Who Makes Coffee for the Soldiers?

One of my favorite places in Iraq was the Green Beans coffee shop on Tallil Ali Air Base. I was a regular so I knew most of the staff. Like us, they worked at least 12 hours per day, six days a week and when one of them was sick, the others would work 18 hours to keep the coffee brewing 24/7/365.

Most of the baristas were from India and Nepal. A few months before I left, they hired Frederick Lameki, a young man from Kenya. Like the other members of the staff, Fred was well educated, but could make more money serving coffee in Iraq than he could in his home country. Fred greeted me loudly every time I saw him at Green Beans.

"Goooosemon," he would say. "What's happening?" Sometimes in his enthusiasm he would attempt to greet me with the complicated handshake he used greeting his younger favorite customers--then he remembered I was way too old for that and smiled at my inability.

Fred will be visiting America this summer--most likely New York City, but maybe other North East cities. Fred has 419 Facebook friends which, in his case, may actually reflect his ability to make and keep friends. Fred and I have one mutual friend on Facebook--Jessie Ramos. Fred introduced me to Jessie. She is from Texas, but not really. In fact she is not really Jessie, but more on her in another post.

Green Beans is one of my best memories of Iraq: good coffee, good people who work there, reading good books with no video in the building, and talking about books with other people who read.

Who Fought the War--And Is Back to Work

Spc. Brad Powers just after he landed at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.


Spc. Brad Powers has a new job--already. While many members of Task Force Diablo are taking a well-deserved rest, the restless Powers is beginning a new job and a new career simultaneously.

In Iraq, Powers was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic in Echo Company. We were in fourth squad of the motor platoon. At various times I was Powers team leader and squad leader. At Fort Sill, Powers was also in my remedial PT (Physical Training) group. The 27-year-old Lancaster resident is big, strong and went to enough parties before mobilizing that he was marginal on passing the two-mile run. No one was happy in the remedial PT group--the training was Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday from 7 to 830 pm--but Powers never complained in my hearing. And like all but one of my remedial group, Powers eventually passed the PT test.

All the time we were training in Fort Sill and Kuwait and working in Iraq, Powers was taking college courses. During 2009 he completed a full year of college credit, the final year of classes toward a bachelor of science degree that qualifies him to work in safety management. He finished his last class just before Christmas in Iraq and was a awarded a Bachelor of Science degree while he was in Kuwait on the way to America in early January.

In addition to working on his degree in the evenings while working in the motor pool at Tallil Ali Air Base, Powers was sent to Garry Owen, a small forward operating base near the Iran-Iraq border. He kept working on his degree without interruption there.

With the degree in hand, Powers applied for a job on line with a Peabody, Massachusetts-based, firm with operations across the country. A few days after he got home, the morning after a welcome home party, Powers got a call asking if he could be on a flight to Boston in four hours. He said sure. Then they told him it was a Southwest flight leaving from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, 88 miles away.

He made the flight and apparently aced the interview because he got the job. Monday morning he flies to Boston for a week of orientation training then he starts work with clients along the East Coast. Powers said his company likes to hire veterans.

With every possible excuse not to complete his degree and get a job, Powers completed 30 hours of college credit during a one-year deployment and returned to get a professional job in a new career field when he could still here the echo from "Welcome Home."

Cooking

In several posts during the last year I wrote that the food we had in Iraq was great. Aside from really good bread we were very well fed. The amazing variety of fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal meant we actually were well fed in the nutritional sense. When I got to America I asked my kids to bring bakery bread to me at Fort Dix. Since I have been home, I have had good bread pretty much every day.

But it turns out I also missed cooking. In the last week I made dinner several times. When I make dinner it is more extravagant than my very frugal wife makes, but she doesn't mind because I do the work and cooking expensive food at home is still much less expensive than eating in a not-so-great restaurant.

One night this week I made a pork roast, mashed potatoes, and steamed cabbage. I make mashed potatoes with butter, whole milk and an old-fashioned potato masher--not exactly health food, but really good if you like potatoes. We also had celery with and without peanut butter, provolone cheese, jarlsburg cheese, and bread from a local bakery named "A Loaf of Bread." And very much unlike Tallil, my wife and I had wine with dinner that I got as a coming home present the week before. Just one glass for me--I had a two drink limit before deployment and now can get a small buzz from one glass of table wine. Two days later, dinner was the leftover pork, potatoes and cabbage along brie cheese and French bread and the rest of the bottle of wine.

Tonight we had apples, cheese, purple cabbage, Cappicola ham, fruit and nut bread from Philadelphia, and a really good rose wine that was also a welcome home gift. It really is fun to cut everything up and make the food look good on the serving plates--that's something you can't get in a buffet line.

Explaining Acronyms

Three of us were standing in the lobby today waiting for the fourth for lunch. In the five minutes before the fourth member of our group showed up (punctuality is very optional in civilian life) the subject of Army acronyms came up. The two women I was talking to had no connection to the military but knew that when F was the middle letter in an Army acronym, what word it referred to.

