Aviation Week Magazine Writes About Army Aviation in PA National Guard

Last drill weekend I spent the day with a reporter and photographer from Aviation Week magazine.  Today they published a blog post about the visit.

Defense.gov Put CW2 Sara Christensen Story on its Home Page.

Today I got a message that my story about Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sara is featured today on the hone page of the Defense Department.  I'm glad they liked the story. She is a great soldier.  The story is here.

Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin' For

I started listening to Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin' For (1987), and to U2 just over a year ago.  Okay, I know that makes me a little slow.  The 40th anniversary of U2 being formed is next year.   Better late than never.

I listened to this song as I trained for the Ironman triathlon last year.

With my Army career ending soon, it's time to admit that re-enlisting at 54 was great way to have a mid-life crisis and keep my family, job and bank account.  But it was a mid-life crisis.  Worse still it was a spiritual quest that failed.  The radiant spiritual part of being in the Army my first time around was absent this time.

When I re-enlisted, part of me really thought I would meet the kind of believers and non-believers I met in the 1970s Army and be part of a group of people living in the shadow of a World War 3 who were looking for the Kingdom of God, and looking across the border at 250,000 Soviet troops who were going to make the Kingdom of God a shorter trip for us.

In fact the annual casualties of the Cold War were higher than the part of Iraq where I served.  During the 1970s, the annual NATO war game called REFORGER claimed 30-50 lives each year.  That was back when we drove Jeeps.  Half the deaths were Jeep rollovers.  Crashed helicopters and people crushed by armored vehicles were most of the rest.

But if humility is the center of spirituality, as most Divines agree, then going to war at 56 is a spiritually corrosive.  That deployment was my first actual combat deployment.  When I flew to Camp Garry Owen on the Iran-Iraq border with Col. Peter Newell and got the 1st Armored Combat Patch, that was the first time I wore an Armor unit patch despite seven years in Armor in the 70s and 80s.

I really was looking for spirituality.  I really got pride.  

My Last 12 Days in the Army

My last official day in the Army will be May 3, 2016, but I only have 12 days left of actual service.  Those 12 days will be over six weekends between mid-November and mid-April.  December drill is the Christmas party.  January or February I turn in my field gear.  So I am a short timer for the fourth time in my multi-stage military career.

While serving in the Army has been fun, it is time for me to leave.  I was going to try to extend for one more year, but Annual Training eats away the bicycle racing season, and since another year would just be for fun, I decided to have fun another way.

Also, now that I am retired as a civilian, I have been thinking a lot about who my people are and why I re-enlisted in 2007.  While I do not regret re-enlisting, being in the Army was not what I imagined or hoped it would be.  It was fun, it was a challenge, but in many ways I fit in as well as a vegan at a barbecue.  But more on that later.

Cut Benefits! Except Mine!

Soldiers are bureaucrats.  We are employees of the government.  In the National Guard we are state employees.  When we deploy we are federal employees.

So it is sadly funny when I hear the many "small government" and Libertarian soldiers in my unit say they "want to get the government out of my life."

Dude, you are the government.

But even the ardent small government conservatives are very clear that they want and deserve all the benefits they are entitled to.

And I know a few rabid anti-government soldiers who are also involved in lobbying to get more benefits for themselves and other National Guard soldiers.

They see no contradiction in this.  And they do not see that they are just another grasping self interest who wants to cut every budget except their own.

Some of these soldiers are supporters of The Donald or Ben Carson for President.  They want to keep and extend the benefits the government gives them, but since they have no systematic knowledge of politics, they think they can back a political revolution that "changes everything" and leaves their benefits untouched.

Really?

When governments change, benefits go to whomever the revolutionaries say they go to.

Here is an excerpt from an email I just received offering me a discounted membership in the Pennsylvania National Guard lobbying group:

There is no greater champion for issues that affect our lives as Guardsmen than PGNAS. In the last six month PNGAS has been ramping up their legislative activity fighting for the best benefits, equipment, and training available to us and the Soldiers and Airmen that follow in our footsteps. Pennsylvania has over 20,000 Guardsmen and we are calling on every single one of you to stand behind PNGAS to Guard the Guard.

For those who know George Orwell's Animal Farm, this is a perfect illustration of "all animals are equal, but the pigs are more equal."  

Of course, there is nothing unusual in Americans banding together to get more from the government, it is just funny when they call themselves Small Government Conservatives.

Sadly funny.

Who Fights Our Wars? Army 3.0: Pilot Trains for 1st Combat Deployment During Third Army “Career”

 CW2 Sara Christensen

In 1985, when President Ronald Reagan was just beginning his second term, the Soviet Union was fighting in Afghanistan and the Cold War was still a hot topic, Sara Christensen enlisted in the Army Reserve.  She lived in California, had just graduated from high school and wanted to be a dental technician. 

The following year she went to Basic Training and MOS training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.  In Texas she met her future husband Kelvin Christensen.  He was an E5 on his way to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in California with the Army National Guard.  Although just a Private at the time, Sara managed to get accepted for OCS.  Kelvin and Sara went through the course together and were commissioned 2^nd Lieutenants. 

At this point, the Christensen’s were both officers.  They chose Aviation as their branch and eventually went to flight school.  Sara trained in Hueys, Kelvin in Blackhawks.  By 1991 they both had transferred to the Pennsylvania National Guard serving as aviation officers. 

