Art La Flamme

I have been in Iraq now for over 100 days. I was in Hawaii for 4 or 5 weeks before coming to Iraq, and in Georgia (the state, not the country) for the 110 or 120 days before Hawaii. Since June, I’ve seen the wife and kids for all of 4 or 5 weeks. I am 100+ days into a year-long tour in Iraq.

I don’t think anywould would fault me for being bummed, or bitter, or a sour-puss. Not just being apart from my family, not just the stress of being here, but also because of the death and destruction that continues on — at a greatly reduced rate — here in northern Iraq.

But this time here in Iraq has actually given me a great sense of optimism. I know I wrote about it some, with regards to the elections. The Awakening worked; the tide has turned on those who would wage war on the Iraqis. The elections went off very well, with certification of the results expected next week. The Security Agreement, between the sovereign nations of Iraq and the US, has been implemented, and seems to be working well. And the President has laid out a time line for US troops leaving Iraq.

Yes, there is still death and destruction. Yes, there is still violence. Yes, there are still those who would overthrow the Iraqi government, or fight American forces until the last one of us leaves.

But really, at long last — Iraq is doing pretty damn well. I smile a lot here. There’s open discussion. There’s rule of law. There are police on the streets, and food on the shelves, and children in the schools again. As someone who has read way to much about the 90+ years of this country, I really feel that Iraq is on the verge of a great new dawn. And that is an awesome feeling.

So, I’m happy. I still wish I was in Hawaii, drinking a beer and bouncing kids on a knee or something, but it’s a great time to be here, to be a part of all this and to see such an awesome change overcome a society.

In case you missed it, just over 24 hours ago IHEC announced the results of the 31 January provincial elections here in Iraq.

In our area, 3 of the 7 provinces held elections. The three provinces in the Kurdish Regional Government (the Kurdish semi-autonomous region, on which I could yammer for 14 days straight) did not, nor did At-Tam’im / Kirkuk, due to continue discussions about Article 23 and the road ahead for Article 140.

For the three that did have elections, the Sunni did well. The Sunni had boycotted the 2005 elections — the last provincial elections. In Ninewa, home of Mosul and a lot of the attacks these days, one Sunni party (the al Hadba Gathering) took the majority by themselves. They will have a lot of work to do, right away, to bring the necessary change signaled by the votes of the people. In Salah ad Din, Sunni parties across the board did well, and they’ll need to work together to come up with a coalition of some kind — ditto for Diyala.

So, they were good, peaceful elections with good, peaceful results. I am proud today, proud to be here, proud to play even a small part in all this. Very cool.

But they’re not.

The NY Times has a piece today, talking about whether the new Obama administration will change the policy on photos of the caskets of dead soldiers coming home from the war front.

After all, the caskets really do show the human cost of this long, long war. And they’re just photos. The photos are what they are.

But they’re not just photos. I am unsure if I can really capture in words just how I feel about this. Those aren’t photos, those are men and women making one last journey.

In the summer of 2003, when my First Sergeant and I were taking home two of our platoons, we were set for a night flight. We staged at the airport in Kuwait City, and when it was time, we loaded everyone onto a big bus and headed out for our airplane. The bus had curtains on the windows, which were drawn closed as it was the middle of the night. No one thought to open them, as everyone was just too excited to be going home.

The bus was full. 1SG and I were, literally, standing next to the bus driver, probably the only two who could see out to the side of the bus, through the front door we were all to use. We drove to our airplane, pulled up alongside it, and stopped. The doors open. And 1SG and I just stood there, waiting.

Our soldiers were anxious, I’m sure. They wanted to honker down into the seat that would take them home to their families, their loved ones.

But all that 1SG and I could see was the sight of the flag-draped caskets being loaded into the cargo hold. There was no way we were going to have our soldiers come bouncing out of that bus, so full of so and glee, and right into this most solemn of scenes. 1SG and I stood there, in quiet unison, and just watched, delaying the magic of getting home, he and I having a quiet moment today in solemn honor of those who would be going home with us, our most honored passengers.

So, this debate over photos hits a nerve with me. I understand that for so many, they’re just photos. But they aren’t. Maybe I’m overly sensitive, maybe I’m not. It’s just how I feel, even if it makes no sense.

I have been looking forward to day all week long. I was hoping that today would be the day that the IHEC — Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission — would announce the preliminary results of the 31 January provincial elections, held in 14 of the 18 provinces in Iraq, and 3 of the 7 provinces up here in the north.

It would be a glorious day. Glorious.

The last provincial elections were in 2005. To my surprise, and to that of the world, the Sunnis opted to boycott. Sure, they are a minority in this country, in comparison to the 65% or so that are Shi’a, but still, they have large percentages of the population in a bunch of the provinces.

