AMTRAK Quiet (except for ME) Car

I ride AMTRAK trains to work and on trips to NYC 4 or 5 days each week.  Recently AMTRAK added quiet cars on the Keystone service between Harrisburg and NYC.  The rules on the quiet car are No Cell Phone Use, No Loud Talking.  But every other time I get on one of these cars, someone will talk on their cell phone.  Sometimes they are oblivious and did not see the signs on the door and every ten feet along the roof.  Sometimes.  Not often.

Mostly what they want is a quiet car for everyone but them.  They get to drone on about their latest deal or horrible date.  I know a guy who works in a bakery in Lancaster and commutes to Temple several days a week.  He is taking classes toward a PhD.  He sits in the quiet car hoping to do homework.  Then someone starts talking.  He said he waits up to 10 minutes to say something.  He likes having me on the train.  I wait up to three seconds before saying something.  Usually, "There are five other cars on this train, go there."

Since I think people are like gardens--good only with effort, full of weeds in their natural state--I assume the person who takes the call--or worse dials the call and sits on their ass making disturbing 80 other people is a jerk.  So I ask them to leave, shut up or both.  It is worth the hassle because the same jerks who flaunt the rules they want others to obey are cowards.  When they see it is a hassle to act like a jerk they do something else.

Since I am already being a Judgmental Bastard (my favorite segment on Jay Leno.  If you have never seen it, search it on YOUTUBE) I can say that I have never asked a soldier or someone who looks military to be quiet on the quiet car.  The worst offenders are guys in suits.  The hardest to shut up are women.  When they act like jerks, they are used to getting slack.  Last trip back from NYC a large woman across the aisle made a call in the quiet car.  She said "I'll just be a few minutes."  I asked her to spend that few minutes elsewhere.  She stormed off.

Civilian life is being the bad guy for enforcing even an obvious ten-freakin'-signs-and-five-announcement rule.

I let you know if I end up with a broken nose.

Jealousy and Envy

When we were getting ready to go to Iraq, Colonel Perry spoke to the battalion in Oklahoma.  The most memorable part of his speech for me was when he said that envy ruins units at every level.

Of course, envy ruins every kind of community--civilian, military, secular, religious, law-abiding or criminal.  I got a dollar book at a used book store with the title "Envy."  It is one of a series on of seven books, each on one of the Seven Deadly sins.

I am just two chapters into this brief and entertaining look at one of the three worst of the seven sins and I plan to follow the authors advice in thinking about envy vs. jealousy.  Joseph Epstein "I am jealous of what I have, I envy what you have."  He makes clear that jealousy can be good, or at least appropriate, but envy never is.

God is jealous, the Bible says.  He wants to keep those who have chosen to love Him for Himself.  A spouse or lover can be properly jealous.  Of course we all know someone can be crazy with jealousy also, but jealousy is not evil, like envy.

Envy is always bad.  Col. Perry told us that when we feel envy we should go out and get something for ourselves.  Envy can be both evil and passive.  It wants what it doesn't have and does not want to find something else.  Epstein says we always try to keep envy secret which is why it eats at us.  No one wants to admit envy.  Admitting envy is to admit someone else has something better or actually is better than us.  We want what they have, we want them not to have it, but we don't want others to think of us as being that small and venal.

I will be at summer camp in June.  I remember how much it means just to have a bottom bunk.  Envy doesn't have to be about a big topic to be a big problem.

Jobs for Veterans

On the train to New York last week, a guy getting on the train in NJ saw my pack and asked if I knew any veterans who needed jobs.  I said sure and said I would post his info on my blog.

Here it is:

Glen Witt
Program Manager
Veterans Across America
152 Madison Ave.
New York NY 10016
Ph:  212-684-1122
Cell:  540-532-8141

gwitt@veteransacrossamerica.org

If you need a job, send him an email or call.  He said he has leads on good jobs everywhere in the US.

Travel Cards for ALL Soldiers

When I hear the budget debates carried out on TV, one refrain is "Don't cut the military budget."  That is set in opposition to "The government is wasting money."

It's as if camouflage clothes somehow washes the waste out of the system.  It doesn't.

No I can't comment on $35 billion projects like new tanker  planes or fighter jets, but I just heard about a small project I can understand.

I just heard that all National Guard soldiers will be issued travel cards.  It makes sense for the full timers, but us weekend warriors will use those cards once or twice a year.  We will all fill out long forms, learn all the security procedures, forget them, then bother our full-time staff about the money we did not get.

The military is a government bureaucracy just like any other.  And it is a deep enough hierarchy that a mid-level manager can dream up new procedures that can waste millions of dollars.

Next Drill--More Air Assault Training, Fire Surpression

At April's Drill if the weather is decent, I should be flying to western Pennsylvania to cover air assault training for an infantry unit on Saturday and watching Blackhawk crews practice fire surpression.  There should be great pictures if the mission goes off according to plan.  There will be both Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters on the air assault training mission.  I am hoping to ride on the ramp at the back of the Chinook and shoot pictures of the Blackhawks flying in formation.  We will be flying west in the morning and east in the evening, so I will have to ask for some kind of turn to the north or south during the trip or my pictures wil all be silhouettes.

On Sunday, I want to be on the ground near where the 500-gallon bucket picks up water and get a shot of that and then catch the water dropping from the bucket.  It should be dramatic if I can get close enough.

Latest 2-104th Newsletter

For March, I put together just five pages.

Lunch with my Commander in Iraq

Last Thursday I had lunch with Col. Scott Perry and SPC Andrea Magee at the cafeteria in the state capitol in Harrisburg.  Perry was my battalion commander in Iraq, Magee was his assistant.  Perry is the state representative for the 92nd District in Pennsylvania.  Our state, like many others, is in the middle of a messy budget process, so Perry had to leave one of the marathon sessions for lunch.  Andrea and I both thought lunch would be fast because of all Perry had to do, but we talked for most of an hour and got a look at the legislature you don't see from the gallery.

The Pennsylvania State Capitol building is by many one of the most beautiful buildings of its kind in the world.  He told us where in France the marble that lines the walls, the artists who painted the murals, when different parts were restored--he is an encyclopedia of Capitol facts.

At lunch we talked about Andrea's path to a commission and her life as a full-time soldier with a full-time soldier husband in the same brigade.  In addition to the budget, Scott's wife is 7 months pregnant with their second child, construction of their new home is delayed by the weather, and he is in a master's program at the Command and General Staff College.

 We all talked about how much easier life was in Iraq--at least as far as setting priorities.  We all had a commander and nothing to balance in life--work, eat, sleep, work out and do the whole thing again.