Mennonite Warriors: Pacifist Killers

Dunkard Mennonite Seal

In the early 80s, when I first lived in Lancaster County, I was a tank commander in a Reserve Armor unit based in Reading, Pa. One of the soldiers, a tank gunner, was a Dunkard Mennonite who told his family that he was a medic. This odd young man bought "Soldier of Fortune" and other gun and mercenary magazines. When we were in the field, he talked endlessly about various ways to kill with his bare hands. He owned many knives and liked to talk about strangling the enemy with piano wire.

M60A1 Main Battle Tank, Not an Ambulance

He wanted to remain in his community so he kept his real job and interests to himself. But he loved being a combat soldier, and training with combat soldiers, even if his family thought he was a medic.

Lancaster is very conservative, about 80% Republican outside the city of Lancaster, but also very Mennonite and Amish. So there are a lot of pacifist conservatives.

Recently, I overheard a Mennonite farmer who never served in the military talking about the coming Civil War caused by the "Liberals" who are pushing the nation further into sin. His definition of sin is, of course, things Liberals do. He clearly relishes the possibility of Civil War and talks about it like the tank gunner used to talk about piano wire. He has his military-style weaponry ready for the Liberal onslaught.

These guys were brought up to turn the other cheek, but have secret lives in which they are warriors, at least in their own minds.

It's not that Mennonites don't own guns, all the Mennonite schools close for the first day of deer hunting season, just like every other school in Lancaster County. But the guns are for hunting, not weapons of war.

Both Amish and Mennonites were hated during the draft for their Conscientious Objector status. They got rich during World War II.

F in the Middle Acronyms: Military and Civilian

In 2007 I re-enlisted after almost a quarter-century as a civilian.  I quickly started learning and re-learning acronyms for everything.  My kevlar helmet was an ACH not simply a helmet.

ACH, or helmet

In the 70s and 80s as a tank commander I was always looking for BFRs to keep my driver from hitting them and knocking the track off the tank.  BFR?  Big Fucking Rock. I actually said "Driver Left, BFR."

BFR, hazard to tank tracks

If I was asked to do something beyond my capabilities I said NFW: No Fucking Way.

A few months after I joined my high-school sophomore daughter Lisa said in a casual way that Claire was be BFF.  I had not heard the civilian version of that acronym, so thinking Army, I assumed she was saying, "Best Fucking Friend."  I was kind of surprised that she would use that acronym to describe her friend and said hesitantly, "BFF?"

Lisa said, "Right. BFF. Best Friends Forever." She looked at me, seeing me smile as she spelled out the acronym. "What did you think it meant?"  I told her. We laughed.

The year before she went to see the movie "Jarhead" with some of her soccer teammates. When she came home she said, "Dad! You didn't tell me the right words to the Yellow Bird song." I admitted I changed the words.

My 66th Birthday--Life is Very Different from Past Decades

Ten years ago today, I boarded an Air Force C-17 Cargo plane in Kuwait for a half-hour flight to Camp Adder, Ali Air Base, Iraq.
My 56th birthday present from the Army was a lovely new home in something like a shipping container on Camp Adder. I would share that two-man room in a Containerized Housing Unit (CHU) with Sgt. Nick Black Smith until January of 2010.
When we walked down the ramp of the C-17 the 120-degree heat and blazing sun gave us a preview of life for at least the next six months. Even Iraq cools off in November.
On my 46th birthday I was a Communications Manager for Millennium Chemicals at a conference in Paris and on the way to a conference in Perth.
On my 36th birthday I was an Account Executive at Godfrey Advertising in Lancaster and had ridden in the second bicycle race of my life.
On my 26th Birthday I was a Sergeant and a Tank Commander in 1-70th Armor. I drove my friend Sgt. Cliff Almes, my roommate in the Wiesbaden Military Community barracks, to his new home and life as a Franciscan Monk in Darmstadt.
On my 16th birthday I got my learner's permit!
I can't remember my sixth birthday, but I was in the 1st Grade at Robin Hood Elementary School in Stoneham, Ma.
I started this day at Physical Therapy, took a nap and then swam a quarter mile at the YMCA. This is my first birthday with a titanium knee.