They could have made a difference.

But they boycotted.

And wow, do they regret doing that. In the years since, they have realized (I think) that this was about as stupid a thing as any group could do — not being a part of the political process means having to take whatever shit the other folks decide. Yeah, that’s not so cool, especially when the Sunni ran the country before and folks were willing to dole out a little payback to the, all the more since the Sunnis were outside the political process.

But in the years since then, I loved, loved, LOVED watching the awakening. Sahwa. In staying out of the politics, the Sunnis were also hammered by Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and it got to the point where the Sunni leaders — not political leaders, but social and tribal leaders — said that enough was enough, and they approached the Americans and the Iraqi Security Forces. And the Sons of Iraq were born. The Sunni came back into the fold, and became part of the solution instead of being a part of the problem.

This just blows my mind. No representation in the government, hated for what the last regime had done, bad mouthed for having Ba’thist ties, despised for just being followers of their Sunni faith. And they did what was right, in reconciling their differences and working for a greater Iraq.

And this year, in forming political parties and looking for their future within the framework of the Iraqi society.

31 January, something like 50 to 60% of the eligible Iraqis went and voted. Seriously — 60%? America would divide by zero before it would turn out in those numbers to vote, even if the ticket was Gore/Jesus Christ. But turn out they did.

So, I’ve really, really been looking forward to this day.

I haven’t cared what the results would be, but rather how the people would respond. I want to see the excitement in their faces when the hear the news that their party got 17% of the vote in this province or that one, and that their party and their candidates would get 3 or 5 or 10 seats on the Provincial Council. I wanted to feel the rush, their sense of ownership, of involvement.

Because if you’re excited about politics, and actively taking part in the political party, you are investing in your country and your society. You again believe. You have faith, you have hope in what your people can do, and life will get better.

Today was to be an important day for me.

Right up until just after lunch, when someone — reports now indicate it was a woman — in northern Diyala apparently walked into a restaurant and detonated some sort of belt or vest of explosives.

My first thought? Mother fuckers! Can’t we just have a good day in this country, and not have is scarred by the violence?

A few hours later, the preliminary results were released, and it has been a good day. But it’s been a good day marred by this tragedy.

It pains me when there’s loss of life here. This country has made such strides in the years I’ve been watching. It’s changed so much since my first trip here, back in the mid 90′s. I am captivated by this holistic transformation it has undergone, and continues to undergo. There is such potential here, such beauty, such a future.

And there are setbacks.

I don’t pretend to fully understand what drives someone to do something like this. I am male, I am American, I am shaped by the things I have seen, the things I have done, what I have learned along the way. It’s not Arabs doing this, it’s Iraqis. It’s not Sunnis doing this, it’s Iraqis. And it’s not even just women doing this, as men have done it here, too.

I have seen examples — too many of them — of what my peers will do in times of war. When the grenade is thrown through the hatch of the HMMWV, and the gunner yells GRENADE before dropping onto it, pulling it tight. The explosion kills him, but his buddies live. The guy who stays on the heavy machine gun to literally hold off the waves of attacking enemy, long past the point where he himself could escape, because he knows that if he lets that gun go silent, they will all die because his soldiers need just a little bit more time to prepare their defenses. In the end, he dies of his wounds, but his soldiers live.

These are things I understand. Deciding on actions that have a reasonable expectation of causing your own death, usually so that others may live. Firemen running into a burning building, police charging a gunman, spectators diving into an icy river after a car goes off the road and is submerged.

But this is the exact opposite. Something that means so much to someone, that they will take action that they reasonably expect will cost them their lives, in order to take the lives of others.

I want to understand. I really, really do. And I’m trying. But it’s hurting my head, trying to reconcile things that are held in a different light by others, given different values than I would give them or that my culture would give them.

When I ask myself, what would drive me to do this, I come up empty. Would I kill Hitler this way, if I had the chance? I couldn’t do this to people just eating lunch.

But some people would. And today someone did. Damnit. Today, of all the fucking days.

They’re going to the polls today, and I’m pretty excited about. It’s election day here in Iraq, with the citizens taking to the polls to elect members for their provincial councils. It’s these councils that will decide upon the new governors (and a few other key provincial leaders). The last time the Iraqis did this was in late 2005.

They’re going to the polls today, and there is no doubt — this is their election. We, the Americans, just happen to be hanging out. It is their doing, lock, stock and barrel. Their security, their plans, their officials, their sites. If you think we’re here to help the Iraqis learn the joys of democracy, watch today and smile.

