One of my earlier training exercises ...

I have been looking for pictures of my enlisted days because I don't want to forget those days and the lessons I learned then-- they were some of the best. I learned some very valuable things during the E-5 to E-6 years -- things that served me well in my O-5 and O-6 years. I met some pretty good guys who also happened to be pretty fine Soldiers. But aside from learning how to conduct operations and be an MP, I learned how to work with people. This came in handy in my civilian job of teaching and coaching. In those early years I was exposed to lots of good and bad examples of how to treat people. I learned how to take care of others and how to see things from different points of view. After all, up to that point I had a pretty black and white viewpoint of things, which is indeed rare for a recent college boy from O.U. Probably another invaluable thing I learned was how to listen and I'm still practicing that one.

As I have said in a number of these entries, I developed many long lasting friendships. In the top picture, SFC Barnett on the left (who later served as my CSM in the MP battalion I commanded) and 1SG White (w/cigarette) were two pretty good role models for the young troops we had at that time. Remember, this was the mid-seventies and being associated with the military wasn't very popular. Lots of the guys we had in units at that time liked long hair and sideburns. It took special kinds of NCOs to deal with these troops. One of those good examples was a former company commander, CPT. Wainwright (right-middle picture, leaning on the 1/4-ton). He was an easy-going communicator and a good thinker.

I also learned a lot about putting up with some of the inconveniences and "hardships" of being an enlisted Soldier. Granted, these were not combat times, and lots of the crabbing that Soldiers do during those times is more like whining, but this was where I learned the difference. This was a tremendous help later on when I was teaching or coaching and heard whining from students. A lot of the times I would tell them they reminded me of some of my troops and then, sometimes, I would tell them an Army story to illustrate the point.

I still remember eating meals in the field on the back of a vehicle. I still have my mess kit, and I take it out and rattle it around the campfire when camping out. If it's a campgrounds, I look around to see if anyone is taking notice...looking to see if there are any old Soldiers around. Those who have eaten from one of these remembers that sound and can pick it out anywhere. In the bottom picture, I am beginning to dig a fighting position. Yes, I dug foxholes too!! The Soldier with me is SP4 Riggle. He was my roommate at OU for the first two years. He was a big ol' strapping farm boy. Good choice to help dig a foxhole, huh. See, I told you I learned some pretty good lessons in those years.

Every book I read dealing with wars or soldiering generally has one central theme -- the relationships Soldiers build with others in their units is why they do what they do. We join the Army for any number of reasons, but we stay and fight because we would never let a "buddie" in our foxhole down . We often lose physical track of these guys, but we never forget them. We never forget the times.

Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Soldiers don't have that problem. (Ronald Reagan)

HOOAH

And yet another side ...

If you've been following these entries for a while, you could get the impression that my whole career was devoted to the U.S. Army. You'd probably be pretty close, but there is/was more to me than just being a soldier.

I may have mentioned a few entries ago that I was also in the teaching/coaching business. I began my teaching career after graduating from THE Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. My first serious job offers came from school districts in Australia, Xenia, Ohio and Troy Ohio. I figured the distance to Australia would have been too much to overcome, and the Army wouldn't let me out of my contract, so that one was out. Too bad, mate. The second offer I was considering was from Xenia and I am very glad God was watching out for us as I chose the Troy offer. It was not too long after that that the Xenia tornado hit and wiped out most of the town, and probably the area I would have lived given my financial outlook at that time.

Troy was a great town to begin a career. I met some real nice people, and the school was absolutely superior. I began my coaching career doing freshmen football. Jim Turner and I coached them in the single wing and went undefeated and only gave up two touchdowns. That was pretty good considering the powerful league we were in at the time (Western Ohio League) -- one of the best "big schools" leagues in the state.

I picked up wrestling at first as a volunteer coach at the junior high. I had never wrestled before, but thought it would be a tough sport and I would like it. After about 5 years as an assistant coach at the high school, I took over the position. We conditioned during the off season and worked very hard. I had some of the best, toughest, most determined young men in the school. They came from good families (not all of them had both parents, but they were good just the same). They were great in the classroom, and were super role models before that became popular. In fact, a LOT of them gave back to the sport either by having their own kids go into it and do well, or by becoming coaches themselves.
Did I say we were tough? Oh yeah, we were successful too. We won the W.O.L. , a feat that has never been done by any other wrestling team at TROY. We also finished second 2 times. We had a DIV. I state champ -- again something no other wrestling team in THS history can claim. We had a number of other place finishers, to include a second place one year which was won by a 155-pounder who wrestled the last two periods of regulation and the whole overtime with a separated shoulder!

One of the most gratifying things about being the head wrestling coach for 13 years was the ties I built with those guys, their families and the others associated with the program. I was very fortunate to have worked with such fine people. But I also appreciate how they made me a better father, teacher, and person. I have been away from that town for a little over 12 years now, but I can still go there and run into people who want to stop and talk about those teams.

Coaches are always trying to inspire and motivate their players, and there are lots of ways to go about it. Now I'm not saying I was all that good at this area, but these sayings seemed to work for my guys:
1. Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.
2. Get better or die.
3. If you can't, that's my fault. If you won't, ...

HOOAH

Glad he got to see this...

Back in the fall of 1991, I was appointed commander of a Military Police Battalion, a position I would hold for four years. That day was a pretty important day for a number of reasons. First, I was following in the footsteps of one of my mentors (Bart); but second, and probably more important than that, was the fact that my dad was there to see it. In the picture above, my dad is in the white coat at the far left of the picture, standing next to my wife, Pam. In the picture below, Bart is on the left, with the Commanding General in the middle of us. The young pup on the right is me.

