Veteran of four wars, four enlistments, four branches: Air Force, Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard. I am both an AF (Air Force) veteran and as Veteran AF (As Fuck)
Sunday, September 11, 2016
15th Anniversary of September 11, 2001
Fifteen years ago, I saw this image on the computers of the dot-com where I was working at the time. I knew a dozen people who worked within blocks of the World Trade Center. I called them. I know that when you are inside a disaster, you can lose the larger perspective. I wanted to be just a bit of perspective from outside New York City for Joe Chang, Helga Tilton, Esther D'Amico, Rob Westervelt, Rick Mullin and Andrew Wood among many others. Those I was able to reach reacted like the New York journalists they are, calm and ridiculously confident that all would be well.
In 2009, in Iraq, I spoke about September 11, 2001, and my long road to Iraq from the day Islamic Terrorists attacked America. In Iraq, I spoke about Helga Tilton. She walked home from south of Ground Zero to the northern end of Manhattan in heels. She was born in Germany in 1943 in Frankfurt, one of the most heavily bombed of the Germany cities. Helga grew up in rubble, and now in 2001, at nearly 60 years old in her adopted country of America, she walked through that rubble to go home. Helga died in November of 2007, not long after I re-enlisted. I still wonder if the dust of her birthplace and the dust of Ground Zero contributed to her death.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Combat Medics and MEDEVAC: Soldiers who save other soldier's lives
MEDEVAC Blackhawk helicopter landing at Al Kut, Iraq.
From the time I deployed to Iraq until now, I have written many posts about MEDEVAC and the medics, pilots and doctors who deliver Army medicine in the field.
Here are some of them:
Pamela Leggore, flight medic.
Sara Christensen, pilot.
David Doud, flight surgeon.
Kevin Scott, flight surgeon.
Jeff Kwiecien, flight medic.
All-Female MEDEVAC Crew in Iraq.
Cynthia Dalton, flight medic.
Quincy Northern, flight medic.
Dunker Training for MEDEVAC flight crews.
MEDEVAC Response time almost cut in half, Peter Huggins, pilot.
Anthony Meador, pilot.
Matt Stevenson, pilot.
Suzy Danielson, pilot.
MEDEVAC Chase Bird Crew.
MEDEVAC Pictures from Iraq.
Quincy Northern, flight medic.
All-Female MEDEVAC Crew
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Retirement, or Not, Update
Earlier this week I spoke to two staffers in the offices of Senator Pat Toomey in Allentown and Philadelphia. Both of the men I spoke to were enthusiastic and helpful. They asked questions about my status and said they hoped they could help.
If enthusiasm can get me back in the Army to serve my last year and retire, the guys I spoke to in Toomey's office will make it happen.
Today I got a letter from a staffer of President Barack Obama. She said the White House referred my case to National Guard Bureau in Washington, which referred the matter to the Pennsylvania National Guard in Harrisburg. They already said No, so I am not looking good there.
Of the three, I have no hope with Pitts, little hope with Obama and some hope with Toomey.
That's my Labor Day Weekend Update.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
After 1,500 Posts the Top Ten Topics? Not Helicopters!
Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard Christopher Kepner
Today marks 1,500 posts on this blog since August of 2007 when I re-enlisted after 23 years as a civilian. Last night I wrote to the soldiers who are the subjects of the most popular and the 11th most popular posts on my blog: Christopher Kepner and Pamela Leggore. In between my stories about the current Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard and a flight medic who just returned from her second tour in Iraq, are stories Army life, but not about helicopters.
Pamela Leggore, Flight Medic
After Kepner, the most popular story I wrote was about CHUs, our homes on base in Iraq. These sun-baked metal boxes were Home Sweet Trailer Home for most deployed soldiers and a lot of people wanted to know how we lived.
A Containerized Housing Unit in Iraq
After the CHU comes a post comparing Soviet and American Armor in the 1973 Arab-Israel War. The tenth most popular post is also about tanks--a drunk German driver crashing into one of the tanks in my unit near the East-West German border: Spoiler alert, the tank was undamaged.