They’re going to the polls today, in keeping with the fine Iraqi tradition of voting. I was speaking the other day with a woman born and raised in Kirkuk, just after someone had tried to assert that this was Iraq’s first real chance to vote. She and I had a good giggle over this; Iraqis have voted ever since Iraq was created, except during times of occupation by others. Sure, us westerners might take issue with how elections were done esp. late in the Saddam era, but still, they had elections much as Egypt still has elections. Iraqis are very clear on what it means to go and vote. And today, they’re going to be out in HUGE numbers.

They’re going to the polls today, and for thousands upon thousands of them, there is nothing that will stop them from voting. In 2005, not far from here, there was a polling (as they call their voting) site not far from here that came under attack by a sniper. The polling site was a building with a few rooms for voting, so the masses were formed in a long, long line outside. The sniper had lined them up in the rifle sights, and started firing. While the Americans rushed to kill the sniper and end the threat, the Iraqis waiting to vote had just taken a knee, and waited in place. Quickly, the sniper was out of the equation, and the silence of the day had returned; the people literally stood back up, still in line. Ask yourself if casting your vote means that much to you; it means that much to the people here.

They’re going to the polls today, and more than anything I wish I could go and walk among the crowds. I’d love to ask them how they feel today, if they’re excited, who they’re voting for and why. I’d like to ask them about the changes of the last 10 years, and of their hopes and dreams for the future. I’d like to ask them about their children, and what they see in their Iraq. I’d like to be able to share in the joy of the day, because it is going to be a glorious day, for sure.

They’re going to the polls today, and more than anything in the world I wish I could share this with my wife. During the ground war, I held back so much. The death, the destruction — those are things you want to keep from your loved ones. I did not want her to ask me how my night was going, and hearing the words fall from my mouth about how many we’d killed, or that the hunt was going well. I want her to see and hear and smell the freshness of this land, of the uplifted spirits, and the sense of limitless future and optimism that comes from standing with your peers to decide your fate, your future. These are the days of glory, the best it can be, when a man of violence is given the chance to also be a man of peace. I don’t want her to know how many widows can look to me with blame, but to know that I am capable of service not just to her and our children, not just our people and our nation, but to so many others.

They are going to the polls today, and I am going to go to the office and make a lot of PowerPoint slides. For the Iraqis, today is the pinnacle, a high point. For me, I am already onto the next giant rock that needs to be rolled up a hill, surely to just roll back down when I am almost there. They will enjoy the quiet time, their national holiday, and surely be at home with family and friends and maybe even a nice meal. And I, I will change fonts, and add transitions, and arrange colored boxes, all in support of the free will of the people.

They are going to the polls today, and I want you to know that it’s a damn great day.

Interesting article, here.

I read a lot of articles about PTSD and the military, and I had seen one other one on GEN Ham and his problems. From this observer, I’d guess he had PTSD, but hey, if he wants to call it something else, so be it.

I think it’s awesome that he’s willing to talk about it.

I am not surprised that he doesn’t see it as a big deal.

Now, how many other of our senior leaders are going to open up and talk about their stress and their combat experiences?

How much does this rule?

A ton. That right there, my friends, is 11 pounds and 12 ounces of cookie nirvana.

Part of my daily routine has me in a briefing when our Division talks about its hero of the day. My God — these stories often just tear my heart out.

The Army truck hits a mine. Soldier A gets out — I’ll call him Jones — to pull security. He steps on a mine, and it tears him apart. Soldiers B — I’ll call him Smith — runs to his aid.

Think about it. Smith just saw Jones step on a mine. Which means that there likely are more mines in the area. And he runs to Jones. Holy crap. $10 says Smith didn’t think — he just did what we’ve all been trained to do.

He starts giving Jones medical aid. He’s not even a medic. He realizes that the femoral artery in Jones’ leg is causing the bleeding. Which can be fatal, quickly, as it’s the biggest artery in the body. He’s on it like white on rice, and even more, he’s calling to his NCO to pass work that Jones need medical evacuation right fucking now, and that he needs surgery right fucking now. He gets Jones to the truck and they start moving — fast — to get him to the awaiting surgeons.

On the way, Smith keeps at helping his buddy. He finds more wounds, and he corks them up the best he can. He tells the driver to turn on the heat — can’t have Jones go into shock. He gets him from the vehicle into surgery and stays to provide all the details he can, knowing the docs will need to know about the attack if they are going to be able to swiftly focus their efforts on his medical needs.

There were probably 15 different things that Smith could have not done, or done wrong. Things that would have killed Jones. But he didn’t. He did everything, and he did it right. Jones is still with among the living.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a big truck roll off the side of the road and into a water-filled canal. With a bunch of guys trapped in the back of the vehicle, and it filled with water. An NCO in the vehicle behind them, without regard for anything other than what needed to be done, jumped his happy ass into that water, got the back open and the guys out, and then went inside to make sure all had made it out alive. The NCO could have died, for any of a dozen different reasons, but he did it anyway. All of those guys in the back would have died, for sure.

