Argument Update and Marriage Conversations

Later, after the tax argument, Sergeant Arch Conservative came to me to ask if we we could set up one of the standard gym exercise bikes that reads watts generated to Army PT test standard which requires setting a special bike to 20 Newtons of resistance. It is not a straight conversion. He did not want to deal with that calculation. A few minutes later, we were outside and I asked Sergeant AC if he has this much trouble with math, how can he be absolutely sure (he has loudly told me this on another occasion) the earth is 10,000 years old, evolution never happened and every scientist from Darwin and Einstein to the present is wrong--while he and the Creation Museum are right.

His answer: "Paper birch trees are growing wild in Pennsylvania Sergeant Gussman. They are a northern tree. The earth is not getting warmer. Global warming is wrong. Those scientists don't know everything."

And now to marriage. I was sitting in God's Grounds--a free cafe in the chapel annex. I get coffee there in the mornings. I would stay there more than a minute or two, but being a Godly place in the Army, the Simpsons and other animated movies play 24/7.
So one of the chaplain's assistants, an older guy, is looking at a National Geographic. He says he is going to take his wife on an adventure tour of Peru when he gets back from deployment. "It costs $2000 per person, but it will be worth. The experience of a lifetime. I have always wanted to do it."
I said, "Wow. That sounds great. Are you making plans now? Is she excited?"
He answers, "No. She hates stuff like this. But I go shopping with her, so she can go. It's only two weeks."
He went on to explain how he and his wife are best friends.

A guy I ride with a couple of days a week borrows one of my bikes to ride with me. He got her just before I went on leave and decided last week to ask his wife to send a mountain bike he has at home here to Iraq. She refused. She said he should buy a bike there and not ship a bike to Iraq--he'll just have to ship it back. The two-way mailing cost will be $150 plus whatever the bike shop charges to pack the bike in a box. Chances are they will do it for free for a soldier in Iraq.

Anyway, he does not want to argue with his wife and he recently got a $1000 through an error in a travel voucher, so he is probably going to buy a new bike and have it shipped directly here rather than argue. "She'll never know," he said.

Arguing in the Motor Pool

Earlier I had an argument that would only happen here, at least in my life. I was walking out the latrine near our motor pool and an old sergeant in third platoon was walking in. I said hello and he launched into the latest government ripoff.
"Sergeant Gussman, your buddy Ed Rendell just raised my taxes 16% in Pennsylvania."
He stopped at the urinal and began to multitask. I was glad to be near the door.
"That means he's taking 16 dollars out of every hundred I make. What do you think of that?"
I exited fearing he would lose concentration and some problem would ensue.
When he came outside I said, "Take it easy Sergeant (Arch Conservative) a 16% tax increase on a 2.65% tax is an increase of about 40 CENTS per hundred dollars."
He sputtered, "CNN said 16% and that means $16 per hundred." Then he calmed down and blamed CNN for misleading him.
He is still upset at Ed Rendell and at CNN and I suppose at me for ruining his perfectly good attack on "those damned Liberals."

Ran Out of Books Tonight

Tonight was week two of the Tallil Dead Poet's Society and I ran out of the free copies of Inferno (translated by Tony Esolen) and supplied by Nick Jost and by the father of one of the lieutenants in our unit. For this evening's session everyone read the first five cantos. For the most part the dozen people in the room believe in Hell as a literal place, but there were fewer who believed it is like Dante's Hell in the sense of all torment all the time. And no one believed in Limbo--the people who did neither good not evil. We are all too much Americans and have enough of the Protestant thought pattern that no one can conceive of a life apart from good and evil.

Many of the group did not like "Abandon All Hope You Who Enter Here" on the arch of the entrance to Hell. They want an escape route.

Less than half the group have read any of Dante in the past, but I already have four people who expressed a strong wish that Virgil get reprieve. They hope that at some point his good deed as guide will get him a pass out of Hell. Among the group are skeptics, Bible students, a chaplain and some soldiers trying to deal with issues relating to the religion they were brought up with.

One woman asked when I mentioned evil who gets to decide what is evil. I answered "Dante. We are in his universe." This actually lead to a discussion of the poets art and creating universes. This evening was a lot of fun.

More Chicken Shit

I was going to let this subject go, but today I was talking with another soldier about the latest rule and remembered that as Chicken Shit takes over, the divide between higher and lower ranks becomes more obvious.

The latest rule says No Tactical Vehicles are allowed to park next to Living Areas. The reason given is that there have been minor collisions between tactical and Non Tactical Vehicles (NTVs). Tactical vehicles are Humvees and the bigger trucks soldiers ride in to go to work, especially when several soldiers work the same hours in a remote area. NTVs are the air-conditioned SUVs and Crew-Cab pickup trucks used by first sergeants, sergeant majors and higher-ranking officers. So when I ride back to my living area, I pass through two rows of gray and white SUVs on the way to my room. So those who drive NTVs walk out of their rooms and drive to work. Those who live in an area without tactical vehicle parking walk to the bus stop.

Whether the intent of the rule is to inconvenience soldiers and benefit officers, the result is just that. Of course, this is nothing new. Again quoting my uncle Jack:

"I don't want to overplay this old soldier bit but the CS entry hit home. When I attended Squadron Officers' School (SOS) in 1966 it was a hotbed of daily CS. They valued themselves very highly. Something I've never forgotten was a loooonng wall of shelves in the Air University library filled end to end with looseleaf notebooks, to a height of 7 or 8 feet. The notebooks contained all the regs and policies of the Air Force from HQ at the Pentagon down through Major Command, numbered Air Force, Air Division. Below that Wing and base level stuff was not on file.
The Air Force at all levels tried to have a reg or policy for every possible situation. Of course they failed, but they never stopped trying so far as I know."

In French the expression that corresponds with CS is enculage de mouche . Literally it means the person in question is having a very unhealthy relationship with a housefly, but the common meaning is giving too much importance to small details. I suppose every country with a military has an equivalent expression to CS.

The Loaves and the Fishes

At Chapel this morning the Gospel reading was Mark Chapter 6, the story of the loaves and the fishes. The chaplain said this was an example of good leadership on the part of the Lord, but not the disciples. The Lord looked on the multitude with compassion. The disciples said "How are we going to feed all of them?" The chaplain said the disciples were like a group of sergeants who look out at a crowd of soldiers who did not bring enough MREs and grumble about having to share their field rations with unprepared troops.

He converted the metaphor to military. "We are all leaders." Localizing this story reminded me of a retelling of the parable of the Good Samaritan I heard at an inner city Church. The African-American pastor retold the story with the victim from the neighborhood being pistol whipped and left for dead on the street in front of the Church. Those who passed by were a local pastor and a football player from the neighborhood with an NFL Contract. The Good Samaritan was a Man from the whitest, richest local suburb.

At the end of the story, the pastor, in a resounding voice, asked the children assembled at the front of the congregation, "Who is this man's neighbor?" The reply came from a smiling little girl who said, "The Football Player!" The congregation broke up with laughter. But the real point had been made. The pastor put most unlikely man in the role of the Samaritan.

The parables and stories, retold in this way, are delightful.

Writing About Soldiers

For the last week I have been splitting my time between resuming my duties as Sergeant Tool Bitch in Echo Company (issuing high value tools from a central tool area) and writing brief vignettes about some of the soldiers in the battalion. Since the higher headquarters (brigade) wants photos also, they gave me a motor-drive NIKON SLR camera with an 18 to 200mm telephoto lens to do take pictures. I don't know much about current camera, but one of my buddies who saw the camera said it costs $3500 new and is "Awesome."

In the course of these brief interviews I have learned a lot more about the soldiers in Echo Company and as I move to other companies, about their soldiers. One of the helicopter mechanics I spoke with got fishing gear shipped from the states. One his day off, he fishes on one of the two ponds on Water Street where the water storage and water treatment plants are located. So far he has caught a catfish more than three feet long. He threw it back but it is strange to think someone is fishing in this dust bowl.

Returning to the chicken shit theme from earlier this week, I took off my Livestrong bracelet yesterday. The directive I spoke about does not allow cancer survivor bracelets, only MIA and KIA bracelets. I have worn that yellow polymer bracelet since 2001. Actually the original one broke in 2003 but the current one, though thin, is still in one circular piece and in a drawer until we go to a less chicken shit command. Although I will be putting it back on in a week if Lance wins his eighth tour. Just for the day.

A first sergeant in one of the communications units who is on his sixth deployment including the Gulf War was talking about how the uniform is the way we show we are soldiers. By complying with the current uniform SOP we show that we are ready to do whatever is necessary when the time comes. He is also taking an on-line college course in writing and is one of the few senior NCOs I have met who really wants to learn to write. He is not taking the course just to meet a requirement for his next promotion.