The Sergeant's Major in Film and Video

Last night I finished re-watching the HBO series "Generation Kill," about a Marine Recon Battalion during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The series captures moments of incredible bravery by the Marines followed by long hours of boredom and a string of bad decisions by high command.

One of several comic characters in the drama is the battalion Sergeant's Major John Sixta.  A short, broad-shouldered man with a raspy, nasal voice, he is obsessed with the "grooming standard." He combines the worst of every senior enlisted man in every branch of every military.  This little son-of-a-bitch would make soldiers laugh who were veterans of either side of the fight at Gettysburg, at Leningrad or Stalingrad, at Austerlitz, at Waterloo, probably even at Vosges on either the Roman or German side.  The cartoon Sergeant's Major is perfectly expressed in John Sixta.

On the other extreme of the senior sergeant in film is Colour Sergeant (Platoon Sergeant) Frank Bourne in the 1964 film "Zulu." Bourne trains his men, makes sure they are ready to fight, quietly encourages his best soldiers, pushes the slackers, and stands with stiff-upper-lip resolve in the face of an assault by a force outnumbering  his unit by 100 to 1.

The best sergeant's major I have known personally is Christopher Kepner, the current Command Sergeant's Major of the National Guard.

The role of the Top Enlisted Soldier in the military has civilian parallels. A warehouse manager or shop manager keeps the workers motivated makes sure work procedures are followed to the letter, and is responsible for worker safety.  But a manager has no input in corporate strategy.  The Top Sergeant has responsibility, but not authority: they get the soldiers ready to fight, but do not decide where or when to fight. That's what officers do.

For me, the best civilian parallel is in the book (NOT the movie) "Remains of the Day" by the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro.  The butler in that lovely book is the picture of the sergeant's major. He is in charge of maintaining the appearance, the morale, and the performance performance of the large staff of servants in a pre-World-War-II English ancestral mansion.  He can terrorize the staff and yet, behind his well-groomed back, be the subject of ridicule. In one of a hundred big and small ironies in the story, the butler is completely devoted to the Lord of the house. But that venerated figure turns out to be the center of clandestine Nazi sympathy in England.

I heard Ishiguro speak in Phialdelphia in 2015, two decades after the book was published.  When asked about the movie Ishiguro said he was just beginning his career as a novelist. He was flattered to have a movie made of his book. But the choice of the studio to play the butler was Anthony Hopkins.  Ishiguro said Hopkins is brilliant, but he is not a comic figure, so the movie lost that dimension of the butler.

If you have a favorite portrayal of a Sergeant's Major or other top sergeant in film, let me know at ngussman@yahoo.com .

Wisdom Tooth Out With A Hammer and Chisel, Hill AFB, 1973

Dental Hammer and Chisel

Hill Air Force Base, Ogden, Utah, was my first duty station after tech school at Lowry AFB.  In the Spring of 1973, around the time I turned 20 years old, I had a lot of pain in my lower jaw. The dentist I saw on base said I had an impacted molar on the lower right. And while he was removing that, he would remove the one on the lower left. I had the uppers removed several years before.

When I came back the next day, they put me in a chair, gave me the big, old-fashioned Novacaine shots and left me alone, lying back in the chair. I looked to the right at the tray of instruments. There was a really shiny chrome hammer and a few chisels.

Several minutes later, the dentist started working. He took out the left tooth first. Then he broke the right tooth with the chisel and hammer and pulled out the pieces with pliers.

I can still see those tools. I felt pressure when the dentist broke the tooth, but it did not hurt a lot at the time.  In the two weeks after it was clear that the right was worse than the left, my jaw was swollen much more on the right than the left.

Today I was talking to the physical therapist who is helping me recover from knee replacement surgery four weeks ago. He said the pain I am experiencing is to be expected. I said, "Yes, cut my bones with a saw and hammer in titanium rods, and I know there will be pain for a while."  I then told him that the knee replacement was not the first time for me getting my bones hammered.  He smiled at the story of the dental hammer and said, "That's an interesting way to look at it. But you probably don't want to tell everybody about getting your teeth and bones hammered."

He's right. But I could definitely tell other veterans.