Also popular was about about firing machine guns, about barracks liars in the Facebook Army, about "Military Privilege," a Tough Mudder competition, and one about the use of war language outside of war called War Metaphor.
I posted a lot of helicopter pictures, but those posts were never as popular as the posts about soldiers' life and about soldiers, which makes perfect sense.
My favorite post to write was "Shit as a Pronoun."
Thanks for reading. And thanks for sharing my 1,500th anniversary!!
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Tanks of the World Spreadsheet
Here is the link to a Google Doc spreadsheet with my list of all the tanks in service in the world according to Wikipedia.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Caxsnp4CxlKwGFMLGldUsGaYMg_HA1RBZrzoeBbE9rc/edit?usp=sharing
I just found a source that said France has just 200 LeClerc main battle tanks and 206 in storage as of 2015.
If anyone has sources and is interested in helping to update the spreadsheet, the link should be open to updates. Once I have the best current info, I will update the Wikipedia page.
Contact me if you have questions: ngussman@yahoo.com
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Caxsnp4CxlKwGFMLGldUsGaYMg_HA1RBZrzoeBbE9rc/edit?usp=sharing
I just found a source that said France has just 200 LeClerc main battle tanks and 206 in storage as of 2015.
If anyone has sources and is interested in helping to update the spreadsheet, the link should be open to updates. Once I have the best current info, I will update the Wikipedia page.
Contact me if you have questions: ngussman@yahoo.com
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
My Love-Hate Relationship with Russia and Ukraine
A Map of the Former Soviet Union.
Ukraine is the yellow country on the far west.
The kind of person we are inside shows itself both in what
we do and how we react. I had a
soul-revealing moment when I heard the news in 2014 of Russia invading Eastern
Ukraine and taking Crimea. The summary of the thought that raced through my
mind: “You Go Vladimir (Putin)!”
Cheering for Russia in a military dispute with Ukraine is
like cheering for the New York Yankees against a high school team. Nevertheless I had a vivid moment, not of
loving Russia, but hating Ukraine.
The face that came into my mind was my grandmother. She and my grandfather escaped Ukraine, then
part of Russia, at the turn of the 20th century when more than a million Jews
were slaughtered in Ukraine in a series of attacks called pogroms. My
grandparents had the double good fortune of making it all the way to
America. Many other Russian Jews fled to
Eastern Europe. Those who fled to
Eastern Europe and their children were killed by the Nazis 40 years later.
The Holocaust in Ukraine
My grandparents would have described themselves as Russian
Jews, not Ukrainian Jews. For the last
thousand years Ukraine has been Russia a lot more than it has been an
independent country. Mark Schauss covers
the sad history of Ukraine and Russia in The Russian Rulers History Podcast,
available on iTunes.
While Russia, Poland and much of Eastern Europe has a long
history of hating Jews, Ukraine is the most anti-semitic country in a very
nasty region.
Next August, when I ride across what my grandparents called
Russia, my trip will begin in Odessa, Ukraine. I won’t be in Ukraine long, but
I expect to have the same experience arriving in Odessa that I had when I first
set foot in Germany: “Can this beautiful
place really be home to those who slaughtered so many of my people?”
I am re-reading Vassily Grossman’s “Life and Fate,” a
haunting book that is “War and Peace” set in World War II, particularly in
Stalingrad. Currently I am reading the
letter a Jewish mother in Ukraine is writing to her son in the Russian
Army. The Germans just took over her town. The Jews are being rounded up, robbed and
will soon be killed. Most of the
neighbors are happy and cheer the Germans on, taking the possessions and houses
of the Jews. The mother writing the
letter describes women who were friendly for 50 years suddenly turning on her
with venom. The neighbor thinks the Jews are getting what they deserve.
My love-hate relationship with Ukraine and Russia extends
through my whole life. My first military
job was live-fire testing of the US Air Force missile inventory, everything
from the Sidewinder wing rocket to the Minuteman multi-stage nuclear missile,
the main weapon delivery system in the US Cold War arsenal. Then I was a tank commander on the East-West
German Border waiting for World War III to start.