And then there’s Dr. John Pryor. A reservist, an Army doctor. He drove from Philadelphia to NY on 9/11, to help out. He was on his second tour here in Iraq — in northern Iraq, not far from where I am — when he was killed in a recent mortar attack. Recent — as in on Christmas Day.

Go read the article. That he was willing to serve just baffles me. That he was willing to go to Iraq — to go back to Iraq — just baffles me. And that he lost his life in service to the nation — that just tears my heart.

I don’t know if you hear these tales. I hear them every day. Our military is filled with them, and new ones are generated every damn day, through the brave and selfless service of the men and women who are out here, serving you.

It’s 9:15pm / 2115 on New Year’s Eve. I’ve stopped by the room long enough to see if I had an email response or two on something near and dear to me (yes — I got about 8).

And now I will go back to the office.

I will ring in the New Year with PowerPoint 2007. Uh, not a good sign.

Last night, my boss handed me a project.

There are grad students out there right now, I am sure, who are pondering what to focus on for their thesis or dissertation. One or more will pick this exact subject, and then they will spend months and years pouring over it all and figuring out what it means.

Me, I get 48 hours. And I just slept for 6. Damnit!

David Allen has a new book out. Would someone please tell me how it is?

I love the idea of putting OS X on other hardware. it’s super nerdy, I know, but i think it’s awesome.

The Band stopped by today, to sing holiday carols. Yes, they were also armed to the teeth. I snickered.

My shoulder is killing me. Torn rotor cuff on the warpath. Slept like crap three nights running.

Oh, and bandwidth is up. So, look for me on Skype and iChat (MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber / Google, I think, plus AIM). Need to know my account? Ask. Video works well, sometimes.

Inspired by this. Yes, it’s tongue-in-cheek.

1. Review the year that is about to end. Write down some of the highlights of all the good things that happened to you. Be sure to include all the basics like no more dishes, not choosing what to wear, never choosing shat’s for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or fond memories of yesteryear when you only had an 8 hour work day.

2. Share and celebrate your successes this year with your family and friends. Oh, wait. OK, try celebrating it with a bunch of semi-strangers who are armed to the teeth, amped out of their minds on caffeine, and probably wound a weeeeeee bit too tight. It’s almost the same, I swear.

3. Send greetings of appreciation and thanks to those people who have helped make this year special for you. Do it two weeks ago, because the mail takes that long. Be sure to use paper from the laser printer, because, well, it’s that or TP. Forget stamps — just write “free” up in the corner instead, and see if that works.

4. Review your current to do list for work. Be ruthless and eliminate as many unnecessary or futile tasks as you can, without doing them. Don’t worry — someone will put them right back on your list for you in the morning anyway.

5. Finish off any unresolved matters. Like Kurd-Arab tensions, Article 140 and 23, the problems with kerosene distribution, health care reform, the American auto industry, SEN Obama’s vacating Senate seat, and the future of Lebanon and the West Bank.

6. Clear up some clutter. Start with MSR Arizona and then move on to MSR Tampa. Not just the trash — go big and see about the rubble, too. Maybe the intersection at 8th and Nebuchadnezzar, because it really looks bad right now. It sure could use some flowers.

7. Go through your important paperwork and bring it up to date as much as possible. Start with your powers of attorney, and then your Soldiers Group Life Insurance. And make sure you’re getting your combat pay, etc.

8. Review how you have spent your time this year, and identify those things that have been draining your energy. Don’t bother writing them down — you are in the Army, after all, and it’s not like you can really do much about it anyway. Begin to say NO this year to things that you don?t really want to do. Wow — I almost said that with a straight face. Say no… yeah, that’s a good one.

9. Be different and do something new. Because the Army loves that. A nice broach? A ribbon in your hair? Grow out some mongo porkchop sideburns. Streak. Stop wearing your reflecting belt over one shoulder, but instead as a thong. Sleep in. Salute with your left hand, Benny Hill style.

10. Start walking every day for at least 20 minutes until the New Year begins. Be sure to wear at least 100 pounds of extra gear — water, ammo, armor, steel plates, grenades, a tourniquet, etc. Because it’s not the walking that’s as important as the effort you have to put into each. damn. step.

11. Rest and relax. Sit back and turn on the TV, and realize that you get no channels. Open your fridge and pour yourself a nice, cold….. water. Drag that chair outside and enjoy the dust and flies.

We’re due for a bandwidth upgrade. It was suppose to be today. Can’t really tell yet.