My favorite example of just how much acronyms replace words in the Army is the use of the acronym BFR when referring to a Big Rock. I could almost understand if it was an exclamation--"That's a Big F-ing Rock!" But it's not. A large rock is a BFR because it is more fun to have an acronym.

Then we talked about titles. I have a new title. Instead of Communications Manager, I am Strategic Communications and Media Relations Manager. If got this title in the Army, I would be the SCMRM. I then mentioned that in the Army everyone is in charge of something, even if it is just their own weapon and wall locker. So if you know someone is in charge and you don't know what their title is, everyone from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to team leader can be called an HMFIC. That is the Head MF In Charge. MF is always the same in Army speak.

"You'll Get Back in Shape in No Time"

That's what the other guys I ride with were saying on Sunday, Monday and today. It was nice of them to say, but the truth is getting back to climbing hills is just as tough as coming back from breaking my neck. Hills that used to just look like hills now look like Alpine climbs.

On the 40-mile Sunday ride the two nasty climbs are about five miles from the start. But I was already gasping from riding up the long shallow hill at the start and the longer, steeper hill at mile 2. On the first big hill, the group slowed at the top for a stop sign just over the crest of the hill. There was no traffic, so I went through the intersection at 22mph and caught the group on the descent. On the next hill two other guys dropped to the back, so though I was lagging, I was not the caboose on the train.

From that point on I never stopped wheezing. We rode the rollings hills at a moderate pace--they talked I wheezed--until we crossed Rt. 222 on the south side of Lancaster. The pack sped up and stayed above 20mph for the next few miles. Just as we were about to turn up hill, I drifted back and watched the bright-colored group of a dozen riders disappear. Another guy was behind me. He said he was going to try to catch up; he never did. I turned back toward home at mile 18.

The next day I rode just 17 of 29 miles of the daily ride and it was very difficult.

I know i will get back in shape, but it will be months, not weeks till I can climb like I used to.

Back to Work

Today I took the 7:06 am train to Philadelphia. This is my first day back at work after just over a year. Annalisa and Nigel drove me to the train station (Annalisa actually did the driving) and I joined the big crowd that gets on the train in Lancaster--more than 150 of the nearly 300 regular riders of the Keystone train get on and off in Lancaster.

I saw a lot of faces I recognized. the faces looked a little older than when I left--which means my face looks older too. The 7am train riders are, thankfully, a very quiet group. They file onto the train. The regulars walk the length of the platform and sit in the last car. Sometimes there is no sound all the way to Paoli--two-thirds of the way to Philadelphia. The train was 15 minutes late this morning because we got behind a SEPTA local and could not go around it.

After leaving the train I walk across 30th Street and down into the subway station. The El train arrived a couple of minutes later. I rode eight minutes to 2nd Street then walked up Market to Fork restaurant. They bake bread every day. As I arrived the baguettes were just coming out of the oven. I love fresh bread.

I ate bread, checked out my new office and started a series for short meetings to get moved back in to CHF. I learned abut changes in the computer system, got my access card key back, heard about the medical benefits and started cleaning up email and voice mail.

I had a couple of meetings about plans for my work for the next few months and talked to many of my co-workers about Iraq and returning to civilian life. They all thought I looked very different in a blue pin-striped suit than in a camo uniform.

It's great to be back. I'll be going to New York on the 17th, Orlando on the 27th, maybe to Boston or Washington DC in between. I really am becoming a civilian very quickly.

Reality Check

One of the things I thought about doing when I returned home from Iraq was getting involved in local politics. Specifically school politics. I care a lot about education and thought I could be of some help just by being involved. My wife, Annalisa, said I could get involved right away by going to three simultaneous events at my son's school: Wharton Elementary School in Lancaster: dinner, Parent Advisory Council meeting, and Parent Teacher Organization meeting.

530pm--free dinner supplied by the school. Chicken fingers, mashed potatoes and applesauce for the kids, turkey, ham or roast beef "wrap" sandwiches for the adults. Water and iced tea were the drinks--no soda in school. Annalisa, Nigel and I got in line and ate at the green formica-covered tables that fold down from the walls in the gym. About a dozen families showed up for dinner.
6pm--we went upstairs to the library and the PAC meeting. PAC organizes events and support for teachers at the school. The only guys in the room besides me were a local bookstore owner in the audience, the head of the group, Nigel.
645pm--Annalisa and Nigel left for Nigel's basketball practice.
655pm--the meeting switched from PAC to PTO. The bookstore owner left. The meeting continued for another 45 minutes discussing PTO business and plans.

The 16 parents (14 moms, 2 dads) who attended the meeting were not attracted by the free food. I knew many of them, at least by sight. They are well-educated, involved in their child's education, encourage learning and reading by reading and learning themselves, are involved in the community, and are, therefore, not at all typical of the parents of Wharton Elementary or any other school.

In racing of every kind, you have to start to have a chance of winning. The people who show up are the people have influence. How we spend time and money are great indexes of what we really care about. It was interesting to see who really cares about education.