Brad's Excellent Adventure

Atlas Shrugged

2011-04-16T06:26:00.022+03:00

(Note: ~!@#$% Internet Explorer and its formatting BS!) After decades of false starts, they finally made a movie out of Atlas Shrugged. It premiered today, and I went to see it. :) I had to drive over 80 miles to Raleigh, as there were no theaters in Fayetteville showing it. But it was worth the drive! It's been a long time coming... I'll tuck this into my hardcover copy of the book. Movie Website: http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/ I have read a number of different reviews of the movie, some good, some bad, mostly mixed. Several of them are here on this fan site: http://www.atlas-shrugged-movie.com/ I think that liberals and Democrats will hate it because of the ideas. Many conservatives will look for reasons to dislike it because it's by Ayn Rand. And at least some Objectivists are likely find fault with it, either because it's not perfect or because their faction didn't produce it. My assessment is that it was a good movie. It certainly was not perfect, and had some moments where the acting felt flat. It also felt a bit rushed and disconnected sometimes, simply because they had to cram so much into so little time. But it also had moments that brought tears to my eyes - watching the blue rails of Reardon Metal being laid, and the first run of the John Galt Line were high points. There were also some very pithy scenes highlighting the differences between the moochers and the producers. I'll throw in my own $.02 criticism here - I think they lost of a lot of the potential impact of the running of the John galt Line by not developing the idea of the volunteers. Dagny tells off the union sleazeball who wants to stop the engineers from running the train, and tells him she'll call for volunteers. But that was the end of it. In the book, every engineer in the company volunteers, and the senior engineer gets to drive the train. There are threats against the line, and when they take the first run there see ordinary people, hungry for the sight of an achievement, lining the track for hundreds of miles, guarding it from harm. By leaving out this aspect I think they lost a lot of the meaning and emotional impact of that scene. I still enjoyed it, but I don't know how much of my own emotional reaction is due to the movie itself, my knowledge of the more complete context of the book, or happiness that the movie is finally a reality. Probably a mix of all three. All in all I think it should have a positive effect. If it gets more people reading the book, that will be a very good thing. And it's certainly quite timely - the images and events in the movie bear an eerie similarity to what's been going on in our country for the past few years. I think it will resonate and get people fired up to keep resisting and reversing what has become "business as usual" in Washington D.C. and the state capitols. As I was getting in my car to leave, I saw a group of people walking up for the next show carrying signs and a yellow Gadsden flag ("Don't Tread on Me"). That was kind of fun. If I let my imagination run away with me, I can even imagine some blathering, posturing, grasping Democrat politician being tarred and feathered by a crowd coming out of the movie. (Dream on!!) In sum, it was a well-spent, pleasant evening. I'm looking forward to Part II and Part III. I hope they come out soon (before the election would be awesome!) Mood: Happy Music: None

DONSA

2011-01-15T00:39:00.007+03:00

Friday 14 January 2011
1645

During my in-processing at Fort McPherson, I came across a posted schedule that showed today, Friday 14 January, as “DONSA”. I thought to myself at the time, “Oh, for crying out loud, what kind of BS made-up ethnic pseudo-holiday are they cramming down our throats NOW?

Later on I found out that it’s actually an acronym. It stands for “Day Of No Scheduled Activity”. They use it for creating four-day weekends out of holidays when Monday is already a holiday. With no scheduled activities (e.g. meetings, conference calls, etc.), people are able to take time off if they want to extend the weekend. Civilians take leave if they want to, and for military personnel it’s considered a Training Holiday (read: “Day Off”). I had never seen this particular acronym before, hence my reaction. Chalk up another one to my ongoing education in Government-Speak.

It turned out that today was not a DONSA after all, because Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all snow days, and yesterday was a late-start day. So they made today a regular work day unless you already had travel plans for the weekend. Even though it’s starting to warm up and there hasn’t been any more snow, many of the roads here are still pretty bad. Without salt on them, they freeze over again at night making early morning (or even late afternoon) driving treacherous. So today was also a late start and early-out day. Perhaps by next week it will be more like normal.

I spent most of today filling out my questionnaire for a security clearance. So those of you who know me, don’t be surprised if a government agent comes knocking at your door asking questions sometime soon. I didn’t do anything wrong! It’s just what they do before they grant higher-level clearances. I understand they are very thorough.

I also spent about two hours trying to get three simple personnel actions done. Of the three, only one is completed – the other two are in an indeterminate state. By that I mean that our efforts to complete them were thwarted by various malfunctions, and it’s unclear whether they actually were entered correctly. At one point there were three government civilian employees clustered around a computer discussing how to get it to accept the form for my SGLI (Soldier’s Group Life Insurance). They never did get it to work, so we printed the form, I signed it, and they will send it via snail-mail. I give it about a 25% chance of actually being posted to my file, but we’ll see. I still have a copy of the SGLI form that I completed when I demobilized at Fort Benning, and it was never posted. This new one is identical to that one. Maybe this time it actually will get done. Your tax dollars at work…

Back on the subject of Government-Speak, I saw a sign on my way out of HQ FORSCOM today that really made me chuckle:

I guess “Designated Smoking Area” is not sufficiently clear. So somebody came up with “Tobacco Product Usage Facility”, or TPUF (undoubtedly pronounced “tea-puff”). Only on a government installation… you just couldn’t make this stuff up!

Soon after seeing the sign that made me chuckle, I saw one in the commissary that made me cringe:

What caught my attention initially was the misuse of quotation marks. This bothers me, but because the misuse of quotation marks and apostrophes is so endemic and widespread, I probably wouldn’t even have said anything. But then I saw the second sentence and just about dropped the items I was carrying. It’s very hard for me to believe that someone in management could actually put this sign up, but there it is in black and white. Really inexcusable.

I sent a comment form to the commissary management through their website. I figured it wouldn’t really do any good to talk to the people in the store, since they don’t know enough to correct it themselves. In fact, one lady saw me taking the photo and asked me why. When I pointed and told her it was of the sign, she made it clear that she had no idea what was wrong with it.

What bothers me the most about seeing signs like this is that children are likely to read them and think they are correct. No wonder we are raising a society of illiterates!

Oh well, just another day in the Army…

Mood: Ready for a long weekend
Music: Christophe Eschenbach, Mozart Piano Sonatas

Snow Days

2011-01-11T19:10:00.004+03:00

Tuesday 11 January 2011
1111

That’s right, it’s 11:11 on 1/11/11, kind of a cool date (FWIW, I also remember 12:34 on 5/6/78).

So, welcome to the “Sunny South” . For the second day in a row, Fort McPherson is closed along with almost everything in Atlanta due to snow and ice.

When I heard yesterday morning that the post was closed, it was a bit hard to believe. I had been out cleaning the ice off my Jeep getting ready to go in when someone told me the news. I went and looked online, and sure enough, it was closed. I made several phone calls to see if this really meant the military personnel weren’t going in, and didn’t get any answers or get any calls back. So I guess they really weren’t there.

Being from Michigan, it was kind of hard for me to appreciate how a little snow and ice could completely paralyze a city, but they just aren’t prepared for it down here. They don’t have the equipment such as plows and salt trucks to handle it (at least not in sufficient quantities), nor are the people used to it. This makes driving in icy conditions especially perilous. One person I talked to who’s been here awhile but was originally from Minnesota advised me to “get to high ground, stay put, and watch, because winter driving here is a spectator sport”.

To be fair, conditions are pretty extreme. Even in Michigan I’ve never had such a thick layer of ice on my car. You’d be better off with ice skates. It was quite a job just to walk to the restaurant next door. When I went there to eat, I thanked the people for being at work, and they told me that the restaurant was putting them up at the hotel. Ditto for the people here at the hotel – they are just staying here in empty rooms rather than driving back and forth to work.

All the news is about the weather, and I have to say that I’m not sorry to be here instead of on the road – it looks like driving would be quite an adventure.

If I had more to do at the office I might go in anyway, but my computer still wasn’t working when I left on Friday, and there won’t be anyone there to help me get it working. So I can’t even sit and read files about my new job. There would be literally nothing for me to do. So I’m trying to keep busy here preparing travel vouchers and doing other admin tasks.

I’ll be glad to get to work – it seems strange to be sitting here weather-bound after all the times we went to the field in extreme winter conditions in Germany back in the 1980s…the Army is supposed to be able to operate in weather like this but I guess the city of Atlanta can’t.

Mood: Cabin Fever
Music: Clicking keyboard

Back in the Saddle

2011-01-06T03:36:00.003+03:00

Wednesday 5 January 2011
1945

Once again, I am back on active duty orders. I am serving as a Training Operations Officer in HQ FORSCOM, at Fort McPherson, GA. I reported in yesterday.

When I went home on 1 November, I was still on active duty, using up all my leave (so-called “terminal leave”). That lasted until 27 December. Although technically still on active duty, it was a completely relaxing interlude, almost like being back into my civilian life. I spent most of my time visiting family and taking care of various items of personal business.

I had spent a lot of time and effort trying to get new orders that would keep me on active duty with no break in service. This was important for a number of reasons, but mainly because a break in service interrupts *everything* in terms of pay and allowances as well as entitlements. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in this attempt, and had a seven-day break in service until my new orders started on 4 January. I received these orders just before Christmas, so I had enough time to plan my move and get everything organized. Naturally there were some things I didn’t get done, and I’d have loved to have been able to spend more time with my kids, but there is just never enough time to do everything you want to do. :-(

I balanced my time taking care of things during the entire leave, but the real countdown started after New Years, when I had to gather up all my stuff, pack it in my trailer, and head for Atlanta. I left on Monday 3 January, and drove to Knoxville TN where I spent the night. It was a nice drive, tiring but not so long as to be exhausting. I had a nice steak dinner at “Connor’s Steak and Seafood”, and was up early the next day to hit the road again. It was a beautiful drive through the hills, and made me want to get out and spend some time in them on foot.

Because I was taking some of my firearms with me this time, I couldn’t just drive onto Fort McPherson with my trailer. So on Tuesday I drove wearing my uniform, planning to drop the trailer at whatever hotel they were going to put me in, report directly in and start in-processing, and then go back and get it later. That plan worked out very well, despite a Housing bureaucrat who had a very difficult time thinking outside of her process, not wanting to tell me what hotel I’d be at until she saw my orders.

I got to Fort McPherson at lunchtime, and so could not reach anybody in my section. I just started in-processing, and managed to get quite a lot done on the first afternoon. Then I went in to meet them around 1600 or so. They seem like a nice group of people, and it is kind of cool to be working in FORSCOM HQ.

The hotel they have me in is not fancy, but it is adequate. It is a Drury Inn. The room is a decent size, with cable and internet. The room rate includes breakfast in the morning as well as a decent spread of hot food at night from 1730 – 1900. So far I haven’t gone to a restaurant. The room has a microwave and a refrigerator, so as soon as I can get out to a store I can lay in some things for lunches as well as evening munchies (just what I need!). The idea was that I stay here while on the waiting list for a contracted apartment, and move into that when one comes available.

This morning I got up and went in and finished my in-processing for the installation. Garrison HQ, Battalion HQ, Company HQ, security, housing, transportation, Finance, EMILPO, ID/DEERS, TriCare, Medical, etc. All I have left now are the various things to do internally such as getting a phone, computer, and access to various systems. I won’t go into the details of some of the screwed-up-ness during remobilization. It’s familiar enough by now that I just try to ask the right questions and get whatever it is straightened out as soon as possible. But it is the same old story of being a mobilized Reservist, and having your stuff fall through the cracks. The seven-day break in service bit me more than once.

This afternoon I went over to pick up my Jeep that had been shipped from Germany. As far as I can tell there was no damage, although somewhere along the line somebody peeled off (read “stole”) the Swiss Autobahn sticker off my windshield. I was going to leave it on there as a souvenir, but now there’s just glue residue. I wrote a note to the shipping company, but I don’t really expect I’ll get any reimbursement for it.

I still have almost everything to learn about my job, but I have found out some things about it that clarify my immediate future living situation. Since Fort McPherson is closing, everyone is moving to Fort Bragg, NC sometime this year. I will be going to Fort Bragg around mid-March. This means that it hardly makes sense for me to move into an apartment. I talked to housing about it today, and they agreed that it makes more sense for me just to stay here at the hotel until I leave for Fort Bragg. I plan to have my unaccompanied baggage delivered here ASAP. It will be somewhat crowded in the room, but I have to have this stuff so I can pack it up and take it to Fort Bragg.

The main task I have to do now besides learning my job is to get the registrations switched on my Jeeps (I really want to keep the “MCRGO” tag), get a trailer hitch put on the 2008, and sell the 1999. I think I ought to get pretty good money for it, as it has been well-maintained and Jeeps hold their value well because people want them to fix up. I will spend some time over the next couple of days taking care of that, as well as getting my UB delivered. With any luck, by the weekend I’ll be able to get as settled in here as I’m likely to get, and focus on learning my new job.

It was nice to have a vacation, but it’s great to be back!

Mood: Happy
Music: Aerosmith “Back in the Saddle”

Demobilizing at the CRC

2010-10-29T13:19:00.019+03:00

Friday 29 October 2010
1500

It’s been an interesting week. I have spent it demobilizing at the CRC (CONUS Replacement Center) at Fort Benning, Georgia. Inasmuch as CONUS is an acronym for “Continental United States”, CRC has the dubious distinction of being an acronym within an acronym. I wonder how many more of those there are in the language?

Fort Benning is a large Army base in central Georgia, known as the “Home of the Infantry”. Among other things it houses the Infantry School, Airborne School, Officer Candidate School, Infantry AIT (Advanced Individual Training), Third Infantry Division, U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, U.S. Army Sniper School, and the School of the Americas (or whatever they call it now). The CRC is kind of a mini post-within-a-post at Fort Benning. It’s a fenced-in area out in the boonies that basically consists of barracks, a DFAC, an MWR building, a gym, a PX, and some administrative buildings. It’s a self-contained life support and command-and-control area for individuals and units deploying to and redeploying from the theater. Its presence here is what makes Fort Benning a so-called “Force Projection Platform” from which the army can launch expeditionary forces overseas.

When I mobilized and deployed in 2006, I didn’t come through the CRC like many other people. I mobilized through the 641st MTC, which was located on main post. We only came out to the CRC for some classes a couple of times. My impression then was that the 641st was for individuals and small groups, and the CRC was for larger groups of people. It seemed cumbersome and crowded, and I was glad to be at the 641st instead. They were nimble and flexible, and got us through the process of mobilization pretty quickly.

When the time came to demobilize, I found out that the 641st was no longer in operation, having been disbanded. Their mission was folded into the CRC, which now handles everybody. Based on my earlier impressions, I was not looking forward to the process at the CRC.

I flew into Atlanta on Saturday, and got here on the shuttle from Fort Benning about 1730. Groome Transportation had a shuttle from the airport to downtown Columbus, and then from Columbus directly to the CRC for about $35 or so. I signed in with the Staff Duty NCO, got assigned a room, drew linen, and asked what came next after I got settled in. The staff duty told me there was a formation at 0530 on Monday morning. Monday?? What about Sunday? Sorry, nothing going on on Sunday – Sunday is only for “Freedom Flights” coming in from theater. I was what they call a “walk-in”, and so no services for me on Sunday. Lesson one: Don’t bother to get here on Saturday unless you want to waste a day.

I went to my room, got settled in, and then went to the DFAC for dinner. After dinner I explored around a bit, then went to bed. Since it was six hours later for me, jet lag was catching up.

On Sunday I walked around and took a few pictures of the place:

This is the pavilion where we were to have our formation on Monday morning to get started.

This is the little PX at the CRC. It is surprisingly well-stocked, as these little PX’s usually are. I like the signpost out front, telling how far it is to various hotspots around the world.

This is the main street of barracks buildings as seen from the PX. There is another row of barracks (out of sight in this picture) on the right side of the road.

This is my room. I guess I should have made the bed in a more military-like manner for the picture. Oh well, give me five demerits.

This is the next road over showing the back of our barracks on the right. On the left is one of several gazebos, the gym, the MWR facility, and the DFAC. In the far upper left is Delta Company, which handles redeployments (people returning to demobilize, e.g. me).

I spent most of the day Sunday at the MWR center. It’s a nice little building with a bit of everything. Computers, cubicles with electrical outlets if you want to use your own laptop on wireless, telephones, a couple of pool tables, and several different TV rooms where movies are playing pretty much constantly. The internet computers are free, but if you want to use your own laptop you have to pay for wireless services. It’s not too bad - $9.50 a day, $24.50 a week, or $39 a month. About the same as it was when I was here in 2007 at the WTU. I paid for a week, as I didn’t think I’d be here longer than that (knock wood!)

The overall first impression I got was of a well-run, well-maintained little operation. The rooms and latrines are clean, people seemed to know what they were doing, and the civilian support staff was very friendly.

I had been a bit worried about the beds but was pleasantly surprised. While they are the typical mattress-on-a-spring military bunks, they are pretty solid and the mattresses are firm. I had no issues with back support, which was a big relief. A week on a crappy mattress can make me very uncomfortable these days. I guess I’m just not 19 anymore…

Monday morning I reported to the pavilion. There were a couple of other people there, but no formation. After a few minutes I went up to Delta company to see what was going on. Sure enough, the staff duty had told us to go to the wrong place. So I went back and got the others and we went to the company, where the process was starting. This was the first of many minor missteps.

It is worth pointing out here that many (perhaps most) of the people I was with had not seen the CRC website before coming here. Somehow nobody told them about it, and they had not read the instructions or the projected schedule of activities. They were significantly handicapped by this, because they were at times missing essential documents which they had to scramble to find on short notice. So if you are coming to the CRC, read the website:

https://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/197th/crc/

It's best if you have an idea what to expect before you get there, because there are a lot of people and you don't want to get lost in the shuffle and miss things. In our particular case, we were only the second group processed by this rotation of cadre, and they were still sorting themselves out. There was a noticeable improvement in their organization as the week progressed, but there were still some issues with coordination. If you know what to expect, have all the documentation you need prepared in advance, and stay on top of the process, you will be much better off.

We all got a folder with a clearing checklist on it (sound familiar?). The idea is that you have to go to all the stations or have all the briefings, and have each one signed off on before you can leave. The folder also contained a lot of forms. I was ahead of the game, because on Sunday when I was looking for something constructive to do, I had come into the Delta Company building and saw the folders on the table. I took one for myself and filled out all the forms. I thought this might buy me some time through the week. If you’re the first one at a station to have your form filled out, sometimes you can go first. If you are done at a station early, sometimes they take you back to the company and let you keep going. I really wanted to be out of here on a plane by Friday!

A point of clarification – when I say “stations”, these are actually different places around Fort Benning, outside of the CRC. They are far away, so you have to travel there on a bus or a van, process as a group, and then come back to the CRC to check in before going on to the next activity. The CRC staff has to coordinate with all these activities to ensure that we are cleared to go there before they send us, so we can’t just go willy-nilly to wherever we need to go next. There is a lot of down time because of this, but it is essentially unavoidable.

First stop was the CIF (Clothing Issue facility). I had already turned in all my stuff and cleared in Germany. I had a printout of my clothing record that showed “No items issued, no items outstanding”, with a red rubber stamp that said “Cleared CIF”. This, however, was not good enough. I still had to go to the CIF at Fort Benning so they could make sure. We rode out to the CIF in a bus, went through the briefing and prep (Buggies are inside on the right, go all the way down, dump your gear in the farthest open buggy, remove all tags, tape, disassemble your helmet, etc, etc). Everybody complied, and the three or four of us with no gear to turn in stood on the sidelines and watched as the others began to turn stuff in. Eventually they told us to go ahead to the other side, to “Final Clearance”. These people printed out a copy of my clothing record from their computer. It said “No items issued, no items outstanding”. They stamped it with a rubber stamp that said “CIF cleared”… Oh, that’s *so* much better. *Now* I understand why I had to come all the way out here…

We waited quite awhile for the other people to finish turning in their gear. I was not optimistic about the process, because nothing else was scheduled for the day but CIF turn-in. I asked what we would do and they said that would be it for the day. It was not even 0930 yet, and we were supposed to be done?! Great. The one thing we had going for us was that we were a pretty small group – less than 20 people. So each station didn’t take nearly as long as it could have. The fact that we got done relatively early let them move us along faster.

When we got back to the CRC, they told us that we would be having a series of briefings that afternoon. We sat in a big room and started knocking out the briefings on the checklist. We had a legal briefing on our rights as returning servicemen, as well as the legal resources available to us. We had a chaplain’s briefing that included post-traumatic stress, family reintegration, and suicide prevention. We had a briefing on transition assistance such as job search, education, and VA resources. There were some others, but since I don’t remember them offhand I guess they didn’t make much of an impression. But at least the people in Delta Company were making an effort to move us along in the process. The sooner all these briefings were done, the sooner we could leave.

Tuesday morning we had to go to the “Med Shed” to begin our medical processing. The first step was to get a TB test if we needed one. I knew I didn’t need one, as I just had one and had not been exposed to any risk factors since. But of course I had to go out with the group and show them the documentation to prove this. That’s the process. After that we went to audiology for hearing tests. The Army does this at the beginning and the end of every deployment both to ensure your hearing is up to snuff and also to document any potential hearing loss during active duty. This took a long time because the equipment was malfunctioning, but we eventually got through it.

After that we went to Dental and had a cursory dental exam. The Army has a new policy of not releasing anyone with serious dental problems before they are fixed. By doing this they raise the odds that the people will remain deployable. My teeth were fine, so I was done there as well.

During all of this waiting I was using every spare moment to read my Nook. I started the WEB Griffin “Brotherhood of War” series again (I read it about 20 years ago, but had donated the whole set to the Camp Grayling Officer’s Club.) It’s *way* too easy to buy and read books on the Nook – I’ve read more in the past three weeks than I had in the six months before that…

That was pretty much it for Tuesday. They couldn’t send us anywhere else until Wednesday morning. When we got back to the CRC, I continued looking into a matter that had come up when I read one of the forms on PDMRA leave. I had thought I would be required to sell back my accrued ordinary leave when I got released from active duty. I learned here that this was not required – it is also possible to get an extension to active duty orders in order to take the leave. This is a very advantageous approach, because you stay on active duty, collecting all applicable allowances, retaining eligibility for benefits, and accruing retirement points. If you sell back your leave all you get is the base pay. Furthermore, you are only allowed to sell back a total of 60 days in your entire military career. If you go over that, you just lose it.

The official policy guidance is that commands are supposed to let you take all your leave while you are assigned to them. If a reservist approaches the end of an assignment with accrued leave remaining, they are supposed to release you early so you can take it before your orders expire. This has several negative effects, however. If, like me, you are working on continuous back-to-back active duty tours, you rarely have extension orders in hand in time to make that decision. Furthermore, units in the field are always short of people and overworked on their missions. It’s hard enough for them to get a replacement assigned in time to have any overlap (what the Army calls “left seat/right seat time”) when you can teach the new person your job. If they have their people leaving early to take their remaining leave, it becomes almost impossible to do effective handovers, and impacts the mission. So many units simply don’t let people depart early to take their leave, and they arrive at the CRC with excess leave accrued.

There is a pretty straightforward process in place to request an extension to your orders, but it requires a memo signed by an O6 (Colonel) explaining why you were not able to take your leave during your tour. With that memo, the CRC sends a request in to HRC (Human Resources Command) and your orders get extended long enough for you to take your leave while remaining on active duty.

Because I had three tours in the combat zone where you are limited on the amount of leave you can take, I went into USAREUR with leave accrued. Although they were generous in allowing me to take leave there, I accrued still more, and ended up with almost two months of leave. So this was a significant issue for me.

I used their example O6 memo, modified it to reflect my personal situation, and sent it back to my section in USAREUR with a request for signature. The people here at the CRC said that it could take anywhere from 72 hours to a week for HRC to process the request once it was sent along with the memo, so this automatically meant I would *not* be out of here by Friday. It was worth it, though, considering the difference it would make financially.

Wednesday morning were headed out to take care of the rest of our medical processing. Before we left, I saw that I had a response from my section that they had sent the O6 memo to the G3, because that is who handles all reservist affairs in HQ USAREUR. This was a disappointment to me, as I know those people and knew they would give me problems. They were the same ones who had denied our extension requests. But my O6 did not want to sign it, for whatever reason, so I would have to rely on the G3. I went on to the day’s activities with a feeling of foreboding.

So we went to finish our medical processing. We had to go and get our medical records checked, answer a bunch of questions on a PDHA (Post Deployment Health Assessment), get our vital signs and blood taken, and get our immunizations and TB test checked and updated if necessary. I got a prescription refilled so that I’d have enough to last until I come back on my next set of orders.

Wednesday afternoon we were supposed to go to Finance, but I could not go with the group because I did not yet have my extension order from HRC. Until that is resolved they cannot process you through finance. So that part of my processing was on hold. In fact, that was my official status: “Admin Hold” for leave processing.

Meanwhile, when we returned to the CRC on Wednesday, I had an email from the Major in the USAREUR G3 who handles reserve affairs. It was about what I should have expected – a skeptical and supercilious note questioning why I hadn’t planned ahead and left early enough to take my leave. He knows exactly how it happened, but nonetheless took the position that it was unjustified. I wrote him a reply, and then called him on the phone to ensure he’d gotten the email. The conversation was not encouraging.

As much as I’d like to, I will not name names because of OPSEC. But I will say that the officer in the HQ USAREUR G3 who handles reserve tours, who I will call “Major X”, is a (expletives deleted due to family considerations) slick-sleeve with a “can’t do” attitude. We’ve all met people like him in our professional lives – he’s one of these people whose first response to anything you ask him is to come up with reasons why it can’t be done. I could tell just by talking with him that his primary objective was to avoid any responsibility for the situation and that he would do absolutely nothing meaningful to try to get the memo signed.

Note to anyone in a position of authority in HQ USAREUR, USARC, or HRC who might read this: Major X has been in his comfortable office at HQ USAREUR for four years, which is about two years too long. He desperately needs to be deployed to Afghanistan. This will not only remedy his slick-sleeve condition by permitting him to wear a combat patch, but it might also help him begin to get a clue about how somebody serving in the combat zone could manage to accrue excess leave. Another beneficial effect would be to get somebody in there who could actually take care of reservists instead of doing whatever it is he does all day now.

Fortunately for me, someone I ran into here had a proposed solution that sounded like a good “Plan B”. The requirement is for a memo, signed by an O6, which explains why you did not take your leave at your last assignment and requests an extension so you can take it. It does not seem to matter who this O6 is. If you can find an O6 who will review your documentation and sign the memo substantiating your reasons for needing the extension, that seems to meet the requirement. In anticipation of my own command jerking me around and eventually not providing me with a signed memo, I executed “Plan B” and submitted the request for extension that afternoon.

Thursday morning I wasn’t supposed to do anything because I was finished with all the other stations, and was just waiting for my extension request to be approved before I could continue. When I went in to Delta company in the morning, the first thing they handed me was my request for extension, approved by HRC. They had processed it literally overnight – HOOAH! That was a totally unexpected bonus. This meant that I could go to finance that afternoon, and perhaps be out of here by Friday after all. Some others also had gotten their extensions. We were told to be back by 1215 to go to finance.

I checked my email during lunch, and sure enough there was an email from Major X. He said that Colonel K “was not supportive” and would not sign my memo. Surprise, surprise. I called one of my counterparts back at my section in HQ USAEUR to tell her about “Plan B” so that she could let the other reservists know how to get around this jerk when their time comes to leave.