When I went to college after the Army, the literature of
Russia and the literature of Florence, Italy, became lifelong passions. Chekov, Dostoevsky, Lermontov, Pushkin,
Tolstoy and later Solzhenitsyn wrote the books I loved most, along with C.S.
Lewis, Dante and Machiavelli. Now I am
studying the Russian language so I can read the authors I love most in their
language. Russia is currently home to
many brilliant authors, but who knows when they will be forced underground.
From my grandparents persecution, to my Cold War childhood
and military life, through finding the beauty of Russian literature in college,
to my current plans to travel across Russia and neighboring countries, I
continue to intensify my love-hate relationship with Russia and all of its sad
and brilliant history. At this age, my
love-hate relationship with Russia and Ukraine is a permanent part of my life.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Who Fights Our Wars? Flight Medic Returns from Another Deployment
Staff Sergeant Pamela Leggore on her second deployment to Iraq
When Task Force Diablo first deployed to Iraq in May of 2009 most of the unit was setting up facilities and operations after a last-minute base change. We were slated to be at Balad Air Base, we were switched to Camp Adder, also know as Tallil Ali Air Base.
While the transport and maintenance operations moved into new facilities, the MEDEVAC unit was on site and in full operation. Charlie Company, 1-52 Aviation, an active Army MEDEVAC unit, was already on site and in operation at Tallil. Pennsylvania pilots and medics joined Charlie Company operations.
Dust storms grounded many flights during the summer at Tallil, making the daytime sky a so thick with dust, it was hard to see the next truck in a ground convoy, let alone fly.
Soon after we arrived, Leggore was on a MEDEVAC mission to rescue soldiers badly injured in an attack on their convoy. The mission was successful and it was a very fast start to what has become a long career in Army medicine. In the years since 2010 when she returned from deployment, Leggore has earned a nursing degree and has recently returned from another deployment to Iraq.
Between deployments she trains other medics with the skills she learned in combat and through advanced education in the Army and as a civilian.
Staff Sergeant Pamela Leggore training medics
under simulated combat conditions at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.
Monday, August 8, 2016
Video Comparing Russian and US Army Field Rations: Beef Stew from Both Countries
Earlier this year, I ordered Russian Army field rations (Индивидуальный рацион питания/ИРП) from eBay. This video compares the Russian ration rations with US Army MREs. I compare the contents and have my kids compare the taste.
Thanks to Teb Locke of Franklin and Marshall College for filming the taste test in the studios at F&M.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Like Watching a Dinosaur Sit in a High Chair
The Refueling Crew at Camp Garry Owen in Iraq in 2009.
Soldiers from Echo Company, 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion
I have had several moments of awe in my life when the thing I saw in front of me seemed too amazing to be real. In October of 2009, I watched a Chinook helicopter land in the tiny space between the blast walls of a base about a mile from the Iran-Iraq border. When I saw a query on twitter from Maiken Scott of WHYY's The Pulse about moments of Awe, I called right away.
The lead pilot on that Chinook was Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jeffrey Hatt. At minute 14 on the link below, I describe as best as I can remember the watching Hatt land that big helicopter in that small space by turning 90 degrees at the last moment.
He made the same maneuver on take-off. It was just as impressive to watch in either direction: like watching a dinosaur sit in a high chair, was the first metaphor that popped into my mind.
Seeing any expert do their best work is something I love. Whether it is sports or flying or racing or dance or writing, seeing the best at work is wonderful.
I made two trips to Camp Garry Owen during my deployment to Iraq in 2009-10. This small base close to the Iran-Iraq border and was hit by rockets regularly. When I flew up it was on a Blackhawk helicopter taking carrying a team that was looking for smugglers along the border.
When I got to the base, I took a tour of the tiny facility and wrote about it here. Matt Kauffman (3rd from left, 2nd row) took me on a tour.
Chief Hatt is still flying. Right now he is deployed again, flying a Chinook in combat operations.
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/thepulse/item/96024-awestruck
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/thepulse/item/96024-awestruck
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Going to the Top of the Chain of Command
Today I talked with one of the soldiers I served with during for the last several years. I told her about asking Congressman Joe Pitts to help me get the 11 months and 9 days of service I need to complete 20 years. He couldn't help. So she suggested I write to the President.
