Who Fights This War? -- Me

My commander wrote about me for the latest issue of the newsletter. Thought you might like to read it.

By Lt. Col. Scott Perry
During a play in 1639, Cardinal Richelieu uttered the phrase, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” He was certainly not the only to have this opinion, joining greats like Euripides, Shakespeare, and Thomas Jefferson. The sentiment has been germane through the ages, and the current era is no different.
Although serving in a Task Force consisting of awesome strength, firepower and mobility, it is a camera and computer that Sgt. Neil Gussman aims in order to shape the face of the modern battlefield. While bullets and brute force may subdue the most tenacious enemy, over the course of history, opinions, sentiments and perception have been used to greater affect in influencing kings, dynasties and nations. As an accomplished writer, this is something Neil Gussman knows well.
Even so, I had to ask myself, who is this world-influencing neo-gladius whose stories seem to touch the world as easily as he qualifies with his assigned weapon?
As I have learned through my interaction with him, Sgt. Neil Gussman is an eclectic series of mutually un-supporting disciplines, dichotomies and passions that somehow have blended into an exceptional communicative force.
Neil Gussman was 56 years old as of May 2nd, but he doesn’t mind that you can’t keep up with him during Army physical training. And don’t even think about challenging him in a bicycle race. But I’m getting ahead of the story and Neil wouldn’t appreciate that.
Like any other red-blooded American young man, Neil had a passion for fast cars and racing. For those who can appreciate such things, he once owned a ‘69 Cobra Jet Torino featuring a 428 C.I. power plant with a factory 735 dual-feed Holly carburetor and Hurst 4 speed shifter. When he owned a TV that he kept in the basement, the only thing he was interested in watching was NASCAR during the good old days of Cale Yarborough, Alan Kulwicki and Dale Earnhardt Sr. For the purist in Neil, that all ended when the sport departed from bias ply tires.
No problem.
There were other fascinations to occupy the time of this undefined thrill seeker. He had suppressed a motorcycle obsession because his father opposed them. Once on his own, he started out with a Honda 175 and soon was risking his life on the likes of VFR 700s, Interceptors, Hawks and other popular crotch-rockets of the late ‘80s. After a disappointing day at the track he determined he wasn’t practicing enough and he gave up riding having decided he wasn’t really good enough to race.
Neil joined the Air Force in 1972. The next year, he spent over a week in the hospital after being blinded by shrapnel at Hill Air Force Base, Utah during a live-fire exercise of interstage rocket detonators. Incidentally, he had grown up nominally Jewish, but became a Christian while recovering from the blindness. He left the Air Force in 1974 but joined the Army in 1975 as a SP4 Tank gunner and progressed to Tank Commander stationed at Fort Carson, Colo. and Wiesbaden Germany. In 1979, he left the military to go to college.
After departing the service, he used his GI bill benefits to attend Penn State University where he completed his BA in Humanities and an MA in American studies consecutively. After graduating in 1985, he started working for an advertising agency. He noticed others in the agency were out of work when their client left. Recognizing the volatility of the advertising world, Gussman set out to find his own clients. Being familiar with chemistry and calculus, he decided to write about technology for continuous employment and covered electronics until the ad agency acquired a chemical company account. Concentrating on chemistry, in 1998 he became manager of global communications for Millennium Chemicals and was travelling overseas every month. Having no interest in managing as he puts it, “free form-people who each want to rule the world,” in 2001 and 25 countries later, he left to work as a consultant. Now he is the communications manager for the Museum and Library of the history of chemistry and early science which he characterizes as a science museum for grown-ups. The non-profit Chemical Heritage Foundation was founded in 1982 and is located in a 160 year old building located next to the Liberty Museum and Independence Mall in center city Philadelphia.
Having given up motorcycles, he got serious about bicycle riding in 1992 when he logged 8,000 miles. In recent years he’s been racking up over 10,000 miles annually. In April 2007, he broke his neck while riding at 50 MPH down Turkey Hill in Lancaster, PA. The crash resulted in 10 broken bones including three vertebras. Now his 7th vertebra is from a cadaver. His riding repertoire includes cycling on five continents and if you spend any time at Tallil with your eyes open, you no doubt have seen Sgt. Gussman on a bike. He shipped 2 here, bought 2 others since we arrived and he’s met his goal of riding 5000 miles at Tallil Iraq.
I’m sure Neil doesn’t think he’s obsessive or particular. But, how else do you describe a person who goes to a 300 year old Presbyterian Church because he can’t help but criticize the sermons of anything newer? And how else do you explain a person who has organized a spreadsheet enumerating of all the books he’s read as well as an accounting of all his broken bones? -- 32 by the way. An avid athlete, it’s no surprise that he also charts all his physical activities including the mileage he’s run, ridden, pushups, pull-ups, sit ups, etc…
At the age of 54, Neil Gussman re-enlisted in the Army in August 2007. He joined an aviation unit because he was concerned about joining a ground unit, thinking he couldn’t keep up with the 20 year olds. His assessment was wrong. His 26 year old, commanding officer put Gussman in charge of remedial PT to train all in the formation who are unable to pass the test—most of them half his age.
Gussman always wanted to be a writer but prior to college read only science or religious books. Since his first class at The Pennsylvania State University where he read Dante’s Inferno, he has been involved in a love affair with literature. Sgt. Gussman now reads an average of 25 books per year and is hosting 2 separate reading clubs while in Iraq. USA Today recently featured his efforts. When home, he reads other’s stories to his wife and four children; while he’s in Iraq he writes the story of Task Force Diablo’s mission for others to tell the world.