After lunch we went to Finance. Their building had no air conditioning, and it was HOT. Other than that, it was a very pleasant experience. We got a briefing on the requirements for filing our travel vouchers, and then we each sat down with a finance specialist to go over our financial records, compile a leave record, and prepare for our final out-processing at AG. It was quick and efficient, and we were out of there in less than two hours.

Friday morning was our final processing through AG (Adjutant General). This is the final station where they look at our service record and prepare the DD 214, the discharge certificate. This is an essential document for a number of purposes, and it’s important that it be correct and complete. My most recent DD 214 was from 1985, when I was last released from active duty. A lot has happened since then, so I had spent some time when we were in between appointments printing out information from my online permanent record (awards and decorations as well as service schools attended) so that they could be included on my DD 214.

That’s right, I said printing it out. It’s online, stored on a computer system at US Army Human Resources Command. But if you want it on your DD 214, you have to show up in their office with printed copies. They cannot or will not look at your online record. If you don’t walk in with a printout, it doesn’t go on the form. You’d think they would have some sort of online compilation of the things that go on a DD 214 so it could just automatically be printed out for you, but they are not that sophisticated. So now I have a folder with all that stuff in it on paper.

We went through the process of preparing the DD 214. It was a bit tedious, and was complicated by the fact that they were having computer problems. But we got it done, and I now have a DD 214 releasing me from active duty on 27 December 2010, as well as a leave form putting me on transition leave until that time.

We are completely finished and released. I have my DD 214 in hand, and am scheduled on a flight home. Overall I have to say that my initial concerns about demobilizing through the CRC were misplaced. The cadre was conscientious and did a very good job, especially considering that they were still in learning mode when we arrived. It was about as efficient as something like this can be.

Because of the uncertainty about when I’d be finished getting my leave sorted out, my girlfriend and I had changed our plans. Because she was here in Atlanta for the week on business, we had originally planned to try to fly home together on the same flight on Friday. When it looked like I’d have to stay here until next week, we changed her flight to Sunday so we could spend the weekend in Atlanta. Now that I’m released, we are still planning to spend the weekend in Atlanta, and we are flying home together on Sunday. I’m looking forward to it, and to getting home.

Mood: Happy
Music: Nena: Ich Bin Hyperactive

Farewell to Germany

2010-10-22T19:43:00.036+03:00

Friday 22 October 2010
1900

Today is my last day in Germany. Tomorrow I fly back to the USA. How did this happen?

When I was home on leave in August, I (and everyone in my section) fully expected that I would extend for at least one more tour here. I had planned to stay for something like 3-5 years, depending on circumstances. I certainly didn’t expect to be leaving after only one year.

While I was gone in August, they submitted my extension paperwork as planned. Our higher headquarters, however, had plans of their own, and denied the extension. Their reason was “budget cuts” – everybody has to cut back to meet the savings mandated by Secretary of Defense Gates. While it is true that budgets are being cut back, in reality this was also a political move within USAREUR. There was money available for reservist extensions, but the G3 controls those funds and simply cut the DCSENG off so they could keep their own people. It was up to my bosses to fight back in this political tug of war.

I had some inkling this was coming about a week before it was officially announced, and warned them about it, but they were still pretty sanguine about the prospect of my extension being approved. When the official announcement came on Thursday 26 August, they were caught by surprise (almost like deer in the headlights, it seemed to me). They did mount a campaign to get their positions approved, but unfortunately they didn’t move fast enough for my comfort.

Knowing how long it takes to get orders approved, and also knowing how long it would take me to prepare to move and clear the command, I figured I had a maximum of two weeks to find a job if I was to have any hope of remaining on continuous active duty when this tour ends on 31 October.

The same day I heard that my extension was disapproved I went into high gear on a job hunt within the Army. My preferences were to 1) stay in Heidelberg 2) stay in Germany 3) stay in Europe 4) stay on active duty wherever I could get a position (preferably *not* back in the combat zone - three tours in a row there were enough for awhile). My other major objective was to get the new orders effective 1 November, so that when these orders ended on 31 October I’d stay on active duty with no break in service. That way my pay, benefits, leave, etc. would not be disrupted.

It was a hectic week, with emails and phone calls flying fast and furious. As a veteran executive recruiter with 14 years in the business, I know how to conduct a job search. In addition, my experience finding this tour in USAREUR had helped to educate me about the specific nuances of finding a job in the Army. So it was a very busy week, as I contacted every major command headquarters in Europe that might have openings suitable for me. One by one they were eliminated – it seems everyone was being asked to cut back, and hunkering down. It was a “perfect storm” taking place right at the end of one fiscal year before the start of the new one – everyone being asked to economize and justify their positions, and everyone scrambling to save the people already in their sections. Not much opportunity for an outsider to step in.

Of course, I could have volunteered for Afghanistan and been picked up in a heartbeat. There are plenty of openings there. But there are also plenty of “slick sleeves” running around (people with no right-shoulder patch indicating service in a combat zone). Besides, I am frankly just not all that enthusiastic about moving back into an austere environment yet if I can avoid it. That preference eliminated a whole raft of opportunities. Nonetheless, there were other openings out there, and exactly one week from the day I found out I couldn’t stay here I had two job offers in hand – one at TRADOC in Fort Lee, VA, and one at FORSCOM at Fort McPherson, GA (which would move to Fort Bragg NC in the Spring or Summer). Since my bosses weren’t making any headway on keeping me here, I evaluated the two jobs and accepted the one at FORSCOM on the evening of 2 September. They sent me the required forms, etc., which I completed and returned the following week. After some discussions about the detailed mechanics of how I’d come on board, I sent my final paperwork in on 10 September.

I informed my current bosses in USAREUR that I had found a new assignment and told them they could stop tilting at windmills trying to keep me. I think they were a bit taken aback by this – I know they wanted me to stay, and were doing what they could to try to convince their higher that they needed the funding allocation approved for me. But I think they somehow thought they had more time to work on it. I don’t know what they expected – if they thought I’d just sit on my hands and wait, or what. But this is my career and my livelihood, and I can’t just leave it to chance. So I told them I’d do my best to finish strong and leave things in good shape, but that I was committed to the job at FORSCOM.

The people at FORSCOM had the best outline I’d ever seen of the various options, requirements, and restrictions for Reservists serving on active duty (if anyone out there wants a copy, email me and I’ll send it to you). In a nutshell, a Reservist can spend up to 24 months on a mobilization (12 months plus one extension), and up to three subsequent years on COADOS (Contingency Active Duty Operational Support) tours. After serving that total amount of time, if you want to stay on active duty you must demobilize and remobilize to “start the clock” over again.

I have already served two mobilization tours and two COADOS tours, so I was looking at my third COADOS tour at FORSCOM. The fly in the ointment was that in order to make my tour in Qatar contiguous with the end of my tour in Kuwait I had started it early, making it a 15 month tour. As a result I only had 282 days left on my COADOS authorization, and they were looking for at least a 365 day commitment. There was a little more to it than this (PCS vs. TCS, where and when to move, etc. etc.) but the upshot of it all was that it made the most sense for me to go ahead and demobilize through Fort Benning, and then remobilize into FORSCOM. This will give me a clean slate with no restrictions on my service for the next five years. Since they emphasized that they are looking for some stability and longevity in their personnel, this suits me just fine.

With the request for orders duly submitted to my prospective new command, I turned my attention to the requirements for wrapping up my current position and clearing USAREUR. Just under two months may seem like a lot of time, but given all the things that had to happen it was a very hectic period. For one thing, demobilizing takes time, and Fort Benning requires that you report back a week in advance. Once I consulted their website

https://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/197th/crc/

for the details, I determined that I needed to fly out on Saturday 23. Oct. Next I contacted the Heidelberg CPF (Central Processing Facility) to learn about the clearing process and set appointments for the various required activities. I had previously made plans for a leave in October, which I still intended to take. Stringing all these dates together, we determined that I would start officially clearing on 28 September. So in reality I only had a little over two weeks to close out my job and prepare to brief my successor.

I took care of that (and did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself). I started into the clearing process on 28 Sepember, with the projected schedule as follows:

28 Sept – 7 Oct, clearing and preparation to move.
8-11 Oct – USAREUR Holiday weekend
12-16 Oct – Leave
17-18 Oct – Final preparation to move
18 Oct – U.S. Customs inspection of household goods
19 Oct – Household goods pickup by movers
20 Oct – Ship Jeep to the USA, inspect and clear quarters
21 Oct – “Final out” – i.e. final military clearing process
22 Oct – Buffer day
23 Oct – Pop smoke and fly to Fort Benning
24-31 Oct – Demobilization and return home.

It all went pretty much as planned. Moving is supposed to be one of the most stressful things that people do, and I guess I felt some of that stress. What made it particularly “interesting” was that I had to prepare my stuff to go to four different places. Since Fort McPherson is closing due to the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closing) Commission mandate, I will only serve there temporarily for a few month before moving to Fort Bragg. Since I’ll be TCS on this tour, my household goods can only move under my current PCS orders. Therefore my household goods had to go to Fort Bragg. Since I won’t be there for something like four to six months, I had to send enough stuff to Fort McPherson to live there in temporary mode for awhile (“unaccompanied baggage”). Because there would be a fairly substantial delay in getting my orders processed (a minimum of 60 days after the request hits DA), I needed to be prepared to live at home for a month or more, so I had to send home some civilian clothes and other necessities in a footlocker (U.S. Mail). And of course, I have to carry everything I need to demobilize back with me to Fort Benning. So the run-up to moving day was somewhat stressful – I’m usually pretty calm about things but I have to admit I felt the strain of making sure I didn’t accidentally pack something I was going to need in the wrong shipment, thus putting it out of reach. But I got it done.

One of my major objectives in this clearing process was to try to clear the CIF (Clothing Issue Facility) here in Germany rather than at Fort Benning. The Army issued me a huge pile of stuff when I mobilized, which I’ve been carrying around with me ever since. Some of this clothing is mine to keep, but most of it (things like the backpack, sleeping bag, ammo pouches, canteen, armored vest, helmet, protective mask, entrenching tool, etc. etc. remain Army property and have to be turned back in at some point. ) The CIF at Fort Benning wants you to take it all back and turn it in there. I had a struggle with them when I was first assigned to USAREUR, as they actually wanted me to go there first and turn in all back in. That made no sense to me, so I pushed back and managed to get sent directly here without a side trip to Fort Benning dragging two duffel bags full of stuff to turn in at the CIF.

Now that it was time to leave USAREUR, I was no more enthusiastic about dragging those duffel bags around than I had been when I came here a year ago. Fortunately the CIF here in USAREUR saw things my way, and allowed me to turn everything in here. So now my clothing record is clear and I don’t have to carry anything back with me except my personal clothing and the necessary records and forms. I expect that the people at the Fort Benning CIF may raise a fuss about this, but I really don’t care. The Army has all their stuff back, my clothing record is clear, and I don’t have to schlep a bunch of crap through the airports. :-)

An interesting and somewhat challenging aspect of the clearing process was getting my personally-owned pistol home. Since I was planning to stay here awhile, I was in the process of getting my German WBK (Waffenbesitzkarte, or Weapon Possession License) for sport shooting. This would allow me to purchase firearms and ammunition, store them at home, and transport them to the range for shooting. As a dedicated sport shooter and firearms collector, having been cut off from my firearms since September 2006 has been a heavy burden. I was really looking forward to being able to pursue the sport again here in Germany. To that end I had purchased a .22 pistol at the Rod & Gun Club (it’s a High Standard Supermatic Citation – cool little gun!). I had to leave it in storage at the Rod & Gun Club while I went through the German government’s bureaucratic requirements for getting a license, but at least I could go to the club and shoot regularly during that process. I was well on the way to finishing the requirements when I found out I had to leave, but there was not enough time left to get the license before the end of my tour.

The Catch-22 here was that without that license, I was not allowed to transport my pistol away from the club. Many people have found themselves in this predicament, and have simply abandoned their firearms at the Rod & Gun Club (the pistol I purchased there was one of these). But I am nothing if not persistent when it comes to guns and shooting, and I was determined to get my pistol home. Some phone calls and pointed questioning of various officials revealed that I could go ahead and register the pistol with USAREUR under the restriction that it had to be kept in the arms room (i.e. Rod & Gun Club). Then I had to get an ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) Form 6 approved for importation (minimum processing time – 60 days). Finally, I had to find someone with the appropriate German weapons license (in this case a Jagdschein, or hunting license) who could sign my pistol out from the Rod & Gun Club and deliver it to my house for the movers to pack with my household goods shipment. Fortunately for me one of the guys at the office has a Jagdschein and agreed to do this for me.

I got the ATF Form 6 filled out and submitted. I followed up a week later with a phone call to the ATF, and they were very responsive in expediting the processing of the form and getting it back to me in time for the move. I have to say that demeanor of the nice lady at the other end of the phone stood in sharp contrast to my deeply-held opinions about the dangerous, faceless jackbooted stormtroopers of the universally-despised “F Troop”. I was cordial to the lady, and did appreciate the service, but never lost sight of the fact that these bureaucrats are part of a vast machine that is primarily devoted to stripping us our gun rights and to putting us in prison or killing us if we get in their way. I’m sure there were friendly, helpful individuals in the Nazi bureaucracy as well, but that didn’t make them legitimate or respectable. Similarly, the fact that these people were helpful doesn’t diminish my opposition to their very existence or that of the laws they enforce. As I once read on a T-shirt: “Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency”. :-)

Another interesting process was shipping my Jeep (“POV” - Privately Owned Vehicle, in government-speak). You are only allowed to ship a POV at government expense if it is specified on your orders, and normally this is only done if you have at least a two year tour. Since this was a one year tour, I was not entitled to ship a POV. Back when I bought it, the powers-that-be explained to me that when I got my extension, we could put the POV shipment authorization in the extension order and I’d be able to send it home. So I bought an almost-new Jeep, fully intending to send it home. Surprise – no extension, no POV shipment authorization. Now what?

At home I have a 1999 Jeep Wrangler with 175,000 miles on it. Here I have a 2008 Jeep Wrangler with 15,000 miles on it. Not a hard question to decide which one I’d rather drive. But shipping it home at my own expense was still not an easy decision. It cost nearly $2500 to do so. I suppose that according to a very strict economic analysis, it might have made more sense to sell this one here and get another one once I got home. But that analysis would depend on a lot of assumptions. Since I got this Jeep with less than 6,000 miles on it from someone who was apparently just as dedicated to proper maintenance as I am, and since I’ve put some custom accessories on it and become attached to it, there were some objective as well as some emotional reasons impelling me to keep it. Not only do I like *this* Jeep, there was no guarantee I’d get a good price for it, nor any guarantee I’d find one this good for as little money once I got home. Besides, selling it would take time, and then I’d have to rent a car, and…, and…, and….call it rationalization if you like, but I decided to keep my Jeep and ship it home. So that was a process, which I learned about and went through. The most “interesting” part of that process was when I examined the title document and realized that the seller had improperly completed the transfer to me. She seems to be gone from Europe now, so I was on pins and needles for a couple days until customs examined my documents and determined that they were sufficient to prove clear title and allow me to ship the vehicle. So I had it shipped to Atlanta along with my unaccompanied baggage, where it will be waiting for me when I start my new job in December.

The process of clearing before my leave started involved finding out the information about the above requirements and making all the necessary appointments and other arrangements, as well as all the other clearing activities that needed to be accomplished. Now, to a military person who’s been through the process, the term “clearing” immediately communicates a whole constellation of activities, with a concomitant understanding of both the physical and psychological implications of the process. But (as I have been informed) to an uninitiated civilian, the concept is a little mystifying. How can it be that complicated and take that long? What’s the big deal?

Basically, what clearing involves is going around to every military and civilian support activity in the community, telling them you’re leaving, and getting them to certify on your clearing papers (via a signature and rubber stamp) that you have been there and complied with whatever process or requirements they have. At the library this means you have no books checked out. At the clothing issue facility it means you have turned in all your gear and settled up financially for anything you may have lost. Medical records, dental records, housing, finance, vehicle registration, battalion headquarters, company headquarters, and a whole raft of places have to sign and stamp your form. Some have to be completed before others can begin. Some have limited hours, or will only clear you a certain number of days before you depart. Some are a two-minute process, some take hours on end. It’s neither simple nor fast, but it Is inescapably necessary before you can depart. I did as much of this as I possibly could before going on leave, so that my last week could be a smooth as possible.

Sidebar on my personal activities – as the timeline indicated, my trip to the border ("Cold War Memories") was on the weekend after I started this process. That was my last free weekend alone in Germany. I’d still like write about the rest of it, but it doesn’t really fit here. We’ll see. On the following weekend, my girlfriend arrived for a visit (I know, we’re not boys and girls anymore, but “ladyfriend” sounds way too stiff and formal). We had a delightful nine-day interlude. We spent the first night and day in Frankfurt, then came back to Heidelberg for a couple days. On Monday we drove to Prague, which is a really cool city. I highly recommend it as a destination. We walked around the city, taking our time seeing the sights and spending a lot of time just sitting in cafes and restaurants reading our books (well, our Nooks, but that’s a different story). It was a very relaxing week. By the time we returned on Friday, I was thoroughly unwound and felt ready to finish preparing for the move. Of course, I got wound right back up again once we got back and I saw all my piles of stuff waiting to be sorted, but it was a wonderful last experience in Europe for us, and I’m really glad we got to do it.

This past week played out more or less exactly as planned. The movers came Tuesday and took all my stuff. After shipping my POV on Wednesday morning, I rented a car and then cleared my quarters. I cleared vehicle registration that afternoon in preparation for my “Final Out” day on Thursday. After that day was done I stopped at the post office and mailed back all the files I won’t need at Fort Benning so I wouldn’t have to carry them around. I took care of the last couple of details at work, and settled in to enjoy my last hours in Germany.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a long walk up in the hills above Heidelberg. Last night I had a nice dinner in a local Gaststaette. I woke up today and had a nice breakfast, then set out to enjoy the day. I returned my rental car, then walked downtown. I had a nice lunch in a favorite restaurant, then walked up to the Philosopher’s Way one last time. Teresa and I had a spot up there that we called “Our Gate”, so I sat there awhile smoking my pipe and thinking about the last year and everything that’s happened. Then I walked down, took a streetcar back to the hotel to pick up my computer, and settled in at a café to write this blog entry.

Tonight after I post this I’ll have one last meal at the little restaurant up the street where I had my first meal after returning to Germany almost a year ago. I have been feeling a little bit wistful about leaving Germany. It’s earlier than I thought it would be, and it’s probably the last time I’ll be able to live here for an extended period. I speak fluent German, am very comfortable with the culture, and feel almost as “at home” here as I do in the USA. So the opportunity to return here to live and work once more has been very special and meaningful to me.

But I’m not as reluctant to leave as I thought I might be. I have found during this process that I’m excited about the change. Although I certainly have some regrets about leaving here, the opportunity to go back to the USA and be closer to Teresa and to my family is a very enjoyable prospect. It opens up a whole set of possibilities that seemed out of reach only a couple of months ago. Despite the fact that I love living in Germany, I feel ready to leave – it just feels right.

Tomorrow at 0600 the airport shuttle will arrive to take me to Frankfurt Airport, and I’ll be moving on to a new chapter in my life, both personally and professionally.

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland! Es war eine schoene Zeit.

Mood: Reflective
Music: Nena – In Meinem Leben (from "Made in Germany")

Cold War Memories

2010-10-05T12:57:00.027+03:00

Tuesday 5 October 2010
1300

During the height of the Cold war in the early 1980s, I was a company-grade officer (lieutenant and captain) in a combat engineer battalion in Germany (23rd Engineers, 3rd Armored Division). The U.S. military was there to guard the border between the NATO nations and the Warsaw Pact nations, to counter the threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Our job was to provide mobility and countermobility support to the maneuver forces (infantry and armor). That meant helping them get where they wanted to go on the battlefield, and making it harder for the enemy to move so they could be targeted and destroyed.

I spent as year as a bridge platoon leader building various types of fixed and floating bridges (mobility). Then I was assigned to be a combat engineer platoon leader in Charlie Company supporting 1/36 Infantry. My job was to support the commander’s plans for defense with a barrier plan (countermobility). This would have employed my platoon to put various obstacles in the way of the enemy, such as minefields, road craters, and blown bridges. The maneuver forces would then overwatch these obstacles with artillery and anti-tank weapons, prepared to engage the enemy as they slowed down to breach the obstacles.

This past weekend I decided to visit my old defensive sector. My intent was to drive around and look at things, remember the past, and see how it had changed. I also planned to drive into the former East Germany for the first time. I imagined that this in itself would be kind of an emotional experience, since we were never allowed to go there when I was here before – they were occupied by the “Threat” forces (we never called the Soviets the “enemy” since we weren’t actually at war).

My sector was in a small valley on the Haune river north of Hunfeld, part of an area known as the “Fulda Gap”. This is an area roughly centered around the town of Fulda, consisting of relatively easier terrain in between mountain ranges, and is one of the historical invasion routes across Germany. I drove up on Saturday morning following our old convoy route from Hanau. I climbed the winding road up the hill from the Haune River, and stopped at the top where I could see out over the little valley that we were assigned to defend.

The photo above is looking west from the vantage point where the first Soviet tanks would have emerged into the valley after climbing up from the river. U.S. forces would have been dug into the treeline in the background. The little village in the left center is Wehrda, a small farming community.

I drove down into the valley and stopped in the village for a few minutes. The names of the other villages in the valley were quite familiar to me, as they were all in our defensive sector – Rhina, Schletzenrod, Niederaula. The name of the mapsheet was “Hunfeld”.

I drove across the valley to Schletzenrod, where I could get a view back to the east.

Schletzenrod celebrated its 850th anniversary this year. The last time I was here I was also in a jeep, but it looked a bit different than this one!

Above is the view to the east from just outside Schletzenrod. The hill in the distance is just on the other side of the Haune River, and is called the Stoppelsberg. It has a castle on top called Burg Hauneck, built in the 1300s. When I did my first map reconnaissance of the area after being assigned to this sector in 1982, I thought that would be a good place to go to get an overall view of things. I spent Thanksgiving weekend that year driving all over my new sector, getting familiar with every part of it – every road, lane, and cowpath, every village, field, patch of woods, and fold in the ground. I went to the castle and was rewarded with a magnificent 360 degree view. I could see my own sector to the west, and also the area to the east where the enemy would come from. Technically that was not in my sector, but was rather the covering force area where the Cavalry would operate to find and fix the enemy advance. But it was a great observation post. I spent the night on the tower so I could see everything in both darkness and light, at sundown and at dawn.

This is the gate of the castle, with the partially-reconstructed tower that now serves as an observation platform.

Here is a view looking west into my sector. The village of Wehrda is visible at left center. Schletzenrod is on the far right.

This is the view looking east from the tower of Burg Hauneck. It was very misty, but you can just make out a line of six volcanic hills that we called “The Three Sisters”. It was a very distinctive landmark, right along the border of the former East Germany.

This plaque describes the history of the castle and the various knights and factions that controlled it over time. Given the purpose of my own visit, I felt a very tangible connection with this history. Here on this same spot in 1392, the Knight Simon von Hune earned the gratitude of the residents of Bad Hersfeld for protecting them from an invading force. As historical monuments often do, it kind of put my own life into perspective, and caused me to think about things that endure versus things that pass. I thought of the movie “Gladiator”, and what Maximus said to his men before the battle: “What we do in life echoes in eternity”.

I decided to visit the village of Rasdorf, which was a bit further east, right along the former inter-German border. One salutary effect of the closed border was to create a zone where wildlife could flourish unmolested. As a result there are a number of species of plants and animals found here that are endangered elsewhere. The entire border area is now designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

During the Cold War we were not allowed to get closer than 1 kilometer to the border (the so-called “1k zone”). This was to prevent potential border incidents. Only the cavalry was allowed in there, and they regularly patrolled the border fence, as did the border guards on the other side. A map recon had shown me that there was a place on a hill just outside of Rasdorf exactly 1km from where the border turned a corner. You could see miles of border fence and guard towers, and at the corner you could see all the layers of the border installations in cross-section. In 1983 I had taken my platoon to that place. I wanted them to see for themselves how the border was set up to keep the people living in the east from escaping to the west. My hope was that this would give them an appreciation for why we were there.

On this visit I planned to actually go down to the border and look for traces of it. I knew it would be mostly eradicated, but I hoped to find some remnant of where it had been, just to feel the historical significance of the place. I had no idea what I was in for!

I drove to Rasdorf, and then tried to find my way out of town onto the little dirt road I remembered. But things had changed in 27 years, and I didn’t find the exact place. But while driving around I did find some traces of the border, and I saw a tower in the distance that looked like a guard tower. I also saw a sign that said “Point Alpha” and something about a museum, so I followed the signs. I came to what looked like a U.S. installation, with a huge parking lot full of cars and a lot of people gathering. I parked and went and asked what it was all about, and was told that it was a ceremony marking 20 years of German reunification. Dignitaries were present to lay wreaths at a memorial, and they were giving tours of the museum. It turned out that, unbeknownst to me, a U.S. Cavalry outpost (Point Alpha) had been located right here on the border, just a couple of kilometers from Rasdorf. It had been turned into a museum, and I had accidentally happened along on a most propitious day to visit.

This monument and the wreath-laying ceremony commemorate the reunification of Germany in 1990.

The wording on the back of the monument is a quote from Willi Brandt, and says “Now grows together what belongs together”, and also says “We are one people!”.

This is the view inside checkpoint Alpha. I didn’t spend too much time on the museum exhibits here, as I had lived it myself. The uniforms and vehicles could have come straight from my own unit.

The flagpole here had a plaque in German explaining how the Americans held the flag ceremony every day, raising and lowering the flag with a salute. It also explained the way the flag pole was mounted. Rather than being planted in the ground, it is mounted above ground on brackets. This was to symbolize that we were here as invited guests, not as occupiers of conquered territory.

This shows the overall layout of the border. The tower on the right was one of the types of guard towers used on the East German side of the border. There was a continuous line of these towers, all in view of one another and manned 24x7, down the entire length of Germany. The tower on the left is inside the American observation point.

This is a better view of the border installations. Just out of view to the right is the East German guard tower. Moving from right to left are a concrete two-track patrol road, an area where guard dogs patrolled on steel cables, an anti-vehicle barrier, and then the fence. The fence material was razor-sharp to prevent people from climbing it. In some places the area between the barrier and the fence had anti-personnel mines buried in it. Also, in the later stages, as people continued to escape, the communists put mines on the fence itself, at knee, waist, and shoulder height. These were activated by motion sensors and would explode if someone tried to climb the fence. The actual border was over on the left, west of the fence. This is what communist countries had to go through to try to keep their citizens from fleeing the so-called “workers’ paradise”.

The two-track road is now set up as a “Lehrpfad” or “Teaching Path” with plaques explaining aspects of the Cold War and the history of the border installations.

While I was standing on the spot where I took the above photo, a group of people were gathered around the model of the dog. As they moved off, one lady stayed behind, facing away from me, just looking at the fence. As she turned towards me and began to follow her group, she glanced at me and then quickly looked down. For some reason, as she passed, I felt the need to say something, and so I said (in German) “I never in my life thought I’d be standing on *this* side of the border”. At that point she looked up at me, and I saw her eyes were red, and she was upset. She started to say something, and then started to cry. She said “I didn’t think it would affect me this way.” She was silent for awhile, and then continued: “I came out of the East with my husband and child in 1974 – we just couldn’t stay any longer. There was no future there”. There were tears streaming down her face and she was quite upset, so I reached out and took her hand to comfort her. She went on to tell me that they had been “built in” to her brother-in-law’s car, in a secret compartment. Her baby was only 1 year old at the time, and she was worried he would cry and give them away as they crossed the border.

