Happy Birthday!

Friday, 10/6/06

Today I am 48 years old. That was the average age of National Guard majors in 1940, before the big buildup for WWII. At that time this was considered a bad thing - an indicator of the poor shape of the interwar Army.

I’d like to think that thanks to advances in medical care and overall health that 48 is not as “old” as it was then. While I sometimes feel what I think are probably the normal aches, pains, and general creakiness that accompany middle age, I really don’t feel old. As I’ve said earlier, I feel better overall than I have in years – like I’m where I belong, and doing what I’ve always been meant to do.

I started the day with PT, which I haven’t really had time to do much of lately. I even got to bridge, thanks to SFC Gibson at the 641st ASG/MTC, who managed to get me one of the old closed-cell foam sleeping pads to take with me. I always follow my three minute back bridge with ten reps of over-the head leg lifts to stretch my back the other way. That exercise, more than anything else, keeps my back and neck in shape. It’s been a week since I did it (and I was beginning to feel it) but I feel great now!

I had long list of things to do today, since it’s the only day anything will be open on post today due to the holiday. I started off with laundry so I’ll have clean clothes to wear. After lunch (microwaved pizza from last night) I went to clothing sales for some small items (although they didn’t have the magazine pouches I wanted), the commissary to get some food for the weekend (so I don’t have to eat out all the time), and the alteration shop to get some sewing done. Now I have sewn-on rank on my boonie hat and helmet cover, and a nametape on my gym bag.

I saw the coolest thing while walking back and forth on my errands. On the way to all the PX facilities, I walk past the old parade ground, a very large open park (probably about ten acres or so) in front of the old post headquarters. It’s kind of a cool place – it’s surrounded on all sides by old, majestic oak trees, and the streets on both sides have very old red brick buildings – senior housing one side (Staff Row) starting with the CG on the corner and the CSM next door, and big old brick barracks on the other side (Troop Row). At the far end is the old post HQ building, with the flagpole in front of it. It’s very picturesque – I can easily imagine horse cavalry and soldiers in campaign hats formed up on the parade ground. Last night there was a huge orange harvest moon overhead and I just stopped and looked at it for awhile.

Today on the way back from clothing sales I saw a very large hawk (I’m not sure what kind – my friend Cynthia the Falconer would know) just standing in the field about 50-75 feet from the sidewalk. It had a freshly-killed squirrel and was just starting to feed on it. I was very surprised to see it so close, and slowed down to look at it as I walked by. After passing it, I stopped and watched it awhile. I must have made it nervous, because it picked up the squirrel and flew away. I say “away” advisedly, because although it angled away from my position, it actually flew closer to the sidewalk, and stopped in the shade of a tree about 20 feet from the walk. I watched it for a couple of minutes and then turned around and went back to my room.

I put away my groceries and collected the stuff to take to the alteration shop, and left about twenty minutes later. Surprisingly, the hawk was still there. This time I walked very slowly and did not turn my head to look directly at it, but looked at it sideways from behind my sunglasses. It didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, so when I came up even with it on the sidewalk I stopped and watched it for awhile. It was busy feeding, and I was so close that I could actually hear the sound of the squirrel’s flesh ripping as the hawk tore off chunks with its beak. It was way cool! I didn’t want it to get nervous again, so I walked slowly past it and went on my way.

Imagine my surprise when I came back another forty-five minutes later and it was still there! I guess they don’t eat fast. Once again I slowed down as I approached, and it just kept feeding. I paused briefly to look back at it after passing by.

When I walked by again later, the hawk was gone, so I went over and looked at the remains of the squirrel. It was quite a sight. The hindquarters (the parts that have the most meat) weren’t touched at all. The head and forelimbs were also intact, but were peeled back like a banana. The spine was sticking out, and was picked clean, as was the entire body cavity. It looked kind of like a popsicle that’s had the paper peeled back and been completely eaten, with just the stick left poking out of the paper. My falconer friend told me that when she hunts with her birds, she gives them the heart and liver (since those have the nutrition they need) and she keeps the parts we think of as “meat” for herself. I didn’t realize when she told me this that it replicates the way the birds eat in the wild.

You get used to seeing crows and seagulls and other scavengers feeding on scraps and road kill, but you just don’t get to see a raptor and its prey like that very often. I guess it was my birthday present from Mother Nature. :-)

Speaking of the outdoors, I really enjoy the poetry of Robert Service – he lived around the turn of the last century, and at one stage of his literary career he wrote a lot of poems about life in the Yukon, including the well-known winter campfire tale “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. I have a volume of his work at home which I almost brought along, but ended up leaving behind (the only book of poetry I decided to bring was the complete works of Kipling – maybe now I’ll actually read it!). There is one Robert Service poem that I have identified with since the first time I read it many years ago. I think that it describes me and my life in many ways (although not completely, I hope!). Since a birthday is inevitably a time of both reflection and looking forward, I will include the poem here:

The Men That Don’t Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

- Robert Service

Now that I’ve picked up on the second half of my Army career, perhaps this will turn out to be my “proper groove”. I’ll be doing my best to make a deep mark. :-)

Mood: Happy
Music: North Sea Gas – Lochanside (Two Recruiting Sergeants)

Farewell to Ft. Benning

Thursday 10/5/06

Today was my last day at Ft. Benning. I was up late Wednesday evening packing my gear so I’d be ready to clear and depart quickly after we got done today. We got another early start and headed out to the TSIRT site for weapons and tactical training.

