Numbers Update

This week Site Meter says my blog passed 100,000 visits and 130,000 page views since June of 2008.  Blogger also tracks page views and says I have had 90,000 since June of 2009.  The webmaster at my day job says every method of tracking traffic gets a different result.  But the fact that the two are close makes me think they are pretty accurate.

Blogger also tells me which posts are the most popular.  By far the top of the list is "Home Sweet Trailer Home" with more than 2,100 page views followed by "Flying to Camp Garry Owen" with just over 500.

I know that my all time visits equal about one Lady Gaga minute, but a soldier stopped me in the hallway to say he reads my blog.  So I will keep posting till I get out.  Today's post is # 1,037.  Writing over 1,000 posts is like gaining weight--it doesn't happen all at once, but if you eat a little too much every day for a few years, suddenly you can't see your feet standing up!

And on a different note, the paperwork is coming together for my request to stay in another year or two.  So I may get to 1,500 posts if I stay in long enough!

Looks like a Happy New Year!

Hearing Test--Army Style

Today we had the annual cattle call for medical evaluations.  Medical teams come in and set up in the armory to check our teeth.  Others set up in the parking lot to check our hearing.  Today at Noon I got in line for the hearing check.  The line moves at the rate of two people every ten minutes.  I joined the line with eight people in front of me.

And for the next 40 minutes I listened to the diesel generator that ran all the equipment in the hearing test truck.

Huh?

Exactly.  Everyone in the line listened to a diesel at high idle for for the best part of an hour before the hearing test.

We all passed anyway, but sometimes the Army is too funny!

Another Old Soldier

Another good friend who I served with in Germany in the 70s was Sgt. Abel Lopez.  He and I were assigned to Bravo Company 1-70th Armor in Fort Carson Colorado in late 1975.  In September of the following year, Abe and I and 4,000 other soldiers flew to Germany becoming Brigade 76.  We were supposed to reinforce the East-West German border.  Our alert area was Fulda, right where Tom Clancy said World War III would begin.

At one point Abe and I were tank commanders of tanks parked next to each other in our motor pool in Wiesbaden.

The picture above was taken in that motor pool during the two hours each week we had to work in our gas masks.  Abel is in the middle flanked by Gene Pierce and Don Spears.  

After the Army, Abe went back to San Diego and became a fire fighter--retiring a few years ago as a Captain.  For most of the years since he left Germany in 1979 we have talked a half-dozen times each year.  Most of those conversations are about our faith mixed with the Army, family work and bad jokes.  

Once in 2008 I called Abe and said I read that Gen. Petraeus went to West Point about ten months before I enlisted which meant we were the same age.  Abe said, "The only difference between you is he is a big success and you aren't."  

Which is just the kind of jokes we have been making since Gen. Petraeus was a Lieutenant.

Old Soldiers Don't Fade Away

To begin the new year, let me introduce you to a soldier--actually an airman--who was my roommate at Lindsey Air Station in Wiesbaden, West Germany, in in 1978.  Airman 1st Class Cliff Almes shared a room with me during the year I worked for the base newspaper at the Wiesbaden Military Community Headquarters.  

You'll notice in the pictures below that Cliff is still in uniform and is serving on temporary assignment in the Middle East.  

He is no longeer in the US military.

When his enlistment was up, Cliff went home to Arizona for a couple of months then came back to join a Lutheran Monastery in Darmstadt Germany with a name so long I will direct you to the web site if you want it in German.  Land of Kanaan is the short version.

We became friends during the time we roomed together.  And after Cliff began his time as a novice I was able to visit him in Darmstadt.  

Cliff became Brother (Bruder) Timotheus.  

Here he is on a recent trip to Israel.  He is the second from the left with three other Brothers and a local pastor.

In this photo Cliff is back in Germany with some of the young men who have come to Kanaan for short-term ministries and sometimes to see if they have a vocation for a life of service.