All the Way Across Iowa and other Blogs

If you down my blog roll you will see blogs I follow for various reasons, but mostly for their odd perspective on some part of life that I care about. For the next couple of weeks, the blog posts I most anticipate enjoying will be on Adventure Across Iowa in which my friend Kristine Chin, a New York editor and event manager, will write about she and her husband Rick riding a tandem across Iowa in July with 15,000 other people.


Thunder Run is another excellent site. It's the only military blog I have on my blog roll because it brings together many other good milblogs, so it is one-stop shopping for interesting perspectives on the wars we fight and the warriors who fight them.

On a completely different note, if you have ever doubted, suffered, or torn your whole life up by the roots and started over, you will probably enjoy Meredith Gould, a Jewish sociologist who took a tortuous path to becoming a Catholic author. Her most recent post, the link above, may be one of the best things she has written about the paradox of living faith.

For weirdness by people who publish in scientific journals, the Annals of Improbable Research blog will introduce you the people who study the medical side-effects of sword-swallowing, who electronically modified the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is, who demonstrated that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine, and who discovered that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.

More later. . .

Calling Home During Viet Nam

My Uncle Jack who served in Viet Nam and other parts of South East Asia for several years between 1965 and 1974, had this response to my post on stress:

I was intrigued by your blog about stress. This is completely opposite my experience during remote interludes in the years 1965 to 1974. As late as 1974 calling home from Thailand was impossible. When if you got to the Philippines you had an opportunity. Even then it was a hassle: Go to a special location, file a request with a clerk to call a certain stateside number, then wait. When the call went through you'd be summoned and directed to a booth to which the call would be connected. Then for, as I recall, a dollar a minute you could talk for a limited time, say ten minutes. Pretty much things were even worse in Greenland and other garden spots SAC (Strategi Air Command) populated. There was no internet/email.

In those circumstances it was impossible to be involved in the daily life of your family at home. They had to solve their own problems--or, more likely, create them. As a junior officer of modest means writing a check from the joint account you shared with your wife took two weeks or more of coordination via snail mail. This was in an era when bouncing a check was a serious offense. Of course, trusting your spouse to actually balance the checkbook and keep you from doing that was a stressful gamble. On-line checking didn't exist.

I never considered the circumstances families now face: more or less instant communication and the blessing or burden of participating from a distance. I imagine there is lots of real-time involvement, "Where did you put the vacuum cleaner bags? I can't find them anywhere!" "Do you know what your son did now?!"

Safe at Tallil

If the current crop of email memos is any indicator, we are stationed at a very safe part of Iraq. The new garrison command is making changes, that's what new garrison commands do. In one recent memo we got uniform standards including sock length with the PT uniform, when we are allowed to wear a specific uniform shirt in the chow hall and when we can't and whether or not we can wear MIA, Cancer Survivor, Livestrong and other rubber bracelets. There are new security standards for weapons taken into the gym and so forth. Minutiae written out at great length in the military is usually referred to as Chicken Shit (yet another use of that word).
Answers.com says:
1. Contemptibly petty or insignificant. For example, He has spent his life making up chicken shit rules that nobody follows anyway. This expression gained currency during World War II, when it was often applied to the enforcement of petty and disagreeable military regulations. [Vulgar slang; c. 1930]
2. Cowardly, as in You're not too chicken shit to come along, are you? [Vulgar slang; mid-1940s]
In this case we are only using Definition One.
The good side of this for your father, mother, brother, sister, spouse or other loved one stationed here is that their is an inverse relationship between CS and danger. After all, if there were immanent threats, the garrison is there to protect us. For most soldiers the increase in CS is a strong indicator that the enemy is remote.

Nigel Update

Nigel's room is getting a Spiderman makeover.


He also got a wardrobe addition with a new Sponge Bob Square Pants bicycling jersey.


And finally Nigel got an Army haircut.

Half of 2009 by the Numbers

Today I passed 3000 miles riding--more than I thought I would have ridden by now. So I figured I could do a short numbers update. In addition to riding 3000 miles in just over 6 months, I have lived (in the sense of having some type of domicile for a week or more) in three countries:
United States
Kuwait
Iraq
Two states: Pennsylvania and Oklahoma
Four Army Forts/Bases:
Fort Sill
Camp Buehring
Tallil Ali Air Base
Ali Al Salim Air Base
This blog has more readers than ever. When I started it, I wanted to give my friends a way to keep up with what I was doing without me sending emails they might not want. IF they wanted to read the blog they could. Last June I put Site Meter on the the blog. That month I got 370 visits and 503 page views. June of this year there were 4378 visits and 5681 page views. People from all six continents look at the blog. I guess an old guy in the American Army is weird enough to make a New Zealander laugh. In any case, The blog has had just over 26,000 visits since last June, making my blog almost as popular in a year as Hannah Montana is for 112 seconds!

I have had two glasses of wine and four beers since January 29 when I got activated. So the "no alcohol" policy is not much of a hardship. There are other activities I am only able to participate in during leave and pass that I will not count and also miss a lot more than more than Guiness Stout or Pinot Noir.

I have watched two movies since I was deployed. Both at the insistence of my roommate who worried that I would be completely culturally illiterate without having seen: "Full Metal Jacket" and "300."

Oh and I did watch the first 16 episodes of "24" while we were in Oklahoma. Since I am still here, I assume Jack Bauer saved the world.

That's all the numbers for now.

Music at the Laundry

Three or four days each week I drop off or pick up clothes at a laundry run by three young men from India. It's a great serve. Drop off up to 20 pieces and 1 to 3 days later it returns clean and folded. The three men are polite and soft spoken. They almost always have music on while they work. Mostly it is Indian music, usually upbeat and not too loud. Today while I was sorting and counting my clothes with the guy at the counter, I noticed the music was different. The beat was calypso. Then I heard the words. Or at least I heard the word motherf#^ker repeated several times. I turned toward the music and the two guys who were sorting a large pile of laundry. One smiled and said, "You like sir?" I smiled back and started laughing. The guy at the counter speaks English well and said something that got the other two laughing--and they turned the song down.
I went back to my CHU and told my roommate about the song. He knew right away that the song was "P.I.M.P" by 50 Cent. You can google it if you want the lyrics or the video. He had some laundry to drop off so he walked up to the laundry to hear it himself. He said when he went in the door "they were playing some other [song]." But as soon as he was inside they switched to P.I.M.P.

Stress in a War Zone

A few days ago I went to a meeting at the base chapel about stress. In particular "Does your family back home raise or lower your stress level?" Since this was a group discussion about stress, I could assume people who were stressed out would attend. I was not quite prepared for how much soldiers are stressed out by their families back home. For much of the hour, I listened to folks who dread the calls home because their parents/significant others are worried sick about them and can't be easily persuaded to talk about anything else. (My family does what they can to keep me informed about their lives and tell me some of the funny things that happen in their lives.)

The conversation that got the most nods of recognition was telling Mom that the attack in Baghdad they saw on TV was 300 miles away and had nothing to do with our base. And once they get Mom calmed down, things will be fine until the next time Mom watches the news then they have to go through the same litany again. The significant other/spouse problems are money/kids/in-laws in roughly that order. You know from earlier posts that soldiers get stressed out about different things than civilians--see Bitching at Breakfast.

But it is sad to think with all the free and nearly free ways we can keep in touch with home from Iraq, a lot of soldiers don't call because it is too painful to talk to their families. Almost everyone present said talking to friends back home was great.

In a sadder post script, I told one of my old sergeant buddies about the meeting. He is a conservative and said something about the problem is that none of the young people make long term commitments and suffer though hard times and etc. etc. But a half hour earlier he told me when I come to visit the new outpost where he is being assigned, don't write anything on my blog about how they get hit with mortars more than our current base. This is also a guy who has mentioned off and on since we first got activated about how worried his wife is about the deployment. He seems to spend a lot of time on the phone reassuring her.

I have had other people tell me not to write anything about attacks or anything else that is dangerous on my blog because their spouse/mom/sister reads it and gets worried.

Also at the meeting, no one mentioned being stressed out by work. One of the odd things our schedule does is give workaholics a chance to live life the way they want to without guilt. Many people work seven days a week even when they get a day off and work well past whatever time their shift officially ends. When I had a corporate job, some of my co-workers made a show of saying they didn't like the long hours and travel, but privately they said they really did. They like accomplishing things. Here, the workaholic can put all the rest of life on hold and work day and night!

NOT in Utica

Sorry if I was unclear. The Boilermaker is being run BOTH in Utica and on Tallil Ali Air Base. I just finished being the pace bike here in Tallil. The winning runner finished in just over 56 minutes for 15k (9.3 miles). After doing the pace lap, I rode around the course again because there were road guards and I could go through all the stop signs. Almost 400 soldiers and airmen ran. It was a big event. This is the same course I will use for the Labor Day weekend bike race when I get final approval--hopefully soon!

Speaking of contests, my John Wayne Clerihew poem is officially 2nd place to Bette Davis. Here's the poem:
John Wayne
Got shot in movies and barely felt pain
In Iraq I am miserable just from being hot
Those movie soldiers are a tougher lot.