At 1005 the other morning, I was sitting in a conference room, listening to my heart. It was beating strong. It was beating a bit fast. More than anything, I wanted to put two fingers to my neck to better gauge what it was doing.

In minutes, it would be my turn to speak. No overhead projector, no big screen with my slides. Two senior officers sat at the head table, flipping through slide packs. Buried in there were four slides of mine — Northern Iraq 101. No chance to read from a script — I’d be cold-stone-talking about it, solo.

We all get the jitters before events. Pre-wedding jitters, the jitters before while waiting for the big race, the stomach butterflies waiting for that big test in third period. It’s natural. It’s the anticipation of what is to come, that moment when it will all begin.

I get that a lot. I talk and brief for a living. I don’t write long analytical pieces, I don’t make fancy slides. I do best sitting with folks, and talking them through complex ideas using the simplest of terms.

I should be good at this. I need to be good at this.

So, sitting there, I was wondering just one thing: Would my body drop into fight-or-flight mode, and dump a ton of stimulates. All that endorphin, from when your mind decides that survival is on the line, and it concludes that stimulants are what you really need.

Why? It’s called hypervigilance, and it’s a part of PTSD.

It wasn’t always like this for me — the worrying and waiting not just of what I am about to do and about which I am nervous, but the dread that my body is really sensitive to stress. This is one of those lively byproducts of PTSD — my fight-or-flight trigger has been out of whack. Like a lot of folks with PTSD, it goes off at inappropriate times – too early.

And sitting in a conference room, waiting to talk about a topic I know well, is not an appropriate time. Jitters, yes — my body getting the sudden sensation that it’s time to get up and go? No.

It is a wildly shitty sensation. Waiting to do what is a key part of your very career and capabilities, and waiting to see if your body is going to illogically go postal on you.

Can I influence it? Sure. Is it a problem? No. Do I have it under control? Yep. But it’s a daily struggle, something for which I start every day with just a clean slate. In a flash, it could be back, and with the stress levels up being back here, I am ever vigilant about it. If I had a good day yesterday, that’s fine, but I start all over again today. And I don’t see it ever going away.

It is, as I understand it, the kind of daily struggle that recovered alcoholics face — one day at a time, with a very conscious effort.

I don’t normally talk about this stuff, but I am going to try and write more this year, and specifically talk about what it’s like to come back to war with PTSD. I don’t think it’s something that people talk about, mainly because I know I don’t talk about it. It’s my own quiet struggle, something I have to live with and something for which there just isn’t a reason to talk about it.

(PS — I kicked ass at both briefings)

When I left then-FOB now-COB Speicher in early 2004, things were different. This place was different, I was different, Iraq was different. What’s different?

I can blog. Which means a bunch of other things have changed, too. Like heat. I have heat this winter, which is cool is ways most of you would not really grasp. That winter, I slept in a sleeping bag, on a cot that was missing parts and was thus not fully set up or functioning (and really, how hard is it for a cot to be fully functioning?) Now, I have a bed and sheets and laundry that someone else does, and as best I can tell, they use a washer and a dryer.

I have electricity. Back then it was small generators and wires run everywhere. No power where we slept. Internet access? I think they had it in the HQ building, but I don’t remember seeing it. I bought a cheap card so I could make phone calls at the MWR — Morale, Welfare and Recreation — tent, but that was about it. My mail never made it to me — I had Xmas and presents in Kuwait weeks later.

I packed so much crap with me this time, bringing it with me vice having stuff mailed in. Vitamins. A ton of toiletries. Blank CD’s and DVD’s. Extra locks. Books. Spare everything. Back then, I had one ruck sack, one duffel, and one foot locker. I’d pick up a book, read it, and then exchange it wherever I found the next one.

I am not loaded down to the gills with a shit-ton of gear every day. I wear my regular Army uniform, a hat that sure looks like a baseball cap but that I can’t actually call a baseball cap, Combat Boots, and I carry a pistol. No turtle-shell like helmet. No body armor. No 1000 pounds of bullets and grenades and things that blow up or shoot sparks into the sky. Basic clothes, a pistol in a holster, and a little green book in which to take notes. Hell, this time I even brought my fancy watch to wear every day!

And my work. Yikes, it’s different. Somewhere along the way, I became a lover, not a fighter.

Lastly, things get to me a lot more. That’s the PTSD, I know. Every morning, I sit in to hear the briefing to the general about that’s new in the world. Two things get me. The first is the tale of the hero of the day. They are awe inspiring. Professionalism, dedicated, conviction, willingness to do extraordinary things to protect others — American and Iraqi.