I found that I was quite moved, and had some difficulty maintaining my own composure. I commented that it had been a very difficult time, and told her a little about myself. I told her I was an American soldier currently serving in Germany, and that I’d been here as a child when the wall went up because my father was in the Air Force, and how I had served here in the Army in the 1980s. I told her I had come to visit my old defensive sector to remember how it was back then, but had not expected to find the museum or all the people. We talked a little more, about various things. At one point she looked over at the fence, and said “Look at that fence! They had enough material to put that up the entire length of the country, but do you think we could go to the store and buy anything to build a fence of our own? Not a chance! But young people now, they know nothing of the DDR (East Germany).“

Then she looked up and noticed that we were alone, and said that she had to go rejoin her group. As we parted, she started to cry again, and she said “Thank you for coming here today, and thank you for all the years that you were here for us.” And then she walked away, down the same road where military vehicles had once patrolled to keep her and her countrymen from escaping to freedom.

You can imagine how I felt after that encounter. Certainly I felt something of a sense of personal pride and gratification, but I felt much more distinctly a sense of the way that you often hear recipients of medals for heroism say they feel: that they didn’t do anything special, but were just doing their job as part of a larger undertaking. I felt that she was not thanking me personally, but that for her I embodied all the American servicemen who had served on the frontier of freedom during the Cold War, and that her “Thank you” was really directed to America itself. It brought home to me, in a very poignant, visceral way, the hope for eventual freedom that we had represented to the people who were trapped in the East under communism for all those years. It was really quite a remarkable experience.

I went on to visit a companion museum on the eastern side of the former border, focusing on the East German border experience. I didn’t take many photos, but there was one example of a Trabant, or “Trabi” in military service that I had to take a picture of:

This was for all intents and purposes the only car an East German citizen could hope to own. It was a real piece of crap, and the waiting list to get one was years long. The body was made of some sort of fiberboard (e.g. cardboard) and the engine was like a lawnmower. They are sort of a symbol of the differences between East and West at that time.

This photo is looking west towards Rasdorf from the former border zone. The sign says: “Here, until 22 December 1989 at 11:00, Germany and Europe were divided.” I saw similar signs on every road that crossed the former border.

This is a walking path along the former border leading away from the East German border museum. My fears/expectations that all signs of the border would be eradicated was misplaced – they have made quite an effort to ensure that future generations have enough reminders to remember what it was like.

By the time I was finished at the border, it was about 4 or 5 PM on Saturday afternoon. I still had the rest of the weekend ahead of me, and I want to write about my trip. But I think this is a logical stopping point for now. To be continued…

Music: Silence
Mood: Reflective

Three Museums

2010-09-25T19:36:00.039+03:00

Saturday 25 September 2010
2000

Over the course of the past few months I have visited three different firearms/military museums. I meant to write about each one right after I visited, but for various reasons I never did. Now I thought I’d sit down and write a post incorporating all three visits. Chronologically it’s out of order, but at least it’s thematically coherent!

The first one was the Wehrtechnisches Museum in Koblenz. This translates as “Defense Technology Museum”. It is owned and run by the Bundeswehr (German Army) as a sort of research and technical reference facility. I visited this museum at the end of May.

The drive to Koblenz was cool – I drove up the Rhine valley past the Loreleifelsen and lots of vinyards and castles. Most of them were hollow ruins, but this one was in very good condition.

I stopped in this small town and wanted to get something to eat, but they told me I had to move my car because there was some sort of bicycle race coming through town and the road would be closed soon. So I just kept going.

When I got to Koblenz and looked for the museum, at first I thought I was in the wrong place. My GPS told me I was there, but I didn’t see anything. There was a Bundewehr building that said “Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung” - “Defense technology research collection”). Eventually I realized that this was the museum. http://www.warmuseums.nl/gal/066gal.htm

Admission was free with my military ID, which was a nice surprise. And once inside, I was very impressed. This museum is awesome! There are four floors, and way more stuff than I could possibly take photos of or even stop to look at in any detail. A lot of it I simply walked through, looking more closely and reading the display placards when something caught my eye. It really was a research collection, very well documented with many examples of the technological evolution of various weaponry and military equipment.

The first floor was crammed full of artillery pieces and also had a large room full of vehicles. I took photos of just a few of them.

The Mi-24 (Hind) was the main Soviet attack helicopter back in my Cold Warrior days. It was heavily armored, basically a flying tank. This is closest I ever got to one, and I’m not sorry I never saw one on a battlefield.

This StuG III was one of the few WWII armored vehicles they had (I was disappointed there weren’t more). It is an assault gun/tank destroyer.

They had several nice military motorcycles, including this Harley-Davidson. If I ever get a motorcycle, I’d love to have a military version! The plexiglass and blue support poles were a major annoyance, though. They made it very hard to get good pictures.

BMW

Not sure what this one was.

The second and third floors were interesting, but not my specialty. They had a large variety of weapons and equipment of various types. By the end of the third floor I was beginning to get tired, but dutifully climbed up to the fourth floor, where I was treated to an absolutely stunning display of small arms, which are my particular interest.

Now, if you’re not interested in firearms you’re going to get bored pretty quickly here. I am a gun nut, am especially interested in military firearms, and am *very* especially interested in 20th-century military firearms. So I was in hog heaven, as the saying goes. One thing that I found especially interesting was that many of the firearms I wrote about in my C&GSC paper (see my blog entry from 15 June 2008) were represented here. From this point forward I will mainly just label the photos, and comment only when I have something extra to say.

M1903A4 – U.S. Sniper rifle

Mauser Sniper Rifle – I never saw one with this type of scope and mount before.

HK Sniper Rifle

G43 Sniper Variant – semiautomatic. Note the quick-release scope mount.

Small arms spare parts kit

Mauser spare parts kit

StG 44 on mannequin.

I noticed that all the mannequins had shaggy 1970’s hair. Why not cut it to match the period represented?

Chauchaut.

This is one of the worst machineguns ever made, and certainly the worst one ever issued to American soldiers. Since America entered World War I without a general-issue machinegun, we had to rely on the French Army. They gave us these, which were absolute pieces of garbage. American soldiers were reported to have deliberately destroyed many of them so as not to have to carry them into combat.

M1919A4.

This, on the other hand, was a very fine John Browning design, and was the U.S. general-issue machinegun of World War II. My G.I. Joe had one of these, and I desperately need a real one for my very own. I envision a WWII Willys Jeep with one of these on a pintle mount so I can ride around my property out west shooting it Rat Patrol-style. Someday…

MG 34

MG 42

Lewis Guns.

This was a World War I design. They were used by the infantry, and also mounted over the wings of some fighter aircraft, such as the SE5a. The pilot had to stand up in the cockpit to change the drum. I read one account of a pilot with a stuck drum whose plane flipped over and left him hanging by the drum. Suddenly he did *not* want it to come off! (Could be apocryphal, but it's still a good story - wonder if *that's* in Snopes.com? If I check everything there I won't have any more stories to tell...)

Enigma Machine.

This was the German code machine that was supposed to be unbreakable. The allies had some high-powered mathematicians who figured out how to build a machine that could break the code, giving us a major advantage for the rest of the war. (And, incidentally, starting the computer age...)

The next few photos were a really cool exhibit, and an example of why this museum was so superior. The exhibits went into some detail explaining the history and often the function of the weapons shown. In this case, it was the “Zundnadelsystem” that we know as the “needle gun”. This was a major development. It gave the German Army a significant advantage in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. I never really had a clear idea of how it worked, but now I do.

Needle Gun Bolt

Needle Gun Description

Needle Gun Action

Needle Gun cartridge and bolt cross-section showing how the needle on the firing pin penetrates the back of the cartridge, strikes the primer inside the cartridge, and fires the gun.

Overall view of the needle gun exhibit. A very well put-together exhibit in a very well put-together museum.

Mauser Model 1896.

This pistol is another firearm that I desperately need to own someday. Winston Churchill carried one when he participated in the last major horse cavalry charge in British military history at Omdurman in 1898. (Did you know that the blaster that Han Solo used in “Star Wars” was one of these pistols with a few extra pieces stuck on?)

M1 Prototype placard.

According to this placard, the next rifle is a prototype M1 carbine.

M1 Carbine Prototype.

How on earth this museum ever got ahold of this rifle is a mystery to me. It is an extremely rare and important piece of firearms history. I would think that it belongs in the Cody Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming, the NRA National Firearms Museum, or the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum. But I’m glad I got to see it.

G41 (top) and G43 (bottom)

MP-18

This is a World War I German submachinegun. Notice that it uses the “snail drum” magazine from a P-08 Luger pistol.

MP 40

This was the main German submachinegun of World War II, just like you see in every WWII movie ever made. (Well, almost – ironically I have a German-made WWII movie from the 1950’s that used really tacky, inaccurate substitutes – go figure). You often see it designated as the MP 38/40, as the two designs were so similar that most people can’t tell them apart.

FG-42 first and second models

"Fallschirmjaeger Gewehr" means "paratroop rifle".

The following series of photos and placards trace the development of the first true “Assault Rifle” (the literal meaning of Sturmgewehr). Competing designs were submitted by Walther and Haenel in 1942. The Haenel design, after incorporating some improvements from the Walther, was chosen for further development into the models 43 and 44.

StG 42 W (Walther) Placard

StG 42 W

StG42 H (Haenel) Placard

StG42 H (showing Walther version underneath)

MP 43 Placard

MP 43

MP/StG 44 Placard, also showing the ammunition

MP 43/StG 44

I remember reading about the following gun (HK G11) in the gun press when it was first developed. Heckler and Koch developed a caseless cartridge that is completely consumed when fired. Since it doesn’t need to eject an empty cartridge case, the mechanism doesn’t need a reciprocating bolt, but rather uses a rotating carrier to feed the cartridges. The absence of this large moving mass makes the weapon much more controllable. It also stays cleaner because it is a closed system, venting only gas. Apparently it never went anywhere, but what a cool idea! (Of course, handloading would be a thing of the past with this system….)

G-11 Schematic

G11 ammo and magazine

G11

G11 Placard

A few weeks later I took the train to meet an old friend (my roommate from when I was here in the Army in the 1980’s). We spent the afternoon at a museum in Sinsheim. http://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/en

Sinsheim 1848 Freiheit memorial

This memorial commemorated the 1848 revolutions in Germany. You can see the partial word “Freiheit” (Freedom) written in a spiral on the column.

This was more of a vehicle museum than a firearms museum. It had an extensive collection of military vehicles, which made it of particular interest to us. It did also have quite a lot of firearms on display, but I didn’t take too many photos as I thought the Wehrtechnisches Museum had much better presentations and there was nothing really new here in that area. They did have a lot of ancillary equipment and uniforms that were interesting, as well as display cases full of various related items like ID papers, personal equipment, etc.

Panzer III

Kuebelwagen.

This was the military configuration of the Volkswagen. It was the same basic machine, but in a military package. It was only two-wheel drive, with mobility inferior to the U.S. jeep.

Volkwagen

Apparently the familiar Beetle was also used in military service.

Panzer IV

They didn’t have a Tiger tank, which I would love to have seen. But they did have a Panther. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of it!!

A few weeks ago I spent a Saturday driving to Oberndorf to visit the Mauser museum there (http://www.deutsche-museen.de/show.php?myname=index&id=8306&show_ref=yes&bundesland_id=2 )

It was a gorgeous day, so I decided to make the drive the main event instead of the destination. I put the top down on my Jeep and drove along the Neckar River through the hills and woods, rather than taking the Autobahn. It took twice as long to get there, but what a wonderful drive it was! I could have stopped every five minutes to take a picture, but if I had I’d still be on the road.

Bridge on the Neckar

I did have to stop and take a photo of this bridge over the Neckar on the drive there. I don’t know the name of this town, but there were several along the way that would have been worth visiting on their own merits. I noticed that this was a “Kurort”, meaning an area where Germans go for relaxation.

One thing I like about Germany is that they put flowers out everywhere. Even this otherwise plain, ugly concrete bridge becomes presentable and even attractive.

Once again I had trouble finding the museum when I got there. I walked around in circles for awhile, until I finally approached what looked like an abandoned factory that said “Schwedenbau” on the side. Sure enough, that was the museum. It was almost as though they didn’t want people to find it. The attendant at this museum apologized when I got there, as the museum is undergoing renovation and many of the exhibits are empty or incompletely marked. The admission fee was reduced as a result.

Wilhelm u. Paul Mauser, the brothers who designed the most widely-produced bolt-action rifle design in history (the Model 1898). Even the U.S. Model 1903 Springfield is a licensed Mauser action.

Model 1896 Pistol disassembled

This pistol uses no screws or pins, but instead fits together like a chinese puzzle. I've read about this, but never seen the insides of one.

Model 1896 varieties – I like the combination wood holster/shoulder stock. I need one!

M1910/14/34

This one exhibit made the visit worthwhile. I’d never even heard of these pistols until I bought one from a friend a few years ago. Since then I’ve noticed a few in movies from time to time, but you generally just don’t see them.

M1914 close-up

This is a close-up of the particular model that I have. Mine is a WWII “bring-back” with the American soldier’s name written in pen inside the holster flap.

Mauser Car poster

I never knew Mauser made cars! They also had a bunch of other stuff I didn’t take pictures of, like sewing machines, adding machines, etc. It was a general-purpose industrial concern that made a lot of things besides firearms.

Mauser Car

Sten gun copy apparatus.

This was kind of cool. The sign explains that the Germans made exact copies of the British Sten gun for use by their secret agents.

German copy of a British Sten gun

G43 (top) / MP44 (?) (center) / MP43 (bottom)

Heckler & Koch Model 4

This is a highly–desired goal for my own particular firearms collection. An HK4 with all four caliber conversion kits! This one pistol can be converted to fire .22LR, .25 ACP (6,35mm), .32 ACP (7,65mm) and .380 (9mm kurz). The example shown is a highly decorated presentation piece, but I’d prefer a plain vanilla gun I can shoot. I once talked to a guy who was selling two of these, each one with all four calibers, plus extra spare parts, for $1,000. I *really* wanted them, but just didn’t have the $1,000 at the time. It was a fair deal then and would be an even better deal now. I’d settle for just one, and in a pinch I could do without the .25 ACP barrel as that caliber is all but defunct anyway. Once again, someday….

Music: Silence
Mood: Happy that I finally wrote this!

Barocknacht Mannheim

2010-06-20T17:12:00.016+03:00

Sunday 20 June 2010
1600

The title means “Baroque Night Mannheim”. This was the name of the excellent musical event I attended yesterday evening. Presented by the MusikForum Mannheim, it was held in Schloss Mannheim, a former palace that I believe is now part of the university.

It was quite a venue for a concert – you couldn’t ask for much more in terms of atmosphere for a concert featuring baroque music played on period instruments. Here’s the outside of the entrance to the Schloss:

This was the entrance to the concert venue. I came out here to walk around and stretch in between performances.

They didn’t allow photography inside during the concert, but I took a picture of the room while they were getting ready. Here’s the room where the main performances were given:

The "Rittersaal" or "Knight's Hall" featured a wooden parquet floor, sculpted and marble-accented walls adorned with painted portraits, statues in the corners, chandeliers, and a fresco on the ceiling. Too perfect...

There were actually three simultaneous performances going on at any given time throughout the evening, with scheduled pauses in between. So while there was no way to hear everything, you had the opportunity to choose what you wanted to hear. I won’t list out the entire program, but the performances I attended included Handel, Galluppi, Viviani, Gabrielli, Bach, Vivaldi, and Telemann. Of these I had only been familiar with Bach and Vivaldi. The big surprise of the evening for me was Georg Philipp Telemann. I really enjoyed his music, and will immediately start to look for recordings of his work. Perhaps not coincidentally, there were more pieces by him in the program than any other composer (at least in the sessions I chose to attend).

For those who may be interested, here is a link to the Barocknacht Mannheim website:

http://www.barocknacht.de/

If you click on "Download: GESAMTPROGRAM" you will get the entire program on .pdf, including all the pieces they played.

My choices from this program were:

19.00: Rittersaal – Trumpet Sound
19.45: Gartensaal – Piccolo Violincello
20.30: Gartensaal – Pariser Quartett
21.15: Rittersaal – Telemann Concerto
22.00: Rittersaal – Ebb’ und Fluth

There was one extra piece they played that was not on the program. It was a really cool piece that featured a flute and a singer with the rest of the ensemble in accompaniment. It was an aria by Vivaldi, from “Orlando Furioso, known as “sol da te” from the first words. I’ve listened to a couple of recordings of it since last evening, but none of them match the energy of the performance I saw. They seem a little tame – but maybe that’s an inevitable difference between a live performance and a recording. It sure adds a lot to be able to see them play in person!

Attendance was about 1/3 of the capacity of the venue, which I’d have considered disappointing. The audience was mostly older people (meaning older than me, and I’m on the high side of 50). I was briefly encouraged when some younger people showed up, but as the evening progressed it became apparent that they were mostly musicians in between appearances in the program, or friends of the musicians. It isn’t as though they aren’t trying to reach out to younger people - I found out about the performance through an ad on Facebook.

The upside of this was that it was very intimate – I had no trouble sitting very close. I really enjoyed watching the musicians perform. Some were very reserved and workmanlike, others very animated and energetic. On the whole, they really seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were almost uniformly young – very few looked like they were even yet in their thirties, and there were only one or two who could even possibly have been forty.

All in all it was a wonderful evening. I felt very acutely the absence of someone to share it with, and was alternately missing my girlfriend (who I won’t see until August) and my daughters (who fly here for a visit tomorrow). Too bad about the timing – it would have been a nice thing to go to together.

Mood: Happy
Music: “Cessata, omai cessate”, RV 684, Antonio Vivaldi

Memorial Day

2010-05-28T00:44:00.011+03:00

Memorial Day

Thursday 27 May 2010

2330

Today I had an experience that was hardly unique, but that was a first for me. I attended a memorial service for two soldiers who recently died in combat in Afghanistan. It was a very moving and sobering experience. I would not want to repeat it, but I do not want to forget it.

The service was held this morning at 10:00 AM in the chapel at Patrick Henry Village, the U.S. housing area where I live in Heidelberg. The announcement of the service came a couple of days ago via email. I didn’t know the soldiers personally, but one of the NCO’s in our section knew one of them, and we all went. (Well, almost all of us. One of my colleagues was headed in the other direction and I asked him if he was going. He said “No, I’ve been to too many of those.” I sort of shrugged it off and went on my way.)

The two men served with V Corps in Afghanistan. V Corps is based in Germany, but units from Germany have been regularly rotating to Iraq and Afghanistan for quite some time. Families and friends here go through the same ordeal that those stationed in the USA go through when their units deploy, with the added stress of being on the other side of the world from their extended families. So the sense of shared responsibility and mutual support within the military community here is especially important.

I parked at home and walked to the chapel. As I approached, I saw there were MP’s on duty directing traffic in and out of the parking lot, which was very full. As I approached the entrance, I passed the honor guard, who were standing outside in full dress uniform with their rifles, standing at parade rest. A red flag with stars on it was posted outside the chapel, indicating that a General Officer was in attendance. As I entered, I saw that most attendees were in our regular camouflage work uniform (ACU’s) as I was, but that the participants in the service were all in dress uniform (“Class A’s” ). A sergeant in Class A’s handed me a program, and another guided me to a seat.

It was a typical military chapel, non-denominational but furnished like you’d expect to see in any church: pews, hymnals, stained glass windows, and an altar up front. The altar was set up to honor the fallen men. In the center was a large wreath, with the U.S. flag and unit flag on either side of it. Outside of these were two easels holding large (poster-sized) photos of each of the men. Between the easels, in front of the altar, were two small platforms, each holding an empty pair of combat boots and a rifle standing barrel-down, with a helmet on top and a pair of dog tags hanging from the grip. The contrast between the confident, smiling faces in the pictures and the lifeless, empty boots and helmets struck me immediately.

The cover of the program looked like this:

Inside the front cover was The Soldier's Creed:

The service started with the National Anthem, sung by a soldier. Then a chaplain gave the invocation, and we were seated. Another soldier read the 23^rd Psalm, which was of course particularly appropriate for the occasion.

The battalion commander stood and gave a tribute to the fallen soldiers of his command. It was professional and well done, just what I’d expect from a commander. He honored them as leaders who “led from the front, by example”. He told a little about each man, his service in the unit, what made him special and how he’d be missed. One of the men (SSG Tieman) was clearly a well-respected and beloved long-time member of the unit. The other (SGT Tomlinson), seemed to have joined the unit relatively recently and to have been less well-known but liked and respected nonetheless.

After the commander, four individual soldiers each gave a tribute to the men. Up until this point, I had been fairly dispassionate. I didn’t really know the men, and although I felt somber and reverent, I cannot say that before this I had felt especially emotional. But when these soldiers, friends and comrades-in-arms of the fallen men, got up to speak, I began to feel it personally.

First came a female soldier who spoke mainly about the kinds of men they were. How they laughed and joked, how the staff sergeant was tough but professional and approachable, and the effect they had on the people around them. She was clearly quite emotional, but she got through it alright. She closed her tribute by reading a poem called “Death Is Nothing At All”.

The next was a fellow NCO (Sergeant) who spoke briefly and professionally about the kind of men they were. He referred to them by their team nickname: “T’n’T”, clearly a term of endearment . He said that he had endured some of the toughest PT he’d ever done under their leadership, but appreciated it as it helped him stay sharp and ready. As these soldiers spoke, I kept looking back and forth at the photos of the men. I had an interesting sense of beginning to feel that I knew them a little.

The next young soldier who spoke was less articulate but obviously moved and speaking from the heart. As he struggled through his tribute, trying to control his voice and express his feelings for the leaders he had lost, my heart went out to him in his anguish. He closed his tribute to SSG Tieman by saying “When I become a non-commissioned officer, I want to be like him.” I don’t think a soldier can give a leader any higher compliment than that.

The last solder to speak was a little guy with glasses, who was quite animated and articulate. He spoke rapidly, telling numerous anecdotes about the impact the sergeants had had on him. As he spoke in an almost light-hearted way, I was struck by how differently each person dealt with their feelings and how each had their own way of coming to terms with the loss and paying their respects to their fallen leaders.

Next, the same soldier who had sung the National Anthem sung “Amazing Grace”, a capella. After that the chaplain gave a memorial message. He spoke about the meaning of Memorial Day, and admonished us not only to celebrate our freedom, but to reflect on the sacrifices made to secure it. He repeated this several times during his message: “Celebrate and Reflect”. We stood for a moment of silence and the benediction.

What happened next took me by surprise. The program listed it as “Roll Call”. The unit first sergeant stepped up front and center in front of the altar, faced the congregation, and began to call out names in a “command voice” (i.e. loudly). The soldiers he called on then answered him just as loudly. (I don’t remember the first few specific names, so I’ll substitute generic ones):

First Sergeant: “Sergeant Smith!”

Sergeant Smith (from in front of me): “Here, First Sergeant!”

First Sergeant: “Sergeant Jones!”

Sergeant Jones (from behind me): “Here, First Sergeant!”

First Sergeant: “Sergeant Martinez!”

Sergeant Martinez (behind me on the left): “Here, First Sergeant!”

First Sergeant: “Staff Sergeant Tieman!”

(Silence…)

First Sergeant: “Staff Sergeant Richard Tieman!”

(Silence…)

First Sergeant: “Staff Sergeant Richard J. Tieman!”

(Silence…)

First Sergeant: “Sergeant Tomlinson!”

(Silence…)

First Sergeant: “Sergeant Joshua Tomlinson!”

(Silence…)

First Sergeant: “Sergeant Joshua A. Tomlinson!”

(Silence…)

Then the First Sergeant turned to the altar, with the boots, rifles, helmets, dogtags, and photos of the fallen men, and raised his hand in a salute. As he did this, the honor guard outside fired three volleys. Then a bugler played “Taps”.

I have to admit that by this time I had tears running down my cheeks. My eyes had misted over a few times during the ceremony, but hearing the First Sergeant calling out their names, and the utter silence afterwards (when you could see their smiling, confident faces in the photographs right behind him) really drove home the fact that these men will never answer another roll call.

We all remained standing as the families of the fallen and members of the command each approached the altar and paid their final respects and exited out the side door. When they were done, the ushers released us one at a time, row by row, front to back, and we each approached the altar and paid our respects.

I was sitting pretty far towards the back, and had quite a long time to observe as people went up front. Two rows in front of me I saw a woman with a tiny baby, fast asleep in a car seat. I wondered who the woman was, although I have a pretty good idea that she is probably the wife of some other soldier who’s still deployed downrange in harm’s way. I kept looking back and forth between the baby’s cute little face, the photos of SSG Tieman and SGT Tomlinson, and the back of the mother’s head, wondering how she must have felt and what she was thinking.

During this time I was also struck by something that had been in front of me the whole time but that I hadn’t really noticed or thought about. I said earlier that the chapel had all the same kinds of furniture you’d expect in any church. But while standing and watching the people go up one by one, I realized that it had one kind of furniture you wouldn’t normally expect to see. The platforms on which the boots and rifles were displayed were custom-made, purpose-built platforms specifically designed for this kind of memorial service. They were professionally finished just like the rest of the chapel furnishings. Just as the pews had a place for the hymnals, these platforms had a step for the boots and a hole to place the rifle barrel in. I wondered how many more such platforms there are in military chapels around the world, and thought about how sad it is that we need them.

As the people went to the altar, each paid their respects in their own way. Some laid trinkets such as unit coins, others laid flowers, many knelt and prayed or crossed themselves, and every soldier saluted. When it was my turn, I went up, stood at attention and looked at them one last time, saluted and said “Thanks, men”. Then I walked out.

On the way out, I passed soldiers who were posted in the aisle holding out boxes of tissues. By this time I was composed and didn’t need one, but I thought that was an extraordinarily thoughtful and sensitive touch. I walked outside, passed the honor guard (still standing at parade rest), and took a deep breath of fresh air. It felt good to be outside in the open, and good to be alive.

I have to say, with no disrespect intended to the fallen, that if I never attend another service like that it will be too soon. Now I understand what my friend meant when he said he’d “been to too many of those”.

Celebrate and Reflect:

Mood: Somber and Reflective

Music: Mozart: Requiem

Kaffee bei Bach

2010-03-22T07:26:00.013+03:00

Sunday 21 March 2010
2100

I spent a most delightful Sunday afternoon at the Heiligengeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) in Heidelberg, Germany. Today is the 325th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, so they held a series of music programs in the church. I happened to see a poster when I was out and about on Friday. I tried to buy a ticket then, but the advance sales places didn’t have the same type of ticket that the poster described (I wanted an all-day ticket so I could choose which performances to see), so I called and asked. They said to just come to the performance and buy the tickets then.

There were several different performances available. I chose to go to one on Sunday afternoon, called "Kaffee bei Bach" (Coffee with Bach). It was scheduled to last two hours (1500-1700) and included coffee and cake served at little tables. It sounded nice, so I made that my plan.

Getting ready to go was interesting. I decided I wanted to dress up a bit from what has become my usual off-duty appearance. I actually counted today, and since being mobilized and sent to the desert in October 2006, I have worn something besides my Army uniform or blue jeans and a t-shirt about seven times. I went to my oldest daughter’s graduation, my son’s graduation, my mother’s 25th wedding anniversary, my youngest daughter’s band concert (twice),the family Thanksgiving in 2009, and I surprised my girlfriend once over this past Christmas break by wearing some nice clothes once (!) The fact is that almost all my civilian clothes were left behind and packed away, and I just haven’t had them available. But now I have them here, so I really looked forward to getting out in something nicer.