Thanks to all who voted. Especially to those of you, like Kristine, who voted for my Clerihew even when she actually liked the Bette Davis one better. I got up at 0345 for the race. I am going to breakfast!!

Priority List

I am getting closer and closer to corporate America except I have no wardrobe and, well, the other things I don't have when my home life is sharing a room in a trailer with a mechanic. As of my return to the land of heat and brown air, I have a computer that is attached to the battalion server. It runs Outlook. I had several meetings today at different locations and duly filled in the calendar items so the soldiers in my chain of command can know where I am or will be. I will be filling in all my current projects in the Outlook Tasks section.

But then there's the fun part of having more to write about. In the next few weeks I will be flying to our biggest and our newest fueling areas. The new one is fairly close by so I will be able to fly there and back in a Blackhawk. The other one is very far away which means flying in an Air Force plane or a CH-47 Chinook. The weather has been so bad I am not looking forward to the longer trip. It's just a few hundred miles, but my roommate got stuck part way back from there for nearly two weeks!

And on a completely different note, voting has been extended to midnight Eastern time tonight (0700 Saturday here) in the Clerihew contest. I am still in second place. No matter how many people Daria, Sarah and my daughter Lisa get to vote for me, the Bette Davis fans seem to get just as many. But I am only five votes back and still have a chance.

Tomorrow I will be pace bike for the 15k Boilermaker race held here and in Utica NY. Almost 400 people are running.

The Bike Guy

When I first got to Tallil Ali Air Base, I met a sergeant in public affairs who rides daily and told me that if I ever had a problem with a bike, I should call/email Larry--a civilian computer technician who is retired military and really likes working on bikes.

It turns out Larry is also a very personable guy who is happy to help soldiers. Like most civilians here he works 12 to 14 hour shifts with a day or two off each month, so his time is limited. But when he can he works on bikes. While I was home on leave, Larry trued my out-of-round front wheel on the single-speed road bike and cleaned it up. Then when the mountain bike arrived, the rear disc brake rotor had been bent in transit. He could not straighten it completely with the tools he has, but it is nearly perfect now in a less-than-perfect environment.

Military communities like this one are very much communities in ways that most American communities are not. We need each other. And those of us who ride bikes are a small community within a community. One of our soldiers had a bike with its gears clogged with sand. I gave the bike to Larry. He will take all the parts from it to use to fix other bikes.

On another bike subject, today the air was calm and the sky was clear at 130pm when I rode to chow. The temp was 129. A half-hour later, the wind was a steady 20mph out of the west, the sky was full of dust, bluish brown with the sun's light going to orange. The temp got cooler. It was only 126 on the way back from lunch!!

Bike with a Thermometer

When Bill and Jeremiah at Bike Line put my new bike together, they insisted I get a cycling computer with a thermometer built in. Today I rode a lot all through the day so it's a good opportunity to track the temperature as I ride.
Total miles: 42
Highest temp: 126
Lowest temp: 88

0545--I ride from my CHU (Containerized Housing Unit or trailer if you prefer) to the House of Pain Gym. I am Pace Bike for the weekly 5k race. Temp is 88 (all readings in Fahrenheit). I am wearing Army PT shorts and t-shirt.
0600--Race begins. 90 degrees.
0620--Race ends. 92
0630--I ride the 10.7-mile loop around post. Begin temp 92. End temp at the DFAC (Chow Hall) 99 at 0710.
0745--105 degrees. I ride to my CHU, shower and change and go to the company headquarters.
0900--ride to company headquarters. 108 degrees wen I leave, 109 when I arrive, 1.5 mile trip. Uniform is ACU (fatigues) with rifle and pack.
0930--ride to south side of base for 1000 meeting. temp is 110 when I leave. Uniform is ACU (fatigues) with rifle and pack. Same uniform for the rest of the day.
1000--lock the bike before the meeting. Temp is 113.
1245pm--finished meeting and follow-up appointment for my heel. (Keep stretching sergeant!) 122 degrees. Ride 1.5 miles to DFAC temp is 124 when I arrive.
130pm--ride to main area from DFAC. Start temp 122. High temp on 3-mile ride 126.
2pm--ride to motor pool. 122 degrees. By the end of the 1/2-mile trip, 124 degrees. Uniform is still ACU (fatigues) with rifle and pack.
530pm--ride from motor pool to coffee shop. 1 mile. 109 degrees.
615pm--ride around post. Back to PTs (shorts and t-shirt. ahhhhh!) 108 degrees
710pm--get weapon, ride to supper. 104 degrees. (sunset in 10 minutes)
815pm--back to the CHU 99 degrees.

Each time I ride in midday the temp goes up as I ride. It seems that the bike suffers the same fate as my hands--above 115 degrees the breeze makes my hands feel warmer because it is hot air blowing on me. When I ride in the morning and evening, I average about 16mph on the mountain bike and 18mph on the road bike. At midday, I ride between 9 and 11 mph unless the winds are high like today, then I ride 7mph into the wind and 15mph with the wind at my back. No hard efforts when the temp is above 110.

News Updates

Tomorrow I go to the second meeting for my newest additional duty job. My new job is to be the public affairs sergeant for the battalion I am in--that's the group of 600 soldiers. I am already doing the same thing for my company--100 soldiers. I do not know what level of work it will mean beyond what I am doing already.

Sometime this month I will be going to some of the remote sites where our fuelers work. Best case is I will be flying in a Blackhawk. It should be fun however it works out and I will get to see the folks who I haven't seen for nearly two months.

My roommate returns soon. Nice guy, but it has been fun to have a room to myself. I have three seasons of The Wire on DVD which he wanted to watch. I have seasons 1, 3 and 4. I might ask Santa Claus for seasons 2 and 5. It's an HBO original if you have never seen it.

My daughters are back from summer vacation. In Switzerland Lisa ran up a six-mile mountain road in Grindelwald. She wrote: "A lot of people were string at me and someone actually said something along the lines of 'you must be a tourist cause locals aren't dumb enough to run up the mountain...we take the bus'." The local folks are just the same in the Alps or Arkansas. From the first part of the trip: "We saw 3 'don't have to ask and very easy to tell cross dressed men in Paris.' So, they won't be flying over and joining the American Army any time soon. They were actually quite impressive, like platform shoes, short tu-tus with fishnets, blonde wigs and all. One actually had a floral dress and hot pink leather jacket on...."

If you read my very first posts from when I came back to the Army, I was in charge of the $250,000 tool box called the Forward Recovery System (FRS). It's my baby again. On Saturday, I will sign for all 42 pages of inventory of more than 1,000 tools. So keeping the FRS in working order will be my actual day job. That means I am Sergeant Tool Bitch again.

The new GT single-speed mountain bike is much better on the roads and rocks here, but it is tiring to push those 29-inch wide wheels.

Vote Early and Often

While I was waiting for a plane to take be back to Iraq I wrote a four-line verse for a contest by Robin Abrahams, the Boston Globe's Miss Conduct. Voting is now open. If you want to see what kind of verse I write in a tent in Kuwait, and better yet if you want to make me a the only poetry contest winner in my unit here in Iraq, please follow the link and vote.

By the end of the 2nd week in America I was beginning to think my bone spur problem was improving. All day today I worked in the motor pool walking on rocks. The improvement was because I was away from the rocks. I am back to limping now. So I will return to sick call and continue whatever procedure I have to go through to get the bone spur removed.

We are already planning the next issue of the Echo Company Newsletter. I can't post PDFs on the blog because of restrictions on blogger.com, but if you want a copy, let me know and I will email it to you. ngussman@gmail.com.

Back to Tallil

At 0730 this morning we were told to return at 0820 with our bags. We would be flying by 1130! I packed up and told the guy on the top bunk I had packed up before and would be reclaiming my bottom bunk if the flight was cancelled. He promised to be ready to move and I was off to the next formation. We waited in a tent for a couple of hours and then we loaded our gear, loaded on the bus and we were off to load up on a jet for a very short flight.

On the bus I sat with a 23-year-old regular Army soldier returning to duty after R&R leave like me. Unlike me, he is on his second deployment and is planning on being deployed to Afghanistan. His current job is body guard for a colonel. Last deployment he was on convoy duty. Five times he had a vehicle blown out from under him by an IED. He has been temporarily blinded by concussion and has shrapnel lodged in a couple of places, but, at least by his own standards, he is OK. After his next deployment, probably ground combat if he gets the assignment he is looking for, he plans to get out of the Army and go to college to work on computer networks.

"I figure three deployments will be enough," he said. He will finish his third tour at the ripe old age of 25.

Back at Tallil, my new bike was waiting in the post office. I signed for it, put it together but because of a sandstorm, I decided not to ride around the base and cleaned up my dust-filled room instead. My roommate is still away at another base, so the CHU was unoccupied for a month and got very dusty. More tomorrow.

