2nd Anniversary of Breaking My Neck

I keep many anniversaries, both silly and serious. Beyond the obvious ones, like my wedding anniversary and family birthdays, I always celebrate the anniversary of my driver's license. It was easily one of the best days of my life. I wanted to drive ever since I could remember and knew by heart the driveline and engine specifications of every Detroit Muscle Car available in the 60s. In fact, this coming December 19th I will celebrate the 40th anniversary of my driver's license in Iraq. Maybe I'll get two pieces of cake in the DFAC here on that day.

Today is the 2nd Anniversary of the day I broke my neck, and a lot of other stuff: I cracked the first two vertebra in my neck, smashed the 7th, broke four ribs and my collarbone and shoulder blade on the right side and my nose. It all happened in about a second when I flipped and crashed in a downhill race at 50mph on Turkey Hill in Lancaster County PA.

I don't remember the accident or more than two minutes of the following two days, but that accident almost kept me from being here in Tallil, Iraq, writing this post. Of course, you might wonder in the other direction "How did they let him in the Army?" since I re-enlisted (after being a civilian for 23 years) three months later on August 16, 2007. The short answer is: I hang around with academics enough to know that I should always answer the question I am being asked--and nothing more.

The Thursday before Easter 2007, in late March, I called a recruiter and started the enlistment process. By late April I had passed the physical and other tests and was just waiting for an age waiver--I was one year too old to enlist even with 11 years of prior service. As it turned out, I did not get that waiver until July 13. So on April 28, I was set to enlist and just waiting for paperwork. On May 9th I was being MedEvaced from the crash site to Lancaster General Hospital where Dr. William T. Monacci happened to be the neurosurgeon on duty in the trauma center.

Dr. Monacci had just come to Lancaster. He is also a colonel in the Army Reserve. His last practice was in Baghdad, so he had a lot of recent, relevant experience. The next day he and his team replaced my smashed 7th vertebra with a bone from a cadaver then bolted it to the vertebra on either side with a titanium plate. I could have been a paraplegic or worse. As it was, I was up and walking in a neck and chest brace five days later and out of the hospital in eight days.

Of course, I was worried this was the end of joining the Army. But I passed the physical and I did not yet have the waiver. The recruiter said there was nothing to do but wait, so I did. I walked at least three miles per day (to the Starbucks at Stonemill Plaza in Lancaster among other places) and started doing zero-weight exercises at the gym to keep loose.

In July the waiver came through. I was supposed to get the neck brace off during the first two weeks in August, so I told him I would enlist on August 16. I did. I felt fine. No one asked me if I had broken my neck recently, so I had no question to answer.

The following spring, May 2008, we were getting prepared to go to Iraq. I listened to the medical briefing as carefully as I would listen to a prize drawing. At one point the earnest young private giving the briefing said, "If you have enlisted in the last year and there have been no changes in your health SINCE YOUR ENLISTMENT write NONE on the block at the bottom of the form." So I did. Nothing had changed since I enlisted in August 2007.

Then a doctor interviewed us. My health records looked great, tests all good. At the end of the exam the doctor asked, "Is there anything else you would like to tell me?" There was not a thing I wanted to tell him. So I said "No."

So here I am. In an ironic medical twist, I had surgery on my right shoulder on October 30, 2008, to repair a torn rotator cuff and three other ligaments. The likely cause of the ligament damage was hitting the road with my helmet and shoulder the year before, but that was not part of the diagnosis. Because that surgery caused me to miss Army training November, I was classified non-deployable until 2 days before we went to Oklahoma. But I passed the medical test and got on the plane with several hundred of my closest friends.

So that is how I got here despite breaking my neck.

Bitching at Breakfast

After Wednesday's 5k race, a few of us who ran in the event met for breakfast. There happened to be an empty seat opposite me. Before I had two bites of my French Toast, an angry sergeant from our unit sat down in that empty seat and asked, "Why the f$#k do I have run a 5k race every Wednesday?" The question was rhetorical. He did stop talking so I kept eating. "I hate running. . .We only have to run 2 miles for the PT test so why should run 3 miles. . ."