The other is on those sad occasions when the Chaplain talks about a Soldier who has given their life in service to the country. That just hurts, and I well up every damn time. I use to not do that — I had ice in my veins, for sure. But damn, it hurts now — it hurts a lot.

And as an aside, thanks for all the emails. Keep ‘em coming. Send your questions — I’ll answer what I can.

So, yeah. Bird Day.

Three things:

1) I am thankful for my wife. Wow, she puts up with a ton of crap, just because I choose to be in the Army. I could make decent money, if I wasn’t in the Army. I could come home at a decent hour, if I wasn’t in the Army. I’d be home right now, if I wasn’t in the Army. I’ve come dangerously close, time and time again, to putting the needs of the Army ahead of the needs of my wife and my family. Time and time again, the Army has called, and I have dropped everything to answer the call, always knowing that my wife will hold down the fort, raise the kids, pay the bills, and fight the good fight while I go off and do whatever it is that I do. She rules. Every damn day I am thankful she’s in my life.

2) I am thankful to be right here, right now. I am thankful just for the chance to serve our nation. Today, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve the draft of the Status of Forces Agreement (here). This is awesomely cool, for about 45 different reasons. We’re all moving beyond the days of a UN-mandated American presence, into an era of American troops being here under terms agreed upon by two sovereign nations. Wow — that just blows my mind. In the coming weeks, the Iraqis will have their next round of provincial elections — the second time the Iraqis have done this. Consider this: Iraq became a nation at the end of WWI, and it was a monarchy until 1958 when a coalition of groups overthrew the king. After ten years, Saddam emerged to grab control of the country, and ushered in his era of totalitarian Ba’athism. After the 2003 invasion, Iraq had the one round of elections in 2005, but that really was done with a lot of hand holding. So, here we are — the Iraqis are about to do it again, and I expect that they will do it all on their own. Wow. I find that to be incredible. I am thankful to be here, and to have even the smallest of roles in this amazing period of Iraqi history.

The Descent into Baghdad

3) I am thankful to be able to run. I was going to say that I was thank for my run today, but really, it’s more than that. Some of you may know that I don’t run just for exercise; I run because I have PTSD. Yep, post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s like being an alcoholic — I will always have to deal with it, and I will deal with it, one day at a time. When I started showing signs, back in 2003, I was such a physical wreck that running wasn’t an option. A two mile run would kill me for a week. Two years later, when I admitted defeat and decided to do something about the PTSD, I had found a new doctor / physical therapist who had patched me up enough to run again. He, of course, thought I’d be good for a couple of miles, tops, but that sounded like crap and I set out to prove my wrong. And the running helped the PTSD. It helped a LOT. Folks with PTSD are often treated with all kinds of drugs, none of which I wanted. None of which I thought I would need, if I could get my body to produce the same ones naturally. To produce the same ones, by running. And so I ran. A little here, a little there, and then poof, I ran a marathon. Injuries aside, I’ve been running ever since, through good times and bad. Today, I took off and ran 10km — 6.2 miles. And yes, I was in pain every step of the way. Which is fine — with this broken body, I will be in pain every day of the rest of my life. No need for it to keep me from doing what I want and need to do. I ran today for no reason other than it was a Thursday and Thanksgiving and I could sneak out to do it. And it felt great. I don’t ever want to go back to being so broken and such a mess that I can’t take off and run like I can now. Running is such a positive part of my life, that I can’t see living without it. I’ll likely run for the rest of my life. And to have found running, and learned the positive role it has in my life, it priceless.

So, there you have it. A guy in Iraq, who could easily be wallowing in the misery of being away from my family and all that crap, and I have three great reasons to be thankful just to wake up and start another day.

Lavatory

I’m going to head back to my hooch now, and maybe watch a movie or something. Enjoy your bird day. Be good.

So, how’s this for ironic? I have safely made it into Iraq, and am only a tiny bit settled, when tody I finally found the chance to sit in front of a machine with internet access, only to find Google Mail acting wonky (most likely not Google’s fault) and my Army email acting wonky. Best way to tell my family that I made it safely here, that all is well, etc? To blog about it.

So — hey, everyone, I made it!

I might call it an amber light.

When we arrived here in lovely Kuwait, we were inundated with a ton of briefings, one of which addressed blogging (on one slide).

Yes, blogging is OK. If I want to talk military topics, I have to do a couple of things.

I don’t plan to really talk about military stuff, but I will do the extra stuff, just to be on the safe side.

So, get ready. Looks like I’m in business.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve departed. Gone. Poof. Into the wind.

I am going back to Iraq.

Field Manual 30-5, Combat Intelligence, February 1951

I’ll be there for a year, or until they tell me to come home. I should get a two-week-or-so break somewhere along the way.