Day After Day

One of the truly delightful things about the Army is that I am not important as an individual. I am on my 4th day stuck in Kuwait. What overcommitted American worker could get paid for sitting and doing nothing for four days. And it looks like I will be here at least till Monday. I get paid the same for working or for doing nothing if my orders tell me to do nothing. And they do.

So I am sitting in a coffee shop writing about doing nothing and trying to decide what to do next. Should I read in my tent and then go to dinner? Should I go to dinner? Should I shoot a game of pool at the recreation tent before or after dinner? Decisions, decisions. I am going to bed early because I am going to get up at 3am and work out at the cardio gym. It's open 24 hours and beginning at 3am will have a live broadcast of the Daytona NASCAR race. My iPod is in Tallil so if I work out at any other time I will have to watch baseball, golf, or tennis. So I can watch the Daytona night race then clean up for Church, then come back at 11am and watch the Tour de France while I cross train on the elliptical.

Pack Up, Report for Flight, Go Back

This morning at 0730 my fellow travelers and I were told to report back at 0945 with our gear--there would be a flight later today. We packed up, dragged our gear to the meeting point, had a roll call, then were told to return to the tents. Next formation would be roll call at 1930 (730pm). No more flight information. Maybe there will be a flight one the 4th of July.

It is strange to be 100 miles from the end of a 6000 mile trip and no closer than I was three days ago, but there is nothing to do but wait for the flight. Maybe there will be a flight tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, this is a great way to get over jet lag. Fly across seven time zones then eat, sleep, and read for three days.

Last Race Update

Passing on the first descent


Climbing uphill at the back of a disappearing pack

Thanks to Jan Felice for pointing out these photos on www.cyclingcaptured.com, photos are by Anthony Skorochod. The race was fun while it lasted for me (two of four 8-mile laps, with the pack only on the first lap). After the race I rode for a while with Jan, Jim Pomeroy and Linford Weaver.

Where is Neil?
No flights out of Kuwait for me yesterday. So I spent another night here, which is actually better in some ways than going straight home. I slept a lot yesterday but was tired enough that I could go to bed by ten and get up at five this morning. I overate for breakfast and then read email and waited for the 0730 roll call when we will find out if there are any flights today.

There were no flights. So we won't hear anything until the 730pm roll call, but the sky is somewhat clear this morning so maybe the sandstorm has calmed down enough that we will fly out tonight. I called my unit this morning to let them know how the trip is progressing. I'll go to the gym soon and ride the exercise bike while I wait for news on night flights. More soon.

Good Advice

Sarah Reisert, my replacement at work for this year, suggested I could volunteer for something in Shannon and fly business class for the rest of the trip. I did not exactly do that, but I went to the WH Smith bookstore and bought a copy of Le Monde to see what the French were saying about the return of Lance Armstrong. By the way, in French Lance is one form of the verb Lancer with 34 dictionary meanings including throw, hit, launch, and race. I am sure French sportswriters have been making puns on Armstrong's name for the last decade.

Anyway, one of the senior sergeants on the flight bought a bicycling magazine from the UK. We started talking about the tour. When the flight reboarded, the bicycle-riding sergeant first class had an open seat next to him in business class, so I got to ride in the front of the plane from Shannon to Kuwait. And as Sarah said, the exit row in a DC-10 had lots of leg room. So I am now three-for-three in the front of the plane to and from Iraq with just one more flight to go. And that flight--the flight home next Janaury--I won't care where I am on the flight!!!

Tuesday Morning in Shannon

Shannon, Ireland
We are on a two-hour layover for fuel and crew change in Shannon, Ireland. Because we are Americans we swarm in, spend money and eat. On the flight back they loaded us by rank so I am in the back of the plane. I did manage to get an exit row, so I slept for an hour on the first flight and should be able to catch some sleep on the flight to Kuwait. We can't leave the terminal, but the countryside is a lovely green outside the terminal windows. Seven more hours in the air and we will be back to Kuwait. Then back to Iraq for the 4th of July.

Long Walk to the Gate

This very long day of beginning my return to Iraq started really well. I got up at 0500 listening to NPR news on WITF radio. I know I can listen to NPR in Iraq, but it has to be on the internet, which is not quite the same as a clock radio. At 0550 my friend Matt Clark picked me up in his van and we went to Starbucks on Columbia Avenue in Lancaster for one last latte at my favorite coffee place and a New York Times, another habit I can't indulge at Tallil Ali Air Base. Matt and I talked and joked on the 35-mile drive to the airport. Then I checked my bags and walked toward the gate.

that was the worst moment of the whole trip. My family was between 400 and 4000 miles away, Matt was on his way back home and the only person I knew was a young sergeant getting on the same plane I was boarding. He was with his wife and mother. He was sad. They were crying and I almost lost it at that point. But when I got to security, the folks who check the bags smiled at me and wished me a good trip and said to come back soon. They know the soldiers on the morning flights in uniform looking glum are the ones going back to Iraq.

When I got to Atlanta, the USO volunteers were waiting to direct us at the arrival area. A big guy in his 60s shook my hand and said, "From the look on your face, you must be going back." By noon we had boarding passes and eight hours to wait. Most everyone grabbed the free USO food and then split into two groups: one group filled the chairs in front of the big screen TV, the other went out into the walkway around the atrium and started looking for electrical outlets for their computers or started taking naps. One of the good things about these incredibly slow (by commercial standards) boring trips is that the rest and sleeping leave us with less jet lag than high-speed travelers. Of course, it's not a great nap when every 15 minutes you hear about liquid and gel restrictions for passengers on the PA system.

I just finished a six-hour wait and am now going to the gate now to begin the next two-hour wait. I am glad these uniforms don't wrinkle easily.

Hollywood

Jon Rutter wrote a follow up article about me in the "Lancaster" section of today's Lancaster Sunday News. Here's the link.

Today's Race

Nigel at the Brownstown Race

At 0845 this morning, I had rode in the first of two road races I will do this weekend before heading back to Iraq. Today's race, the Brownstown Road Race, was flat and offered no state championship points to participants, so there were not be many participants in the 55+ category--and none of the state/national championship riders that filled the field in last week's race. The race was also close to home so my daughter Lisa and I could ride the 12 miles to and from the race as a warm-up for me and cross training for her. When we arrived, she ran around the five-mile course while I finished warming up.

The eight 55+ riders started with about 30 racers in the 45+ category. With mixed categories, the older guys who stay with the younger group are the top finishers. As we made the sharp left turn toward the finish line on the 2nd of five laps, I felt like I might be able to hang on to the pack for most, if not all of the race, then in the middle of the turn I heard a rider yelling "Flat!!" and bikes started to swerve wide in the corner. I ended up in the dirt off the edge of the road. When racers hear another rider is in trouble, especially if the hear the thud and yells of a crash behind them, they ride as hard as they to drop all those trapped behind the crash. I tried to catch back on, but couldn't.

I rode the next two laps with another 55+ rider who was dropped. We passed the guy I thought would win 55+. He crashed--just scrapes and bruises--and was on the side of the road. Two more of the 55+ riders dropped out and I was 4th!!! My best result in my trip home because in today's race, there is no age-group. I will be racing with 20 and 30-year-olds on a hilly course. It should be a very short race for me.

As Lisa and I started the ride home, Lisa said that I definitely had the loudest cheering section. She and my wife and son Nigel cheered every lap as they did last week and were the only people cheering for 55+ category racers. "It's worse than when we were little," Lisa said. "Back then one or two other riders had a cheering section, now it's just you." There were other people watching the race. On the oppostie side of the road from my family, several large Amish families were gathered at the fence near the start-finish. The girls in dresses and boys in pants and with suspenders, all in bare feet, watched the race intently and, as my wife said after the race, stole more than a few glances at my African-American son Nigel standing between his blond-haired, blue-eyed mother and sister.

Saying Goodbye

Because of the schedules my family is on and because my friends are spread across a fairly large area, I have been saying goodbye since Thursday and will be saying it till I go. Thursday I went to Philadelphia and said goodbye to my friends in the city of brotherly love. With most of them, we will be in touch by phone and on email, so it was not too sad. Friday was the last time I will ride the daily training ride till next year. I really miss riding the very green hills and valleys in Lancaster County. Today my daughters were off on a nine-day trip to Europe, part of celebrating Lisa's graduation from high school. That was a lot tougher. I have seen the girls every day, especially Lisa. Lauren has a full-time job as Sports of All Sorts Camp as a counselor, but Lisa is mostly training for Cross Country in the fall. We rode together on 11 of the last 14 days. I will miss them very much until next February. Tomorrow morning my wife and son leave for Ithaca after we go to the early service at Church, so I will be saying goodbye to them and to my friends at Church tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon I am racing then riding with some of my friends, so I will be saying goodbye for a lot of tomorrow.
At 6am Monday I will be on the way to the airport and starting the long trip back to Iraq. The temp here only reached the high 70s. It's supposed to be 118 when I return to Kuwait on Tuesday--at least I won't freeze!

There was an Old Woman. . .