Unfortunately, although I have unpacked all the boxes labeled “clothes” (a.k.a. “cloths” on the ones the movers labeled), I have not really sorted them all yet nor taken stock. I do know that I don’t have everything, but I don’t know exactly what I’m missing. This was the first time I’d tried to assemble a decent outfit since unpacking my boxes and throwing all the stuff in the closet.

It’s still fairly cool outside and the church was cool when I visited it before, so I figured wool pants and a tweed jacket would be best. I found a pair of navy blue pants, a light blue shirt, my grey pullover v-neck sweater and grey tweed jacket. I dusted off my black loafers and thought I was set, except….no black belt! I also can’t find any black socks, but I thought I could make do with grey. But having no black belt was a potential problem. I decided to solve the problem by wearing the sweater, which would cover the belt. I would be uncomfortable, but nobody would see it so it would be OK.

I got dressed a little early and went back to writing my blog entry on Constanta. I soon began to overheat, and realized that the sweater was a no-go. Now what to do? (remember, nothing in Germany is open on Sunday, so I couldn’t just run out and buy a belt). Fortunately I had a solution – cordovan! I have a pair of cordovan loafers as well as a cordovan belt. Since they match, and go with practically anything, I would be OK. I didn’t think the blue pants looked right, so I searched some more and finally found my grey ones. Now I was comfortable!

If all this seems silly, you try leaving home on short notice with a couple of duffel bags that don't include civilian clothes, having other people pack all your stuff and put it into storage when you’re not there, and then coming back 3 ½ years later and trying to find all the stuff you know you ought to have *someplace*. It’s interesting, to say the least. So anyway, I was looking forward to feeling civilized and going to a concert.

I went downtown, parked, and walked to the church. When I got in all the seats at the tables were taken, but there were little stand-up tables at the back, and one of those was free so I stood there. I noticed that the two ladies next to me had pulled up chairs to their table, so I did the same. It was fine to start with, but did not promise to be a good seat during the concert as the stand-up tables were too high and would be in the way. Then one of the ladies put her chair in front of the table, and her friend and I immediately did the same.

I heard one of the ladies make an interesting comment to the other after this. She said “Wir sind die Nachkriegsgeneration, und wir wissen was zu tun”. This translates as “We are the post-war generation, and we know what to do”. This was interesting at so many levels! Apparently moving your chair from its original location is very daring, but putting it in front of your little stand-up table is downright radical! Good thing we are the Nachkriegsgeneration. Those good little Germans from before the war would not have dared to challenge authority and convention in such a way – it simply wasn’t done! It sounds ridiculous to our ears, but perhaps not so surprising once you know the Germans. “Alles unter kontrolle in Deutschland” is the byword here. How interesting that this lady was conscious enough of this to comment on it. I suspect she was making a joke, but it’s interesting even in that light.

We had our coffee and cake, and the concert started. The first piece was Bach’s “Kaffeekantate”, BWV 211. Here is some background information on it: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/lutheranism/90337 , and of course the obligatory Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Cantata

I had never heard of this piece before, and so of course had no idea what was going on. At this point I did not know that they had given out programs (I had missed it at the door), so I didn’t have the libretto. I picked up the gist of the story by understanding some of the words, and more from the actions of the vocalists. At first I was confused by the fact that the servers kept taking coffee up to the female vocalist, and the male vocalist kept taking it away from her. I finally realized that it was a part of the performance, and was able to enjoy it even though I didn’t know the whole story until I went out and picked up a program during a pause.

The music was beautiful and the singing was exquisite. The church reminded me a lot of the chapel at Ladywood High School in Livonia, except that being Lutheran it didn’t have the big edifice in the middle that the Catholics have (I’m not sure what it’s called). We all sat in the central aisle, and the performers were seated towards the front of the church, but still well within the central aisle portion. It was very intimate. I was quite surprised that only perhaps about a hundred people were in attendance. I would have expected it to be packed, but perhaps they are just used to this sort of thing here and regard it as nothing special.

I really enjoyed it very much – not only the music, but the humor of the whole situation. They set up tables in the middle of the church, and served coffee and cake while they played the cantata celebrating the drinking of coffee. The servers were even dressed in 18th century costumes. It was very light-hearted and fun.

The second piece they played was Bach’s Orchestral Suite in B-minor, BWV 1067. This was really wonderful. The ensemble was made up of 2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 bass, 1 piano-like instrument (very small, not sure what it was), 1 bassoon, and 1 flute. The flute player was really excellent – I was completely enchanted by her playing. I believe the selected work was intended to highlight her to some degree, as her name (Eve Cambreling) was on the program along with the vocalists. She certainly deserved it - in my estimation she stole the show. She not only played beautifully, she was so animated that she seemed almost to be dancing with her instrument. I found listening to her and watching her play was an almost transcendent experience – there were times when I was just swept away by the music. It reminded me of the scene in the movie “The Elephant Man” when John is at the opera and becomes transfixed by it. Part of it was that her animated style of playing reminded me of Anna. I’ve seen Anna play in concert, and noticed that she seems to play with her entire body even when confined to a chair. This young woman was an order of magnitude more free in her movements, and I have to think it affects her playing – she literally threw herself into her music. I wonder if it’s something about the flute? Perhaps, but I think it’s more of an attitude and orientation. Not quite Ian Anderson, but the same passion in a more refined sort of a way.

The Orchestral Suite offered plenty of opportunities to showcase her talent, and she certainly rose to the occasion. I am no expert on music, but I think that she will be someone to watch. She is pretty young and still at (or near) the beginning of her career, but with her passion and talent I’d expect her to go far. I’m a confirmed fan! The players received an extended ovation at the end of this piece, and she got special attention – the audience was notably appreciative of her in particular, and rightly so.

I took a short (very poor quality) video of a part of the performance, but have been unable so far successfully to post it anywhere. Facebook video isn't working, and it's too big for this blog. I mainly took it for Anna to see Eve play, though, and I already shared it with her earlier via Skype. So that purpose is accomplished.

There was a pause in between the major parts of the program, during which a smaller group of musicians played something or another while the hosts served out more coffee and cake. It was pleasant and helped to maintain the atmosphere.

The final piece was called the “Bauernkantate” (Peasant Cantata), BWV 212. The host made some introductory remarks about it but I didn’t really follow along. At least I had the libretto this time and was able to more or less follow the story. It was hard because it was totally in peasant slang (or perhaps archaic German? Or both?) . It had something to do with having a new lord, and whether he was good or not, and paying taxes, and drinking. Whatever it was about, it was very enjoyable music.

By this time in the program, I found myself looking at my watch from time to time, not because I was tired of the music, but rather because I didn’t want it to end. Being unfamiliar with the works, I couldn’t tell when it was nearly over, but I hope it would go for the whole allotted time. As it was, it ended about 1645 or so.

It’s been a long time since I felt so charged up by something like this. I lingered around the church for awhile, savoring the afterglow of the performance. I wanted to express my appreciation to the players, but I only saw one come out the front – I guess the others must have gone out by the back door. I eventually left the church, and walked slowly down the Hauptstrasse in Heidelberg, reluctant to go home but anxious to write about the experience. Had I had my laptop with me, it’s a cinch that I’d have sat down in a restaurant or coffee house someplace and written right away. But I didn’t. So I just enjoyed the walk to my car, looking around at all the people who had been right in the neighborhood but didn’t choose to attend.

I came home and immediately looked up Eve Cambreling’s next performance here – May 8th in the same church. I hope I can go to it. (Dear U.S. Army: Please don’t sent me to Romania again!) I just had to write this entry without delay, and so after I finished the overdue one on Constanta, I stayed up to finish this one. It’s now almost 5:30 AM on Monday, and I don’t feel any more like sleeping than I did earlier in the evening. Good thing this is a four-day weekend or I’d probably have a hard day at work!

Maybe it’s my long absence from the cultural institutions of western civilization, but I feel very privileged to have been able to attend a performance like this. I used to go out to Ann Arbor from time to time and attend faculty and student recitals, and even pay for the occasional concert. I had lost track of just how much I miss that sort of culture until today. Now I have an idea I won’t be able to get enough of it.

Mood: Happy
Music: Bach – Orchestra of the Moscow Bach Center - Orchestral Suite in B-Minor BWV 1067

Constanta

2010-03-22T01:49:00.071+03:00

Thursday 18 March 2010

I started this entry on Thursday on the plane ride back from Romania, but found that it was just too cramped for comfortable typing. I am now back in Germany, so I’d better write about my last weekend in Romania before events overtake me again. (Actually they already have, but oh well…) Nonetheless I am going to leave the date from when I started it, as I also have an entry to write from today (Sunday).

I decided to spend my last weekend in Romania visiting Constanta, the largest city near MK. It is a city of about 450,000, not quite a half hour south by car. The civil airport next to the MK Airbase where I’ve been working is officialy the Constanta International Airport. Constanta is actually pronounced “Constantsa”, as the second “t” is a special Romanian letter with a little squiggle at the bottom, and is pronounced “ts”. For this reason I am going to write it as “Constantsa” from here on. In ancient times the city was known as Tomis, and was an important port on the Black Sea trading routes. It therefore has a lot of history behind it, and several museums dedicated to that history were the primary object of my visit.

I got a recommendation on where to stay there, and I took it. I had an idea that I wanted to stay at a more picturesque hotel, but the one I had selected was listed in the guide as a two-star hotel. Since my German tour guide recommended downgrading any rating by one star, that meant it would have been a one star hotel – and I didn’t want anything quite that “picturesque”. :-)

This is my hotel room. I stayed at the Ibis, which was constructed in 2005. It was a three-star hotel, which meant two-star by German standards, and it was ok. It was simple and plain, but new and clean, which is more than you can say for 95% of the city. It was also within very easy walking distance of the old city where all the stuff I wanted to see was located. So it was a good choice. At first I couldn't get the lights to work, but then I noticed a card slot inside the door. I put my key-card into it, and voila! the swiches worked and the lights came on. Take the card out, the lights go off. I decided that this must be an energy-saving measure to minimize electricity consumption.

I had a similar experience with the toilet. It was very frustrating trying to flush it, as no matter how long I held the button down, all that would come out was a steady, weak trickle of water. Later on I flushed it once almost by accident, and learned the secret - you have to press it twice! So I guess the first one is for if you just want to freshen the water or flush it very weakly. But if you want any power, you have to release the button and immediately press it again - it has some sort of ratchet mechanism that releases the water on the second iteration. I wish they had posted instructions. German toilets have a similar water-saving feature but a much more logical design. They have two buttons, a small one and a large one, and you take your pick. Oh well, live and learn. At least they had toilets!

This was the view out my window, overlooking the Black Sea. There is about a thirteen mile stretch of beach from here north that is a major tourist destination, with a number of resort hotels. Just to the right, out of view, is the portion of Constantsa harbor dedicated to tourist vessels.

I arrived on Saturday morning around 0900. After I checked into the hotel, I went out for a walk around the town. One of the first things I saw was this statue depicting the legend of Romulus and Remus, and highlighting the fact that this was an important trading port in the Roman Empire.

This stone was on the corner of the square block that contained the city hall (perhaps the equivalent of a county courthouse, I’m not sure). It was surrounded by a park.

A more expansive view of the stone, with a monument containing elements of ancient and modern architecture and the city hall in the background. I had admired the monument for its blend of ancient and modern. Teresa, upon seeing my photo of it for the first time, simply said “It looks like a big paper clip.” I had to laugh at that – it was very perceptive. I doubt if it was intended as such, but what could be a more fitting monument to place outside of a government building?

As I headed into the district where the museums and churches were to be seen, I passed all too many scenes like this one. It was really unbelievable how decrepit and run down the whole district was. Not at all what I would have expected around the major tourist attractions, but not a complete surprise after my previous observations in Romania. In addition to the generally run-down nature of the buildings, there was next to no infrastructure. There was not a single traffic light of any kind to be seen, nor were there any storm sewers. I’d hate to see what the place looks like during a rainstorm.

Later, someone explained to me that this is the oldest section of town, located on the peninsula that was the original site of the ancient city of Tomis. They further explained that many of the properties were confiscated from the owners under communism. Since Romania regained its freedom in 1989, many of the owners have sued to try to get their property back, and they are mostly in legal limbo. In the meantime no investments or improvements have been made, and gypsy (Romani) squatters have moved into many of the buildings. This went a long way towards clarifying how such an important district could be so neglected.

I was surprised to read in my tour guide that the Roman poet Ovid had been exiled from Rome by the emperor Augustus, and that he spent the last eight years of his life here in Tomis/Constantsa. This statue of him is located in the main public square of the old town.

This is the archaeological museum, one of the places I wanted to visit. Before going inside, I walked around outside a little more and saw some interesting things.

As I’ve written earlier, there are loose dogs everywhere. In Constantsa there are also a lot of cats. While I was standing here, a couple of dogs chased this cat up a tree. Wahnsinn!

This was a very interesting exhibit. The building in the background houses a large mosaic floor, one of the largest surviving Roman mosaics in the world. Unfortunately it was not open. It was supposed to be, and there were no signs indicating that it was closed, but there was just nobody at the ticket booth and the door was locked throughout the entire weekend. I was disappointed not to be able to go in and see it.

Lined up in the plaza outside (and just to the left of the archaeological museum if you’re looking at it from the front) is this row of ancient grave markers, with plaques translating the epitaphs in both Romanian and English. This turned out to be a very good first exhibit for me to examine closely, because it really made me think about the centuries of history in this place. It also kind of put my own life into perspective (isn’t that what museums are for?). I’ll just show the pictures – the epitaphs speak for themselves:

These are the silver buckles, clasps, and ornaments of a Roman centurion’s uniform. A centurion was an officer in the Roman Army that commanded a “century”, a unit of 80 men (I always thought it was 100, but I looked it up). Roughly the equivalent of a company commander/ captain in our army.

I had read about these but never seen them. The Roman way of cleaning the body was to rub it all over with oil, and then scrape off the oil (and the dirt it lifted off) using these scrapers. Here is the whole routine: http://www.falcophiles.co.uk/facts/romanbathing.html

When I read the description of this piece “Aedicula with Nemesis”, I thought Aedicula was some goddess I had never heard of. But it turns out that it refers to the little house structure framing the statues. Both of these figures are of Nemesis, goddess of balance and vengeance. Hmmm….I wonder why they needed two of her?

I noticed something in the museum that I found interesting. Whereas the signs on the gravestones outside had been in Romanian and Engish, the signs inside were in Romanian, French, and German. A very few included English, but by no means a majority. I'm guessing that Americans and citizens of the Commonwealth don't come here all that much.

I wanted a traditional Romanian lunch, and I walked all over looking for a likely restaurant. I began to think that every restaurant in the city must be a pizzeria - that's all I could find, no kidding! I finally broke down and went inside a nice looking one, and had a pizza.

Almost as soon as I walked out of the hotel on Saturday morning I heard a rooster crow. Later in the morning I passed this on one of the streets. How often do you see this in a major city? This was the only one I saw actually visible from the street, but I heard lots of animals, and saw evidence of pens and enclosures in many yards. I also saw a lot of clothes drying on balconies and in windows, and learned to be careful walking under the balconies as people were throwing stuff off of them (mostly dirt - probably from sweeping the floors).

This building is an old casino on the waterfront. You can see the commercial port of Constantsa in the background. Constantsa is a very important port of entry for goods going in and out of Romania.

This man was playing folk tunes on his accordion right by the casino. It made for a very pleasant atmosphere. I put some money in his box, and asked to take his photo. He nodded yes, so I did. I didn’t see until I looked the photo later on that he had an unhappy look on his face. I hope I didn’t offend him…anyway the music was nice. Come to think of it, I did notice that very few people ever smiled the entire time I was in this country.

Here is a better view of the casino. It’s quite an imposing building, and must have been very impressive in its day. It’s obviously closed now – many of the windows are broken and it’s just falling apart. This city brought many clichés to the forefront of my mind – the one I thought of most when looking around at buildings like this was “crumbling edifice”.

This scene seemed somehow to encapsulate the whole atmosphere of the city – a grandiose socialist-era statue on a cracked base, an ornate church in the background, and interposed between them, a trio of ugly rusting billboards.

This looked to me like an Eastern Orthodox Church. There was a guy in a black robe and a funny hat walking down the street when I took this picture. He went inside, and later I saw him conducting a baptism. He reminded me of the young priest in the movie “Chocolat”.

They certainly had some graphic imagery – no question about where *these* people are going! I went into the church and spent quite a lot of time inside, but did not take any pictures as I have in other cathedrals and churches I’ve visited. It was very dark inside, and not all that large. But it was crammed full of paintings, icons, and various artifacts and relics. The thing that really stayed my hand from photography, however, was the fact that there was a steady stream of people making the rounds from one icon or relic to another. At each one they would stop, make the sign of the cross several times, and then stoop and kiss it. It was a very hushed, reverent atmosphere, and it just didn’t seem appropriate to take pictures.

This elegant wooden balcony was on the side of a house I walked past. I was getting tired by this time, so I went back to my hotel room and took a nap for a couple of hours.

When I awoke later on Saturday evening, I wanted to go out to eat at a Romanian restaurant. I had gotten a recommendation from the cab driver who drove me to Constantsa, and since that restaurant (“La Protsap”) was also number one in the tour guide, I decided that would be a good choice. I had mentally noted its position on my map – right on the other side of the square with city hall – so I knew where to go and did not drag the tour guide along. I simply walked to the general area expecting to find it.

I did not find it right away, so I wandered a bit until I found a familiar landmark – a musical theater that was shown right across the street on the tour guide map. But still no restaurant! I looked for awhile longer, then spotted a couple of policemen and went up to ask them where it was. They did not speak English well at all, but the younger one understood what I wanted.

“Not here” he said with a bit of a regretful look. “Yes”, I said, “it’s on my map, right here” and gestured around us. “No”, he said, “not here”. I must have looked doubtful, as he said quite earnestly “I know, not here. Big distance”. Actually what he said was more like a caricature of Italian – it sounded like “I-a know. Not-a heer. Beeg-a deestunts”. I certainly understood what he meant. I smiled and thanked him, and said I’d go get my book (while making book-reading gestures).

So I went back to the hotel and got my book. I studied the map closely, then looked up the restaurant on Google on my iPod using the hotel’s wireless internet. I soon realized my mistake. The little black arrows on the street next to the restaurant symbol did *not* mean “one-way street”. They were an indication that the restaurant was off the map in that direction, some indeterminate distance away. Chastened, I started walking. I walked, and walked, and walked. Then I walked some more. Just when I was about to give up and turn back, I came to the street the restaurant was on. So I turned and walked. And walked. And walked some more, until I was about to give up again. I set my sights on a brightly-lit intersection, and sure enough there it was!

This is probably a good place to add that the rest of the city was much more modern than the part I had been in all day. It still had somewhat of a run-down feel to it, but was much better kept and had traffic signals and other infrastructure that had been lacking in the old city.

I had a nice dinner at the restaurant. They assigned an English-speaking waitress who was very accommodating. I quickly stopped using my phrase book and just ordered in English. They had a live musical act that sounded like it consisted of an accordion and a vocalist. I couldn’t see them, however - this was also a lesson in European dining. I had asked for the non-smoking section, and was therefore stuck in the back in an out-of-the way alcove all by myself. I guess if you want the full experience, you have to accept the fact that they smoke, and just deal with it.

I had too much to eat, and was feeling very sleepy by the time I was done. I fully intended to catch a cab back to the hotel, but on the way to the cab stand I decided that a walk would help settle my food and that the exercise wouldn’t hurt me. So I walked back to the hotel, which was quite a hike. I was pretty stiff when I woke up on Sunday!

This is the folk art museum, which I visited first thing on Sunday morning. I had read about it in my German tour guide and decided to go, but was initially stymied by a language problem. In German it is referred to as the “Ethnographisches Museum”. I read the description, decided it sounded interesting, and added it to my list. When I walked past it for the first time, however, I did not recognize it. I don’t know what I thought “Ethnographisch” meant, but I didn’t translate it to “Folk Art”. I was looking for “Ethnographic-something”. Finally on Sunday I figured it out and went inside. :-)

The museum was fairly small, with only two floors in what amounted to a large house. But it had a very nice sample of various “folk art” – meaning tools, implements, and artifacts of everyday life. They had an interesting display format – glass cases and diorama displays were complemented by large framed photographs up above them showing the natural settings. On the first floor these were mostly the various types of houses, buildings, and other structures from different areas of the country.

On the second floor they had an extensive collection of native costumes. They shared a generally similar appearance, but with many differences of detail characteristic of the places of their origin.

I thought the young woman in the picture up above was interesting. She looked so happy and vibrant – I wondered about her life – where she was from, what she did, and what she thought about the person taking her picture. Do you suppose she had any idea her photo would end up in a museum?

Elsewhere on this floor they had displays of painted ceramics, metal and wooden implements, etc. One caught my eye – a hefty stick about 2 ½ feet long with a knob on the end of it, called a “Wedding Stick”. I wondered what it was, imagining the worst (think of the scene in “The Quiet Man”, where an older woman gives John Wayne a stick as he drags Maureen O’Hara to her brother’s house with the comment “Here’s a stick to beat the lovely lady.”). So I just *had* to ask the attendant. She explained that it was for going around the village knocking on doors to announce the wedding. Ahhh…not for the groom to beat the bride, then…so much for stereotypes!

Speaking of the attendant – there was an interesting phenomenon at the museums I visited. In each, an attendant was present on each floor. As I approached, they would turn on the lights in that section. When I was done in a room, they turned the lights out behind me. I have to think that it’s about saving money. Interesting when you think that it’s cheaper in their country to have a person stand there all day and turn the lights on and off than it is just to leave them on.

This map of the ancient cities of Dobrogea (the name of this region) was on the side of a building overlooking a public park.

This was the park, its walkways lined with ancient artifacts and including a long section of the fortifications.

I thought this house was interesting. I wonder what the people on either side think of the person in the middle who doesn’t maintain their part of the house?

This monument commemorates Romanian freedom. Freedom from what, and when, was not clear in any of the references I could find. It has a sort of socialist-realist style, and also evokes our Statue of Liberty when viewed from a certain angle. I was struck by the similarity to the war memorial I had seen in Seoul, Korea. On the side is shown a row of people – soldiers at the front, people with guns in the middle, and at the back, a worker with a stack of rifles handing them to the people going up to fight. The other side similarly celebrated agricultural production.

The final museum I visited was the Naval museum. It had displays from ancient times all the way up to the present. This map showed ancient trade routes in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

This was pretty cool – an original Marconi wireless (radio). You can see the huge vacuum tubes and coils as well as the telegraph key. This would have been the main (and probably only) radio on a ship in the early 20th century. I took lots of other photos in the museum, but most of them are of things that probably only I would be interested in. Highlights were a couple of MP-40s, an MG-42, a Czech ZB-26, a Naval Maxim gun on wheels, a Steyr-Hahn M-1912, and various swords and daggers, all of which I’d only ever seen in photos.

They had an outdoor exhibit area behind the museum for larger pieces, including some river patrol boats (the cliché here would be “rotting hulks”). Most of it was not too interesting to me as I am not a Navy guy, but this caught my eye from clear across the park. The last gun on the right in this row is a German 88mm anti-aircraft gun, the infamous “88” that wreaked such havoc on allied tanks and planes during WWII. This was the first one I’d ever seen up close.

This is another one that reached out and grabbed me by the eyeballs – a Bofors anti-aircraft gun. This was Swedish-made, and since they were officially neutral they sold them to anyone who could show up and pay. They were also made under license, so they were in service in both Allied and Axis forces. After seeing these two I looked all over for an Oerlikon 20mm cannon, but didn’t find one. It was a Swiss design, and like the Bofors was used by both sides in WWII. The only Oerlikon I’ve ever seen up close is outside the Hardin County Courthouse in Eldora, Iowa. That one came off the battleship USS Iowa.

This was an interesting feature of the city. These little white booths are sprinkled around at various locations, and serve as police outposts. There were officers patrolling on foot, but most of the police I saw were in these little booths.

By early afternoon on Sunday I’d had enough. I called the cab and went back to MK. All in all it was an interesting visit. I guess some of my recent posts have been more like photo albums than actual blog entries, but then again, I’ve been seeing some interesting places since I got here. How many photos could I post of sand and camels, anyway? :-)

Mood: Glad to be home
Music: Bach – Orchestral Suite in B Minor (see my next entry!)

Romania

2010-03-08T20:30:00.029+03:00

Monday 8 March 2010
2000

I’ve been in Romania for two weeks now, and it’s been a very busy and interesting time. I have been so overwhelmed with the amount of work there is to do and with the strange and new environment that I have not felt like I had the time or wherewithal to sit down and try to capture it in writing. But if I don’t document my impressions soon, they will get even more jumbled than they already are (and my family will think I fell down a black hole!)

Today we were hit by a snowstorm, and it’s very cold. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, albeit very cold and windy. Most of the first two weeks were overcast with rain, fog, and cold. Immediately upon my arrival I was assailed by a whole host of new impressions. (Unfortunately I cannot illustrate them all with photographs, as no photography is allowed on the Romanian military base where I am living and working. So my photographs will be limited to my short trips outside the base.)

The fog and run-down buildings made for a kind of depressing, vaguely spooky atmosphere, especially at night. This is amplified by the incredible numbers of birds here. They are mainly some kind of crow or raven – very large black birds with huge grey beaks, that congregate here in the thousands (maybe tens of thousands). I never saw so many birds in one place in my life. They fly in from someplace else like clockwork just after six AM and six PM every day, making an incredible racket. They fill the trees in every direction, standing almost right next to each other on almost every branch – it’s really hard to grasp how many there are. The bare branches of the trees look like they are fully covered with leaves, except it is all birds. When disturbed, they take to the air in an explosion of flapping and cawing, and you can almost feel the rush of air from their wings. You actually sense the sky darkening above you. There are also a few other kinds of birds, including one interesting-looking one with a long black tail and black and white plumage. Most of the birds are these crows, however - very creepy.

The base itself is very quiet, with some Romanian military activity but mostly just the U.S. contingent and a lot of empty buildings and inactive fighter planes parked in open revetments. It was very strange for me as a recycled Cold Warrior to walk up close to Soviet-built MIG-29 and MIG 23 fighter jets, the kind we used to practice identifying in Threat briefings and exercises. It was interesting to me that although the Romanian language uses the Roman alphabet and the main markings of the aircraft used that, the smaller markings on the weapons pods and maintenance access hatches were all in Cyrillic lettering. One of the MIG 23’s had an amusing sticker on the side of the cockpit. It said “This is my second aircraft – my other one is a Mirage 2000”. :-)

My initial overall impression of decay and neglect is consistently upheld, pretty much wherever I have gone. Unlike the Middle East, where I think they just don’t care and don’t have a mindset of maintaining things, my sense is that here it is mainly a matter of money. They are a very small economy and are just not wealthy or well-developed. When I walked off-post I saw people tending their yards and gardens, raking and picking up sticks, etc. It was interesting to see people cleaning up rocks and dirt from the streets using a combination of snow shovels and hand-made brooms (long twigs tied to a stick, like a Halloween witch’s broom).

We have spent money upgrading the facilities on the base for U.S. troops to use, and those are very nice, although small and limited in scope. Although I’m in Europe, this is the smallest and most spartan base I’ve ever been on, in terms of the facilities available. They do a nice job with what they have, however, and of course the people who are stationed here permanently can go downtown Constanta, which I understand is a fair-sized city.

I have no vehicle, but I was able to walk downtown Mihail Kogalniceanu (hereinafter “MK”) last weekend for a cup of coffee and a look around.