From Sweating to Freezing

It certainly is cold here. When we left Iraq it was much cooler than when we arrived, but I was still riding in short sleeves. It was in the 70s on cool days, mid to high 80s on hot days. Here at Fort Dix it is below freezing except for about 5 hours in midday when it is just above freezing. If I were not so close to home I would be homesick for the creature comforts of Iraq. In Iraq the internet was slow but it worked. Here it is fast, but down more than it is up and that's with only a few of us using it. It will be permanently unusable when hundreds of us are here. And especially so because the on-line gamers will be back and hogging whatever bandwidth they can dominate. And because we are newly arrived in a new Army bureaucracy, I do not have government internet access, because everyone involved in the cooperative process of establishing access show who is in charge. So I can't do the work that I getting inquiries about from Iraq.

But enough bitching. I have already seen my wife here. My kids are coming up tomorrow. Several of my friends in the local area are planning to visit. I can call anybody on my cell phone. It is wonderful to be back and I will get used to the cold.

Back in America--But not Home for 3 Weeks

Yesterday afternoon we landed in America. But I am not home yet. I and everybody else who is out processing from Iraq and Afghanistan cannot leave post until all the paperwork is done. I am in the advance group so we will be on Fort Dix for another three weeks.

But at least we are in America. It is nice to be in my home country even if I can't go home. The Army is a great place to learn patience--or to find out you can't.

This morning in the welcome before 7 1/2 hours of briefings, a colonel told us he thought he was ready to go back to civilian life after his first deployment in 2004. He returned to his job as a marketing manager for a large pharmaceutical company. In a meeting that was dragging on because everyone was waiting for someone else to do something, he stood up and said, "Enough, it's time to make a God-damned decision." He decided to be full time in the Army after that.

I can imagine that in the nasty days of 2004 the transition from life under fire to life in meetings was abrupt. For me, the last few months have almost been life a planned transition back to "the world." I have been working in an office, more importantly a quiet office, with very polite people around me. The Army would blow in and out of the doors when there was an emergency, but then calm resumed.

And now I have three weeks of paperwork in America instead of the usual rush. I can't wait to be a civilian again. I'll just be serving one weekend a month from now until they throw me out for being to old (age 60).