. . .who does NOT live in the shoe, but she and her husband own the shoe house in York County PA. My wife and I took the tour today and it began with the owner, a woman in her mid 40s saying, "Sometimes I feel like and old woman but I do not live in this shoe." The Haines Shoe House is a real livable home built 60 years ago by an eccentric millionaire who made his fortune selling shoes. The house has five levels and Mr. Haines used it as a guest house for his mansion several miles down the road. At the time it was built it was a mile off the old Lincoln Highway on a lonely ridge with a beautiful view. Today US Route 30 is less than 50 yards away. I have passed the Shoe House hundreds of times, but until today never went inside. The strange structure has a master bedroom in the toe, a kitchen in the heel, kids room and maids quarters in the upper part of the boot and a basement down in the sole.

Speaking of my wife, which I did not do on Wedensday's post, she spoke on Wednesday at Westminster Presbyterian Church, a one hour talk on God, Math and Infinity for about 150 people. The talk condensed the seven-week series she did at Wheatland Presbyterian Church during the last two months. She is an engaging speaker and had the audience laughing when they seemed to be getting lost in the details of countable infinities. She got a lot of questions after the talk about her family and how they feel about her faith since they don't believe. Her final comment was about her middle sister who she said, "Now attends Church sometimes and sings in the choir when she likes the pastor. . .but not in THAT way!" So she ended with a big laugh.

One More Trip to Philadelphia

Today I took the train to Philadelphia after riding with Lisa in the morning. It was a lot of fun making jokes with my co-workers and talking about the kinds of things we will b doing when I get back. I also had a chance to talk with David Black, a teacher of both computer technology and chemistry who is in Philadelphia at Chemical Heritage Foundation for the summer as a visiting scholar. David teaches in rural Utah. He had to teach both chemistry and technology to students in a small school with little lab equipment, but the school had vans so he took the kids to sites where they could see chemistry in action. The students took video cameras and made podcasts about their visits to a glassblowing shop, a cement plant, and a berylium mine. You can learn more and see the videos at his Web site. Part of his time at CHF will be devoted to applying for grants to continue and expand his project for other school districts in neighboring states and eventually across the country. David and I will be keeping in touch over the next seven months while I am back in the Sandbox.

In addition to hanging out with my friends, I spent most of an hour wandering through one of my favorite bookstores, The Philly Book Trader at 7 North 2nd Street. For $30 I got an adapation of The Count of Monte Cristo in simple French. Aristotle's Rhetoric in French. The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara, Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address and his book First Circle, and a paperback copy of CS Lewis' Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. My duffel bag is almost full.

Books for Iraq

My leave is rapidly coming to an end and my bookshelf is trying to jump into my duffel bag along with bike stuff I am bringing back to the land of dirt and gravel. Among the books going is an old copy of the The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan. I was up late one night and read the first act of "Pirates of Penzance." It's like reading Shakespeare (as opposed to seeing the performance of the play)--I don't have to strain my ears to catch the jokes delivered at auctioneer speed in a British accent. I can read at my own pace and not miss the jokes. "Hamlet" is also going back with me.

Ivan Amato's delightful book Stuff is going in my backpack for the long flight along with a volume of Orwell's essays. Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and CS Lewis' The Allegory of Love are in the duffel bag along with copy of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. I am bringing Darwin in part because my wife just read me a few pages from How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie--the first great American self-help book in the 20th century and clearly an influence on every one of the tens of thousands of self-help volumes that followed.

Anyway, hearing Carnegie reminded me of CS Lewis' maxim that we should only read the commentators on a book after we have read the book itself. I recently read essays criticizing Carnegie, but had not read the book. After hearing just a few pages, he seems brimming with good sense and based much of the book on a long study of the life of Abraham Lincoln. So I will read his book before I listen to anymore criticism. Imagine if AM talk radio hosts had to actually deal with the reality of politics before they spoke on an issue. The silence would be deafening.

Back to Darwin. I have no quarrel with Origin since nearly every working scientist acknowledges his great insights, and blaming Darwin for misuse of his theory is as stupid as blaming Einstein for moral relativism. But I never read Darwin's great book, so I plan to amend that. I am also bringing The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose more as a reference book than something to read.

Day After the Race

The training ride in a double pace line


Jan took this on the shorter route home. It's still hard to believe how green Lancaster is compared to Iraq.

Unlike running, there is no day off for recovery with bicycling. The day after a race everybody rides. The ride on Monday is somewhat easier than the mid-week rides which is the only reason I thought I could keep up for at least part of the way on the 35-mile daily training ride. I stayed with the pack until the base of the big climb in the middle. Jan Felice was kind enough to ride up the hill that is a little shorter than the main route, but still a climb more than a mile long. We rode to the descent on Turkey Hill which was aborted by tree-cutting that closed one side of the road--no coasting race today. I hope to do that once more on Friday.

Jan and I took a shorter route home. After riding with Lisa before the ride, I still rode a total of 40 miles. I'll ride 15 miles with Lisa this evening then go to the Wednesday night training race (known here as "Worlds") before riding over to Westminster Presbyterian Church to hear my wife talk about faith, math and infinity.

I am going to enter both races this weekend in Lancaster County. I might as well be tired when I go back to Iraq.

In other bike news, I mailed the GT Peace 9R bike to myself yesterday. Hopefully it will be in Iraq soon after I get back.


The peleton riding up a short, steep hill on the way to the descent at Turkey Hill

Photos by Jan "I've Got a Camera in my Race Jersey" Felice

Improbable Post

This morning I am past the halfway point of my two-week leave--152 hours to go. Returning to Iraq means I will be sleeping alone for the next 7 months. But then I remembered Video #103 in the Improbable TV collection. I won't be sleeping alone. Every bed has tiny bugs to keep me company on those long Iraqi nights--yours too!

If you decide to look around the Improbable.com site you will find the strangest scientific papers on the Web--they have a magazine called The Annals of Improbable Research in case you, like me, still enjoy reading words on paper. One of the reasons I am returning to Iraq is to help make the world safe for people who study the use of Coke as a contraceptive:

Father's Day

Father's Day has been my favorite holiday (or whatever it is) for more than a decade now. It's early in the summer so school is out but summer camps haven't started yet. I spend most of the day with my kids. This Father's Day I was with my family from the time I woke up until just a few minutes ago when they all went to bed.

Just before 8am, my daughter Lisa and I rode to the Greenfield Criterium, a race that has been one of the Pennsylvania State Bicycling Championship races for more than a decade and has always been held on Father's Day. From 2001 - 2004 Lisa raced at Greenfield in individual races and with me on the tandem. Today we both used the ride to the race as a 7-mile warm up: me for the bike race, she for a five-mile run that is part of her summer training for cross country in the fall.

I warmed up with my teammate Kevin then we lined up at 9am for the 55+ State Championship race. The field was small, just over 20 riders, but included several masters state and national champions. Worse than that for me, each one-mile lap of the 20-lap race ends with a 1/4-mile 5% climb. On the positive side, my wife and kids were on the side of the road near the start-finish line cheering every lap. They only cheered for me for five laps. I was hanging in for most of five laps, but at the end of the fourth lap they rang the bell for a premium prize or "preem" as they are called. For the first four laps there were a few half-hearted attacks that got sucked right back into the pack so I could hang on. After that bell rang, one of the stronger riders took off on the long, shallow downhill. By the flat stretch at the bottom of the hill we were strung out in a line going 32mph. I was 8th at the beginning of the lap and last as we turned up the hill to the start-finish line. By the time they crossed the start-finish line I was gasping, wishing I had skipped breakfast, and watching the rest of the riders disappear.

But I only expected to last three laps, so I felt pretty good. We cheered for my teammate and for Scott Haverstick for a few more laps then Lisa and I rode home to change for a day trip to NYC. It was fun to be in a pack again and riding fast, even if it was not for very long. I am going to need a lot of hill training when I get back from Iraq.

Just after 11 am we were on the road to NYC. We drive to Newark, park the car and take the train to Penn Station when we go to NYC. When we first got to NYC my kids walked south on Broadway from 32nd to get some lunch and I went up to 6th and 47th to the NY Post office. I visited a friend there for a few minutes, but like every major daily they do maximum work with minimum staff, so after we chatted for a while I went across the street to Pret a Manger (Ready to Eat) for a sandwich and a drink since the kids had already finished eating.

While I was eating, a tall man in his early 60s strode in. He was dressed casually in expensive clothes. He had a theatrical air enhanced by his well-dyed, well-coiffed red hair (NO ONE his age has red hair). He was waving a $20 bill over his head and saying "I need change." He passed three other people in line and shoved the bill toward a young woman behind the counter who took it then continued to wait on the customer in front of her. Mr. Drama paced left, turned and looked at me (I was in uniform) and said "Gussman, what MOS are you?" in a very Broadway voice. I kept eating. He said, "I was a 95B20 in Quan Tri in 1967. I used to drive lifers like you crazy." Then he grabbed his money and strode out.