So I did, on www.whitehouse.gov
Here's what I wrote. I will let you know what happens:
On May 3 of this year, I left the Army at age 63. I first enlisted in 1972, served for 11 years on active duty and in the reserves then left the military to pursue a civilian career in 1984. In August of 2007 I re-enlisted at 54 years old, made possible by a temporary increase in the enlistment age. I knew the mandatory age for ending my enlistment was 60. I deployed to Iraq for a year in 2009-10. I volunteered to go to Afghanistan in 2012 with the 55th Brigade of the PA Army National Guard, but the deployment was cancelled. I got two extensions past age 60, in part because I scored maximum on the fitness test and was in a shortage job skill. Earlier this year, I asked for, but did not get an extension to serve another year. As a result, I left the Army with 19 years and 21 days of service. As you are aware, military retirement requires 20 years. I am a bicycle racer and finished an Ironman Triathlon at 61 years old. I am physically able to serve and good at my military job. I live in the Congressional district of Joe Pitts and asked for his assistance. He was unable to help. At this point, I believe only President Obama could help me. I would be happy to serve and know that medical personnel get waivers up to their late 70s. Since I have six kids, three adopted and three the old fashioned way, the retirement income would be put to good use. But I also would like to maintain my connection with the soldiers I served with in Pennsylvania and in Iraq. Without an official connection to the military, I cannot go on military bases. My service and all of my discharges were honorable throughout my career. I have many awards and decorations. My tour in Iraq was with the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, Pennsylvania Army National Guard. While I did not serve in the Vietnam War, I served during that war and was temporarily blinded in a missile explosion in Utah. Thank you in advance for anything you could do to let me complete my long career.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
BFFs Army Style: My Platoon Sergeant 32 Years Later
Army version of BFF: Best F#ckin' Friends
Ron Lamm, Command Sgt. Maj. Retired
In his book "The Four Loves," C.S. Lewis said one mark of friendship is that after any passage of time, the conversation between friends picks up right where it left off. I have not seen Ron Lamm since I left Alpha Company, 6th Bn., 68th Armor in May of 1984.
Last weekend, in one of those coincidences turbocharged by Google, I met Ron at the reunion of Charlie Company, 6-68th Armor. On Friday of last week, I was looking up when 68th Armor was deactivated and found a Facebook link to the reunion. The reunion was the following day. I showed up at the Charlie Company reunion and found a few people from Alpha, including my former platooon sergeant, Ron Lamm.
My son Nigel and I were in Pottsville that morning at the city's annual bicycle race. After the race we drove to Fort Indiantown Gap and went to the reunion. I met several people I remembered then found Ron. We sat at one of the picnic tables for a half hour and talking about our mutual interest in World War II. We talked about our fathers' service during the war and then talked about Ron's recent ride in a restored B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. Ron told me about a project to restore the original "Memphis Belle" one of the most famous B-17s. Ron was talking about how they used staggered waist guns in the 1990 movie, but the actual Memphis Belle was a B-17F waist guns opposite each other, not staggered as in the later G model. We are both the kind of guys who know that staggered waist guns and chin turrets are modifications made in the G model of the B-17.
Ron told me about the rest of his career after I left Alpha Company. He made Command Sgt. Major in 1990 and stayed with 68th Armor until the unit was disbanded in 1995. He also volunteered for the Gulf War, but would have had to take a reduction to E5 to go, so he turned it down. Ron has been retired 21 years. In a few years he will be retired longer than he served.
Talking with Ron reminded me how very sure I was that I should leave the Army in 1984. I really liked Ron, I liked the unit, I had the papers for OCS filled out, but was sure I needed to move on. I have Ron's email now and we have tentative plans to go to an airshow.
Friday, July 29, 2016
Worst Retirement Plan Possible
In May of 1984, I had a total of eleven years and two months of active and reserve service. At the time I was a staff sergeant, a tank section leader and had just filled out the application for Officer Candidate School (OCS).