This is the main sidewalk from the base to MK. There was a very pungent smell along the way that took me awhile to identify. Finally I remembered – it was the smell of composting grass. I also passed several dead animals (cats, dogs, and crows) which added to the smellscape.

This is a convenience store on the way into town. The Romanian language is, as suggested by its name, a Romance language like French, Italian, and Spanish. The Latin roots make many words easy to understand (e.g. Magazin Alimentar, Dispensar Veterinar, Politia Militar), but there are also plenty of words that I am totally clueless about. It’s still mostly “Greek” to me, although I’ve learned a few phrases.

The road to town goes past the neighboring Army base, which has this monument in front of it.

This little shrine was one of the few new-looking structures in town. You won’t see this in a public park in the USA!

This is the café where I stopped to have a cup of coffee. It was my first adventure with my German-Romanian phrase book. Ordering the coffee came down to hand gestures and pointing at the menu. While I drank it, I read the first few pages and tried to memorize some basic phrases.

This apartment building was right next to the café, and was much more characteristic of the types of buildings I saw. Very stark, bare, monotonous, and run-down.

I thought this house was interesting. Decaying roof, crumbling pavement, unpainted walls, and a satellite dish.

Not all the houses are run down. It’s easy to tell which families are prosperous. When they are painted, they seem to tend towards gay pastel colors.

This is the most common kind of car I’ve seen around here. It’s called a “Dacia”, and is a Romanian-built car. This is an older model – the newer ones don’t look so clunky, but I’ve only seen two of those and lots of the older ones. It’s way better than the Trabant of East Germany, and has to be better than the Yugo was. There are also the usual assortment of smaller European cars such as Opels, Renaults, Fords, Volkswagens, Fiats, etc., but almost none of the luxury cars such as Mercedes or BMW.

I’m not sure what this business is, as the word was not in my Romanian dictionary. But I suspect it has something to do with tire repair. (Hmmm… I wonder why?)

One thing about the country that stands out immediately is that there are stray dogs running around everywhere, and I mean *everywhere*. I have yet to see one with a collar or leash. They just seem to run around loose, both alone and in packs, and the people seem to accept it. Everywhere you look a dog is scrounging around in the trash or lurking in a doorway looking for a handout. When this one saw me looking at him, he jumped up and started across the road with a hopeful look. I noticed he was limping on one leg, and as a car honked its horn and screeched its tires as it swerved, it was obvious why. He went back and lay down by the dumpster when I kept on walking.

Yesterday we went out on a recon of a military training area, and I got to see some open country and some other villages. Unfortunately I did not have my camera out at the beginning of the drive, and so I missed getting pictures of some very quaint churches. I also saw some traditional wells, just like you would picture them, with a circular wall, a little roof, and a bucket on a rope with a handle to turn to raise it up and down. One village had big bright blue pipes with spigots sticking up out of the ground every couple of blocks. I thought they were fire hydrants of some kind until I saw a villager filling plastic water bottles at one. They were the community water system – a step up from the open well with the bucket.

In the Middle East it was goats and camels; here it seems to be goats and sheep. Somebody told me that you never see a herd of animals grazing in a field without a shepherd, because otherwise the animals will be stolen. The shepherd for this flock is just out of sight to the left.

Most of the roofs were made of rusty corrugated iron or clay tile, but there were a few thatched roofs on some of the houses and outbuildings.

These horse carts were everywhere on the roads, almost as numerous as the cars.

It’s a little blurry, but this was a very typical scene on the roads, a couple out running errands in their cart. We saw working farmers with loads of hay or whatever, as well as entire families riding in them. We also saw an awful lot of people walking on the streets and even on the highway carrying shopping bags. In one village I saw a few Romani (gypsies) with flamboyantly-colored clothing, head scarves, and large earrings, but I couldn’t get a photo before we had passed them.

I just had to get a picture of this. It was in the largest town we passed through, which was significantly more modern than the little villages along the way. I know that Transylvania is just a region of Romania, but the legend of Dracula is so firmly entrenched in our popular culture that it stood out and begged for a photo.

This is what most of the countryside looked like. A lot of it reminded me of eastern Wyoming or Montana, except that they were cultivated crops instead of grassland. It would resemble any farmland in the Midwestern United States, except for the almost complete absence of trees, buildings and fences of any kind. Periodically we would see large complexes of buildings off in the distance. I saw one such complex up close, and among other buildings it had a large open garage with about a dozen tractors in it. My theory is that their infrastructure is still organized around communal farms, or at least still physically configured as they were when the country was communist.

This is a view up the road as we headed back south towards MK. The fields on the left were a vast vineyard. Almost the only trees out in this area are the ones planted alongside the roads. Again, I bet it’s a lot prettier in the summertime when things are green. This was the best road we drove on – it’s a regular highway and we made pretty good time. Most of the roads were somewhere between bad and unbelievably awful, and we spent a lot of time just crawling along avoiding potholes and trying not to get stuck.

So – that is my initial set of impressions about Romania. I thought I might get a chance to travel a bit on a weekend, but it looks like that may not be a very good idea. People have told me that the train system is pretty bad, and that it would take most of the weekend just to get anyplace. I suppose I could pay a taxi, but it cost 100 Euros to get here from Bucharest, which means a weekend there would cost nearly $300 in taxi fees plus the hotel and meals, just to see what one person here called a “big, dirty city”. Hmmm. I’ve got the rest of the week to think about it. I may just do it – I mean, how often do you find yourself on the other side of the world with some free time? I’ll see if anything I read about Bucharest in my travel guide can entice me, and how I feel when Friday comes around.

Meanwhile I feel like I am making a difference in my job here. The work is challenging (and endless), and I am acutely aware of the limited amount I can accomplish in the short time I have. But I am enjoying it and the days pass quickly.

Mood: Upbeat
Music: The Eurythmics “Love is a Stranger”

TDY to Romania

2010-02-28T19:21:00.013+03:00

Sunday 28 February 2010
1700

I had expected to spend last Sunday hiking in Germany, as I had done several times since my arrival. When I got to work on Thursday morning, however, I was in for a surprise. My boss pulled me into his office and said “I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but I need you to go to Romania on extended TDY (temporary duty). You need to be there on Monday morning.” It seems that the hiring of the civilian DPW (Director of Public Works) had been delayed, and they needed somebody to go there and take things in hand. The plan, as explained to me, was to rotate people down there to cover the DPW office until we could get the permanent people hired and in place. These rotations would last a month (actually 29 days) due to rules governing the assignment of Reservists away from the primary duty station for which we were mobilized.

This was a bombshell for several reasons. First of all, it was very sudden and unexpected. I had a two-day trip already planned to Romania to familiarize myself with our installations there for purposes of my regular job, but a two-day trip is a whole lot different than a month. Since I was already scheduled for an all-day staff officer’s orientation class on Friday (which was now more important than ever to attend), this essentially gave me one work day to prepare. It was also an unwelcome surprise because it is not what I was led to believe my assignment here would entail. People do get sent on extended TDY, but I had let them know that after three years in the desert, this was essentially my “dwell time” back in a normal environment. They had understood, and had given me an assignment that did not involve extended TDY. I was just getting settled and getting used to things like having a car and a real apartment and some freedom to do things, and now I was to be ripped away from all that again to live out of a footlocker and a rucksack in a single barracks room in BFE. To top it off, I already had an approved, signed DA31 (Leave form) for mid-March, and my girlfriend had already bought non-refundable airline tickets to come over for a trip to Switzerland with me. So this was a very disappointing way to start the day.

It took me a little while to wrap my head around it, but I got my stuff together and got organized to go. I needed to get orders, schedule a flight for Sunday, make sure my Army laptop was ready (I hadn’t even had it out of the docking station yet), etc., etc. Fortunately I had already taken care of almost all the personal kinds of things that make extended TDY manageable (e.g., a local bank account, automatic payment of my internet and phone bills, etc.). I had just gotten that squared away a couple days before. So Thursday was a very frenetic day, not least of all due to the fact that I was trying to get some clarification on just exactly how long I’d be there and what I’d be expected to do. Since everyone was running around with their hair on fire preparing to brief the General on some other high-visibility issues, I got short shrift and was pretty much on my own to figure it out.

This episode gets back to the subject of one of my earlier posts, “Alone and Adrift in the Army”. The bottom line is that the active component of the Army looks at us Reservists serving on active duty as essentially temporary soldiers, sort of like the corporate world looks at contract employees. Like chess pieces on a board, they have a tendency to pick us up and stick us where they want us with little regard for how it affects our personal lives or longer range plans – we are just expected to shut up and go there. Now, to be fair, this is a part of the military ethic, and all soldiers are expected to serve as required, and they do so, quite often under very austere and difficult circumstances. “Mission First” is a very strong part of the Army value system, and I embrace that value. But it’s also important to have a balance and get some time to recharge your batteries, and being a Reservist on extended active duty leads to some real inequities. The problem stems from the fact that while Active Component soldiers are on rotations between deployments and so-called “dwell time” (time at home station with their families), Reservists on active duty are basically regarded as available for whatever, whenever. I think they look at us with the assumption that our dwell time is at home, after we get off active duty and go back to our civilian jobs. That’s the way the force is managed for traditional Reservists who do their weekend drills and annual training, and maintain regular civilian jobs. The Army is now saying that Reserve and National Guard soldiers can expect to deploy for one year out of every five year cycle.

That works fine for the traditional Reservist. But for people like me who are moving from tour to tour without demobilizing, the system breaks down. Since we never get any time at home (I don’t even have a “home” per se anymore – my stuff is all either in storage or in Heidelberg), there is no dwell time in the traditional sense. So if you want to have something approximating dwell time and a more normal life, you have to do what I did, and try to find a tour that does not involve deployments. That’s what I thought I had done, and the way it was represented to me at the outset. So much for that!

So I found myself walking a tightrope between living up to the Army value system of “Mission First”, wanting to be a team player and help get the job done, and looking out for myself and my family, ensuring that we are able to follow through on plans we have made for summer visits, etc. My fear was that if I did not speak up right then and there, I’d be shuffled off to Buffalo and not be in a position to get myself back to Germany. So I did speak up, which made for some tense moments on Thursday and Friday, because different people in the directorate had different ideas of how long they were planning to send me for. Because part of the problem is continuity, they would prefer to send me there until they find someone permanent. This would, however, wreak havoc on my personal life and be extremely disappointing to me. Fortunately for me my immediate supervisor understands, and the so-called “29 day rule” works in my favor as a limiting factor.

As it turns out, we have a sort of uneasy compromise. They approved my amended leave request for April, and I will travel back and forth for more than one iteration to try to provide some continuity until the expected arrival of the permanent civilian employee. This can’t last forever (at least from my point of view), but it works for now. I don’t mind saying that I was pretty unhappy all last weekend. I was able to put it into perspective by reminding myself that nobody is shooting at me or trying to blow me up, which is more than many of my compatriots can say. Nonetheless, I didn’t really settle down and get my head straight until the challenges of the job absorbed my attention after I’d arrived. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

During the day on Thursday I had focused on the things I needed to do from a work standpoint to be prepared to leave for an extended period. That night at home I started preparing for the personal aspects of it. I had been focused on moving in and settling down with my recently-delivered household goods, many of which are still in the moving boxes. Now I had to shift gears and become “expeditionary” again. So I dragged out a duffel bag, a footlocker and a backpack, and started gathering things together as well as thinking about preparing my apartment and car for my extended absence.

I had been on the verge of ordering refills for my various vitamins and nutritional supplements. Fortunately I had just enough to pack for a month, although I fell short on one tablet by a few days. There were a lot of other little details like that to take care of, not to mention calling my girlfriend and breaking the bad news. That phone call was no fun. She took it ok, but like me, it took her some time to come to grips with it. I’d had the whole day to absorb it and was partly over the anger and frustration, and was more in “deal with it” mode. She naturally needed some time to go through the same process. But she was very good about it, which was what I had expected based on what I’ve learned about how she thinks. It was a good exercise for the two of us to go through together – dealing with a disappointment and working through to what we hoped would be a viable alternative plan.

On Friday I went to the USAREUR Action Officer’s orientation course, as planned. This is an all-day session intended to introduce new staff officers to USAREUR’s history, mission, force structure, and staff procedures. It’s important to go to it in any case, but now that I was going to be in a remote location and still be expected to get things done, it was critical. Up until now I had been able to just walk into someone’s office and ask “How do we do this?” or “Who should I call for this information?”, but now I need to be able to do things on my own with much more tenuous support. It was a very valuable day, and was time well spent. I packed all the class materials (phone book, org charts, examples of staff action documents) right in with the rest of my work stuff for the trip. (I failed to mention that this new assignment is in addition to my regular duties, which do not stop. I will be expected to continue to stay on top of my regular job from afar while holding down this new temporary one in Romania. Yay.)

I got back around 1600 Friday afternoon, and had just enough time for some last-minute staff coordination before COB. Then I was on my own to finish getting ready to fly Sunday morning. One thing I was very thankful for was that in the course of the day (I think during the lunch break from class) I had asked one of the other officers if the little PX on the base in Romania sold laundry detergent, thinking I might have to take my own supply. The reply was a surprise: “There aren’t any washers and dryers there – you have to use a laundry service that comes twice a week. You turn it in on Monday and get it back on Friday.” Holy crap! That was kind of important to know! Normally I’d only travel with about four sets of underwear and two uniforms, and plan to do a small load of laundry every two or three days. Now, in order to ensure I didn’t run out and still had clothes in case of a delay or loss (not unknown with Quartermaster laundry service), I had to take all ten sets of underwear and at least one extra uniform. My packing list was growing.

I packed some minimal civilian clothes, and included some of the things I normally take on my weekend hikes, hoping to be able to spend some time exploring the Romanian countryside. I also took along some of the little comfort things you like to have in your room, although it was hard to know exactly what they would and would not have – there just wasn’t time to think of all the questions, much less ask them. So I did the best I could. I had to put my mail on hold – I couldn’t forward it because I had several packages already on the way (including some large ones with side steps and floor mats for my Jeep) that would not make sense to have in Romania. But it’s an all-or-nothing thing, so now I can’t get mail forwarded here. (Side note – every single day since arriving, I’ve gotten a note from the mail room that a new box has arrived).

On Saturday I went into downtown Heidelberg to look for a Romanian phrase book. There was nothing in the PX, and I didn’t have time to go to Ramstein Air Base, so I looked in the German stores. It was quite a hunt, but I was finally successful. I found a Langenscheidt’s “Sprachfuehrer Rumaenisch” (phrase book like Berlitz) as well as a travel guide (Dumont – “Richtig Reisen”). I spent a long time at the store comparing a National Geographic travel guide with the Dumont, and chose this one because it has better maps and a better system for describing travel via alternative modes (e.g. trains). I also liked the way it was organized into regions. I am fortunate that my German is good enough that I can use the German-to-Romanian phrase book and the German travel guide with very little trouble. It’s interesting, though, reading the travel advisories and so forth, because it’s all about what is “normal” for a German, and what they should expect in Romania. Same with the phrase book. It make for an interesting two-step thought process, which would be much less satisfactory if I didn’t already speak fluent German and have such a strong sense of being at home in Germany. I don’t know if I’ll get much chance to travel on the weekends, but at least I’m prepared just in case.

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent making final preparations – making sure I was completely packed, throwing out all perishable food, filling my Jeep with gas, etc. etc. WAPITA. But I got it all done. Sunday morning the taxi was there at 0730 sharp to take me to the Frankfurt Airport for my flight (you know the sign actually says “Airport” now, instead of “Flughafen”? There are a lot more English words used in everyday German conversation than I remember from 25-30 years ago. But that’s a subject for later.)

I had two options when I booked my flight to Romania. I’m outside the city of Constanta on the Black Sea. It has an airport, and the local US Deputy Commander (a civilian) had said I should fly in and out of there. Talking to people at the office, however, made me think that wasn’t a very attractive option. To get there from Frankfurt, you fly to Munich, then to Timisoara, then to someplace called Sibiu, then to Constanta. At some point along there you switch to a puddle-jumper aircraft. That gives lots of opportunities for delays and lost luggage. The alternative was to fly directly to Bucharest, Romania, and then take a 3 hour cab ride to Constanta. I chose that option as the more reliable of the two.

Getting through security in Frankfurt was really a trip. I checked my bags, which turned out to be overweight. So I had to go upstairs and pay a fee at a different counter, and get my boarding pass there. My newly-issued Government Travel Credit Card did not work, but was turned down (later I found out that although it had been issued and I had activated it, the administrative steps at our command level to acknowledge the activation and route the funds from our unit budget had not been completed yet because it was so new). So I had to pay out of pocket, and will be reimbursed later. After that I headed for security.

Everything was going fine until the guy at the scanner held up my Zippo lighter and said it couldn’t go. I knew that, of course, but I just overlooked it in my rush to pack (fortunately I had no knives – they were in my checked baggage). I told them to just toss it out, but they said they couldn’t, since it contains “hazardous materials”. They told me I had to go back out, dispose of it myself, then come back through security. I tried to see if there wasn’t some other option, but they were quite firm – they could not accept it or dispose of it, and I could not take it with me. I tried to reason with them that there wasn’t enough time – but since I absolutely had to take it out myself, could I leave my bags there so I didn’t have to go through all that again? No. I had to take my bags back out with me. OK, then, can I at least not have to wait in line when I come back? No, you have to wait in line. Aw, come on! There’s no time for that. FINALLY, the guy told me to take the lighter and go with him. They took me around the corner to another station, where somebody quite routinely and matter-of-factly had me fill out a form. The people in front of me had a Zippo and were filling out a form, too. As it turns out, they CAN take possession of it and either dispose of it, or hold it for me to claim later. They just don’t want to do it, and did everything possible to discourage me. My persistence (some might say intransigence) paid off, and I’ll get my Zippo back when I return.

Once that little drama was over with, I headed for my gate. I had forgotten that I’d have to go through security again at the gate, but I had time. I was thirsty, though, and wanted a Coke and a bottle of water. The last time I went through Frankfurt there was a concession inside the gate that sold sandwiches and drinks, but I didn’t see it. I asked, and they told me it was gone. They said I could buy it in the store downstairs and have the attendant heat-seal it in a bag, and they’d let me bring it in. That seemed reasonable, so I went in search of the store that sold Coke and bottled water. I found it, made my selections, and asked the lady to seal them in a bag. She got an exasperated look on her face and said she could not do that, nor could anyone else at the airport. I told her that the gate attendants had told me that’s what I had to do, and it was obvious from her attitude that this was not the first time this had happened. So I cut my purchase down to one Coke, drank it outside the gate, and then went in. Once I got in there I saw there was a vending machine for bottled water and Coke. (Thanks for telling me, people.) I waited around awhile and we boarded the plane.

It was a Boeing 737, and it wasn’t full, so I had elbow room and a decent flight. I watched a movie on my iPod (“The Clock” with Judy Garland, about a soldier on leave who falls in love and gets married. It was a bit implausible and forced at times, but enjoyable and had its moments). The landing in Bucharest was uneventful. I got my luggage, found the taxi driver waiting with a sign that my name on it, and we were off.

The ride to Contanta was interesting. Actually, our destination was a village called Mihail Kogalniceanu (MK for short), about 25 km north of Constanta. That’s where the Romanian Air Base and Army Base that we are working on are located. This part of the country is mostly flat, as it is largely an alluvial plain. The Danube Delta, one of Europe’s most important ecological areas, is just to the north. I will leave my detailed impressions of Romania for later entries, but I’ll say here that it is definitely *not* Germany. The economy is much smaller and the country and its citizens are generally less wealthy, and it shows. I do think that a good part of the reason it seemed so stark and barren is that it’s winter, and that during summer when things are green it is probably a lot prettier. But even natural greenery won’t put paint on the buildings, take the rust off the metallic surfaces, or clean up the trash. But again, more detail later.

We got to the air base, had a little delay while we found the officer who had the key to my room, and I got my luggage inside. We took a quick walk-around so I’d have a general orientation of where to go in the morning, and then I went to the MWR building to get on their wireless internet for awhile until I got sleepy. (My room now has a hard-wired internet connection, but it wasn’t set up the night I got here.)

So, I had arrived in Romania for my new temporary duty. A lot has happened during the ensuing week, but that and my impressions (and photographs) of Romania will have to wait for another entry. This unaccustomed burst of blogging after a long hiatus has me in the same (purported) condition as the parrot in Monty Python’s pet shop sketch – “tired and shagged out after a long squawk”. ;-)

Mood: Hungry (Oh, wait – that’s the cheese shop sketch…)
Music: Billy Idol (playlist)

Sundays in Germany

2010-02-27T00:01:00.051+03:00

26 February 2010
2300

I was originally going to call this “A Tale of Two Sundays” and start it off with: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. But then a third Sunday came and went, and now I’m approaching the sixth Sunday and still haven’t made the entry. Everything has changed, and I want to write about the changes, but first comes the entry I’ve been putting off for weeks, and tomorrow or the next day I’ll write an update about this past week.

The “best of times/worst of times” reference was intended to be a wry (albeit tongue-in-cheek) comment on an interesting aspect of life in Germany. One of the best things about Germany is that people love to walk outdoors, and so there are hiking paths all over the place. But one of the worst things about Germany is that people love to walk outdoors, so there are *people* all over the walking paths. For a hiker and backpacker who cherishes silence and solitude, this takes some getting used to. And I’ve had several opportunities to get used to it, as I spent the next three Sundays after my Jeep excursion hiking in the mountains around Heidelberg.

The first time I went out was on 24 January. It was a crisp winter day, but without much snow. I went to the north of Heidelberg, on the other side of the Neckar River. There’s a famous path called the Philosophenweg (Philosopher’s Way) that goes along the north side of the river for miles. I parked right at the beginning of this path, which is in town, and started up. Very soon, though, I took a detour up an interesting-looking path that led up a mountain (well, these “mountains” might really better be called “hills” – they’re not exactly Alpine but they are small mountains – steep and mostly wooded. This particular mountain is called the “Heiligenberg” (Holy Mountain). It turned out that there were a lot of really interesting things up there.

The first one was this tower commemorating Otto von Bismarck (“The Iron Chancellor”). He was responsible for the unification of Germany in the late 1800’s and for the creation of the beginnings of the modern German state. I thought he must have had some connection with Heidelberg, as there is also a Bismarckplatz with a statue of him in the center of town. But a little research showed that there were at least a couple hundred “Bismarcktuerme” and “Bismarcksauele” – he was a popular object of monument-building.

http://www.bismarcktuerme.de/website/ebene1/indexenglisch.html

Bismarckturm Heiligenberg

Many of the pictures of Bismarcktuerme on the website show the top with a huge flame on it, including at least one historical picture of this one. It reminded me of the beacons of Gondor in "The Lord of the Rings". I suspect that's why it's high on a mountain, and I also suspect that the beacon feature of the monument may have some symbolism connected with his role in unifying the various smaller German states into the Deutsches Reich (German Empire, and also sometimes referred to as the "Second Reich"). I climbed up inside to look at the view, which was cool.

Then a bit further up the mountain, I came upon a huge open-air amphitheater. It turns out it was built by the Nazis as a propaganda tool. They apparently built (or planned to build) over 400 of these around the country. It has 8,000 seats and standing room for 5,000 more. It languished for many years after the fall of the Third Reich, but in the late 1980’s it was put back into use. I think it will be really cool to go to some kind of outdoor concert or program there.

Freilichtbuehne "Thingstaette" - the view from the bottom on the stage.

Freilichtbuehne "Thingstaette" - the view from the top.

Freilichtbuehne "Thingstaette" - diagram explaining the history.

A bit further up I came to some ruins, which included this sign with a synopsis of the history of the site:

It says: “The Heiligenberg has been settled since about 1000 BC. There are Celtic and Roman structures, a Franconian cemetery, an 8th Century castle, and religious buildings since the 9th century."

There was a ruined Kloster (cloister, i.e. monastery) still visible on the highest point.

This is a diagram of the Kloster floor plan, showing the various rooms. "Standort" means "You are standing here."

I climbed this tower to take the next photo.

It was cool to stand and look at this and imagine the monks up here on the mountaintop living their lives in their bare little cells.

Then I came to something really cool – a sign indicating the site of a Celtic ringwall.

The marker says: “Prehistoric Fortified Settlement, *inner ringwall*, {two connecting walls with a gate} , erected by the Celts against the obtruding Germans about 400 years before Christ”

This diagram shows how the entire mountain was surrounded by two concentric ringwalls. It explains that the Heiligenberg was the center of Celtic power in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., maintaining a monopoly over the nearby iron deposits, a source of economic and military strength. I thought it was very interesting that the Nazis (specifically Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry) chose to put the amphitheater right in the middle of this prehistoric Iron Age seat of power (you can see the later amphitheater in the diagram).

The next Sunday (31 January) I went to the same place, but this time I simply continued along the Philosophenweg until I got tired, then turned around and came back. Near the beginning of my walk I was treated to what is probably the most famous view of Heidelberg, with the Schloss (castle), the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) and the Alte Bruecke (Old Bridge):

There was a lot more snow this time, and it got deeper the higher I climbed. I really enjoyed this little brook I came across along the way.

It was very nice to hear the sound of running water in the woods after so much time in the desert. I can’t get enough of it!

This is a view down the Philosophenweg, further along the way. I was glad I had worn my hiking boots and tall gaiters, as the snow was almost up to my knees in some places. It got to be kind of tough going further up, but I was rewarded with almost complete silence and solitude, something quite rare here. I sat on a bench and had my lunch, including making a cup of hot tea in my canteen cup/stove, as I often do when I go for a hike. I also had a thermos of hot chocolate. I had brought my binoculars, and watched a woodpecker work on a tree for quite some time. It was an interesting color - no white or red like in the USA, only black or dark colors, with a sort of fluffy collar around it's neck. I meant to look it up in a bird book or website when I got back, but I guess I'm not much of a birdwatcher. At the end of the path, just before going back down to the car, I stopped and sat on another bench with a view of Heidelberg, and enjoyed a pipeful of tobacco. I had almost taken my pipe with me to the desert but did not, and now I’m happy to have it back again.

P.S. - Ok, just had to look it up:

http://woodpeckersofeurope.info/?q=black_woodpecker

I must have been wrong about the red coloration on the head. I guess I just didn't see it. Perhaps it was a female, which has a smaller red patch according to this. Assuming the website had a complete list of European woodpeckers, this is the only one it could have been.

The following weekend, 7 February, I decided to drive to a completely different place to hike. I just drove off to the north looking for a likely-looking place to turn east into the mountains. After awhile I did so, and after some winding and climbing on narrow roads through little towns I found a Parkplatz set up for cross-country skiers and hikers.

The Germans are very well-organized, and have signs like this for all the hiking paths I’ve seen. Notice something odd about the sign? (Hint – I had a heck of a time orienting this sign to my map until I noticed it).

Typical view down one of the paths I walked on. The terrain reminded me of the movie "Battle of the Bulge". This weekend the snow was deep and crunchy. I sunk in just enough with every step that it was like walking on a beach. I was quite exhausted after I got back to the car. I was glad to have my Jeep, as I had to help some people free their car after they got stuck trying to go too far into the unplowed parking lot.

Afterwards I drove back in the general direction of Heidelberg, kind of randomly picking interesting-looking roads through the mountains. Things started to look vaguely familiar, and then I came around a corner in a little village and was right in front of the “Goldenen Hirsch”, the restaurant I had eaten in the first day I took my Jeep out for a drive. I was very tempted to stop and eat, but I had already decided what I was doing for dinner that night and stuck to my plan. Now I can’t remember what that plan was, so it must not have been as good as the Goldenen Hirsch! Next time I’ll stop there for sure – in fact I think it will be a destination.