This dramatic draftee was in when soldiers wore their rank on their sleeve or collar. He had no idea what rank I was and assumed I had served for the last three decades or more. You just don't get guys like him in the Army without a draft.

Then I met my kids at 23rd and we went to Chinatown to shop at the street vendors. Lisa's senior project was a study of street vendors. She took me to a shop that had a basement storage area where a street vendor had taken her to show her the best stock she had. We walked back to the north on Broadway. Nigel and I got coffee and watched people go by while Lauren and Lisa shopped. We then took the Subway to Penn Station and cuaght a train to New Jersey. I have been trying to eat food I can't get in Iraq. Almost every day I buy bread from a bakery. Today it was NY Challah from Zaros. We at Chinese food in New Jersey (Chinese food at the DFAC is not very good.) then drove the 150 miles back to Lancaster singing along with a playlist of songs from Lauren's iPod:

Boom Boom Boom -- the outhere brothers
Spice up your life -- spice girls
Because you loved me -- Celene Dion (Very funny when sung by a 9-yr-old boy)
Back at one -- brian mcknight
Could you be loved -- bob marley
Baby baby -- Amy Grant
I know you want me (calle ocho) -- pitbull
Number one -- john legend (featuring Kanye west)
She hates me -- puddle of mud
The lion sleeps tonight -- lion king soundtrack
Let it rock -- kevin rudolph and lil wayne
Paper planes -- M.I.A.
Wake me up before you go go -- Wham!
Beautiful Girls (remix) -- sean kingston
Hello, I love you -- the doors
Get off of my cloud -- the rollingstones
Boom Boom Pow -- Black Eyed peas
Single ladies -- Beyonce
Welcome to the world -- kevin rudolph
Let's call it off -- drake
Get silly -- V.I.C.
Girl talk songs
New Soul -- yael nai m
1234 -- feist
Hot Revolver -- lil wayne and kevin rudolph

Father's Day doesn't get any better than this.

Rainy Day in America

Today I washed clothes, ran errands and also did nothing for an hour or so. It was raining. I did not want to ride the bike because I wanted it to be clean for the race tomorrow. I walked in the rain a little just to enjoy the feeling of rain. I heard it rains in the Fall in Iraq and the whole country turns into grimy mud. I am quite sure that is true and rain in Iraq is as miserable as sun in Iraq can be. But here every kind of weather is wonderful.

The kids and I ate pizza for dinner because even with the tons of food we get, you can't get real USA pizza in the DFAC.

Drive Toward the Sun

For the almost 200 people attending the memorial service for Carol Jo Crannell today, the directions to get from the service to the reception afterward included the line "drive toward the sun." The service was held in the auditorium of the Physics department at Catholic University in Washington DC. The service afterward was at the home Carol had lived in with her family for more than three decades in Silver Spring, Maryland. Silver Spring is northwest of Catholic U. so the directions took us through a short maze of DC streets before we turned north. It was 6pm when the service ended so driving west meant driving toward the sun (actually, as Carol would known well, the sun was not exactly west, but 15 degrees south of west at 6pm since it is Daylight Savings Time).

The service was a celebration of a life well lived by family, friends, teachers who worked with Carol on a NASA outreach program to schools, and colleagues from NASA Goddard. After the funeral for an infant child I attended earlier this week, it was good to be at a service for woman who lived her life well and fully. It is no small irony for me that the grief I have experienced during my first weeks of deployment is in America, not in Iraq.

Here's the short bio on the program for the service:

Carol Jo Argus grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the oldest of four children.  The nuns at her Catholic schools successfully encouraged her parents to support her academic endeavors.  She earned her B.A. from Miami University and a PhD from Stanford University, both in physics.  While a graduate student, she married Hall Crannell and had the first of her three daughters.

After graduate school, the family moved to Maryland where her house was always open to friends and filled with an abundance of pets. Carol worked for Goddard Space Flight Center as a solar astrophysicist, studying solar gamma rays and playing an instrumental role in the success of SUNBEAMS, a NASA teacher internship program.  She loved going to the balloon launches and seeing her payloads rise safely into the air.  

Carol was active in Girl Scouting her entire life, leading large camping trips and teaching other leaders outdoors skills.  She was a strong advocate of her local civic association, a clerk of course in her daughters’ summer swim league, and a regular blood donor.  Once her daughters grew up, she began square dancing with Hall, and the two of them managed to get at least one of her granddaughters hooked.

Carol is fondly remembered by her husband, her three siblings (Pam, Scott, and Connie), by her three daughters (Annalisa, Francesca, and Tasha), by her eight grandchildren (Rebecca, Lauren, Argus, Iolanthe, Lisa, Nigel, Anika, and Janelle), and by her many friends and colleagues.

Tour de Tallil Ali Air Base, Iraq

Rich Ruoff, bicycle race promoter extraordinaire has agreed to serve as promoter for the Tour de Tallil Ali Air Base, Iraq, on Saturday, September 5 at 0500. He already has the race up on his web site and will be putting the event on www.bikereg.com the place where bicycle racers around the country find and register for races. Rich wants to actually be on site for the race which is not going to happen, but it is fun to see a race in Iraq on his calendar of events.

I will be riding in one of Rich's road races on June 28, the day before I go back to Iraq. It is a very hilly race on country roads near Lancaster so my big goal will be to avoid being lapped by the winner. I have been riding at Tallil, but riding on flat roads does not get me in shape for hills.

Yesterday I rode a mile or so in the rain, another very strange experience for someone who has been living in Oklahoma, Kuwait and Iraq. I saw a couple of storms in Oklahoma, but they were over in hours. The rain here in Lancaster was off and on for two days. It is SO green here.

The Unit Circle

Today I went on a long shopping trip with my youngest daughter. She is off to college in the fall and has one course left to choose, the other three are freshman requirements at the University of Richmond. She either will take general chemistry or calculus. The mention of calculus lead her to say how the unit circle drove her nuts in her high school calculus course. "Why did we have to memorize all of those fractions of pi and the square root of two?" she said. It turns out her teacher did not explain why the unit circle is so useful. It's not that a circle with a radius of one ever occurs in real life, the point is that every other circle can be converted into the unit circle then all the calculations relating to it are divisible by one. And the sines and cosines relating to the position of any point on the circle read directly--they don't need to be factored. The unit circle above is the way she learned it: static, with key points to memorize.

But the unit circle is better understood live. When it moves, it makes sense immediately, as you can see here.

OK, enough geek stuff. The point of this post is just that talking about abstract ideas makes me happy, so these two weeks in America really are a rest from the concrete reality of carrying a weapon, walking on rocks and riding in sand. It's raining now in Lancaster. I am going outside to enjoy it.

Catching Up with a Lot of Friends

If you think driving and talking on a cell phone is an indication that the end of the world is at hand, stop reading here.

I drive and talk on the phone. I have been doing this awful thing since 1993 when I had a five-watt cell phone powered by a lead-acid battery that was as big as a lunch box. When I talk on the the phone on a highway, I drive slower and keep right. When I am not talking, I drive faster.

Anyway, I drove to the Wake for my friend's baby girl and talked to friends nearly all the way there and back--3 1/2 hours each way. I thought it would be good to be distracted rather than think too hard about how terrible it is to lose a child. The gathering at the funeral home was sad for everyone. I realized I had never been to a funeral for an infant. Little Candace looked more like a doll than a person, peaceful and perfect. Her father is a generally positive guy and was his usual affable self, putting others at ease and giving a kind reassuring word to the sad people around him. He knows the sadness will hit him tomorrow at the actual funeral, but today he is holding up well.

On the way back I called more friends and made plans for visits before I go back to Iraq. I still can't begin to think how difficult it is to deal with losing a child. I also remembered the last Echo Company family funeral I attended. The father of one of our soldiers died suddenly last summer. The funeral happened to be on our drill weekend. There were 70 soldiers at that drill. More than 50 attended the funeral service. I know if they were not 6000 miles away everyone in Echo would have been at the service and helping the family to recover from their loss.

Good Times, Bad Times

Today I had a wonderful day catching up with my co-workers and meeting my new boss (when I return).

I also got some bad news from Iraq. Another soldier from our unit went home a few days before I did. His daughter was just born and he got to be there. But the happy occasion turned to mourning when his new daughter died suddenly. It happened Saturday while I was traveling. The wake is tomorrow afternoon in Altoona PA about 3 hours away, so I should be able to attend. It's good that he could be home for his family, but so sad that his leave from Iraq would be marked with tragedy.

Home

At 5pm yesterday, my daughters picked me up at Harrisburg International Airport, just 57 hours after I showed up at the passenger terminal at Tallil Air Base. Since we gained 7 hours, the trip actually took 64 clock hours. But my leave did not start until one minute after midnight today, so I have only used 18 of the 360 hours (15 days) of leave.