At that critical point, I had to decide whether to stay and finish 20 years or more of service, or get out, grow a beard and be a real civilian.
SPOILER ALERT! I grew the beard.
How did I make this momentous decision to leave the military with nine years till retirement?
Because of advice from my uncle Jack, the only other recent veteran in my family. Jack retired in 1978 from the Air Force after 20 years of service. He had three full tours in the Vietnam War and three temporary duty (TDY) assignments to that war that stopped short of the 180-day line of counting as a full tour. He flew back seat in an F4 Phantom fighter and was also a navigator in a refueling plane. When he was not in Southeast Asia, he was often assigned to Thule, Greenland.
Jack said that if I stayed in I should go to OCS. But if I stayed in I would be in a desert war before I got out. More importantly, he reminded me that with a reserve retirement I get no money till age 60 and I would be subject to recall to duty any time until age 60 if I was enlisted, age 63 if I was an officer.
He went on to describe the most unhappy people in the Vietnam War as retired aircraft mechanics reactivated in their 50s and taking incoming mortar fire while trying to fix aircraft.
Jack said, "If you take the retirement, here's the choice. You either go to war or forfeit all pay and benefits for life."
Wow!!
With all that clarified, I left the military, grew a beard and got a job with an ad agency. You may think I could have gotten the job anyway, but not really. During the three years I was in the 6th Battalion, 68th Armor in Reading, Pa., I worked on the loading dock at Yellow Freight near Lancaster, Pa. I was a Teamster. With a union job, I could simply sign out for reserve duty any time I needed to. As a section leader, I had monthly meetings on Wednesday nights, drill set up on Friday, and other additional duties beyond reserve weekends. In a union job, the extra Army time was no problem. In a white-collar job, that meant choosing between work and Army.
Most reserve and National Guard leaders are government or union workers.
My decision was rational, but the irony is sadly funny. At 54 I re-enlisted. At 56 I go to the desert war Jack predicted and at 63 I get out one year short of a retirement and three years past the date I would have started receiving my Army reserve retirement pay.
The 68th Armor did not mobilize for the Gulf War, and not many tankers were activated for Iraq and Afghanistan. As a reserve tank officer, I would almost certainly have missed the Gulf War, and most likely would not have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan since I would have had almost 30 years service by then.
As a military career move, I should have stayed in my reserve unit. But if I did stay in the reserves, I would have had a lot of reasons to either stay in the Teamsters union or try to get a government job. I could not have had the world-traveling civilian career I had during the 90s and first decade of the 2000s.
Jack and I talked in 2005 about all the places I had been in the world, versus all the places he had been with the military. My job took me to the capitals of every thriving economy in the world. The places I went most were Paris, London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sao Paulo. Jack's big destinations were war-torn Asian airfields with winters in Thule, Greenland.
I would have liked a military retirement, but the travel with my civilian job really was amazing--and incompatible with reserve service.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Soviet Armor vs. American Armor, Israel 1973
In July and August 1975, I went to the U.S. Army Armor School in Fort Knox, Kentucky, after three years in missile weapons testing.
We learned the basics of armor and about our tank, the M60A1. We also learned about a serious flaw in our tanks that was fixed at great cost by the Israeli Army. The Israelis fought and defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan using the M60A1 among other tanks. It turns out the hydraulic fluid in our tanks was prone to catch fire. After the Israelis lost crewmen to these fires, the hydraulic fluid was changed.
We also learned how important mechanical reliability is to combat tank crews. The Arab countries used Soviet tanks, primarily the T-55 and T-62 main battle tanks. We learned the difference between "live" and "dead" track. Soviet tanks used dead track, like bulldozers that does not use rubber bushings. In hard use, especially at high speeds, dead track is more prone to break. According to one report, the Syrian Army lost one-fourth of its tanks before they reached the battle in the Golan Heights due to automotive failure.
After the 1973 War, the Israelis installed American-made drive lines in captured Soviet tanks to make the Soviet armor more reliable.