This was the last Sunday that I hiked in Germany. I had intended to spend every Sunday this way, but I found the piles of cardboard boxes too hard to ignore, and spent the next Sunday (14 February) unpacking, putting up pictures, and generally making my BOQ more homelike. That was very rewarding, and I am really starting to feel at home there.

The following Sunday (21 February) was spent in a *completely* different manner, but that’s a story for the next entry.

Meanwhile I have some very pleasant memories of my first month in Germany. :-)

Mood: Reminiscent
Music: Songs of the Obsersalzberg

My Apartment in Germany

2010-01-24T21:44:00.008+03:00

Sunday 24 January 2010
1930

Today was an excellent day. I went for a long hike up the Heiligenberg on the north side of the Neckar River. It felt great to get out in the open, but that story will have to wait a few days as I’m still behind in my updates. Today’s entry will be a description of my living quarters here.

As I indicated in my earlier entry, my choices for government-furnished quarters here were not ideal. Since I am not authorized to live off post at government expense, my original intent had been to take the government-furnished quarters temporarily and then move off post into an apartment on the economy at my own expense. This was a pleasant fantasy until I got here and was confronted by reality.

The fact is that living here is very expensive. Even a moderate apartment that met my needs would be likely to cost around 800 Euros or so (about $1200 per month). Once I saw my BOQ, it just didn’t seem to make sense to spend all that money when I have an adequate living space for free. I may change my mind later, as there are definitely some drawbacks. But for now this will have to do.

I am living in a place called Patrick Henry Village, which is a dedicated US housing area about three miles southwest of Heidelberg. It is a completely self-contained community about a mile long by a half mile wide (almost exactly the size of the base I was on in Qatar). It contains a large number and variety of housing units, plus a variety of community service activities. It has the commissary (grocery store), a Shoppette (small PX like a 7-11), a coffee shop, bar & grill, theater, bowling alley and entertainment center, Burger King, elementary school, middle school, high school, youth activity center, workout center, guest house, and community center. There’s probably more that I haven’t seen yet. But it is definitely “little America”. You have to leave to get to the main PX and most of the administrative type activities (housing, finance, etc.), but by and large it’s pretty self-contained.

My building looks pretty much like all the other buildings here. In the picture of me and my Jeep, my windows are the third and fourth ones down (on both floors). I have a two story apartment, with a kitchen and living room on the first floor and a bedroom and bathroom on the second floor, with a spiral staircase at one end. Here are some pictures.

When you first walk in the door and look to the left, you see my living room:

The entrance to the kitchen is directly in front of the door, and to the right of the door is the staircase. This is the view back towards the kitchen and stairs from the far end of the living room:

The kitchen is pretty tiny. This is one of the main drawbacks of staying here, although I think I can make it work OK once I get my stuff here. I plan to set up my kitchen shelves outside the door in the living room to sort of extend the space a bit. Not much room to work, though!

When you climb the stairs, you see the bedroom. The closets at the end are pretty roomy, but they are all the storage space I have in the entire apartment!

You can’t see it, but the bathroom is right at the top of the stairs. I plan to put the desk in front of the upstairs door where the box is, and a bookshelf in front of the railing:

The spiral staircase is kind of a novelty, so I had to play with it a little:

I am starting to get settled in a bit, although I will have a lot of work to do when my household goods get here. There is not much room, and hardly any storage at all. I didn’t send any furniture except a small desk that will go upstairs in the bedroom. But there is just a ton of stuff anyway. It will probably be OK once I get the boxes unpacked. But it will still be tight – things like backpacking equipment, bicycle, toolboxes, etc just don’t have anyplace to go!

I do have a collapsible closet/wardrobe thing that I sent over and plan to put just inside the front door to the right. That will give me a place for coats, shoes, and PT clothes, which are currently just strewn around everywhere. Today I ordered a bicycle cover, because I think the bike will just have to stay outside all the time. Not ideal, but I don't have much choice.

I wanted to rent a storage place nearby, but they are not nearly as common here as they are in the USA. I finally found one in Mannheim. It’s about ten miles door to door, so it’s not too bad. That’s where I will put the empty boxes I want to keep (like from the television and stereo), as well as excess stuff I don’t need like footlockers full of field gear, and whatever else I can’t fit into the apartment. The back seat to my Jeep has been taken out and stored there already. I think I am going to just drive it with no back seat in it all the time. I can’t see any reason to have it in there, and I kind of like it without. There’s certainly more room for stuff in the back, and it feels more “Jeep-like”.

Besides the tiny kitchen and lack of storage, there are two major drawbacks to this living arrangement. One is that I am not out in German society – I can’t just walk out the door and be in Germany among Germans. I am perfectly able to get in the car and go places, and when it’s nice I’ll be able to bike everywhere with no problem, but it’s not the same as having to neighbors to get to know. It just doesn’t feel the same as it does to walk out the door and be in a neighborhood. Many Americans prefer the “little America” environment because it’s familiar. But it’ not at all what I wanted. I am really enjoying being in Germany, but I already feel the “apartness” of living in PHV. Perhaps over time I’ll come to see this as a bigger problem and decide to move off post after all – we’ll see.

The other drawback is the lack of a second bedroom for visitors. I promised my kids a “base of operations” should they choose to come and spend some time here. I anticipated that this would mean a dedicated guest room. As you can see, I don’t have that. However, I did arrange the living room with this situation in mind. My idea is to put up some sort of divider or curtain between the back of the couch and the table, to create a private space in the living room for the duration of a visit. It will be a bit cozy, but nothing we can’t live with.

As I described earlier, the distance away from town changes the texture of life a bit, but it’s an easy bike ride so I figure I’ll just buy a second bicycle this spring for my kids to use when they come. Riding around Heidelberg on a bike will be pretty cool, anyway. That seems to be how a lot of people get around – it’s easier than finding a place to park the car and you can go just about anyplace.

There are also some upsides to this arrangement. The major one is that I don’t have to worry about security. All the US facilities are secured now, and you have to show ID to get in and out. So unlike when I was here in the 1980’s, I won’t have to go out and inspect my car every morning with a flashlight looking for bombs before I get in and drive to work. This will also be an advantage during an extended visit by any of my kids. Should I be called away on temporary duty for a few days while they are here, I won’t have to be concerned about anything as they will be in a secure area surrounded by US facilities and resources, with the freedom to come and go off post – the best of both worlds.

So, that’s my apartment in Germany. Not as big as what I was used to at home, but quite a step up from my 7 ½’ x 11’ room in Kuwait and my 8’ x 20’ shipping container in Qatar! I think I’ll be comfortable here.

Mood: Content
Music: Christoph Eschenbach, Mozart Piano Sonatas

Back in Germany

2010-01-22T23:41:00.008+03:00

Friday 22 January 2010
2100

I am back in Germany after a long leave at home. It’s been a very interesting 2 ½ months since my last entry!

I spent the first few days in November doing some basic in-processing in Heidelberg, then left on 5 November to go home on leave. After all the confusion and conflicting information in my USARCENT units about PDMRA, it was remarkably simple and straightforward to get credit for it here. I simply filled out my DA 31 leave form as “Ordinary Leave” with “Special Leave Accrual” typed on the line in block 7. Then in the remarks block I put “PDMRA: (date-date)” and “Ordinary: (date-date)” to account for the different sources for my accrued leave days. They processed it without a hitch. Now that I’m back, the “proof in the pudding” will be what shows up on my Leave and Earnings Statement after the completed form is processed. But I don’t expect any issues. (Knock wood)

I flew home on a non-stop flight (what a treat!) and spent the first couple of days back getting my temporary apartment set up, furniture delivered, etc. It was kind of a whirlwind leave in some ways, because there was so much to do. But I had so much time that it rarely seemed rushed or cramped. I just went with the flow and did whatever there was to do at the time. I got to visit with almost every family member, and got to spend more time with my kids than I have been able to in years. I won’t attempt a chronology here, as everyone who reads this was involved and already knows what we did!

I had a delightful and unexpected surprise during my leave when I followed up on a chance meeting I had on a plane flight last year when I was returning to Qatar. I sat across the aisle from a very interesting lady, with whom I talked almost non-stop the entire flight. We kept in contact through email, and decided to meet when I got home on leave. We had a wonderful time and got to know each other much better. We’ll be seeing more of each other. :-)

My departure was a bit sad as they usually are. But this time it had a whole different aspect because there is actually a realistic possibility that people can and will come here to visit me. :-)

On to my arrival in Heidelberg and what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks (gee, it seems like a lot longer than that!):

To start with my plane was three hours late getting in on Friday, which endangered my plan to get over to Housing and draw my quarters. I took a shuttle from the airport, showed up outside Campbell Barracks with all my bags, and went inside to find a ride. The Sergeant Major honchoed me around, which was very helpful. We went to housing, where I got the keys for the quarters I had chosen. (It was actually the option I had chosen – i.e. to live in quarters that were very close to work and the city transportation network, but to have a roommate. The specific quarters and roommate had not been assigned.) As soon as I walked in I immediately knew that it was a mistake. We went back to housing and I switched to an individual BOQ in Patrick Henry Village. It’s farther away from town, but it’s private which is a huge advantage.

My original plan was to take the BOQ temporarily and then to move out into an apartment on the economy. This would have to be at my own expense because I’m not authorized to have government-paid off-post quarters. I quickly discovered that this would simply be too expensive. So I’m living in the BOQ and expect to stay there. It’s a bit of a disappointment because it is not my idea of how I wanted to live here – I can’t just walk out the door and be in the middle of a German neighborhood, walk to the shops and market, etc. But it’s free, which will enable me to have money to spend on other things. And having a car makes a big difference as well. But I’m getting ahead of myself – I’ll return to the process of getting settled, and go into more detail about the quarters later.

After I was signed for my quarters we went to the PX for some basics – I needed sheets, a pillow, a blanket, etc. The sergeant major took me over there and I picked up a few necessities, then came back and crashed. The next day (Saturday) we went back to the PX and to the commissary, and I stocked up on various household sundries and food. Sunday was kind of a quiet day when I just rested and took stock of things. My main focus was trying to get a car, although I had a few other things I had to do as well. I needed to get set up on the internet and get a cell phone, pick up my mail, and also open a local bank account. All that stuff was taken care of by COB Monday, and I turned to a serious focus on buying a car.

I had been looking at various places people had suggested. My plan was to buy a “hooptie” (that’s the word people here use for what we would call a “clunker”). I would order a brand-new Jeep from the PX dealer here and drive the hooptie temporarily until it came in. I sat down with the PX car salesman and got a quote on a Jeep. There were several “ouch!” moments. The first was the price – not as much of a discount as I’d expected. I imagine that people in the US could get a much better deal at this point. The second was the fact that I’d have to pay for shipping it over here. Because I am on a one-year tour and not authorized to ship a POV, they can’t send the new car via military shipping, and I have to pay for it to get sent over. And finally, the wait – to get what I wanted would take until at least April or May, *if* I ordered it right away.

So then I went to shop for hoopties. The first challenge was just knowing where to look. I got suggestions from several people, but there was no one single reference to point me to different sources for used cars. I asked taxi drivers and bus drivers, and talked to people at the office. That led me to a couple of workshops downtown (who didn’t have anything) as well as to the “Lemon Lot” here on PHV. The Lemon Lot is just a place where people park their cars with for sale signs in the windows, and everybody knows to look there for cars. I looked at a couple but the selection was pretty slim. I got the best advice from a couple guys I chatted with randomly in the PX. They suggested some websites with classified ads, and those were by far the most productive sources. I spent an evening going over the ads and was prepared to spend all day Wednesday doing nothing but car shopping. I sent a lot of “call me” emails, and made a list of cars to look at.

On Wednesday I set out to visit car places. I looked at a Subaru 4WD that was very nice, but too expensive to buy as a temporary car. I looked at an Opel Astra that was a real wreck – needed a lot of work to pass inspection. I looked at a BMW 320i and test drove it. It was OK, but a bit long in the tooth. I took it to inspection and it turned out it needed work. The dealer said he’d fix everything, no problem, and then we talked about price. Surprise! His price on the windshield was in Euros, not dollars. It may seem obvious that it would be in Euros in Europe, but the car was displayed next to an American Kaserne, and all the signs were in English, so I expected the prices to be in dollars. He had no Euro or dollar symbols, just numbers, so I think it was deliberately misleading. In any case, this changed everything, as a Euro is worth $1.50 right now – the price was half again as much as I expected. We were haggling over this when my cell phone rang, and it was a call back from someone who had a Jeep for sale. I thanked the guy and went to look at the Jeep.

The seller was in Kaiserslautern, which is over an hour away. But the listing for this Jeep made it seem worthwhile. It was anything but a hooptie. A 2008 Wrangler, it had been purchased in March of that year and then the owner got deployed to Turkey. She shipped it there, which took a few months, then rarely drove it (and then only on post). As a result of this history, the Jeep had only 5900 miles on it! When sent to Germany in December she was finalizing a divorce, and decided to sell her Jeep and two motorcycles to pay the bills. I happened to see her ad the day she posted it, and met with her the next day. I drove it, we discussed the price, and I bought it. That simple. :-)

Well, not quite. (Nothing in the military is ever just “that simple” when you’re overseas). The first challenge was getting her the money. The second challenge was registration.

**********

Monday, 22 Jan – well, ok. I started this entry on the 16th, re-dated it to the 19th, and here it is the 22nd. The task of a complete chronological account of my time here so far just gets more and more daunting, so I’m changing my approach (I have to post *something* or you’ll all think I fell off the edge of the planet!).

So – the remainder of this entry will be the story of my Jeep, and then I’ll give an apartment update later in a separate entry. Back to the process of getting the Jeep:

Since I had been thinking of getting a hooptie and expected to have to pay cash, I had been taking money out of my accounts as fast as possible. There is no way get large amounts of money over here directly without a local account. I had opened one, but the connection (aside: I am getting comfortable with German again – the first word that popped into my mind just now was “verbindung” rather than “connection”. That’s a good sign…) had not yet been established. So my only other alternative was ATM withdrawals. My bank allows only $500 per day to be taken out of an ATM. Fortunately I have two accounts, so I was moving money to my business account and making a $500 withdrawal from each account each day, to get enough money for a hooptie. I was hoping not to have to pay more than $3,000 or so, but they are a bit overpriced, especially if you want anything decent.

So I had been doing this and had $3,000 in cash, when I found the Jeep. She was trying to get about $22,500 for it, which is what the NADA said it was worth in its condition. The Kelley Blue Book said it was worth just shy of $20,000. Of course those prices are US prices, and things are more expensive here. She also had aftermarket wheels and tires on it that are like new, but I didn’t take those into account. I started at $18,000. We haggled on the price a bit and settled on $19,500. I think it was a fair price – certainly a lot less than I’d have had to pay for a new one. It isn’t exactly the configuration I would have ordered, but it is a cool Jeep and I’ll have fun with it.

Now, keep in mind that this was Thursday, and we wanted to transfer the car on Friday, so I could take advantage of the long weekend (and also turn in my rental car that was outrageously expensive).

Now the problem was that in order to buy it from her, she would need to pay off her loan and then get the rest from me one way or another. And her bank was in the USA. I could not register the car in my name until we got a lien release from her bank saying the loan was paid off. How to do that?

We couldn’t do anything until her bank opened up at 0730 central time, 1430 local time here. So I went home and then went back to Kaiserslautern in Friday afternoon (about a 100 km drive one way).

We started dealing with the process when the banks opened in the USA. Wire transfers can take up to 24 hours to process, so that didn’t seem like an option. I had a too low of a limit on my credit card, so we couldn’t do it that way without raising the limit. I called the bank to get the limit raised, and they said “We can’t do that over the phone – go to your local branch and they’ll take care of it, no problem”. Hmm – small problem – I’M ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. Oops – well, sorry, can’t help you. So I called the local branch, and they offered to do it. But then we found out that a credit-card transaction would be held anyway by her bank, so no dice. Then my bank offered to do an immediate wire transfer since they know me. THANK YOU!

Her bank had the money within about ten minutes, and we had an hour yet before the registration office closed. Problem solved, right? WRONG. Her bank had to go through a bunch of processes to apply the money to her loan and to prepare the lien release, and then fax it over. Long story short, we begged, pleaded, and cajoled, all to no avail. The people in Kaiserslautern even kept the office open after closing time for us, while we tried to get her bank to send the fax. But they just couldn’t make their processes work fast enough. So – no registration in my name on Friday.

Because I had paid off her loan and the Jeep was already on my insurance, and because there’s no law saying you can’t loan someone your car, she let me take it over the weekend anyway. I appreciated that, and enjoyed the Jeep over the holiday weekend, intending to go back and register it on Tuesday when they had the paperwork.

I turned in the rental car in Kaiserslautern (it cost me an extra $90 to do that) and drove home somewhat frustrated but nonetheless happy. How can you not be happy when you have a new Jeep?

Me and my Jeep, in front of my BOQ

I really wanted to get out and drive around, but I had so many things to take care of that Saturday and Sunday just evaporated. (More on that in a later entry). But on Monday I headed out. I didn’t have a specific destination, but the entire area north of Heidelberg is part of a mountainous region called the Odenwald, so I just headed up in that direction. I drove east down the Neckar river and turned left into the mountains up a road that showed a ruined castle a few km ahead. (It turned out there’s no road to it and nothing to see, but it was a pretty drive anyway).

Partway up that winding little mountain road I saw a two-track heading off into the woods, so naturally I had to put it in 4WD and turn off. I drove for several miles through the woods, went through some puddles, and got a nice thick coating of mud on my new Jeep. It’s a Jeep thing - kind of like taking your dog out and just letting him run. :-)

I came out of the woods and followed tractor tracks through some fields until I got back onto the road in a little farm village that looked like it was about a thousand years old – I love places like that! I had my camera but never stopped to take any photos. I was having too much fun driving.

I kept following the roads, and stopped at a likely looking Gasthaus called “zum Goldenen Hirsch” (The Golden Deer”). It had a wildlife/hunting theme, so I ordered Wildgoulasch, a wildlife (probably venison) goulash with spaetzle (a sort of noodle). It was absolutely delicious. First came a salad, then the main dish, with a side of sliced pears and cranberry preserves. It was about twice as much food as I needed to eat, but of course I ate it all. That place rated a waypoint on my GPS. :-)

The ride home was picturesque (as was the whole day). I considered it a day very well spent.

Tuesday I went back to Kaiserslautern to complete the registration process on the Jeep. I wish I could say it was smooth and uneventful, but it was in many ways a reprise of Friday.

The first bad news was that the registration place didn’t have the fax of the lien release form. Never came. Her bank (USAA, by the way, from whom we had a right to expect much, much better service) claimed that it had been sent on Friday. We told them it had not arrived and asked them to send it again. That should be easy, right? WRONG. They didn’t have the document – they destroyed it after faxing it. No copy, no image, just shredded it. So they had to go through the same thing all over again. Now we were getting near closing time and facing yet another 200km round trip if we didn’t get it done. So we both just kept calling USAA trying to find someone who would help us. Nobody would get out of their little box or violate their little procedures, and we were getting quite frustrated until FINALLY she got someone with a brain and a customer service attitude, who was willing to actually print out the document and put in on a physical fax machine instead of just pushing a button on her computer and saying “the fax has been requested”.

Once again the nice people at Kaiserslautern vehicle registration had stayed open late just for us, and we got it done about 15 minutes after they were officially closed.

So I drove home with the Jeep registered in my name. But I wasn’t done yet. The final chapter to this little saga is that I had to switch from Kaiserslautern plates (see the KL prefix in the photo?) to Heidelberg plates (HD). I took care of this on Wednesday.

I also had to get a fuel ration card for the vehicle. The way it works is that you go to AAFES (the PX) with your vehicle registration and open an account. They give you a prepaid debit card for use at Esso stations, and you put money into your account. When you use this card to pay for gas at Esso stations, the money is debited from the account, and you are charged a special price for US service members rather than the retail price that Germans have to pay.

We are fortunate not to have to pay their prices for gas here. When I filled up today it was 1.37 Euro per liter, which works out to something between $7 and $8 per gallon depending on the exchange rate (!). The pump total on my fill-up was 61.85 Euro ($87.42), but instead I paid $37.95 by using my US ration card. That is quite a benefit!

Looks like I got almost 23 mpg, but I think that might be a mistake – I may have filled up and forgotten to reset the odometer. I’ll calculate that again before I believe it. I expect more like 15-19 mpg, which is what my old Jeep averaged.

Okay, so I have finally made a blog entry from Germany! There’s more to say, but it will have to wait.

Mood: Happy
Music: Silence

Gruesst Euch Heidelberg!

2009-10-31T20:08:00.012+03:00

Saturday 31 Oktober 2009
1845

“Gruess Dich!” is an informal way of saying “Hello!” in German, and that’s just what I did today, both to the country and city at large and to any individual people who would listen. :-) ("Gruesst Euch" is the plural version - I'm getting used to German grammar again...)

This assignment didn’t happen by accident. It occurred to me nearly a year ago that as long as I had made the decision to resume my military career and do my best to stay on active duty, there was no reason I could not try to get a tour in Europe again. I started poking around, and by last spring I was on a full-court press hunting for a position here. I treated it just like you would any other job search, and was fortunate to be accepted into the USAREUR ODCSENG (US Army Europe, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Engineers). I’m not sure exactly what job I’ll be doing there yet – they’ve mentioned several different potential assignments. But whatever it is, it will be in Europe and not the desert, so I’m as happy as a clam.

I flew out of Doha International Airport at 0145 this morning, and arrived in Frankfurt around 0630. I got a little sleep on the plane, but not much. (I’m completely exhausted, so this will be a short entry!)

Someone was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but they seem to have gotten their signals crossed. After a couple of hours and a few phone calls, I ended up taking a shuttle from Frankfurt to Heidelberg. Under other circumstances it might have bugged me a little, but I was just so happy to be here that it didn’t matter at all. Besides, it was a nice ride and gave me a chance to simply look at the scenery (and speak a little with the driver) without having to talk about military business.

I was expecting to have to stay in Army Lodging on one of the bases here, but the officer I spoke with told me to go ahead and go to a hotel nearby. Since I’m alone for the weekend (What? You don’t work Saturdays and Sundays here?), this is much better, as it has more convenient access to the public transportation to get downtown.

It was nearly noon before I was completely situated and ready to decide what to do with myself for the rest of the day. I was very tired but also excited to be here. I considered a nap, but decided to go walk around downtown for the afternoon and just go to bed early. Early to bed on Halloween – what a party pooper! Oh well, that’s just how it goes.

I had a nice afternoon walking around downtown. The weather was very nice – chilly but with the sun peeking in and out all day. I bought a city map and took a few pictures. None of them is very good, and I didn’t get any of the castle (although I had a very nice view of it as we drove into town). Here are just a few for the flavor of it:

View up a side street off the Hautpstrasse in the Fussgaengerzone (Pedestrian zone)

A view north up the Hauptstrasse

The doorway into one of the buildings of Heidelberg University

I ate lunch at "The White Swan" - the little sign on the doorway says "1778"

My first meal on this tour in Germany - Jaegerschnitzel, Pommes Frites, and Heidelberger Pils. Mmmm!

This store was too funny. The lady working in the store was standing in view when I first walked by, and she would have fit right in - dressed to the nines in really outrageous clothing. But she stepped out of view before I could get my camera out.

I finally got tired and got on the Strassenbahn (streetcar) and came back to the hotel. After this it’s a nice hot shower and bed. Tomorrow is another day free to explore before I get started on my business here. (I don’t think it will take me long to get used to these two-day weekends again!)

Mood: Tired and Happy
Music: City street noises

Farewell to Qatar

2009-10-30T08:51:00.027+03:00

Friday 30 October
0830

Well, today is my last day here. Tonight I go to the airport, and at 0145 I’ll be wheels up on my way to my next duty assignment.

This has been a very interesting tour in many ways. It had challenges and frustrations like I’ve never experienced before, but I learned a lot both through dealing with those and also from the staff and civilian contractors I worked with.

For much of the time here I felt as though I was swimming upstream, and not always fast enough to overcome the current. I seem to have managed not to be swept out to sea, though, so that’s something. In retrospect I did manage to accomplish some things I’m proud of, although I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped I could when I started. I suppose if you have any kind of ambition or desire to do a good job, it always feels at least somewhat that way, but in this case I really did feel as though I’d been held back or let myself down somehow.

Then I had my farewell events, when you get together and say goodbye and thanks to the people who helped you, and they say some things about you. These were kind of an eye-opener for me.

The first one was my official “Hail and Farewell” with all the officers and NCOs, held on post in the club. It was ok, but not really special. We try to make these a nice event, but so many people come and go, we have one every month, and many of them are eminently forgettable. When I got the floor, I took the opportunity to publicly and sincerely thank a few officers who had really gone out of their way to help me, and from whom I had benefitted and learned some things while here. So that was nice and I was glad to be able to do it.

Then earlier this week we got together for a few minutes at the end of the day in the office. The people in DPW had gotten a memento made for me, and wanted to give it to me before the movers came to get my things. I’m glad they did, as it would have been hard to carry and might have gotten damaged in the mail. It’s really nice – a framed plaque that includes a picture of our section (with some nice words on it about me), folded U.S. and Qatari flags, a pair of traditional Arabian knives (a la Lawrence of Arabia), a couple of US Army coins, and some desert-themed items to balance it out. It will definitely have a place on my wall:

What really struck me, though were the things people said about me. I won’t repeat it all here, but they were very complimentary, and said things about the effect I’d had on them that I would not have predicted. We all like to think well of ourselves, but if we’re honest about our limitations and our flaws, we know that we aren’t really all that special and that it’s the people around us that help us to be successful. But they really took me by surprise with some of the things they said, and it made me feel as though I’d had more of an impact than I was giving myself credit for. So that made me feel very good, and I appreciated it.

I had my outbrief with the commander, and had a chance to exchange views on my experiences here at CAS and how I thought things might be improved. I appreciated that opportunity. She is relatively new and just getting past that first few months of getting a feel for the command. So I hope that perhaps some of my observations might help to enable a few things down the road to go a little more smoothly. It’s in other people's hands now! In parting, she also gave me a commander’s coin:

CAS Commander's Coin - Obverse

CAS Commander's Coin - Reverse

My section wanted to take me out to dinner, and picked a nice place downtown where we went last night. I was very surprised when we walked in, because not only were the people from my section there, but so were many of the civilian contractors we work with on a daily basis. Socializing with our civilian contractors is not normally condoned due to possible perceptions of favoritism or improper relationships. But the OIC of the section had gotten special permission for this event, as a strictly voluntary, everything-at-your-own-expense farewell dinner for me. It was particularly appropriate to do so, because we actually only have a very few military people in our section, and depend entirely for our efficacy on the work of our civilian contractor counterparts. Without them we simply could not do our jobs. So it was very nice to have them all there.

It was a very enjoyable dinner – good food, a nice atmosphere, and very good fellowship among everyone there. I had a very interesting conversation with the civilian across from me, as well as with his wife. He is ex-military (A Vietnam veteran of the Americal Division) and I heard first-hand stories about rocket attacks on Da Nang and the massive Air Assault helicopter lifts out of Phu Bai. He and his wife have also had extensive time stationed where I am headed, so we had some interesting conversations about that area as well.

I have to say that I felt very honored by who all came – there were about 15-20 people, and amongst them were several of the on-site managers of the company we work with – all the people I work with on a daily basis and their top management. I didn’t expect that, nor did I expect the warm and sincere compliments they paid me after dinner. I am not often rendered speechless, but I came close this time. I did manage to say a few things and express my appreciation. I hope they understood how sincerely I meant it. We’ve been through a lot together, and I could never have gotten anything accomplished without them. They gave me a nice framed certificate as a memento as well, which will also have a place on my wall.