The tactical training was very basic stuff that everyone has had before, but they view it as an important level-setting tool to make sure everyone at least has the basics. Of course it’s been a very long time since I did the basic infantry stuff, and some things have changed, so it served its purpose with me.

As we were standing in an extended formation working on immediate action drills (e.g. “Target right! Ready! Up!”, after which you turn to the right and engage the targets with your M16), I had to laugh. People pay big bucks to go to tactical rifle courses – some of my friends have done so. And here I was, at the finest infantry school in the world, getting paid to learn it because it’s part of my job. :-)

After we finished that we crawled around in the dirt for awhile refreshing our memories on the low crawl, the high crawl, advancing under fire, clearing obstacles, etc. I could have done without the sand down my pants, but I guess it was my PT for the day. And now all my nice clean new equipment has had a baptism of the red Georgia clay I remember so well from OCS and Airborne School.

Then we went inside for weapons training. We broke out into classes based on our assigned weapons, so I was in the M9 pistol class. That was pretty boring for me, but I went through the motions – what are you going to do? I’ve never fired the M9, but the internal mechanism is nearly identical to the Walther P-38, with which I am very familiar. I ended up helping the woman next to me, who was an IG officer and didn’t know anything about it. I wasn’t too happy with the way they taught us to lubricate the pistol either, but that is largely a function of where you’re stationed and what works best under local conditions, which they pointed out. We basically went to the range with dry guns, which is a recipe for malfunctions. But I followed their regimen.

We went to the range and went through the standard Army rigmarole, and finally got to the firing line to shoot. It was a pop-up range, which was fun. They had a series of magazines with different numbers of rounds loaded in them, and told us which ones to use for each table of fire. Then a series of silhouette targets would pop up at different distances, sometimes one at a time and sometimes more than one. We had to engage them before they disappeared. We had ten rounds of familiarization fire first, and then 40 rounds to engage 30 targets. A passing score (“Marksman”) was 16 hits, Expert requiring 26.

I did pretty well, but was disappointed because I missed two targets (this is not a hard range for an experienced shooter). My first miss was at the farthest target, with a one-round magazine. I was so ticked off to have missed that I didn’t reload quickly enough – I might have been able to get off a second shot had I done so. I just didn’t think of it in time. My other miss was during a 5-round string during which my pistol jammed on every single shot. Each time I fired it, it jammed and I had to clear it before the next shot. I still hit every target I saw, but my attention was focused on the pistol and I didn’t notice that the last target was actually two – one behind the other. I knocked the first one down and only then did I see the second one behind it. It disappeared before I could clear the pistol for a second shot.

The coach on the firing line said it was a bad magazine. So now I’ve experienced the reality of what I read about earlier – poor quality or worn out magazines leading to malfunctions with the M9. This is exactly why I spent $250 on brand-new high quality magazines before I left - so I’d have my own and not have to worry about this problem. Given the type of jams I was experiencing, it is possible that with proper lubrication the gun would have continued to function despite the bad magazine. I also think it could have been a worn-out recoil spring. But there’s no way to know, and it’s not my assigned weapon, anyway, so it doesn’t matter at this point. I’ll see what they issue me when I get there and deal with it then. I also brought along my own cleaning supplies and lubricants – I intend to keep my gun running properly once it’s issued to me.

I was hoping for a perfect score, but still managed to fire expert under somewhat adverse conditions. So I felt pretty good about it.

After that they drove me back to the company area and I went through outprocessing. I just had to put away my gear from the range, re-pack my backpack for travel, and check out of the unit. A few papers to sign, turn in my linen and room key, and wait for my ride. He arrived literally at the moment I was signing the last form, and we loaded up the van and left.

I got in to Ft. McPherson and checked into Army Lodging again. Last time I had a nice roomy suite with two rooms and lots of space. Now that I have a huge pile of stuff to sort through and re-pack, I am in a very small single room. I had difficulty even find a place to put everything while it was still packed! It reminds me of Groucho Marx in his stateroom in “A Night at the Opera”. I have no idea how I am going to sort it all out, but I’ll manage. It will be interesting. :-)

So now I’m here for four days, at least. I’ll get to an internet connection sometime to upload this entry, but for now I’m essentially incommunicado.