I’d like to keep blogging here during the year. I am sure there’d be things to write; I know, though, that the Army is a bit cautious about blogs, so I will have to see what wickets I’ll need to jump through in order to blog. Feel free to email me and ask questions; if I can answer them, I will, and if not, I’ll either lie (ok, no, not really) or I’ll just fess up that it’s not appropriate for me to answer, for whatever reason. If I upload photos, or blog here or elsewhere, or bookmark neat things, it’ll all show up in this RSS feed.

“As crutch attests”

About going

I’ve had people ask me different questions about this adventure. The questions generally fall into a couple of categories.

Aren’t you worried about going? No, not really. Things started to sink in Sunday morning, early, that it was almost time for change. I think I get more angst about the change, the picking up and going someplace, than I do about where I’m going or what I’m going to do there. I do a pretty good job of living in the now, and it’s only that slight anticipation that my now will likely change that gets me thinking about it. But no, it’s not worry. I’ll be fine.

Are you worried about being there? No, not really. I know that some have a view that Iraq is some horrible place, but that’s not a view I share. Yes, there is violence, yes there are crimes occurring. But there’s that in Los Angeles, New York, Moscow, and so on. I’m a believer — I believe in the Iraqis, in the Iraqi government, and in what we’re doing there. So no, I’m not worried about being there. I’ll be fine.

Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 08 May 1945

How’s your family taking it? Well. I don’t like saying that we take separation well, or that we’ve done this enough times that it’s not new. That sucks. But it is true — we have done this enough times, for the war, for other missions, for schools and the like, that we’re pretty good at it. My wife runs the house, with or without me there. The kids have their routines, with or without me there. We have mail, and email, and sometimes video chats. My wife covers down on the gift shopping for us when I’m not there, and I work hard to draw out of our kids info on what’s going on in their lives. I don’t like being apart, much less for a year, any more than I like missing another set of birthdays, another holiday season, another recital or event. But it happens, especially when service to the Nation and to the Republic comes before family.

What’ll you be doing there? I’m a staff guy. There’s no door kicking for me, no jumping out of a helicopter as it gets ready to set down on the objective. I sit and think deep thoughts, ask questions, give a briefing from time to time, and make an all-out effort to avoid making PowerPoint slides (not just while in Iraq, but in life in general). It’s not a bad deal, and it’s stuff that I’m actually well suited to do. But through all that, I remain ready to all of those basic soldier skills we expect of every soldier; if they need an extra gunner, I go.

Band-Aids, circa 1944

What do you do?

And every time I get ready to go somewhere, I seem to end up fielding questions from friends / family: What can I do to help while you’re gone?

So, some thoughts on that, too.

Email. You have my email address, right? A note, something personal from time to time, would be cool. Sure, send me the link to that NY Times article; even better is cutting and pasting it into the email itself (because some web sites get blocked or require that I go to an MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation) computer to see) or as an attachment. Best, though, is including it and offering up your thoughts on it, too.

Actual mail. You have stamps, right? As long as there have been literate soldiers, there have been letters from home in their pockets. An actual letter is awesome, probably all the more so in this age of email. Yes, it takes longer to write, yes, your penmanship might be a bit off, but so what. Real letters are awesome. Throw in an article from the hometown newspaper, or something from Time or Rolling Stone or Hot Rod, and you’ll make my day.

If you want to go above and beyond that, well, there’s a ton of other things you can do.

Wounded Warrior Transition Units. Find your local military installation, and get in touch with the Wounded Warrior unit. These are the units where our banged up, battered, and slightly-damaged guys go to mend. Guys and gals whose role in life is to get better, after something has happened to them. Want to help someone locally, to help make the world a better place and to maybe honor our soldiers just a bit? Contact the unit, and see how you can help.

Family Readiness Group. Peek around and find the local unit near you. They might be on a base, they might be a Guard or Reserve unit in your area. This is the group of spouses, kids, and extended family (parents, loved ones, boyfriends / girlfriends, etc) who are working to help each other and themselves while their loved ones are gone. Sometimes there are problems to be solved, sometimes there are bake sales to raise money to send care packages to their loved ones.

Army Emergency Relief. AER is help for soldiers in need. A quick loan in a jam or a grant in a time of need, it’s money to help soldiers during their hour of need. It’s run locally — here‘s the link to the one at Walter Reed Army Medical Center — and it’s tax deductible.

Footlocker, packed in 1946

No wallowing

I suppose it would be easy to wallow in my own misery, over having to go. Or over having to go someplace again, or over having to go for a year. There are a million reasons one could be upset about going, or be upset about a loved one going.

But I won’t. I don’t think I can. Things could be so much worse.