I really wish we could do things like that more often. The barriers that are set up between contractors and government employees are well-intentioned, and there are certainly very good reasons for delimiting and circumscribing the relationships in some ways. But I think that in our zeal to avoid the appearance of impropriety, we go a bit overboard (or perhaps a better metaphor would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater).

At least on a rear-area logistics base like ours, we are absolutely and completely dependent upon civilian contractors to do our jobs. As in any organization, you have to have good working relationships in order to function effectively. And since we’re all human, an important part of those relationships is the human side. You simply can’t separate them, no matter how hard you try. I have felt fortunate in that the civilian contract managers I’ve worked with have been very professional and capable, and we’ve been able to develop understandings that have helped us to overcome some pretty significant obstacles in our work. But I wonder how much better that might all have gone, had we been able to let our hair down once in awhile and simply go out and get to know each other as individuals. I hope that perhaps our dinner last night will have that salutary effect, and that after I’m gone, the current crew will gain some lasting benefit from the interchanges and fellowship we experienced.

So I’m left with quite a contrasting set of memories of Qatar – this was one of the most challenging, frustrating, and stressful assignments I’ve ever had in the Army, but I will remember my farewell send-off as one of the high points of my career. I sincerely thank everyone and wish you all the best. Patton’s Own!

Mood: Happy
Music: Bobby Horton – “Good-Bye Old Glory” (Songs of the Union Army):

Four weary years of toil and blood,
With loyal hearts and true,
By field and fortress plain and flood,
We've fought the rebel crew,
But Victory is ours at last,
The mighty work is through,
Sound drums and bugles loud and fast,
This is our last tattoo.

Chorus:
Farewell farewell to march and fight,
Hard tack a fond adieu.
Good bye "Old Glory" for tonight,
We doff the army blue.

O comrades that may ne'er return,
Who sleep beneath the dew,
Where Vickburg's gleaming signal's burn or
Lookout's crest of blue.
Where-e'er your blood has sealed the faith,
We brought in triumph through,
Goodnight to glory and to death,
And that's good morn to you.

Chorus:
Farewell farewell to march and fight,
Hard tack a fond adieu.
Good bye "Old Glory" for tonight,
We doff the army blue.

Goodbye to muster and parade,
Goodbye the grand review,
The dusty line, the dashing aid,
Goodbye our general too.
Goodbye to war, but halt! I say,
John Bull a word with you,
Pay up old scores or we again
May don the army blue.

Chorus:
Farewell farewell to march and fight,
Hard tack a fond adieu.
Good bye "Old Glory" for tonight,
We doff the army blue.

Windows 7

2009-10-26T07:33:00.002+03:00

Monday 26 October 2009
0700

Yesterday I downloaded and installed the upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7. It is Awesome!

I have suffered under Windows Vista for over a year, ever since I bought this new computer while on leave. I have never been quite sure whether the problems I was experiencing were caused by the hardware or the operating system, but I have always suspected that it was mainly Vista’s fault.

Slow startups, slow shutdowns, lagging performance (especially when opening new tabs in Internet Explorer), inexplicable crashes and lockups – it’s been a miserable year from a computing standpoint. For someone whose only connection with his family and friends is through my computer, this is a very big deal. Windows Vista totally spoiled the fun of purchasing a new computer last year.

I’ve been reading about Windows 7 for months in the Wall Street Journal, ever since Walt Mossberg started testing it. He has had good things to say about it all along, and I have been looking forward to the release. I had intended to buy it as soon as I got home in November, but when I read that you could download it from Microsoft’s online store, I couldn’t wait.

The download experience was a bit frustrating. I wanted a backup CD, but since I only have a PO Box to ship it to, that was a problem. They only deliver to street addresses. Once I gave them a street address, their website *still* wouldn’t take the order, because the billing address for my credit card is a PO Box. I had to wait until they opened at noon on Saturday (7 PM here) to get someone on the line.

I made the purchase and then waited for the promised email to come with the download instructions and the product activation code. It didn’t come, so I called back. After a couple dropped calls (after all, this was an IP call from a crowded, noisy public internet venue near the USO), I finally got someone who could help (well, his supervisor helped since his English and intellect just weren’t up to the task). The supervisor told me I could just go to a different page on the website and download it, and the activation code would be right there on the screen. Why didn’t they just tell me that in the first place??

I downloaded the software, after a number of false starts trying to decide what would be the best approach. First off, a screen came up telling me about a bunch of software I had to uninstall first because it wouldn’t work. Some of it was no big deal, but some of it was critical – e.g. the WiFi adapter device driver. How am I supposed to get online without that? So I decided to leave that in place, along with a couple of others that simply refused to uninstall themselves (the ATI graphics driver, for one).

Microsoft “strongly recommends” that you stay connected to the internet during the entire installation. I was concerned because this would require a choice between getting the upgrade and sleeping (with no internet in our quarters here, the only place to get online is a loud, raucous, crowded, smelly club environment). I went ahead and downloaded, and then once the software was on my machine and it said it was “unpacking” it, I headed for my room.

I left the machine running all night. When I woke up, it was waiting for me to put in the activation code. I had written it down, but somehow dropped a character. So I had to wait until I got back to the internet place to read it online again. Fortunately I had my iPod Touch, and could get online and back to the website (I guess I could have used one of the public internet computers as well).

Once I put in the code, it proceeded with the installation. I had to search for some device drivers and reboot a couple times, but it was fairly straightforward. I’ve been through this sort of thing enough times and experienced enough pain with other conversions that this one felt pretty painless and quick.

Once it came up, I was very impressed. The interface is overall fairly similar to Vista, with some noticeable changes in how applications are displayed on the task bar. Overall, it is *much* faster – faster to load, faster to respond, faster to enter “Sleep” mode. Very snappy and responsive.

Most importantly for me, opening multiple tabs in Internet Explorer is not the excruciating ordeal that it has been with Vista. You actually regain control of the pointer fairly quickly and can move on to open another tab. This is a daily thing with me, as I read the Wall Street Journal online. Dow Jones refuses to provide a downloadable version for offline reading, so I have to open each article in a separate tab so that I can read it at my leisure later when I’m not online. (I guess they just can’t imagine that somebody might not have an internet connection 24x7 – how to they expect people to read it on the train?).

I’ve only used Windows 7 for a couple of days now, but it hasn’t crashed or locked up yet (which was at least a daily occurrence with Vista). So I’m an enthusiastic convert.

Over the past year, I have quite often found myself cursing Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates into the deepest reaches of Hell as I struggled with Vista. Now, for what it’s worth, I just went online and bought a bunch of Microsoft stock in my retirement account. I think this is a solid product that people will feel much better about than Vista. Microsoft still may not be my favorite company (after all, I’m an ex-IBMer), but at least they're off my sh*t list.

Mood: Happy
Music: HVAC noise

New Orders!

2009-10-02T13:08:00.007+03:00

Friday 2 October 2009
1300

Well, finally! I just received an email with a copy of my new orders. I am to report to Heidelberg Germany next month, exactly as I had requested. After three years in the desert, I am totally psyched for a normal country with woods, mountains, and everything else. Hooah!

Now comes the fun part- figuring out how to get there. Ironically, the very day I posted the description of my little mini-Odyssey through the bureaucracy I started getting encouraging news that they might actually handle this in the way that makes the most sense to me - going straight from here to my next assignment without being required to go back to CONUS first to demobilize.

I am going to act on that premise until somebody gives me a convincing reason to do otherwise.

There's not really anything I can do today, but I will get started on the process as soon as I can reach the right people to get the ball rolling.

Mood: Happy.
Music: Ideal - Keine Heimat (Die Amis Kommen)

Alone and Adrift in the Army

2009-09-29T07:51:00.009+03:00

Tuesday 29 September 2009
0800

The Army does not do a very good job taking care of individually-mobilized reserve component soldiers. How do I know? Because I am one, and I am alone and adrift in a Kafkaesque nightmare.

The Army does a pretty good job of managing active-component soldiers through their assignments. It is also set up to do a pretty good job of mobilizing and demobilizing entire reserve component units. But when it comes to individual reservists who are mobilized and sent to fill augmentation positions in deployed units, the system leaves a lot to be desired.

When I was first mobilized I was pretty impressed with the thoroughness of the process. There were times when certain actions were duplicated and other times when people in various positions had incomplete or contradictory information, but on the whole it was pretty straightforward and got me overseas within a couple weeks after I reported for duty. It was after I had been deployed for awhile that I began to realize just how loose, disorganized, and dysfunctional the system for managing reserve personnel actions is for those of us serving on active duty.

The problem has many contributing causes, which probably makes it very hard to fix. First of all, there are different and incompatible systems for tracking personnel records in the Active Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard. Access to these systems is restricted, and there is not always someone (in fact there is rarely ever *anyone*) in an active component unit who has access to the Reserve System to update it properly. It’s not that the personnel people can’t get access – but they rotate in and out of their positions so fast that they either don’t have time or don’t have the training or their login id doesn’t work or it’s not their responsibility or who knows what – there’s always some reason why your records don’t get updated properly.

Much more serious than the relatively simple problem of people having access to the automated record systems is the fact that nobody really knows what they are supposed to do to take care of you. Or perhaps it might be more correct to say that everybody knows exactly what to do, but the things they “know” are often inconsistent or even directly contradictory. There is such a maze of regulations, policies, messages, and SOPs that nobody can possibly know it all, and people come and go so fast that nobody ever knows everything about their own job, much less your personal history with the unit – the person who was here when you got here is gone before you leave, and the new person may or may not know what the last one knew. The answer you get depends upon who you ask and when you ask them, so assuming you can get someone to pay attention in the first place, it comes down to deciding who to believe.

The problem manifests itself through a whole panoply of personnel actions including evaluations, awards, promotions, pay and entitlements, leave, etc. . I have had a number of them affect me and soldiers who worked with me. For example, when trying to update the various awards and service ribbons I am supposed to have (which are important when preparing for a promotion board) I was told that all the Reserve personnel actions were the responsibility of my “home unit”, and so they refused to update my records. But since I was mobilized and cross-leveled into the deployed active component unit, that unit *was* my home – my former unit didn’t even have access to my records any more, much less know what awards and ribbons I was supposed to have.

The bottom line is that as an individually-mobilized reserve soldier, you are on your own when it comes to taking care of your records and your personnel actions. Nobody cares about it as much as you do, and if you want to ensure it’s done you have to really work at it. While this is always true to a certain extent, and it’s always a good idea to have a handle on your personnel file being up to date, in this particular situation it’s really up to you alone.

I really feel for the lower-ranking soldiers who are in this situation. At least I have the experience to know what questions to ask, and enough rank to get people’s attention from time to time. What happens to a private or specialist who gets tossed into the maelstrom? I wonder how many veterans are out there with incomplete or messed-up records or missing pay and entitlements, unable to get their problems fixed, or who just gave up in disgust.

Why am I writing about this now? Well, for the past three months I have known that I had a follow on assignment to Germany (since 24 June, to be exact). Since that date, I have been going through the process of trying to get orders, and now that my tour here is almost ended I am trying to work through the process of getting out of here and over there. Needless to say, it’s messed up. You really couldn’t make up some of the things that have happened (unless perhaps you were Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller).

In order to get mobilized and come over to the Middle East, I had to be released by my home unit (Eighth Army, CONUS). I filled out the necessary forms, got the commander’s permission, and was cross-leveled to USARCENT (Third Army), mobilized, and sent over here in 2006. When I extended my original mobilization in 2007, it was relatively easy – USARCENT just cut an extension order. When I decided to extend again in 2008, they had to go through a different process to put me on a status called COADOS – Contingency Operation, Active Duty Operational Support (this used to be called COTTAD – Contingency Operation Temporary Tour of Active Duty). That was also pretty straightforward. So I am currently on COADOS orders that end in a month.

After I decided to look for a tour in Germany and was accepted for an assignment on June 24, I began the process again. But this time it is different because I am changing to a new Army Service Component Command (ASCC). I am transferring from USARCENT to USAREUR (US Army Europe). For this reason they made me fill out a new DA Form 1058-R, and said I had to have my home unit commander’s signature again. OK, no problem.

Except that when I went to get that signature, I found out that my home unit was deactivated last fall and no longer exists. This kind of thing happens, of course, but wouldn’t you think they’d notify the soldiers in the unit that their unit no longer existed? Nobody told me. So I needed a signature from the commander of a unit that no longer existed. I needed to find out who “owned” me now. I found an officer who had been in the unit. He was about to retire, but he thought that all the people who had been in the Eighth Army (CONUS) and were mobilized and cross-leveled at the time it was deactivated had been sent to a certain other reserve unit in Indiana. He gave me some potential contacts.

I contacted the unit in Indiana, and the commander told me he’d take care of me, no problem. A couple of days later, however, he got back in contact with me. There was a problem after all – unlike others from Eighth Army who had been reassigned to them, I was not assigned to their unit - they could not find me on their books. He looked me up in a reserve personnel system, and told me I was assigned to “something called the Third Army Augmentation Company at FT McPherson, Georgia”. Surprise! That’s the unit I currently belong to in the active component. What’s going on here?

A little background: When you mobilize into USARCENT (Third Army) as an individual reserve component augmentee, you are first assigned to the Augmentation Company of the Special Troops Battalion (STB). They process your paperwork and help you through the mobilization process at FT Benning. (I described this process in detail back when I first started this blog in 2006). As far as I know, the entire raison’d’etre for this unit is to take care of the reserve component soldiers in USARCENT. I don’t know exactly what they do, but they sure as hell don’t take care of me. I’ve been mobilized in USARCENT for three years and with rare exceptions I never even heard from them until fairly recently, after I started agitating my way through this process of getting orders. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the story…

I contacted the STB Augmentation Company and after some back-and-forth I found that I am in fact assigned to them. What I did not know before was that they are actually a reserve component unit themselves – they are part of an active component formation, but I guess since their mission is to take care of reserve soldiers they are a reserve unit. This made it clear why the Army just moved me over there (on paper) when my home unit was deactivated. It just would have been nice if someone would have told me about it. (Hypothetical question: what would have happened to all the personnel actions that my “home unit” was supposed to do if I hadn’t insisted they get taken care of here, and I went home and there was no unit?). Anyway, no harm no foul – I’d only lost a few days’ time figuring this out. So now I needed the signature of the Augmentation Company Commander on my 1058-R to request my orders, and I’d be in business.

GONG!

“Sorry, but we don’t sign 1058-R’s for soldiers requesting orders to other commands. You have to demobilize first and go back to your home unit.” “But you *are* my home unit.” “Sorry, that’s our policy”. So I went through some back and forth for awhile between USARCENT and USAREUR trying to figure out how to get the form signed. USAREUR couldn’t process my request for orders and send it to DA without a signature, and my unit wouldn’t sign it until I got out and went back to…them (?). It was nuts.

One suggested solution was to transfer out of the USARCENT Augmentation Company and go to the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Once in the IRR, I would be a “free agent” and could sign my own request for orders. So I initiated that process. The only problem was that the Augmentation Company said I could not do this while mobilized. I had to wait until I was demobilized to get to the IRR, which I was only doing so that I could get a signed DA Form 1058-R while mobilized since I couldn’t get them to sign it until I was demobilized…this was too much.

I filed an IG complaint. The IG (Inspector General) is an office in every major command whose job, among other things, is a sort of “complaint department” of last resort when something is messed up. So I called the IG’s office in Kuwait and told them my situation. They told me what I had to do (fill out a form, naturally), and send it in. This was on a Saturday morning.

On the following Monday I got a call – no problem, everything was signed, my request for transfer to the IRR was in process and my DA 1058-R was signed by the commander. Fill out this and that, include this to complete the packet, and my request for orders was in. It had taken six or seven weeks instead of the week or so that it should have, but at least it got done. Good thing I started early! Now to wait for orders.

There’s more.

You see, in the Army *everything* revolves around orders. Nothing is official without them, and nothing happens without them. So until my new orders come, I am on my old orders. Those orders say that my tour ends on 31 October. If my new orders don’t come by then, I am off active duty, not being paid, and certainly not authorized to be in the war zone. The normal process is that you start out-processing over here, get transported back to FT Benning a week to ten days before your orders end, and go through the demobilization process. This involves quite a bit of administrative work with finance, medical personnel, and supply. A big part of it is turning in all the equipment they issued me when I mobilized.

Here’s the thing that doesn’t make sense – my new orders are to start the day after these orders end – 1 Nov. So I will have no break in service, but remain on continuous active duty. The big question all along has been whether I have to go back to FT Benning to demobilize and then remobilize, or whether I can simply go straight from one assignment to the next. It seems to me that this would save the government a substantial amount of money in travel as well as keep me here working for a couple extra weeks before I get on the plane to Germany. But nobody really seems to know how it’s supposed to work – there are as many different answers as there are people to talk to.

I have been told everything from “You have to go back and turn everything in” to “You go straight to your next assignment and keep everything until you demobilize for the final time”, and many variations in between. It makes it hard to plan how to wrap up here and get ready to travel. Where do I send my stuff? When do I start out-processing?

If I am to send my equipment back to FT Benning, it’s really time to do it now. If I’m supposed to keep it, that would be easy, I can just ship it to Germany. Some folks have said I should turn it in here (all of it or only part of it, depending upon whom I talk to). Yesterday I spent the afternoon repacking all my issued equipment according to what kind of item it is, and whether I turn it in under various circumstances (ETS, PCS, etc). So now I have three different duffel bags, of which I will ship, keep, or turn in some combination depending upon what the final answer is.

Which gets me back to the title of this entry. I still don’t have orders, and I still don’t have answers. I am trying simultaneously to do my job here and prepare to leave, but the date, destination, and process are unknown, and there’s nobody who seems to know the answers. I am in the Army, but alone and adrift.

Mood: Stressed
Music: Bobby Horton, Homespun Songs of Vicksburg - Poor Wayfaring Soldier

Afghanistan Redux

2009-09-07T17:26:00.008+03:00

Monday 7 September 2009
1730

The Ghilzaie Chief wrote answer “Our paths are narrow and steep,
“ The sun burns fierce in the valleys, and the snow-fed streams run deep;
…” So a stranger needs safe escort, and the oath of a valiant friend .”
The Amir’s Message, Sir Alfred Lyall, 1882.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
- George Santayana

I have just finished reading a very interesting, instructive, and provocative book entitled “The Story of the Malakand Field Force – An Episode of Frontier War” by Sir Winston Churchill. It was his very first book, written in 1897 when he was a 22 year old subaltern (lieutenant). The subject of the book is the British expedition to put down the 1897 rebellion by the mountain tribes in the northwest frontier region of India. This area is now part of the Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan, directly bordering Afghanistan. It also happens to be one of the critical areas in which we are currently engaged against Al Queda and the Taliban. For that reason this book should be of particular interest to anyone interested in the current war in Afghanistan – yet I have not seen it on any COIN reading lists or mentioned in any anthologies. I found it quite by accident, while looking for something else.

I bought a printed copy of the book, but later discovered that it is out of copyright and is available for free: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9404

The book is an absolute gem – a gold mine; I hardly know where to start. I suppose a bit of historical context is in order, following which I will summarize or excerpt the book’s high points, generally following the path of the author’s narrative. I’ll probably use quotations too extensively, but Churchill’s command of English was so complete and his writing so eloquent that it seems a shame, almost a crime, to try to shorten or paraphrase it.

The general context of the conflict was the resistance of the mountain tribes to the British Imperial Government’s so-called “Forward Policy”. For many years the boundary of the British Empire in India had been considered to be the edge of the mountains. The British were content to control the plains of India, and regarded the mountainous regions to the north and west as natural borders against Russian and Afghan incursion. A series of events caused them to re-evaluate this policy in 1879 and decide to push out into the mountains, and to control the entire drainage system of the Indus. Following that, they decided that they had to control the mountain passes as well, which led them to push towards Gilgit, Chitral, Jelalabad, and Kandahar. These incursions were naturally seen as a threat by the mountain tribes (primarily Pashtuns), who resisted fiercely, and finally commenced a general uprising in 1897. This book is the story of one particular expedition in that broader conflict, in which Churchill was a participant. His first-hand observations and reflections should be of interest to us today – “plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose”.

The first chapter is entitled “The Theatre of War”, and contains a description of the terrain as well as a number of cogent observations about the people of the region:

“Except at the times of sowing and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout the land…Every man’s hand is against the other, and all against the stranger…To the ferocity of the Zulu are added the craft of the Redskin and the marksmanship of the Boer. “

“Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence…In such a state of society, all property is held directly by main force. Every man is a soldier.”

“This state of continual tumult has produced a habit of mind which recks little of injuries, holds life cheap and embarks on war with careless levity, and the tribesmen of the Afghan border afford the spectacle of a people, who fight without passion, and kill one another without loss of temper.”

“Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind. I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to understand their mental impulses—if he knew, when it was their honour to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they were bound to protect and when to kill him—he might, by judging his times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to the other. But a civilised European is… little able to accomplish this…”

“All are held in the grip of miserable superstition… a state of mental development at which civilisation hardly knows whether to laugh or weep.”

“Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood—"Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs,"—and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who…live free at the expense of the people.”

Churchill uses the second chapter to describe the initial dispositions of British outposts, supply lines, and military forces. Chapter 3, “The Outbreak” describes the beginning of the uprising:

“… a single class had viewed with quick intelligence and intense hostility the approach of the British power. The priesthood of the Afghan border instantly recognised the full meaning of the Chitral road. The cause of their antagonism is not hard to discern. Contact with civilisation assails the ignorance, and credulity, on which the wealth and influence of the Mullah depend.”

Throughout Churchill’s detailed descriptions of the various signs that trouble was brewing (but which were either unobserved or underappreciated by the government), the theme that emerges is that the average Westerner simply does not understand and cannot fully appreciate the way these people think. Their warlike nature, the extraordinary influence of their religious leaders, and the inscrutability of their shifting loyalties, alliances, and vendettas made what we would now call the “human terrain” every bit as forbidding and difficult to navigate as the steep mountains, deep rivers, and burning valleys of their country. The stage was set for a bloody conflict.

Chapters 4 through 16 are a detailed account of the military campaign, with many and specific episodes of long marches, sharp encounters, advance and retreat, triumph and disaster. It was as exciting and engaging to read as a novel, with the added attraction of being a true account of conflict in places where our enemies currently operate – the Swat Valley, Malakand, Mohmand, Baujaur… I read it with great interest as military history but also as an exercise in current professional development. While many of the specific tactical lessons are dated, the general principles are not. It seems to me that it would be of little value to describe the specific battles here, but I made a few notes in the margins when I thought that his observations might illuminate some enduring lesson:

On the death of a young officer: “Fortune (is) never so capricious as on the field of battle…”

On the ruins of an earlier, peaceful civilization that had thriven in the region in about the 5th century, at a time when Rome was being overrun by the Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals : “When we reflect on the revolutions which time effects, and observe how the home of learning and progress changes as the years pass by, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, perhaps a mournful one, that the sun of civilisation can never shine all over the world at once.”

Apologizing to the reader for including in his account the details of long dusty marches and camp routine, he says: “…he who would obtain a true idea of the soldier's life on service, must mentally share the fatigues of the march and the monotony of the camp. The fine deeds, the thrilling moments of war, are but the high lights in a picture, of which the background is routine, hard work, and discomfort.”

On the valley of the Jabdul: “This valley may, in natural and political features, be taken as typical of the Afghan valleys. Seven separate castles formed the strongholds of seven separate khans… It is ‘all against all,’ in these valleys…”

On the practicality of making alliances with local tribes: “As long as they fight, these Afghans do not mind much on which side they fight. There are worse men and worse allies helping us to-day.”

On the reliability of the locals: “Our guide meanwhile squatted on the ground and pronounced the names of all the villages, as each one was pointed at. To make sure there was no mistake, the series of questions was repeated. This time he gave to each an entirely different name with an appearance of great confidence and pride…”

To my surprise and delight, I ran across a famous Churchill quote, for which I now know the source and context: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

On mountain warfare: “It is impossible to realise without seeing, how very slowly troops move on hillsides.”

On the dangers inherent in withdrawals: “…while it is usually easy to advance against an Asiatic, all retirements are matters of danger.” This comment was one among many descriptions of the way in which the mountain tribesmen would give ground when pressed, but would pounce immediately upon any sign of British retreat or withdrawal, and harass a returning patrol right to the gates of the camp.

“Among Europeans power provokes antagonism, and weakness excites pity. All is different in the East. Beyond Suez the bent of men's minds is such, that safety lies only in success, and peace in prosperity. All desert the falling. All turn upon the fallen.”

This aspect of the character of the mountain tribes bears further emphasis – their system of ethics is completely different than ours; they respect only power and strength:

“The reader may have been struck, in the account of the fighting in the Mamund Valley, with the vigour with which the tribesmen follow up a retreating enemy and press an isolated party. In war this is sound, practical policy. But the hillmen adopt it rather from a natural propensity, than from military knowledge. Their tactics are the outcome of their natures. All their actions, moral, political, strategic, are guided by the same principle. The powerful tribes, who had watched the passage of the troops in sullen fear, only waited for a sign of weakness to rise behind them. As long as the brigades dominated the country, and appeared confident and successful, their communications would be respected, and the risings localised; but a check, a reverse, a retreat would raise tremendous combinations on every side. “

Churchill then goes on to explain how the way in which a local uprising is dealt with is relevant to the fate of the rest of the British Empire:

“If the reader will bear this in mind, it will enable him to appreciate the position with which this chapter deals, and may explain many other matters which are beyond the scope of these pages. For it might be well also to remember, that the great drama of frontier war is played before a vast, silent but attentive audience, who fill a theatre, that reaches from Peshawar to Colombo, and from Kurrachee to Rangoon. “

On the tribesmen's reaction to proffered aid: “Sir Bindon Blood offered them medical aid for their wounded, but this they declined. They could not understand the motive, and feared a stratagem.”

Commenting upon some confusion and conflict resulting from inconsistent policies: “The political officers must be under the control of the General directing the operations. There must be no ‘Imperium in imperio.’ In a Field Force one man only can command—and all in it must be under his authority. Differences, creating difficulties and leading to disasters, will arise whenever the political officers are empowered to make arrangements with the tribesmen, without consulting and sometimes without even informing the man on whose decisions the success of the war and the lives of the soldiers directly depend. “

Chapter 17 is entitled “Military Observations”. Here Churchill reviews and summarizes the more important observations and lessons of a strictly military nature:

“The first and most important consideration is transport. Nobody who has not seen for himself can realise what a great matter this is…In these valleys, where wheeled traffic is impossible, the difficulties and cost of moving supplies are enormous; and as none, or very few, are to be obtained within the country, the consideration is paramount.”

“…all the fighting occurred in capturing villages, which lay in rocky and broken ground in the hollows of the mountains, and were defended by a swarm of active riflemen…The tribesmen would dart from rock to rock, exposing themselves only for an instant, and before the attention of a section could be directed to them and the rifles aimed, the chance and the target would have vanished together… speaking generally, infantry should push on to the attack with the bayonet without wasting much time in firing, which can only result in their being delayed under the fire of a well-posted enemy. “

“As the enemy seize every point as soon as it is left, all retirements should be masked by leaving two or three men behind from each company. These keep up a brisk fire, and after the whole company have taken up a new position, or have nearly done so, they run back and join them. Besides this, the fire of one company in retiring should always be arranged to cover another, and at no moment in a withdrawal should the firing ever cease. The covering company should be actually in position before the rear company begins to move, and should open fire at once.”

