Veteran of four wars, four enlistments, four branches: Air Force, Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard. I am both an AF (Air Force) veteran and as Veteran AF (As Fuck)
Sunday, September 11, 2016
15th Anniversary of September 11, 2001
Fifteen years ago, I saw this image on the computers of the dot-com where I was working at the time. I knew a dozen people who worked within blocks of the World Trade Center. I called them. I know that when you are inside a disaster, you can lose the larger perspective. I wanted to be just a bit of perspective from outside New York City for Joe Chang, Helga Tilton, Esther D'Amico, Rob Westervelt, Rick Mullin and Andrew Wood among many others. Those I was able to reach reacted like the New York journalists they are, calm and ridiculously confident that all would be well.
In 2009, in Iraq, I spoke about September 11, 2001, and my long road to Iraq from the day Islamic Terrorists attacked America. In Iraq, I spoke about Helga Tilton. She walked home from south of Ground Zero to the northern end of Manhattan in heels. She was born in Germany in 1943 in Frankfurt, one of the most heavily bombed of the Germany cities. Helga grew up in rubble, and now in 2001, at nearly 60 years old in her adopted country of America, she walked through that rubble to go home. Helga died in November of 2007, not long after I re-enlisted. I still wonder if the dust of her birthplace and the dust of Ground Zero contributed to her death.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Combat Medics and MEDEVAC: Soldiers who save other soldier's lives
MEDEVAC Blackhawk helicopter landing at Al Kut, Iraq.
From the time I deployed to Iraq until now, I have written many posts about MEDEVAC and the medics, pilots and doctors who deliver Army medicine in the field.
Here are some of them:
Pamela Leggore, flight medic.
Sara Christensen, pilot.
David Doud, flight surgeon.
Kevin Scott, flight surgeon.
Jeff Kwiecien, flight medic.
All-Female MEDEVAC Crew in Iraq.
Cynthia Dalton, flight medic.
Quincy Northern, flight medic.
Dunker Training for MEDEVAC flight crews.
MEDEVAC Response time almost cut in half, Peter Huggins, pilot.
Anthony Meador, pilot.
Matt Stevenson, pilot.
Suzy Danielson, pilot.
MEDEVAC Chase Bird Crew.
MEDEVAC Pictures from Iraq.
Quincy Northern, flight medic.
All-Female MEDEVAC Crew
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Retirement, or Not, Update
Earlier this week I spoke to two staffers in the offices of Senator Pat Toomey in Allentown and Philadelphia. Both of the men I spoke to were enthusiastic and helpful. They asked questions about my status and said they hoped they could help.
If enthusiasm can get me back in the Army to serve my last year and retire, the guys I spoke to in Toomey's office will make it happen.
Today I got a letter from a staffer of President Barack Obama. She said the White House referred my case to National Guard Bureau in Washington, which referred the matter to the Pennsylvania National Guard in Harrisburg. They already said No, so I am not looking good there.
Of the three, I have no hope with Pitts, little hope with Obama and some hope with Toomey.
That's my Labor Day Weekend Update.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
After 1,500 Posts the Top Ten Topics? Not Helicopters!
Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard Christopher Kepner
Today marks 1,500 posts on this blog since August of 2007 when I re-enlisted after 23 years as a civilian. Last night I wrote to the soldiers who are the subjects of the most popular and the 11th most popular posts on my blog: Christopher Kepner and Pamela Leggore. In between my stories about the current Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard and a flight medic who just returned from her second tour in Iraq, are stories Army life, but not about helicopters.
Pamela Leggore, Flight Medic
After Kepner, the most popular story I wrote was about CHUs, our homes on base in Iraq. These sun-baked metal boxes were Home Sweet Trailer Home for most deployed soldiers and a lot of people wanted to know how we lived.
A Containerized Housing Unit in Iraq
After the CHU comes a post comparing Soviet and American Armor in the 1973 Arab-Israel War. The tenth most popular post is also about tanks--a drunk German driver crashing into one of the tanks in my unit near the East-West German border: Spoiler alert, the tank was undamaged.
Also popular was about about firing machine guns, about barracks liars in the Facebook Army, about "Military Privilege," a Tough Mudder competition, and one about the use of war language outside of war called War Metaphor.
I posted a lot of helicopter pictures, but those posts were never as popular as the posts about soldiers' life and about soldiers, which makes perfect sense.
My favorite post to write was "Shit as a Pronoun."
Thanks for reading. And thanks for sharing my 1,500th anniversary!!
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Tanks of the World Spreadsheet
Here is the link to a Google Doc spreadsheet with my list of all the tanks in service in the world according to Wikipedia.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Caxsnp4CxlKwGFMLGldUsGaYMg_HA1RBZrzoeBbE9rc/edit?usp=sharing
I just found a source that said France has just 200 LeClerc main battle tanks and 206 in storage as of 2015.
If anyone has sources and is interested in helping to update the spreadsheet, the link should be open to updates. Once I have the best current info, I will update the Wikipedia page.