When we got back to Lancaster from Harrisburg last night, we picked up my son Nigel then went out to dinner at Isaac's Restaurant & Deli, my favorite place to eat in Lancaster since they opened in 1983. All of the sandwiches are named after birds. My favorite sandwich is a Bird of Paradise:
An all-time favorite from our original menu! A combination of mushrooms, green olives, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, melted Swiss and Muenster cheeses on rye with mayo. 7.39
My kids each have a favorite sandwich so we ate at Isaac's then went to the Starbucks on Columbia Avenue. I got a free latte for coming back from Iraq. I'll get another one next year. We all talked and laughed till 10pm when I turned into a jet-lagged zombie and went to bed.

This morning, Nigel and I went to Dosie Dough a coffee shop and bakery near Franklin and Marshall College where my wife is a professor. We rode bikes. I had a croissant and a latte. We all walked to Church together. After Church I went to the Bike Line of Lancaster where my new bike was waiting for a test drive. The GT Peace 9 R is army green and will be stylin' in Iraq.

I rode 20 miles by myself then a dozen more with Lisa who wants to do a bunch of bicycle cross training while I am home. We'll be going to a New Orleans brass concert in the park tonight.
Tomorrow is Philadelphia.

Always, Always Volunteer

The last bit of advice my Dad gave me when I enlisted in 1972 was "Volunteer. Don't listen to those [other soldiers--expletives deleted]." So I did. In basic training when no one else's hand went up, I volunteered to be one of the Latrine Queens--the name given to those who clean the bathrooms. Jersey, one of the smart guys, also raised his hand for this job and smiled when he saw me volunteer also. I got hassled right away. My roommate, 'Bama, said "What in the Hell did you do that for Guss? Have you lost your damn mind since breakfast?" I shrugged. I did not feel smart at the time. Three days later I felt absolutely brilliant. Everyone except the latrine queens and the buffer crew went for a 10-mile, 4am road march in a 50-degree Texas February rain. Jersey and I had to stay back and clean the latrines for an inspection by some higher command.

When the soggy marchers got back they had to stay outside until the inspection was over. Jersey and I and the buffer team smiled and waved at the rest of the platoon. 'Bama later conceded that Yankees weren't so damned dumb after all.

So I have continued to volunteer. Yesterday when we got ready to load the buses to go to the airport in Kuwait, they asked for seven sergeants to be (I am not making this up) Pushers and Counters. The Counters count the soldiers getting on the bus and eventually on the plane. The Pushers keep them moving to get the buses and planes loaded and unloaded. I was a counter, so I counted to 160 three different times as everyone walked past me. I stood out in the sun longer than everyone else, but we were already out for a long time. When we got to the airport, I was stationed at the bottom of the ramp to count the soldiers as they boarded our DC-10 to America. But before I started my final count, the ground crew told the pushers, counters and the officer and NCO in charge of the plane to drop their bags on seats--at the front of the plane! It turns out the pushers and counters got the business class seats. In this old plane, the business class seats are not as good as new planes, but they WAY better than regular seats.

When I volunteered, a couple of sergeants standing behind said under their breaths almost together, "Ain't no f-in way. . ." Seemed like a good trade to me. I slept for almost half of the 15 hours we were in the air.

Just a note on nicknames. When I went through basic the first time the forty recruits in our platoon were from almost as many states, hence the state nicknames. 'Bama, my bunkmate in basic introduced himself as "Leonard Norwood from Sawyerville, Alabama, population 53. I had me a job down the road at an A&P store, but it closed down so here I am. Sawyerville is just down the state highway from Talledega, the biggest racetrack in the world. Did you know. . ." He went on like that for the rest of the basic. By the time I went home on leave after basic training, I had lost my Boston accent forever and spoke with a drawl. 'Bama, Jersey and I went to tech school at Lowry AF Base in Denver and remained buddies. A month later my Dad, my sister Jean and Jean's best friend Mary drove my car--a 1969 Torino Cobra--all the way to Denver. If I remember correctly Jersey wanted to be my brother-in-law as soon as he met Jean and 'Bama was hopelessly in love with Mary.
The last time I spoke to 'Bama he was on disability leave from the railroad and wanted me to come down and see a race at Talledega with him. He is married with grown kids, so he did not wait for Mary to come back to Denver.

Going Home--Day Two

I am still in Kuwait. In fact, I am still at the Air Force base where we arrived.
So after the 6-hour, 200-mile trip yesterday beginning at 0800, I have not moved.

But I did get up at 0500 to find the 24-hour chow hall is not quite open 24 hours and was actually closed till 0530. I could not wait for that and make my 0600 briefing, so I ate a turkey sub at Subway. At 0600 we had a 45-minute gathering to get our flight itineraries. We meet again at 1245 to go through customs outside (forecast high 118) in our uniforms (long sleeved so we don't get cold).

After we go through customs, we load on buses to go to the commercial airport. After that five-mile trip we will wait in tents (although these are air conditioned) until 830pm. At that point we will board the aircraft to the US which will stop somewhere between here and Atlanta for gas and arrive about 0830 Saturday morning. Then at Noon I will fly to Harrisburg, then home.

After this, a commercial flight to anywhere in the world is going to be a piece of cake. On the way back we do roughly the same thing, except losing time so it is longer on the clock. I can't wait.

(This post won't go up on the internet until we have arrived. I don't say anything about troop movements until they are over. --Neil)

Chaplains: Then and Now

During my first enlistment, the chaplains I met were mostly from mainline Protestant denominations including the kind of Baptists who go to seminaries as well as Catholic priests. A chaplain in the 1970s was, in my experience, a well-educated mid-30s and older guy who was well-read, but not scholarly, not very fit, and liked the company of soldiers.

One of our chaplains is exactly that, mainline denomination, pastor of a large church in a small town back home, struggles to stay fit and watch his weight, is affable and friendly. His sermons tend to exhortation and have no hard edges. He went to a denominational seminary, but did no post-graduate academic work.

But every other chaplain I have met so far would have been too strange for the 1970s Army. If the culture was all in a swirl outside the gates, the 1970s chaplains were the recruited in the 60s and were not campus radicals.

Before we left, the chaplain for our battalion was a short, intense Greek Orthodox priest who looked vaguely familiar when I met him. When he introduced, I got one of the biggest surprises of my first months back in the Army. Fifteen years ago, our Greek Orthodox chaplain was the assistant chaplain of Franklin and Marshall College. In matters of politics he on the Left, but he was called to serve with soldiers after 9/11 and had already been on one deployment. In fact he left our unit to go with the Stryker Brigade just a few months before we deployed.

The chaplain at the most recent contemporary Protestant service I attended raised his hands to praise the Lord while the rock band played up front. He preached on sin and called people who wanted to commit their lives to The Lord to come up to the front of the Church. In the 1970s the Evangelical pastors had to be rather circumspect about altar calls. This intense career chaplain, who looks like he could serve on the line with his armor troops, conducts his service just as I assume he would back home.

Another chaplain who I see in the DFAC and out on the bus stops is also an Evangelical. He is a guy who can identify with soldiers. One time I was sitting with him in the chow hall he was talking about how much he is looking forward to the next Dan Brown movie. He loved the DaVinci Code movie. He also liked the Matrix movies. He watches a lot of movies. He plays video games. Again, hard to imagine him serving in the 70s Army.

I have attended the Catholic service at 5pm the last two Sundays just to hear the homily by one of the Catholic priests. This chaplain loves New York. He was educated at Columbia, taught philosophy at Fordham, and after his beloved New York was attacked, decided to serve. He was deployed before and just volunteered to extend his current deployment for another year. He is a big, cheerful guy who looks more at home in camouflage than priestly vestments. (By the way, I have been to three different services with the priest wearing vestments. It still looks weird to me seeing those long white, or purple, red robes worn with combat boots.) While this chaplain preaches at the main base on Sunday, he is not on base during the week. He flies out to smaller bases in the surrounding area to do pastoral counseling at the forward bases.

In addition, there are Gospel services with lay ministers who preach. That is one thing that is exactly the same as the 1970s. When I was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany, in the 1970s, the most lively service was the Sunday night Gospel service. It's the same here. Back then the minister was an sergeant first class from our tank battalion. Here he is a retired first sergeant who came back as a civilian contractor. The choir leader is a staff sergeant. She is on active duty.

The Journey Home Begins

It's getting close to 9pm so the temperature here in Kuwait is just dipping below 100 degrees. It was only 113 today when we arrived at 1pm, but the body armor and helmet we are required to wear for the flight from Iraq to Kuwait make it feel even warmer. An hour after we arrived we were allowed to turn the body armor in at a storage warehouse so we don't have to wear it here. In fact, I turned in my weapon yesterday so I am feeling like a very successful dieter!!! Those pounds just melted away (fr a couple of weeks anyway).

The entire trip from Iraq to Lancaster should take three days, four at the worst. It will take more than a day and maybe two days just to get from the front door of the passenger terminal at Tallil Ali Air Base to taking off in Kuwait--I will spend more than a day and maybe two traveling the first 200 miles from Iraq to Kuwait, then hopefully cover the remaining 6000-odd miles from Kuwait to Lancaster PA.