Who Fights This War?--Task Force Commander

As his digital watch silently records the time passing midnight Lt. Col. Scott Perry sits at his desk hand writing letters in response to cards, letters and gifts he receives from folks back home. Some of them he never met. “They took the time to write and thank me for my service,” he said. “The least I can do is answer in kind.” He usually gives in to sleep and goes back to his CHU between midnight and 0100 hours. Time! Best use of time. Lack of time. Perry is always aware of time.
In the morning he is up early and back in the office. “This is an awesome responsibility commanding a combat Task Force,” he said. “I need to be on top of things. I wouldn’t sleep at all if I could dispense with it.”
Each day begins with a calendar review with his assistant Spc. Andrea Magee. She keeps the calendar for Perry and for Maj. Joel Allmandinger, the Task Force Diablo Executive Officer. Allmandinger and Magee also begin their days with coffee: the first one in makes the first pot. Perry does not drink coffee. “I am not going to let something like that own me,” he says of caffeine.
Even though he refuses caffeine, Perry is a bundle of energy. He explodes into a room, moving faster than anyone else around him and asking questions as he strides through doorways. “Magee! I am going to the TOC. Tell me where I am supposed to be at 11,” he says as he walks through his office door around Magee’s work area and out the front door of the building 739, the Task Force command post. Magee has had six months of practice and can spin 180 degrees from the NIPR (non-secure) computer on her desk to the SIPR (secure) computer on the table behind her and answer Perry as he passes by her desk and before he hits the door.
Magee’s meticulous schedules only last until the second crisis. At the first crisis—a downed aircraft in need of recovery, a Red Cross message—Magee switches Allmandinger into the critical meetings Perry will miss and pushes the routine appointments back. It’s the second crisis that brings down the whole schedule.
When Perry is handling the first emergency and Allmandinger is already in a meeting with the brigade commander, when the next crisis hits the whole schedule is gone.
Sometimes it is a mission. Perry and Allmandinger are both Blackhawk pilots on rotation in the Adder missions. Sometimes they are on call for the Adder reserve mission. When reserve goes active, the pilots on call go on flying status.
“When I am flying I am totally focused on the mission,” he said. “It gives me a chance to clear my mind, focus on flying and get myself ready for the next crisis.”
In addition to the round of meetings and appointments that fill his day, Building 739 has a steady stream of visitors wanting to see the commander on a matter of considerable importance to them. When someone without an appointment enters the building they have to pass by Magee before they reach the commander’s office. She asks politely what they need to see the colonel about and usually offers to make an appointment if the subject is not urgent.
Others go to Allmandinger’s office first to get a preliminary reading on whether the request merits a meeting with the commander and if so, when. Both Allmandinger and Magee act as gatekeeper’s for Perry. Sometimes gently, sometimes firmly.
Perry admits to being a chronic workaholic. In civilian life he is the Pennsylvania State Representative for the 92nd congressional district and owner operator of a mechanical contracting business. His usual work pattern was to work at both jobs from early morning until well into the night, go home, then start over again.
The deployment changed the work environment from Central Pa. to Southern Iraq, but the schedule is the same.
One usual habit of a workaholic that Perry does not share is eating at his desk. Despite the obvious time saving of eating from a to-go plate while working, Perry and his staff stop work at midday and in the evening and eat lunch and dinner together. The people at the table vary, but as few as six or as many as sixteen will eat and make jokes together—usually Warriors Dining Facility (DFAC)for lunch and Coalition DFAC for dinner. Few other units have this kind of cohesion in the staff. Eating together often with friends is one of the great benefits of deployment that do not carry over into civilian life.
When he returns from this deployment life is going to be very different. Before deployment his family was just he and his new wife—quite an adjustment after 45 years of being single. Now when he returns to America his eight-month-old daughter will be waiting and sixteen-hour work days will not be an option. He will be back in the legislature with critical state and national elections on the horizon, back in business, a husband, a father for the first time, and they are hoping to move to a larger home.
Perry loves high performance cars, used to race, and talks about what car he should drive next: his Corvette will look a little awkward with a baby seat. He also loves clocks. He wears a digital G Force watch here because he breaks regular watches in the cockpit. But at home in a suit he wears simple, well-made analog watches. He has three fine timepieces in his home, clocks with precise German-made movements that announce each second with a firm “tick.”
With the little time left in the deployment, Perry will finish paperwork, get in final flights, plan for life after deployment, and get ready to make sure the 700-plus members of Task Force Diablo get home to their families. And there will never quite be enough time.