“The necessity for having the officers in the same dress as the men, was apparent to all who watched the operations… at close quarters the keen-eyed tribesmen always made an especial mark of the officers, distinguishing them chiefly, I think, by the fact that they do not carry rifles.”

“The fatigues experienced by troops in mountain warfare are so great, that every effort has to be made to lighten the soldier's load. At the same time the more ammunition he carries on his person the better.”

“Great efforts should be made to give the soldier a piece of chocolate, a small sausage, or something portable and nutritious to carry with him to the field. In a war of long marches, of uncertain fortunes, of retirements often delayed and always pressed, there have been many occasions when regiments and companies have unexpectedly had to stop out all night without food. It is well to remember that the stomach governs the world.”

“…the enemy do not become formidable until a mistake has been made.”

“The terrible losses inflicted on the tribesmen in the Swat Valley show how easily disciplined troops can brush away the bravest savages in the open. But on the hillside all is changed, and the observer will be struck by the weakness rather than the strength of modern weapons. Daring riflemen, individually superior to the soldiers, and able to support the greatest fatigues, can always inflict loss, although they cannot bar their path.”

“The military problem…presented in the Afghan valleys; a roadless, broken and undeveloped country; an absence of any strategic points; a well-armed enemy with great mobility and modern rifles, who adopts guerilla tactics. The results…are, that the troops can march anywhere, and do anything, except catch the enemy; and that all their movements must be attended with loss.“

“This has been perhaps a cold-blooded chapter. We have considered men as targets; tribesmen, fighting for their homes and hills, have been regarded only as the objective of an attack; killed and wounded human beings, merely as the waste of war…but practical people in a business-like age will remember that they live in a world of men—not angels—and regulate their conduct accordingly. “

Given our own current situation in Afghanistan, it seems appropriate to close my entry with some of Churchill’s own closing words:

“We are at present in a transition stage, nor is the manner nor occasion of the end in sight. Still this is no time to despair. I have often noticed in these Afghan valleys, that they seem to be entirely surrounded by the hills, and to have no exit. But as the column has advanced, a gap gradually becomes visible and a pass appears. Sometimes it is steep and difficult, sometimes it is held by the enemy and must be forced, but I have never seen a valley that had not a way out. That way we shall ultimately find, if we march with the firm but prudent step of men who know the dangers; but, conscious of their skill and discipline, do not doubt their ability to deal with them as they shall arise.”

Mood: Calm & Confident
Music: Mozart – Clarinet Quintets

Don't Fight Your Pack

2009-09-01T19:43:00.013+03:00

Tuesday 1 September 2009
1945

I haven’t felt much like writing lately. Why? A combination of things, I guess. I’ve been very busy, kind of tired, and spending a lot of time thinking ahead to the end of my tour, among other things. But mainly I think I’ve just been dragged down by some of the negative things I’ve been dealing with - primarily the bureaucracy and the incredible stupidity and inefficiency it engenders, with the result that it can be very hard to get anything done.

I’ve been working on a variety of things, and actually getting some things done, especially in the past couple of weeks (finally!) But I just haven’t felt much like writing.

I’ve read several books, about which I intend to write eventually, as soon as the mood strikes. But today a passage in one of the books I’m reading struck me, and I thought I’d share some of it.

The book is called “The Book of Camp-Lore and Wood Craft”. It’s by Dan Beard, one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, and it was written in 1920. It’s a treasure trove of information about old-fashioned camping skills. There are lengthy sessions on making fire with friction (i.e. “rubbing sticks together”) as well as percussion (flint and steel) and other means. There are also extensive notes on different arrangements of fires for different purposes, and lots of notes on other practical woodcraft skills . It is a very enjoyable read, although today’s lightweight equipment and “leave no trace” wilderness ethic make most of the skills and advice unnecessary and inappropriate except for emergency use. But it’s a lot of fun to read nonetheless, and of course “Be Prepared” includes knowing things like this just in case of emergency. Mostly I am enjoying reading it a few pages at a time as an escape from the desert. It reminds me of many nights spent out in the woods at home.

While it is not a Boy Scout manual per se, and is mostly just a how-to book of practical skills, I was struck by some passages I read today under the heading of “Don’t Fight Your Pack”. In this section, old Dan transitions from camping advice to moral instruction. I thought it was interesting and insightful, so here are some excerpts:

Don’t Fight Your Pack

“When we speak of ‘fighting the pack’, we mean fighting the load; that does not mean getting one’s load up against a tree and punching it with one’s fists or ‘kicking the stuffings out of it’, but it means complaining and fretting because the load is uncomfortable.

…the mind has as much to do with carrying the load as the muscles. If the mind gives up you will fall helpless under a small load; if the mind is strong you will stagger along under a very heavy one.

When I asked a friend, who bears the scars of the pack straps on his body, how he managed to endure the torture of such a load, he replied with a grin that as soon as he found that to ‘fight his pack’ meant to perish – meant death!-he made up his mind to forget the blamed thing and so when the pack wearied him and the straps rubbed the skin off his body, he forced himself to think of the good dinners he had had at the Camp-fire Club of America, yum! yum! Also, of all the jolly stories told by the toastmaster and of the fun he had had at some other entertainments. Often while thinking of these things he caught himself laughing out loud as he trudged along the lone trail, FORGETTING the hateful pack on his back. ‘In this way’, said he, with a winning smile upon his manly and weather-beaten face, ‘I learned how not to fight the pack but to FORGET IT! Then he braced himself up, looked at the snow-capped mountain range ahead, hummed a little cowboy song and trudged on over the frozen snow at a scout’s pace.

Now that you know what a pack is, and what ‘fighting the pack’ means, remember that if one’s studies at school are hard, that is one’s pack. If the work one is doing is very hard, difficult, or tiresome, that is one’s pack. If one’s parents are worried and forget themselves in their worry and speak sharply, that is one’s pack. Don’t fight your pack; remember that you are a woodcrafter; straighten your shoulders, put on your scout smile and hit the trail like a man!

If you find you are tempted to break the Scout Law, that you are at times tempted to forget the Scout Oath, that because your camp mates use language unfit for a woodcrafter or a scout, and you are tempted to do the same, if your playmates play craps and smoke cigarettes, and laugh at you because you refuse to do so, so that you are tempted to join them, these temptations form your pack; don’t give in and fall under your load and whimper like a ‘sissy’ or a ‘mollycoddle’, but straighten up, look the world straight in the eye, and hit the trail like a man!

Some of us are carrying portage packs which we can dump off our shoulders at the end of the ‘carry’, some of us are carrying hiking packs which we must carry through life and can never dump from our shoulders until we cross the Grand Portage from which no voyagers ever return. All our packs vary in weight, but none of them is easy to carry if we fret and fume and complain under the load."

Mood: Feeling Better :-)
Music: Bobby Horton, "The Army of the Free"

Happy Independence Day

2009-07-04T12:17:00.008+03:00

Saturday, 4 July 2009
1230

I worry about my country sometimes. I am afraid that a very strong and unhealthy elitist trend has taken hold, especially among the political, academic, legal, and media professions. Many of these people seem to me not fully to embrace the principles of liberty and individual rights upon which our country was founded, and want us to be more like the countries of Europe. As my dad told me once when I was a young boy: "There's no shortage of people who want to tell you what to do." I prefer to operate under the philosophy that if you want to be free yourself, you've got to be prepared let the other fellow do as he likes, as well, whether you agree with it or not. "That government is best which governs least." - Thomas Paine

I wanted to post something for July 4th, but didn't feel especially voluble. Then this morning I read this piece in the Wall Street Journal, and it expressed my sentiments exactly. I take the liberty of reproducing it below without permission but with due accreditation to the authors.

Happy Independence Day!

==========================================

The Last Best Hope of Earth

July Fourth is much more than just an American holiday.

By WILLIAM J. BENNETT and JOHN CRIBB

'I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." This statement from Abraham Lincoln in Philadelphia in 1861 was no staff-manufactured line. It was an expression from a man filled with deep emotion at finding himself standing in the hall where a courageous band of rebels pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to a high and dangerous purpose -- American independence. We celebrate them on July Fourth.

Lincoln revered the Declaration and its ideals of liberty and equality. In an 1858 speech in Chicago, he said it was "the father of all moral principle" in the American republic, and its spirit "the electric cord . . . that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together."

He spent much time pondering the hardships endured by those who had fought for independence. In that speech he called them "iron men." As a boy, he read accounts of the patriots' battlefield struggles in Parson Weems's "Life of Washington" and thought, as he told the New Jersey state Senate in 1861, that "there must have been something more than common that those men struggled for."

Yet in Lincoln's time, the Declaration and its spirit was under attack. Proponents of slavery insisted that the Founders did not intend for the God-given right to liberty in the Declaration to apply to all people. The notion that "all men are created equal" was belittled by John C. Calhoun in 1848 as "the most false and dangerous of all political error."

The Declaration had its detractors abroad as well. Across Europe, members of privileged classes sneered at the thought of people ruling themselves. Many a nobleman viewed the Civil War as proof that the American democratic experiment would fail.

British statesman John Bright took them to task: "Privilege thinks it has a great interest in this contest, and every morning, with blatant voice, it . . . curses the American Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years past. It has beheld thirty millions of men, happy and prosperous, without emperor, without king . . . Privilege has shuddered at what might happen to old Europe if this grand experiment should succeed."

Lincoln understood that if the American experiment of self-government were to succeed, the country must be saved on the basis of the Declaration of Independence. It was no accident that in the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address, he quoted the Declaration, reminding Americans that from the beginning the nation had been dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Lincoln also understood that the struggle over the Declaration was part of an eternal struggle between two principles at the basis of all government. "They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle," as he put it in one of his famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas. "The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings."

The struggle continues today. Terrorists and dictators hate the United States for its founding principles. They prefer to rob people of liberty, subjugate women, and spread their power by the sword. Yet America still has iron men and women who stand up to such tyrants. These iron men are now fighting on battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document in the same sense as the Constitution. No one talks about a law being "undeclarational," or opines about their "declarational rights." Yet it remains the first and in some ways most universal of our great founding documents. As Lincoln said in Philadelphia in February 1861, there is "something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time."

As long as the United States stands fast for the moral principles of July 4, 1776, we will continue to be the bulwark of freedom, the last best hope of earth.

Messrs. Bennett and Cribb are the authors of the "American Patriot's Almanac" (Thomas Nelson, 2008).

No Cash in Theater

2009-06-23T07:14:00.023+03:00

Tuesday 23 June 2009
0700

Ever since I was first mobilized in 2006, the Army has been trying to discourage me from using cash. Since I am somewhat stubborn and old fashioned, I have resisted. But they have finally forced my hand.

The military has a stored-value card they call the “EagleCash” card that is accepted at the PX and all other venues on military installations. You can either go to the finance office and put money on it manually, or you can link it to your bank account and put money on it directly from there. There are kiosks all over the place where you can put in your card, enter a PIN, and move funds back and forth between the card and the linked bank account.

The idea behind this is that we carry less cash around and use this card for everything. And in a purely practical sense it is more convenient. Managing cash involves a lot of work on the part of the finance office, AAFES, and the other businesses that operate over here. The AAFES POGS were an early attempt to reduce this workload by mostly eliminating US coins. But you could still get paper currency (albeit in limited amounts) from the finance office and from the ATMs that local banks had located on the bases.

When I came back from leave, however, this policy had changed. Now there is no more cash being dispensed by the finance office, and the ATMs will not be restocked when they run out of US cash. If you spend cash at the PX, they say they will still give US cash in change, but if you are here on base and want to get money, the only way to do it is to either get an EagleCash card or use your debit card. Since not all the venues are equipped for debit cards (and the system for processing them goes down all the time anyway), the only real solution is an EagleCash card. Here in Qatar you can still get Qatari Reals (the local currency) for use off post. I have no idea what the policy or practice will be elsewhere in Theater.

I already had an EagleCash card, even though I didn’t want it. I had to get it to pay for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation representative to eat in the DFAC back in March, since that is the only way to pay for meals there. But since then it just sat in my wallet. Now I have to use it all the time.

The Army finance office has a really ludicrous little propaganda blurb posted near the “cash” registers that says something about how they want to “increase choices” and therefore are eliminating cash. Talk about Orwellian NewSpeak! What a bunch of crap. But there’s nothing you can do about it.

If you really, really want US cash you will have to go off post to a local bank, which as far as I know is only possible here in Qatar. It’s hardly worth it, and probably not even possible anywhere else in the CENTCOM AOR. So they’ve got us captive.

All this may seem like a silly thing to get worked up about, but I am very sensitive to issues of financial privacy. My objection to using electronic means of payment has nothing to do with convenience and everything to do with anonymity. Where I shop and what I buy is nobody's business but my own, and I don't care to have some government bureaucrat or other busybody snooping through my transaction records, for whatever reason they may have. ("Dear Citizen: You have exceeded the maximum recommended allowance for high-fat food purchases, and have therefore been reclassified into Citizen Lifestyle Category 4C. Your insurance company has been notified so that your premiums may be adjusted to reflect your increased risk of heart disease. We recommend that you consult the list of government-approved food vendors at http://www.fda.gov/ so that you may transition to a government-approved low-fat lifestyle. If you wish to contest this finding, fill out USDA form 2752-3A, and a government inspector will call on you at your home to ensure that the following items have been removed from your pantry....")

I still remember most of the essential attributes of money as a means of exchange from Econ 101 – in order to be useful as a universal medium of exchange, money must be: portable, fungible, divisible, recognizable, and indestructible. These attributes make it useful not only as a medium exchange, but as a standard of value and a means of storing wealth. Money is a fundamental element of a free society, because it enables individuals to deal with each other voluntarily on mutually-acceptable terms independent of outside authority, without having to rely on the barter system.

Money is absolutely essential for true liberty. For this reason, authoritarian governments hate money (at least real money, such as gold or silver). They do not like it when people can deal with each other without government intervention or government visibility. Our own government has systematically undermined the institution of money since the early 20th century, starting with the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and following up with the eventual elimination of gold and silver as the basis of the US currency and as a medium of exchange.

I still remember 1965, when the US government eliminated silver coins and replaced them with the debased “sandwich” coins. My dad brought home bags of coins from the bank and we went through them taking out all the silver coins. Then he’d take back all the “sandwich” coins, get more bags of coins, and we’d go through those taking out all the silver. Many other people did the same thing, and silver coins disappeared from circulation almost overnight.

People aren’t stupid – they understand what is valuable and what is not. What many (most?) people today are, however, is not stupid but ignorant. We have been conditioned and educated (or un-educated) to believe that the ephemeral stuff in our bank accounts is “money” when it’s actually just fiat currency that relies for its value on people's confidence in it, and on the government’s ability to tax us to replace it.

The government has even been messing with the currency for the past several years. How many times have they changed the paper money in the last 20 years? They justify the changes as a way to stop counterfeiters and drug dealers from moving large quantities of cash, but those are just the easy people to demonize. They want to be able to detect large concentrations of cash via the magnetic strips they’ve put in the recent versions of our currency. They really hate financial privacy – they have even been attacking Switzerland and other off-shore financial havens and pressuring them to loosen their bank secrecy laws. Big Brother wants to watch you, whether you like it or not…

I prefer to store as much value as possible in the form of true money (e.g. gold and silver) or other tangible items that will have value regardless of social conditions. My primary vehicle for this is guns and ammunition. I collect firearms and ammunition as a means of preserving the value of my money from both inflation and government confiscation through excessive taxation or other means. Ammunition in particular embodies all the key characteristics of money (although it is "durable", rather than "indestructible") with the additional advantage that it has inherent usefulness. You can't eat a silver coin, but you can eat a squirrel or rabbit that you shoot with a .22 caliber bullet. In a serious economic and social crisis, I believe that the very best store of wealth will be ammunition in popular calibers, especially .22 Long Rifle, .223/5.56mm, .308/7.62mm, .30-06, .30 Carbine, .30-30, .38/.357, 9mm, .44 Special/.44 Magnum, and .45 ACP.

(Yes, I know – announcing that here on the internet may seem incompatible with financial privacy, but there is a value in public discussion of these issues that transcends the potential danger. If we are afraid to speak out against bad or unjust government policies or actions then we’ve already lost our freedom. Besides, I bought most of it from private individuals using cash so there aren't any specifics on record, and I still have it and can trade it or sell it anonymously, which is the whole point.)

Think I’m some kind of nutcase? Well, the Obama administration is messing with our financial system at its roots, and people are worried. Now, get up from your computer and go to the local gun store and try to buy some military-caliber rifle or handgun ammunition (or primers, if you are a hand loader). Good luck with that…there is virtually none to be had, and what little there is has skyrocketed in price. It’s all been bought up, and there are long supply-induced waiting periods and limitations on what they can or will sell to an individual. I’m sure this is due in large part to the noises the administration is making about gun control, but I believe it’s also a reaction to their economic policies. Of course, the current administration hates private civilian firearms ownership for many of the same reasons they hate money, but that’s a different discussion.

On the wall of my office at home I keep a little montage to remind me of the potential consequences of bad government policy. It consists of three items: A Luger pistol (German WWI design), a framed German banknote from August 1923 in the denomination of 5 Million Marks, and a P-38 pistol (German WWII design). In the 1920’s the hyperinflation in Germany led people to take their pay and run to buy something on the way home, anything tangible, just as a way of trying to preserve the value of their “money” before it became worthless. It got to the point where a wheelbarrow full of cash could barely buy a loaf of bread (which is why the money was dated by the month and why I could find a basket full of 5 Million Mark notes in a German flea market in 1983). The message behind my little wall display: Bad policies in post-WWI Germany led to uncontrollable inflation and economic collapse, which set the stage for the rise of the Nazi Party and the incredible misery and destruction caused by WWII, the greatest catastrophe in human history.

So back to the present – in our little part of the world, we are no longer able to get cash or engage in anonymous financial transactions. Everything is stored electronically, everything is traceable, everything is visible to Big Brother. How long before they do that to us at home as well?

Mood: Concerned
Music: Altan – Germans (no kidding, I just went to look at iTunes to see the name of the Celtic reel that happens to be playing right at this exact moment as I finish this posting, and that was the name…I couldn’t have made that up if I’d wanted to.)

Here We Go Again

2009-06-14T07:25:00.003+03:00

Sunday 14 June 2009
0700

I have just returned to the theater from my R&R leave for this tour. I wasn’t going to take a leave at all this time, and save it all for the end. But my youngest daughter had a band concert I wanted to see, there was some important family business to take care of, and frankly I needed a break. So once my medical issues had been taken care of in Germany I went ahead and departed the AOR on Saturday 23 May for two weeks of R&R in Michigan. The travel process was very smooth and I arrived in Michigan via Kuwait and Atlanta on Sunday afternoon 24 May.

Last year on R&R I did everything they tell you not to do – too many planned activities, too many expectations, etc. The result was a disastrous, stressful time. Everybody was unhappy and it left me feeling like I needed a leave to recover from my leave.

This time I did things quite differently. When I got home I took care of the one main item of business right away, and once that was done I just relaxed with no particular plan. Every time my kids asked “Dad, what’s your plan for today?” my answer was “I don’t have a plan – what do you want to do?”. It was great.

I went up to the UP with my Dad, picked up some rifles I wanted (just in case the Democrats follow their worst instincts and let President Obama and AG Eric Holder have their way and ban them), went to the band concert, drove my daughter back and forth to school, saw my mother, played Bananagrams, watched TV, hung out at coffee shops and bookstores, went for walks in the woods, played Frisbee golf and watched a Stanley Cup game with my son, saw/heard him play his guitar (he’s good!), went to the shooting range several times, spent a beautiful summer day canoeing on the Huron River, split some wood, sat outside at a bonfire, sat on the front porch through an awesome thunderstorm, got in a workout with my older daughter at the rec center, helped her do some work on her car, and generally just relaxed and unwound.

I did have a pretty long list of administrative things I needed to do while I was home, but instead of letting that list drive my schedule I just took care of them a little at a time when my kids were busy doing other things. And almost everything ended up getting done just the same.

What a difference it made! With the exception of one incident where I overreacted to something unexpected, it was a very smooth, uneventful, relaxing and regenerative opportunity to reconnect with my family.

The end came all too soon, and I departed from Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Tuesday morning. The trip back was smooth but took a bit longer, both because of the different direction of the time change and also because of a day’s delay at Ali Al Salem in Kuwait. I spent a long hot day in a tent there waiting for a flight to Qatar. I ended up getting on a C130 late Thursday night and arriving back in Qatar early Friday morning.

As I walked around amongst the tents in the hot, dusty billeting area at Ali, a familiar marching cadence ran through my mind:

“Here we go again,
Same old sh*t again,
Marching down the avenue,
four more months and we’ll be through,
I’ll be glad and so will you.”

And that’s pretty much how I felt coming back. The green trees and grass at home were a welcome breath of fresh air. After three years over here, I am heartily sick of the desert.

I feel refreshed and ready to get back to work, but I’m definitely ready for a change of scenery to something more normal. I am working to find my next duty tour someplace besides the CENTCOM AOR. I’m sure that if I stay on active duty I’ll find my way back over here eventually, but for now they can have it. This fall I am leaving!

Mood: Ready for work
Music: Mozart, Flute Concerto in D

Vanishing Footprints

2009-05-22T05:05:00.029+03:00

Friday 22 May 2009
0530

Today marks a historic date in American history. I’d like to share the reason why the 22nd of May is a special date to me personally.

I have the honor and privilege of claiming descent from several ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Family lore says there were five or six who went to fight, and only one or two who came back. About the others, nothing is known, not even their names (at least not to me nor any relatives I know), although it is said that some died in Andersonville. But one of the men who returned did leave behind some artifacts from his life, and I am their current caretaker. I have a couple of photographs, a letter, two pocketbooks, a little glass pitcher that was beside his bed when he died, and his canteen and musket from the Civil War.

Christian Small's standard-issue rifle musket from the Civil War. My dad and his brother used to play with it when they were kids.

I have known about my Great-great-great Uncle Christian Small for years, but it wasn’t until recently that I began to find out more about him and his service in the Union Army, and to realize that he was a part of some very historic campaigns and battles. Now that I know more about his service, I plan to write an article for a military history or firearms magazine once I return to the United States. It turns out that “Uncle Chris” was a veteran of the Vicksburg Campaign. He served as a private in the 22nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry, which was the only Union regiment actually to penetrate the fortifications at Vicksburg on 22 May 1863.

“Vanishing Footprints” is the name of a book that was written by Samuel D. Pryce, the 22nd Iowa’s Regimental Adjutant (who kept the records and filed every official report for the Regiment for their entire wartime service). The book was never actually published and might have been lost to history, but for the manuscript having been preserved at the University of Iowa for all these years. It was finally edited and published in 2008, and recently I discovered it while researching the 22nd Iowa. There are other books that were written and published many years ago, but this is the official history, endorsed by the 22nd Iowa Regimental Association in 1903 in anticipation of its publication. The book is available from the Camp Pope Bookshop in Iowa City: http://www.camppope.com/ourbksa.htm mppope.com/ourbksa.htm .

I normally wait to write about a book until I have finished it, and I have read two military history books recently that I want to review here, so I am behind. But time doesn’t wait, and I want to write something today, on the anniversary of the Regiment’s most famous achievement, as well as in time for Memorial Day.

The assault by the 22nd Iowa Infantry on the Railroad Redoubt at Vicksburg on 22 May 1863 is famous and well-documented. This book contains much more detail than any other account I have read. It was a terrible, bloody day. After nine months’ service, only 200 soldiers in the Regiment remained able to take part in the attack (out of 1008 mustered in the fall of 1862). The 22nd Iowa led the assault on their part of the line, made it through the ditch and up the embankment, and planted the United States and Regimental flags on the parapet, where they were visible up and down the line. They drove the confederate forces from that part of the fort, and their flags remained there all day. These were the only Union flags to be planted on any part of the Vicksburg fortifications at any time before the surrender of the city on July 4th.

The Assault of the 22nd Iowa on the Vicksburg Defenses, 22 May 1863 (Todd Pederson Collection)

It is apparently a matter of some controversy that Gen Grant did not reinforce the breach made by the 22nd Iowa. Whatever the reasons for the decisions at higher levels of command, it is clear that conditions on the ground were appalling. The Iowa soldiers held the redoubt all afternoon, suffering greatly from the hot sun and from unrelenting Confederate fire on their position. Uncle Chris’s service record says that he was wounded on this day. He does not appear on the list of names of those who personally entered the fortifications - only about 20 men made it inside. But he was there. Nearly every member of the Regiment was wounded, killed, or captured. The adjutant's records show 28 killed and 142 wounded out of the 200 men in the attack, a casualty rate of 85%. This was the highest casualty rate for any unit on either side in any battle of the entire Civil War.

My Great-great-great Uncle Christian Small and my Aunt Lorraine in 1927. He died in 1932 at the age of 95. What that mans' eyes must have seen...

This book is very well-written, although not highly polished. Much of it is typical flowery 19th-century prose, very descriptive and evocative. But it is also very immediate and personal, and is peppered with folksy witticisms and humorous observations that made me laugh from time to time despite the tragedy described in its pages. The picture it paints is probably typical for any war – enthusiastic, patriotic youths who muster into the Army with excitement and anticipation, go off to war, then live through terrible privations and horrible, bloody battles, and come home diminished in number and changed forever by their experiences. I may write more later once I’ve finished it, to share any additional thoughts I have or things that I learn. For now I’d like to close by sharing some of the author’s own words, so that my friends and family will have a small taste of the book and perhaps even want to read it for themselves.

Here are some excerpts from the first chapter, starting with the opening paragraphs and ending with the closing words:

“Once again open the casket of the past---with its strife, its fever and fret, its bloodshed and death, the indescribable and terrible past. Those who live in this generation, and who have passed through the portal of the new century, may consider it a long distance back through the receding four decades, when the south was devastated by the iron heel of war---the tumult years of civil strife; and yet to those who participated in that conflict, it seems more like a brief span than two score crowded years.

In the ordinary affairs of life the harsh outlines are often lost in the dim and hazy past—but to the soldiers of the Civil War, the wake of fire and sword, and every feature of the red panorama, passes before their eyes with a distinctness nothing can obliterate. A tide of fearful memories sweep through their minds every day in the year, with all the grotesqueness of a nightmare.

Iowa’s share in the great tragedy of horrors for the preservation of the union was costly in the sacrifice of human life. It cost blood and treasure to crush out the arrogant and blind scheme of empire based upon the human slavery--a pandemonium of lust and maddening injustice. Iowa soldiers toiled in almost every campaign from Virginia to the mouth of the Rio Grande River, and were distinguished in nearly every battle of the great war. With its gallery of heroic figures, the sturdy young commonwealth is pregnant with examples of patriotism –and love of country.”

“…The present volume is written to a large extent for private circulation, for the amusement and edification of the survivors themselves, and as a sacred legacy to their children--and their children’s children--to the latest generation… And yet soldiers of other regiments and other wars may enjoy reading the story of marches and battles, to scale mountains with them, wander over flower-strewn valleys, over blackened landscapes, and over bloody battlefields. It will be like a leaf out of their own lives, written with blood and tears.”

“The story is told just as it occurred at the time…It is written to honor the brave men who gave the best years of their lives to their country. It is written to supplement the archives of the state with a more extended regimental history, so that future generations may learn of what material the foundation is composed upon which their temple of liberty is erected, and at what cost of blood and treasure it was preserved.”

Uncle Chris's resting place in Panora, Iowa. "...until the Lord said 'your work is done'."

Mood: Reverent
Music: Battle Hymn of the Republic