As I was getting ready to go, I was looking for those last little things I would need to take with me, I made a stop off in the footlocker that had belonged to my wife’s grandfather. The photos in this post — I took the photos that day as I was peeking here and there.

Los Angeles Times, 08 December 1941

On December 7th, he got the call. He left the next morning, heading off with the 32nd Cav, his National Guard unit. Apparently, he bought the paper on the way that day. He came home from the war in 1946.

5 years. Sure, he got R&R from time to time, but still — five years. That’s a long time. That’s a lot of letters to write. That’s a lot of great experiences with your kids that you’ll never get back.

Late in his life, when I was a lieutenant stationed in Germany, he came to visit us. I made the time to go show him all of our equipment — M1A2 tank, M2 infantry fighting vehicle, M109A6 self-propelled howitzer, and everything on down to machine guns and pistols. It was fascinating to hear his views of our military today — our equipment, our organizations, our capabilities, our training. He had been, at times, want for things as simple as a heavy machine gun that worked reliably — that’s hard to reconcile today with my worries about things like access to email and Skype. Understanding this history not just of my profession but of my own Army and the sacrifices asked of our soldiers in the past, is helping me balance the pressures of heading back to Iraq.

I don’t know how much, if any, difference I’ll make, but I’ll do my best.

Alright, that’s enough for now. More later — whenever that is.

Back in July, I tuned up and posted a blog entry (here) that recounted the tale of what my soldiers did in support of the rescue of Jessica Lynch and the recovery of the remains of those killed in the attack on the 507th.

I wrote it and published it because one requirement of my class was to blog. The long and the short of it is that our CG (Commanding General) thinks that we need to learn to do more to interact with our citizens (or, at least, that’s how I interpret it), to do more to tell our tales.

As I saw it, Jessica Lynch and her rescue was a very tangible topic familiar to most folks.

I had talked about it before. In the aftermath of the ground war, I’d talked about it a bunch — I’d given a whole bunch of briefs, just never to the public and never outside the protection of the Army.

I’d written about it, too. I first wrote about it when my second deployment was coming to an end — I was putting together a small handwritten book of short stories for my father, about what I had seen and been a part of, and this was one of those stories. But that writing didn’t really see the light of day. Other than a couple of immediate family members, it’s just sat and collected dust, probably waiting for my kids to be old enough to understand what it says.

Two years ago, three years after the events and two years after I’d written my little book, I cleaned up this story and posted it to the web (here). If that seems like a long time, well, it might be. I was slow to decide how to tell it, and slower to decide that I was willing to just barf it out there for the world to see.

This time around, though, it seemed the right topic for the assignment at hand. It felt good to go back and re-tool it, to give it some love and some attention and to republish it. It met the course requirement, too, which was a bonus.

But when the school-related aspect of it was done, I decided to turn it up to 11. And honestly, I have no idea why I decided to do this. I flipped through the on-post magazine, FYI, and found the email address for the editor. I dashed off a note and the URL, and waited to hear back from them. Would they be interested in running the article? Yes (minus the F Bomb). Would they be interested in the two photos I happen to have with me? Yes. Would then honor my Creative Commons license? Yes.

Three for three — pretty good. Just like that, I was set to be published.

Pretty soon thereafter, I got an email from the post Public Affairs Office. A reporter from Augusta wanted to interview me, about an article related to my piece. Was I game? Yes. Yes, because it seemed to me to be in keeping with what I thought out CG was trying to teach us.

An interview, and a wait. And today, and article.

To be honest, I think the article in the paper today is something of a non-story. I think I certainly offered far more details in the magazine article and the blog. To each their own, I suppose. It’s not that I didn’t give her enough material, either.

I told her about the soldiers I was fortunate enough to lead. I talked about my role a the token figurehead, and the absolutely conviction of the soldiers to do all that they could to support the efforts of our soldiers and of our units. I just happened to be in change, but they did such amazing things, it still stings to thing about it.

I told her that there was gobs and gobs of stories like this one, stories that could be told by so many soldiers about so many things. I was trying to tie it all back into what I saw as the intent of the CG, to show and illustrate for her that there’s more out there if she or others are just willing to ask, and are willing to wait for when a Soldier or Airman or Marine or Sailor is willing to tell it.

And I tried my best to stress that this is just one of what must be countless stories of soldier innovation, of soldiers finding a way to do more than ever expected or intended, all to support the mission. That hardware they gave us, it was certainly never intended to be used in this way, but these soldiers were smart enough, insightful enough, daring enough to put aside the textbook answer in order to find a better way. And that is just humbling.

So, yeah. I’m in the paper. It was published today, here. An interesting footnote to my time spent in Augusta.