Who Fights This War?--Task Force Commander's Assistant

In 2009 her life has gone through more changes than a chameleon walking on a rainbow. Spc. Andrea Magee, 27, of Pleasanton, California, began the deployment as Andrea Whitacre working in flight operations for Task Force Diablo. Also, when the deployment began she was engaged for a year to Staff Sgt. Jeremy Magee, a former Marine Sniper who is an Air Traffic Controller attached to 28th Combat Aviation Brigade.
In March, things began to change. On March 18, they changed more. That was the day Andrea and Jeremy got married. They were going to wait, but waiting meant living in separate CHUs for the entire deployment, marriage meant the same CHU. So they were married in their ACU uniforms in Commanche Courthouse. During the next month they made plans to share a CHU at Joint Base Balad.
Then in mid-April, the commander of 28th Combat Aviation Brigade decided we would not be going to JBB, but to Tallil Ali Air Base. So after a couple of weeks in tents in Kuwait, they got their CHU at Tallil in May. Then in June another change. Andrea became the assistant to Lt. Col. Scott Perry and Maj. Joel Allmandinger, the commander and the executive officer of Task Force Diablo. Andrea went from shift work in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to maintaining the schedules for Perry and Allmandinger, as well as removing some of their paperwork burden.
Her first instruction in her new job was that
nothing she hears in the command building gets repeated outside. She also found out that one of her important duties was controlling the traffic into the commander’s office. “Not everyone who wants to see the commander right away actually needs to,” she said. Another important task was rebuilding the schedules of the commander and executive officer when a crisis throws the whole schedule off for hours or a whole day.
“If one of them is on Reserve and gets called to fly, the other has to cover the most important meetings and everything else has to get pushed to the next available date,” Magee said. “And the call always comes a day when both of their schedules are packed.”
Magee currently has more than 60 credit hours in college and plans to finish a bachelor’s degree and attend Officer Candidate School within the next two years.

Who Fights This War? Executive Officer and Racer

On September 11, 2001, Maj. Joel Allmandinger was visiting his parents in Tehachapi, California, with his wife and two children. He was on terminal leave after eight years on active duty as an Army Aviation Officer and a Blackhawk pilot. The 1993 graduate of West Point was ready to be a civilian. He is a strong advocate of free enterprise and was ready to go to work for a Fortune 500 Company and start on the road to the top of corporate management.
Then he heard the horrible news from New York, from the Nation’s Capital, from a field in western Pennsylvania. The nation he swore to defend was under attack just as he finished eight years of peacetime service. It was nearly a week before regular airline service was restored. On September 16, Allmandinger and his family flew home to Macungie, Pa. As soon as he arrived, he drove to Fort Indiantown Gap and signed up to serve in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
Allmandinger began his civilian career and is on the path he sought. When he left for this deployment, he was a Key Account Executive for the Kellogg Company, one of the largest food producers in the world. He is responsible for a significant part of Kellogg’s business with Giant Food Stores in Pennsylvania, an account worth tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for Kellogg. He plans to return to that job when Task Force Diablo’s deployment ends in January.
During his tour in Iraq, Allmandinger served as Executive Officer for Task Force Diablo. He flew Adder missions weekly, attended the many short and long meetings that go into running an aviation battalion, and worked every day until crew rest requirements forced a day off. As executive officer, Allmandinger was in command whenever the commander was flying and when Perry was on R&R leave.
The major’s day begins before 0600 hours with a long morning run or bike ride followed by weight training in the gym. Allmandinger was on the bicycle racing team at West Point and has won running races here and in Iraq, including the 15k Boilermaker run in July. He also was the first finisher to both ride and run in the Task Force Diablo Biathlon in November. After his workout he faces a full day of meetings, crises, last-minute changes, and problems resolved. Every day is packed with activity through early evening and sometimes well into the night. This is Allmandinger’s second deployment. He served in Kosovo in 2005-6. He also must find time to fly in addition to his other National Guard commitments and balance all of this with a demanding job, family life, working out and training for bicycle racing.
Deployments are not the best plan for career advancement, but he decided more than nine years ago that he would do his best to keep his life in level flight whichever way the wind blows.