LTC Kelvin and CW2 Sara Christensen

At this point both Sara and Kelvin were well on their way with their second Army careers as commissioned officers.  Kelvin continued with his career in aviation and currently is a Lieutenant Colonel and is the Cargo Battalion Commander for the Eastern Army National Guard Aviation Training Site (EAATS) on Fort Indiantown Gap.

Four years later, in 1995, the Christensens decided to go from no kids to three kids all at once.  They adopted three children from the Pennsylvania Foster Care system who need homes.  With three kids, Kelvin and Sara both continued their careers in the Army. 

By 2001 the already larger than average family had more than doubled to seven kids and Captain Sara Christensen left the Army National Guard for the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR).  She kept her commission and, in fact, was promoted to major while on inactive status. 

After more than a decade of raising seven kids, Sara decided to return to Army Aviation after a thirteen-year break in service.  The timing was critical because the maximum age to return to aviation service is 46 years old.  She made the deadline, beginning her third Army career as a Warrant Officer.  She could have come back as a commissioned officer and been eligible for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, but she wanted to fly and would have more opportunities to be in the cockpit as a warrant officer. 

In addition to beginning Army service for a third time, she has now held rank in all three sections of the chain of command:  enlisted, officer, and warrant officer. 

Despite being three years in to what a third Army career, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sara Christensen is currently training for her first combat deployment.  She is a pilot with Detachment 1, Charlie Company (Medevac), 2-104^th General Support Aviation Battalion,  28^th Combat Aviation Brigade.  She is training in Texas for deployment to Southwest Asia later this year. 

Suicide in the 1970s Army, Suicide Now

In the spring of 1977, I was the duty sergeant in Wiesbaden, West Germany, when I got a call that one of our soldiers killed himself while on guard duty.  I called the duty officer.  Within what seemed like just a few minutes, the battalion command staff was in the headquarters and handling the crisis.

I heard he fired his M16 full auto with the barrel in his mouth. That was the last official word I heard about the young man who was now dead. The Chaplain did not mention the soldier's death the following Sunday or at any time.

The day after the incident, our first sergeant delivered one of his rambling talks about why we should not kill ourselves. 

In the Army in the 1970s, suicide was still wrong.  It was a failure.  Soldiers who took their own lives got no honors.  They were not mentioned.  In the 1970s in the military, suicide was still a Sin.  The young soldier “committed” suicide, because what he did was a sin and a crime.  Today, when suicide is mentioned, I usually hear it as someone “taking his own life.” 

I left the Army in 1979 and went to college.  Then in 2007, I re-enlisted at 54 years old.  Much about the Army was the same.  The first time I went to field training in 2008, I rode in the back of a “Deuce and a Half” truck carrying an M16 rifle.  But later that year when the father of one of our soldiers took his own life, I found out that the Army’s view of suicide was not the same.  Most of the company turned out to support their brother in arms at the funeral. Suicide was no longer a sin.

This year two soldiers in that same company took their own lives.  I watched the Honor Guard practice for the first funeral.  Watching the Honor Guard practice, I thought how much the Army has changed since the 1970s.  I am not sure if our $10,000 life insurance policy back in the 1970s paid in the case of suicide, but I am quite sure that the families of these soldiers will receive the current full death benefit that is somewhere close to $500,000.

Both then and now, I cannot imagine the severity of the pain these men must have experienced; pain so strong that it led them to take their own lives.  Both in the Army and out, I have seen the pain suicide causes for the friends and family of the deceased.  They are bewildered, guilty, devastated.  Suicide was a tragedy in the old Army and is a tragedy now.  But I am glad today’s Army counts suicide among the casualties of war.  No matter whether we lose a soldier to accident, illness, injury, enemy fire or suicide, we have lost one of our own. 

Back Story about the Big General in New Jersey

Recently the Adjutant General of New Jersey made national news when the plus-size governor of the Garden State, Chris Christie, gave Brigadier General Michael Cuniff 90 days to shape up or ship out. That day was certainly a bad day for the general.  But recently I heard about a worse day he had in 1986.

It's not that I disagree with Christie for a moment.  One of the things I dislike about the National Guard is the way it allows senior people who can't meet height, weight and fitness standards to keep responsible positions.

Although it does not change the current facts, I find it too easy to forget that the fat guy in his late 50s was not necessarily that same guy 29 years ago. Just after I saw the unflattering news reports, I heard about the worst day of Cuniff's life from a mutual friend.  That day was June 19, 1986.

I know a guy who used to fly F-4 Phantom fighter jets for the New Jersey Air National Guard.  In 1986 Cuniff was "Guard Bumming" hanging around the flight facility hoping a paid gig would show up and he could get some flight hours.

My buddy was scheduled to fly a practice bomb run but his "back seat" was a no-show.  Cuniff said he would fly.

During the bomb run, one of the F4's engines caught fire, none of the emergency procedures put out the flames, so the two-man crew had to eject.  Cuniff suffered several broken bones and many other injuries ejecting during the bombing run.

When I see the senior officers and NCOs who are 50 pounds over weight (or two feet short of the height for their weight) I look at them only in their current flaccid form.  They have job expertise, but they do not meet the basic requirements and obligations of a soldier.  Hearing about that day in 1986 reminded me that at one time, they were young and fit and on top of their game.

Of course, the general and every other out-of-shape soldier should meet military standards, but it is also good for me to remember that they were not always the way they are now.

Here's the story from the Philadelphia Inquirer.