To people who have never trained and lived in a tank, they can seem like the indestructible behemoths of movies. But real life in a tank is a life of wrenches and rags. As a tank commander of one of the most reliable tanks of its time, my crew and I spent five hours or more maintaining our 54-ton tank for every hour of operation. Each of the 80 track blocks on each track were held together with a center guide and two end connectors. Each of the 160 center guides and 320 end connectors could work loose and had to be checked, often. The center guides ran between six pairs of road wheels, three pairs of return rollers, the drive sprocket and front idler wheel for adjusting track tension. Each of the wheels had inner steel plates bolted to the aluminum wheels. The road wheels were attached to torsion bars.
We tightened bolts all the time. Our tanks would received major service at 6,000 miles of operation, usually including a refurbished V12 diesel power plant and transmission.
And our tanks were so much more reliable than the Soviet counterparts that the Israelis ditched their drivelines and installed American-made drivelines to make the Soviet tanks more reliable.
War shows strengths and weaknesses. Reliable, effective armor is definitely an American strength.
Monday, July 25, 2016
Laurus, Book 19 of 2016: A Tale of Old Russia that Stretches to Florence and Jerusalem
Eleven of the books I have read so far this year are by
Russian authors writing about life in Russia from the present back through the
last two centuries. This book goes several centuries further back into Russian history.
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin showed me a Russia that I have
seen only in fleeting glimpses. We follow the title character, Laurus, from
when he loses his parents as a child until the end of his long life as a healer
and a holy man between the mid 1400s to the 1520s.
This is a medieval book by setting and by the parade of
wretched, reverent, hopeful, fearful and foul characters that people the pages
of this wonderful book. After Laurus
(Arseny in his early life) loses his parents he moves in with his grandfather,
a healer named Christopher. Arseny
follows his grandfather and becomes a healer, but as his life progresses,
Arseny relies less on the herbs and lore of Christopher and more on the healing
gift he has from God.
Arseny becomes adept at healing plague victims. He heals a young woman from far away named
Ustina. They fall in love and live
together. Ustina gets pregnant then she
and their son die in childbirth.
At that point, Arseny becomes an itinerant “Holy Fool” in
the city of Pskov. (Pskov is the northwest corner of modern Russia.) He shares Pskov with
two other Holy Fools. One is Holy Fool
Foma, who is very territorial. Foma is
one of the many brilliant bits of comic relief we get on the long life of
suffering of our very Russian hero Arseny/Laurus (also at various times Ustin
and Ambrosius).
In the middle of the book, we meet Ambrogio, an Italian from
Florence with a gift of Prophecy as strong as Arseny’s gift of healing. Ambrogio is convinced the world is ending
soon and the only place he can get exact knowledge of the coming Apocalypse is
in Pskov. In 15th Century
Florence, Ambrogio finds a trader willing to teach him Russian. Ambrogio learns Russian with an accent
perfect for Pskov in short order and sets out for Pskov.
In Pskov, Ambrogio meets the mayor. The mayor introduces the Italian to Arseny
and bankrolls their trip to Jerusalem.
All the horrors of the road befall them.
Ambrogio is killed near Jerusalem; a sword but lives and return to Pskov
slash Arseny.
Late in life Arseny goes to a monastery and finally lives in
a cave. He takes the blame for a sin he
did not commit and dies rejected by thousands who he healed. But when he finally dies, more than 100,000
people mourn his passing.
Laurus shows from beginning to end that the life of true
faith, the life truly given to others, means poverty, rejection and
suffering. Arseny, like the Bishop in
Les Miserable rejects this world out of habit and choice. Arseny, like the Bishop, illustrates the
passage called the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew. I am adding that passage at the end of this
review.
Laurus is the Book of Acts set in Russia with the
unrelenting suffering of the Apostle Paul set in a colder climate. Any televangelist who read and understood
Laurus would burn his mansion, his private jet and his TV studio to the
ground.
This book shows what the Christian life looks like and it is a good story well told.
Matthew
Chapter 5
The Beatitudes
10 f“Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness' sake, forutheirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
11 g“Blessed are you when others revile you and
persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely hon my account. 12 iRejoice and be glad, for
your reward is great in heaven, for jso they persecuted the prophets who were before
you.
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