Sleep Deprived: The Suffering Built Into Every Military

Today is one month since I got knee-replacement surgery. Inside my stiff, swollen, sore left leg is something like the titanium and plastic parts above, replacing my worn-out bones with modern technology.

Every other day I go to physical therapy where Luke, an ex-Marine, gives me 45 minutes of exercises followed by intense stretching. Then Mike pushes my knee to get more range of motion. They were the subject of my last post.

At this point, the pain from the bone saw, hammer and other tools used to rebuild my knee has subsided.  But the sleep deprivation dogs me every moment in the day that I struggle to think clearly, and every moment at night I stare at the ceiling hoping to drift into sleep.

A few years ago I reviewed the book "Grunt" about the technology behind keeping soldiers fit for duty and keeping them alive after the horrible injuries. In the book, there is a whole chapter on sleep deprivation among submariners. As with so many things in the military, everything can turn into a competition and sailors pride themselves on how long they can go without sleep.

Careful study of submarine sleep habits showed that this built-in sleep deprivation leads to mistakes, injuries, accidents and could lead to something worse.  Changing submarine culture to build in more sleep led to better performance, especially under alert conditions.

All through my military career and parts of my civilian career, sleep deprivation led me to struggle with simple tasks and ache for a nap. Border patrol, tank gunnery, guard duty, long road marches, and a hundred other military duties took sleep from me and never gave it back.

Sleep deprivation is also a form of torture. It could be months before I get a full night's sleep again according to some people I know who have had this surgery.  When I finally do sleep four or more hours without waking to pain in my leg, I know it will be a wonderful feeling.

My Physical Therapist is a Marine

Marine Corps Basic Training

I started outpatient physical therapy yesterday. I have two therapists. One leads me in various exercises for about 30 minutes to work on flexibility and get my legs warmed up.  The second bends my leg as far as he can and a little farther to get more range of motion.  I need to restore range of motion to resume activities like bicycling.

The guy who does the warmup exercises is a former Marine who served in the Marine Reserve from 2012 until three knee surgeries ended his Marine career after two years.

The first thing I did in my therapy session was walk as straight and tall as I could with a cane, the length of the workout area and back.  Then I did side stepping and other exercises that led Luke and I to talk about marching songs.

Then we talked about Jody and I got jealous of being a Marine. Luke said that all through his 18-week Basic Training in 2012 they sang marching songs about Jody.

I told him I went to my last active duty school in 2013 at Fort Meade. I was not allowed to sing Jody songs when I marched the company or any songs that were sexist or talked about killing an enemy.

Jody is the guy back home who is sleeping with your wife/girlfriend, emptying your bank account, driving your car, and in every way taking over the life you left behind.  Back in 1972 when I was in Basic Training, Jody was a draft dodger. He had a rich dad and an infected hangnail that meant he did not have to go to 'Nam and we did. 

So Luke and I were laughing and quoting Jody verses as I exercised:

"Ain't no use in goin' home, Jody's got your girl and gone.
Ain't no use in feelin' blue, Jody's got your sister too."

"Ain't no use in lookin' back, Jody's got your Cadillac."

Then we talked about songs that were unique to our branch and sang bits of those:

"They say that in the Army the coffee's mighty fine, it tastes like muddy water and smells like turpentine,
Gee Mom I wanna go, but they won't let me go....."

After that Fort Meade school I wrote a post on the New York Times "At War" blog bitching about the marching songs in the 21st Century Army.

After a half hour of us laughing about marching songs as I exercised, Luke turned me over to Mike.  His job is get me increased range of motion by pushing my leg as far as it will go, then a little more. I was quiet for a lot of that session. It hurts.  Mike told that previous patients of his who he helped with recovery gave him a t-shirt emblazoned with "Mikey de Sade." I could see that.

I will be seeing Luke and Mike three times a week for the next month in the long process of recovery.  And once in a while singing about Jody or

"A yellow bird, with a yellow bill,
Just landed on, my window sill,
I lured him in with crumbs of bread, and then I crushed his.....

The end of the verse in the Marines and the 1970s Army is .....f@#king head.

At Fort Meade in 2013, it was .......little head.

Luke and I laughed about that too.