In Kuwait our base had a 5k race every Wednesday and our base in Iraq decided to do the same. The officer in charge of our physical training program decided it would be a good thing to get the whole company together once a week for this event, so I talked to the organizer after the race. He was delighted to have more people running. The organizer and I talked at 0645. I showered and got to chow by 0730. Word had spread through most of the company by then even though some of us live as far as a mile from each other.

I should point out that the sergeant who was so upset scores well on the PT test, volunteers for tough duty and is a natural leader. But he has decided that running 5k once per week is an unfair imposition on him.

When he calmed down enough to start eating I asked, "So what about the rocket attack. Did that bother you?"

"F#$k no. We're in a combat zone. I expect that. It was a few rockets. They didn't hit shit anyway.' He paused for breath.

"But why do we have to get up at 5 in the morning just to go run, I mean what the f. . ." and he was off again.

For most of my friends back home, a 5k morning run would be a pleasant or at least neutral experience, especially since it could even be a 5k walk. On the other hand, a few ill-aimed rockets that fell anywhere in the immediate area would still be the occasion of very strenuous complaints to every level of government not to mention "must sell" real estate prices.

Gossip!

My roommate goes off in the evenings to spend time with two guys from his home town. The three of them deployed together before almost five years ago, but can happily spend an evening talking about things that have nothing to do with the Army or the current deployment.

He says the alternative to talking with each other is talking about each other. The main topics of conversation on deployment are home, complaints and gossip. And gossip quickly takes center stage. When people see each other as much as we do, we know each others foibles and weaknesses to a degree that is only possible in families in civilian life.

At this point, it's clear that simply mentioning some soldier's name will lead a group at dinner to groan, laugh or shake their heads depending on the person. And because it is such a close group, the comments circulate quickly. One one field exercise, I told my vehicle crew that I would not allow anyone to talk on cell phones inside the vehicle when we were waiting for instructions. It was raining off and on that day. The rest of the crew knew I made up the rule for only one soldier in the vehicle who would complain to his mother/girlfriend/(dog) at every halt if allowed. I heard comments with sly smile for a week after from soldiers who heard the rule I had made and were delighted that particular soldier was not allowed to drone on and make the rest of the crew suffer.

For those who would think gossip is optional, being part of the gossip also identifies one as part of an informal group. A group that when gossip when you are present considers you an outsider. If you hear "She's a f#$king idiot" when you are eating with five other soldiers, they are letting you in on their group opinion. To be outside the gossip is to be outside every informal network.

For those who would like to read the definitive essay on this subject cliques and who is on and out, the essay "The Inner Ring" in CS Lewis' book "The Weight of Glory" is wonderful on this subject.

My First Medal in Iraq. . .is for a 5K Race

Each Wednesday, beginning just last Wednesday, The House of Pain gym (no kidding) on our base sponsors a 5K with medals and prizes. This morning a half-dozen soldiers from Echo Company signed up for the race. The prizes were given out by random drawing before the race, the medals were awarded by age group--but only finishers are allowed to collect prizes so the pizza and t-shirt winners did not get their prizes until the race was over. I got medal for being first place in what the announcer called the "51 to Infinity group." Full disclosure rules (that I just made up) require me to say at this point that I was the only entrant in the 51 to Infinity group, but they awarded me the medal anyway.

Even with a time of 26:13, I was ahead of some younger people. Although I was so far behind the race winner, I had almost a mile to go when he finished. First place was a lieutenant who finished in 17 minutes and 40 seconds. There was also a 45-year-old sergeant who came in at 19:33 to win his age group.