The trip really began at 9pm last night. I went to the Air Force passenger terminal to find out when my flight to Kuwait would leave. They said I had a report time of 815pm Thursday evening and I would fly out at 1115pm, arriving just after midnight. That plane was full with more than 50 soldiers on R&R leave. There was also a flight at 1130 this morning. I changed my mind five times about taking that one, then the ground crew reassured me I would not lose my seat on the night flight if the day flight had problems, so I took it.

For those of you who think commercial travel is a pain, here's my trip to date:
0800--My platoon sergeant drives me to the terminal in a maintenance truck. I wait in an air conditioned room for 40 minutes, then
0840--The Air Force clerk at the desk collects ID cards and makes up a flight manifest.
0855--We are called to the scale to get weighed with our gear and bags for the flight then we go outside to a tent to wait for our plane. The tent has a vent, but it is already 100 degrees and climbing and we are wearing our uniforms, so we all remain as still as possible and wait.
1045--The plane is 30 minutes away. We go outside and line up to be counted. Then we sit in a pallet storage area because it has shade. It is now 110 degrees.
1115--The plane lands, the cargo is unloaded--just one pallet and we line up again. This time we put on our 35-pound body armor, helmet and bags. We stand in the sun, then ten minutes later the loadmaster says there is manifested freight on the way. We have to wait. So we go back to the pallet shed. The tent is 20 feet from the pallet shed. The air-conditioned building is 30 feet away. We are not allowed in either one. So we sweat. The temp is creeping toward a high of 118.
1150--Pallet arrives. It gets loaded. We put on armor and line up again. Then we walk to the plane--a C-130 Hercules which is lucky for us. The plane is half full and we can slouch in the webbing seats. We must wear the body armor and helmet all the way to Kuwait. We sweat.
1240--We land in Kuwait. The frieght is unloaded and we wait on the plane for a bus. Since we are on the ground out of Iraq, we can take off the body armor. Not everyone does because if you take it off, you have to carry it and it is easier to carry on your back than in your hand. I leave it on. I am reading a new book of Orwell's essays called "All Art is Propaganda." The other folks on the plane are listening to IPods or waiting. No one is talking. We are all strangers and no one is happy.
1300--The bus arrives and we drive to the transient holding area. The bus is air conditioned--Ahhhhh. After a 20-minute bus ride, we arrive for in-processing in Kuwait. Because there are only seven soldiers on R&R leave, the initial inprocessing is quick. They tell us not to write on the bathroom walls or have sex in the tents then sign us into the base.
1330--We walk a quarter mile over rocks to storage warehouse for body armor. A very good natured young captain waits for me as the other soldiers walk to the warehouse. They are walking fast because they want to be rid of the armor. The bone spur in my heel is getting worse and I am walking slow. The captain asks if I am having trouble. I tell him about the bone spur and he seems releived it is not anything worse. I really need to get this thing fixed.
1345--We fill out all the papers and get rid of the body armor. Next we go back to the tent where started and fill out another form. Then we walk several hundred yards the other way and turn in those forms to the people who will arrange our travel.
1405--Now we get tents. Billeting office has three clerks. It takes 10 minutes to get tents for seven of us. Up to this point I was thinking I had screwed up by taking the early flight. Then I remembers that I would have been doing all this paperwork at 2am with more than 50 people instead of just 7. It would have been cooler, but it would have been the middle of the night. And since our report time if 6am, I would have gotten to the tent at 230 am, woken up everyone else in it, then slept very badly worrying about missing the 0600 briefing.

230pm--dropped my bag in the tent and went to the chow hall. Ate a sandwich, went to the Green Beans coffee place, drank a latte and read the newspaper. Then I went bakc to the tent and went to sleep.

620pm--Got up and went to dinner. Met a nice group of guys at the Post Chapel near the chow hall. Went to their Thursday night meeting for while, then got on line and started writing this post.

930pm--going to bed soon. More tomorrow when I find out my flight details.

SUVs are Status Symbols Here

Most of the thousands of soldiers on Tallil Ali Air Base walk or take buses or ride in the back of 5-ton trucks to get where they are going on a post that stretches across dozens of square miles of sand and rock. A few hundred soldiers and airmen ride bicycles. Senior maintenance soldiers get 'Gators: four-wheel-drive golf carts made by John Deere and other manufacturers.

Senior officers, sergeant majors, commanders, and many garrison staff soldiers get SUVs. For Explorers, Chevy Suburbans, GMC Yukons as well as full-size crew-cab pickup trucks by the big three American automakers. The SUVs are the real status symbols around post. SUVs fill the parking lot of the DFAC for each meal near the end of the dining hours when the senior officers eat.

The SUVs are either light silver or white--colors that reflect rather than absorb the heat of the Iraq summer. Hybrids and high-mileage cars may be the cars to own back at home--at least for those of us who live in cities, but here a white or silver SUV is the vehicle to drive.

KBR is Much More Than What is on the News

Before I was here in Iraq, my association with the initials KBR was with whatever bad news was reported about insider contract deals and some sort of shady arrangement that had Dick Cheney in the background like the Emperor in "Star Wars."

But here in Iraq, KBR are the initials on the red ID tag lanyards of the people that are behind all the good stuff for soldiers here at Tallil Ali Air Base. KBR people run the 24-hour House of Pain gym and make sure it is clean, cold water is available and all the various soldier-led classes are scheduled and supported. They run the weekly 5k race, they staff the cyber cafes, the free-phone rooms, the library, the rec centers, the DFACs, they fix the air conditioners, and now they are starting to leave.

In the month I have been here Brook, Jelena, and Steve among many other KBR people have helped me to find the people who run every activity the soldiers in my unit have asked about or wanted to do. The KBR folks are cheerful, helpful and really interested in making things as good as possible for soldiers. But as the KBR contracts expire and others come in to replace them, some of my favorite people are worried about their jobs. It will be a shame if the folks who most want to help soldiers are replaced and cut instead of retained. In the future I will not think of the contract lawyers at KBR, but the smiling faces who serve me food and set up Spin class.

The Silent Guitar Player on the Bridge

On the path between my trailer park home and the gym a 20-foot long wooden foot bridge spans a dry, rock-filled stream bed. The long-timers (who were here last year) say that during the fall rains, the dry stream beds actually fill with water. I've never seen it.

The last four nights as I cross the bridge coming back from the gym or coffee shop a tall (6-foot, 5-inch) soldier in PT uniform (gym clothes) has been standing on the bridge strumming a 12-string electric bass. He has no amplifier, he is just picking the strings.

Last night, curiosity got the better of me and I asked him why he was on the bridge. It turns out that his massive guitar weighs almost as much as body armor (35 pounds) and he supports the guitar on the bridge while he practices for a return to the stage in the fall.

One of our mechanics, a specialist, was the lead singer (if that's the right word) in a metal band before we deployed. He is a huge, bald guy in his late 20s who also kickboxes when he is not singing about eating dead babies or whatever metal songs are about.

But the big, bald dude on the bridge is a 45-year-old captain. He is also a disciple of Metallica, but it seems somehow stranger to me that a middle-aged officer in an active Army armor unit would be a metal performer, than a 27-year-old mechanic. When I wrote about the Gospel Rock Band yesterday, I did not mention that two of the five members will be gone in mid August. The Captain told me one of the chaplains asked him about playing in the Gospel rock band. The captain won't be singing Gospel. He told me he has a residence in Hell.

One of the things I like about being around soldiers is that they tend toward extremes. In a place like this, people don't equivocate. The soldiers that go to Church are there because they want to be. And the soldiers who hope for a home in Hell are ready to tell anyone who asks.

Choir Update--Home in a Week

To the list of choirs I wrote of earlier, I have to add the choir at today's contemporary service at Adder Chapel (from Anthrax to Adder--what's next?). Actually, it's no a choir, but a rock group in camouflage. The two lead singers play amplified acoustic guitars, they are backed up by an electric guitar, an electric bass and a full drum set. These guys really rocked too, they are from units all over the base. One of the singers is an infantry captain, the other is an engineer sergeant. All but the bass player are big guys, over six feet tall and 200 pounds. These are not skinny teenagers with a garage band. They sang contemporary hymns then a completely rock arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" that had me singing along at the top of my lungs.

The Chaplain, whom I met the day before at the DFAC, is a very straightforward evangelical who admires Billy Graham and has an altar call at the end of the service. He had his hands in the air while the band played--unusual at Chapel services except the Gospel service.

And in somewhat related news, if my flights go well, I should be listening to the Wheatland Presbyterian Church Choir one week from today. I get 15 days leave which for me starts when I land in Atlanta after leaving Tallil. This also means if it takes extra time to get back, it is not charged to me as leave. I will have at least 13 days at home, since the first and last day include getting to and from Atlanta.