democrat would be at a distinct advantage in 2020 after eight years of Romney. Even if Trump somehow got the 2020 nomination, he would have lost. 

By the time 2028 rolled around, Trump would be senile or dead and his most batshit followers would be the same.  The Republican candidate of 2024 or 2028 could well have been Paul Ryan.  A Romney win in 2012 would have kept Trump and the third-rate losers around him from ever getting near the White House. 

In politics, the lesser of two evils is often the best one can get.  Romney, whatever his flaws, would have been infinitely better than the vain little coward we have now.

The 1965 Movie Battle of the Bulge

My son Nigel and I watched the 1965 movie Battle of the Bulge just before Memorial Day. I first saw this in Boston at the Loews theater, one of the few theaters in Boston that had the Cinemascope projector allowing them the full screen effects of this movie.  The Theater had velvet curtains and plush seats. I had never been to a place so opulent.

I loved the movie. It certainly had some influence on my later career as a tank commander.  But even as a 12-year-old I had read it enough about in World War II to know that the tanks on this screen were from between World War II and what was then the present day.  Sherman tanks were actually M 24 Chafee tanks in the tigers were M 47 Patton tanks.

It was fun to watch Telly Savalas as a Tank commander/Black market entrepreneur, a roll he would hand off to Donald Sutherland and take to another level in 1970 in Kelly’s Heroes when Savalas became a bank robber.

For my son, I could also place this movie among the other World War II movies we watched recently.  Fury, which had actual Shermans and an operational tiger tank, was four months after the Battle of the Bulge. Band of Brothers has the Battle of the Bulge near the center of the drama. In the movie Patton the Battle of the Bulge is near the end.  Last fall I visited Bastogne and Malmedy.  I brought out some of the pictures from that visit.

So along with this movie we had a world war two review.

The Unpardonable Sin is Pride

The Unpardonable Sin has haunted believers for more than two millennia, at least until recently.  I remembered this while reading one of the “Master and Commander” novels.  The ship’s doctor visits an insane asylum in early 19^th-century Europe. At that time the two most common delusions were those who either believed they were God and capable of forgiving sin or those who believe they had committed the unpardonable sin and were waiting for hell to open up and swallow them.

Even 50 years ago I remember people deeply worried about having committed the unpardonable sin. At the time exactly what that sin is seemed to be a mystery. After I read “Inferno” by Dante I assumed that the unpardonable sin was pride. Dante puts pride in the bottom of hell. Pride is the central sin of Satan recorded in the Bible. If you are proud you have no need for forgiveness putting you either equal to God or better than God. That sin cannot be pardoned, because you could not be pardoned if you have no faults.

CS Lewis says the doors of hell lock from the inside. If this is true it is because the proud person could never ask for forgiveness, the admission to heaven.  So rather than admit wrong that person locks himself in hell forever.

Until 2016, I thought I believed with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks that the line between good and evil runs through each human heart. The rabbi says all believers in monotheism believe this.  The alternative is to believe the line between good and evil is between us and them. In Game of Thrones the Lannister queen is identified as evil when asked by her son if someone is an enemy. Her reply is, “Our enemy is anyone who is not us.”

For decades when I heard someone say, “I will never forgive…” I would have moment of pain thinking, ‘Oh please don’t say that.’  Sometimes I would imagine I could smell sulfur when I heard those words. But now I live in a country in which believers worship a man who says, “I have no need for forgiveness.” In Trump’s America the smell of sulfur and brimstone is everywhere.