Speaking of Snail Mail

I have an address at my new home:

Sgt. Neil Gussman
Co. E 2/104 GSAB
COB Adder T-1
APO.AE.09331

Just so you understand all the Acronyms and numbers, here is the address without abbreviations:

Line 1: Sergeant Neil Gussman

Line 2: Echo Company, 2nd Battalion / 104th General Services Aviation Brigade

Line 3: Combat Operating Base Adder T-1

Line 4: Army Post Office.Armed[Forces]Europe.[Zip Code]

If you would like to send something I would be happy to get snail mail. If you can't think of anything to write, one of the Chaplains wants me to start a CS Lewis reading group on post so if you have extra copies of Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, God in the Dock, Till We Have Faces and The Weight of Glory, please send them. Or you can send them direct through Amazon.com.

Thanks.

Staying in Touch--with Co-Workers

When I am back in the US I work at a museum and library of chemistry and early science that has books in its collections dating back to the invention of printing in the 1400s. In some ways, we are the most low-tech place you could imagine. The staff reads books. People visit to read books. We all talk about books. But if Chemical Heritage Foundation is low-tech at heart, it has a high-tech side. We have an extensive Web site, a Facebook page and many other connections to the high-tech world. And since I miss the people I work with the best of these high-tech connections is "Distillations" the CHF podcast (Free subscription on iTunes.)

when I go to the gym or in have a few minutes I can listen to the weekly podcast on various subjects in chemistry and the world around us. I liked the podcast when I was in America, but now listening Jen, Jim, Sarah, Bob, Jody (not THAT Jody), Audra, or the always mysterious Anke talk about chemistry in the kitchen, or medieval love potions, or how to be green and clean, I hear voices that I miss. Of course, they are all being professional and informative as they speak, but I have heard everyone who is on the podcast laugh and make jokes in person, so I can usually remember some funny thing Anke said about Medieval cures that were worse than the disease, or Jim showing me a Ship of Fools, or Sarah making jokes about almost anything.

CHF is a great place to work. If you don't believe me, listen to the podcast. Almost everyone who is "on the air" is on the staff.

So if high-tech might have kept me from becoming a writer, it certainly is nice to have it for things like listening to people I know and like on line.

Then and Now: Staying in Touch

When I was stationed in (West) Germany, my peak income as a sergeant was $5,000 per year in 1979, the third year of my deployment. At that time the only options for staying in touch with America were phone calls and snail mail. I phoned my family once in a while, but mail was the only real option. Compared to now, calling home cost a fortune: a ten-minute phone call cost at least $5 when most of us made less than $100 per week.

Now I call landlines on Skype from here in the Middle East and half the time I am charged nothing. Phone cards have rates around 20 cents per minute for a call that is as reliable as calling in the states. Email only costs the access fee for internet, same with Facebook and every other electronic means of calling/writing home.

I am very happy to be able to talk to every member of my family every week. I also call friends and co-workers just on a whim because it is cheap and easy. This blog allows me to stay in touch with a lot of people without clogging their email InBoxes.

But no Blessing in this life is unmixed. I learned how to write on my deployment to Germany. I joined the Army a High School graduate who had no aspirations of going to college. Seeing the beauty of the German countryside, talking with Germans, training with British troops, flying to France in a helicopter for a War Memorial ceremony all were experiences beyond pictures. I wanted to tell my family and friends about them.

I don't know how it started, but a few months into the deployment, I started writing several drafts of the same experience as letters. First I wrote to my Mom. She mostly cared that I wrote, not what I wrote, so she got the first draft. Then I would write to Frank Capuano, my best friend from high school, or someone else who I wanted to tell about simply being in a foreign country. Sometimes I would write another more letter, same story. But the last letter in the series would be either to my sister, Jean, or my uncle Jack. They were the best writers I knew personally so I by the time I wrote their copy, I was 4 or 5 drafts from my first thoughts.

A year later when I got a job on the base newspaper it was because of all that practice writing. Even though I write every day now, the process is not the same. I write, I hit the PUBLISH POST button and never revise.

Of course, if I were writing five drafts of each post, I would be posting a lot less. But I have no doubt that I learned the craft of being a writer by those laborious rewrites. I will be writing other posts on this subject--in one draft.