New Year's Eve--2009 by the Numbers

What an odd year for a 56-year-old guy who works at a museum. This year I have lived in two US states and two middle eastern countries--Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Iraq and Kuwait. Lance Armstrong wrote a book titled "It's Not About the Bike." If I wrote that I would be lying. so the first numbers are about the bike.
Miles: 7100 total
PA--500
OK--1300
Kuwait--100
Iraq--5200
I competed in four races. Three in PA while I was on leave, one in Iraq.
I rode four bikes outside PA. Two I bought for the trip and broke them both. The single speed 29er and track bike are in Conex containers on the way to America. The post chaplain at Fort Sill OK loaned me his bike while I was there (May the Lord bless him!) I bought a $100 bike for the two weeks I was in Kuwait in the spring, broke it and traded it for a latte at Starbucks. I bought a bike for $250 in Iraq in December after I broke the 29er. I sold it the day before I left for $250 and threw in a pump.

I read only 15 books this year--lowest total since I started keeping track. And almost all of them were re-reads: six by CS Lewis, Inferno & Purgatorio, Aeneid, and The Three Musketeers (an old edited French version). New to my reading list were George Orwell's Essays, another of John Polkinghorne's books on theology and physics, and The Audacity of Hope by President Obama.

The unabridged Democracy in America is my first book for 2009. I am halfway through The Oak and the Calf by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and a second (very different) abridged French version of the Three Musketeers and should finish them during the long hours in Kuwait.

By a rough calculation I have written more than 75,000 words on my blog and am just short of 50,000 visitors too my blog since I started keeping track in June of 2008.

Since August I have written more articles than I ever have in my life. The 16th weekly issue of the newsletter goes out Monday. I also wrote four newsletters for Echo Company and had stories picked up by many Web sites and newspapers--none cooler, of course, then the New York Times "At War" blog on Thanksgiving!

Although many are different angles of the same shot, I have taken more than 5000 pictures. It will be very strange to have no camera when I leave active duty.

Counting each take off and landing as a flight, I have been on two dozen helicopter rides, mostly on Blackhawks, but also on the big Chinooks. It was the Chinooks that turned out to be the best single photo subject. It was wonderful watching them hover, six feet above a container with a flight engineer on top of it who hooked the 5,000-pound load, jumped to the ground and ran through the hurricane-force winds as the big helicopter flew away with 2.5 tons dangling 20 feet underneath.

I bought just two meals the whole time I was in Iraq--pizzas at Ciano's. But I bought a few hundred lattes at Green Bean's. The last one was free. I am sitting in Green Bean's in Kuwait writing this post.

I fired a lot fewer rounds this year than I did as a Cold War tank commander in the 1970s. But then we were training for a real war that seemed immanent. Now we are in a real war that is ending.

Oh right. And I made 387 blog posts in 2009. I will continue posting every day until we are released from active duty. Then I am going to take a break during the 17 days I am still on terminal leave. And when I am finally and officially a civilian again, I might write about some of the stuff I can't write now.

Happy New Year.