Contact me if you have questions: ngussman@yahoo.com
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Caxsnp4CxlKwGFMLGldUsGaYMg_HA1RBZrzoeBbE9rc/edit?usp=sharing
I just found a source that said France has just 200 LeClerc main battle tanks and 206 in storage as of 2015.
If anyone has sources and is interested in helping to update the spreadsheet, the link should be open to updates. Once I have the best current info, I will update the Wikipedia page.
Contact me if you have questions: ngussman@yahoo.com
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
My Love-Hate Relationship with Russia and Ukraine
A Map of the Former Soviet Union.
Ukraine is the yellow country on the far west.
The kind of person we are inside shows itself both in what
we do and how we react. I had a
soul-revealing moment when I heard the news in 2014 of Russia invading Eastern
Ukraine and taking Crimea. The summary of the thought that raced through my
mind: “You Go Vladimir (Putin)!”
Cheering for Russia in a military dispute with Ukraine is
like cheering for the New York Yankees against a high school team. Nevertheless I had a vivid moment, not of
loving Russia, but hating Ukraine.
The face that came into my mind was my grandmother. She and my grandfather escaped Ukraine, then
part of Russia, at the turn of the 20th century when more than a million Jews
were slaughtered in Ukraine in a series of attacks called pogroms. My
grandparents had the double good fortune of making it all the way to
America. Many other Russian Jews fled to
Eastern Europe. Those who fled to
Eastern Europe and their children were killed by the Nazis 40 years later.
The Holocaust in Ukraine
My grandparents would have described themselves as Russian
Jews, not Ukrainian Jews. For the last
thousand years Ukraine has been Russia a lot more than it has been an
independent country. Mark Schauss covers
the sad history of Ukraine and Russia in The Russian Rulers History Podcast,
available on iTunes.
While Russia, Poland and much of Eastern Europe has a long
history of hating Jews, Ukraine is the most anti-semitic country in a very
nasty region.
Next August, when I ride across what my grandparents called
Russia, my trip will begin in Odessa, Ukraine. I won’t be in Ukraine long, but
I expect to have the same experience arriving in Odessa that I had when I first
set foot in Germany: “Can this beautiful
place really be home to those who slaughtered so many of my people?”
I am re-reading Vassily Grossman’s “Life and Fate,” a
haunting book that is “War and Peace” set in World War II, particularly in
Stalingrad. Currently I am reading the
letter a Jewish mother in Ukraine is writing to her son in the Russian
Army. The Germans just took over her town. The Jews are being rounded up, robbed and
will soon be killed. Most of the
neighbors are happy and cheer the Germans on, taking the possessions and houses
of the Jews. The mother writing the
letter describes women who were friendly for 50 years suddenly turning on her
with venom. The neighbor thinks the Jews are getting what they deserve.
My love-hate relationship with Ukraine and Russia extends
through my whole life. My first military
job was live-fire testing of the US Air Force missile inventory, everything
from the Sidewinder wing rocket to the Minuteman multi-stage nuclear missile,
the main weapon delivery system in the US Cold War arsenal. Then I was a tank commander on the East-West
German Border waiting for World War III to start.
When I went to college after the Army, the literature of
Russia and the literature of Florence, Italy, became lifelong passions. Chekov, Dostoevsky, Lermontov, Pushkin,
Tolstoy and later Solzhenitsyn wrote the books I loved most, along with C.S.
Lewis, Dante and Machiavelli. Now I am
studying the Russian language so I can read the authors I love most in their
language. Russia is currently home to
many brilliant authors, but who knows when they will be forced underground.
From my grandparents persecution, to my Cold War childhood
and military life, through finding the beauty of Russian literature in college,
to my current plans to travel across Russia and neighboring countries, I
continue to intensify my love-hate relationship with Russia and all of its sad
and brilliant history. At this age, my
love-hate relationship with Russia and Ukraine is a permanent part of my life.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Who Fights Our Wars? Flight Medic Returns from Another Deployment
Staff Sergeant Pamela Leggore on her second deployment to Iraq
When Task Force Diablo first deployed to Iraq in May of 2009 most of the unit was setting up facilities and operations after a last-minute base change. We were slated to be at Balad Air Base, we were switched to Camp Adder, also know as Tallil Ali Air Base.
While the transport and maintenance operations moved into new facilities, the MEDEVAC unit was on site and in full operation. Charlie Company, 1-52 Aviation, an active Army MEDEVAC unit, was already on site and in operation at Tallil. Pennsylvania pilots and medics joined Charlie Company operations.
Dust storms grounded many flights during the summer at Tallil, making the daytime sky a so thick with dust, it was hard to see the next truck in a ground convoy, let alone fly.
Soon after we arrived, Leggore was on a MEDEVAC mission to rescue soldiers badly injured in an attack on their convoy. The mission was successful and it was a very fast start to what has become a long career in Army medicine. In the years since 2010 when she returned from deployment, Leggore has earned a nursing degree and has recently returned from another deployment to Iraq.
Between deployments she trains other medics with the skills she learned in combat and through advanced education in the Army and as a civilian.
Staff Sergeant Pamela Leggore training medics
under simulated combat conditions at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.
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