Even though he didn't know it, my dad was the driving force behind my Army career. He was not one of those career guys or an Academy guy who pounded service into his son's brain. No, he was just a WWII artillery guy who did his job in Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, the Ardennes and Central Europe and then got on with his life. However, shortly after he got out of the service and started his civilian life, he joined the National Guard, like a number of his fellow soldiers, to help make ends meet and to still serve the country he loved.

As a very small child, I used to sit behind the couch in the living room as he would have his section/ squad leaders over to the house during the week on a Wednesday night to plan things for their next drill. I thought these guys were gods, and just hoped I could be like them some day. I didn't know anything about Army, wars, discipline, orders, death -- all I knew was that if my dad did this and these big, strong guys listened to him, then I wanted in. There is an old saying that goes like this: It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was. Many years of service later and having gotten a pretty good taste of what he experienced, I still think I did the right thing.

I know he was interested in what I did in the MP business. We talked about it at times, but both of us always seemed to be holding back. I don't think either of us ever got to talk about things or say what we really wanted to -- at least I know I didn't get to really explore that bond we had. I just finished Stephen Ambrose's book, Citizen Soldiers, and traced the battles and movements of the U.S. Army through the European Theater. Knowing his unit was a part of all of that made it more interesting. It further convinced me that Soldiers of that war, while just ordinary Joe's, were never the less something special .

"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your father was." (Irish Proverb)

Hooah

One of the fun things we do here...

I know I've done my fair share of complaining about the cold, some- times bitterly so, winters of Ohio. And I imagine you've probably heard me gripe some about the non-stop, 365- days-a-year blowing winds of Shelby County. So why would I write about a dead of winter event and say how much fun it is. I can assure you that it's much easier to write this now that it's spring and golfing/fishing time.

Skating on our pond is a blast.

I think these pictures are a few years old, but they give you an idea of some of the amounts of snow and how we enjoy having the neighbors (Jim and the boys) come over to skate, sled on the ice and sometimes do the whip (boy those little guys can really go flying).

One winter, our son came home from New York for a few days and the ice was about 8 or 9 inches thick and there was no snow on it (remember, this is Shelby County -- the wind blew all the snow off the ice). He is normally a size 9 shoe, but he had three or four pairs of wool socks and my size 12 hockey skates on and gave it a shot. He went to the far west end of the pond, opened his coat and held it out like a sail. The wind literally shot him across the pond. The dog thought that was fun, chasing him back and forth. She finally figured out he was getting help on the west-to-east trips. So being a smart lab, she went over to lie by the fire. I think the two snorts she gave out indicated she had had enough.

Pam and I really enjoy getting to skate on our own pond. Kinda makes the shoveling and cold weather worth it. It's especially fun when we have a roaring fire in the fire ring and Pam makes hot chocolate.

Winter must be really cold for those with no warm memories.

Hooah

Train as you would fight...

This was a motivational phrase that was used quite a bit in the MP Corps in the 80's. It seemed that month after month, summer after summer every minute we had in uniform was spent learning how to do our mission -- handle Enemy Prisoners of War (EPW).

Interestingly enough, at that time all assets in the Army's inventory for handling EPWs were in the Reserve and National Guard. And even though our Active component brethren liked to call us "Weekend Warriors" among other things, they had no trouble calling us (sometimes collect) to handle an issue they really didn't want to be involved in.

The Reserve Component has done most of the heavy lifting in the EPW arena dating back to Desert Storm.

Here are some pictures taken during an exercise. One of the things one might notice is the size of the camp. These pictures represent only a fraction of the size of a modern camp. Also missing from the pictures are all the support troops. Everything a Soldier would have in his/her hometown can be found in these sites: medical facilities, fire fighting capabilities, dining halls, recreation facilities, stores, laundry and bath facilities, chapels, libraries, construction companies, etc. These addressed not only the U.S. Soldiers' needs, but also had to address the EPW requirements per treaties. Humanitarian organizations to include representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from Geneva, Switzerland and Washington, D.C. often attended this training to observe.

Other than the ticks, heat rash, severe thunderstorms and suction mud for the next two or three days, hit and miss meals, and cuts from razor wire, the thing I (and every Soldier who has ever spent more than one hot day and damp, cold night in the field) remember is the smell of Army canvas tents. It doesn't matter how long I have been away from it, I have instant flashbacks the moment I smell hot canvas. I fully believe that smell is a powerful trigger to past experiences. I also go back to Baghdad and Sadam's palace now each time I smell mold.

Yeah, the Army has received some bad press in the handling of EPWs in this war, but considering the hundreds of thousands of them that have been handled since the war began, I think we've done a pretty good job. Remember the quote from George Orwell I put at the end of my article from April 14th.

People used to ask me why I did this Army stuff, month after month, year after year, deployment after deployment and I used to tell them that I was going to keep doing it long enough that maybe the Russians would get tired and quit. So I (and a whole lot of other super guys I served with) kept doing it, adapting from the cold war model to the bizarre war on terrorism, getting it right and passing on our knowledge to those who followed. One thing I could not get used to in this new war was having a political adviser on one shoulder, a lawyer on the other and a media relations representative walking one step behind me.

"There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy." (George Washington)

Hooah

Update on Spring in the country...

Although I would like to say I've had hundreds of requests for any news on the baby robins, I can't. But let me update you on what's new.

Momma robin lost one of her four eggs to a nest robber. Of the three remaining, only two have hatched as of this writing. The babies started out as two little blurs of pink with some very fine fuzz. In the last two weeks, they have taken shape and appear to be keeping momma hoppin' bringing various bugs and worms for dinner. I'm not holding out any hope for the remaining egg.

As for the trees and flowers, things are looking very nice. The Wedding Dogwood is coming out very nicely. It had a rough start, being transplanted after a twelve hour truck ride from North Carolina. We weren't sure it would make it, but it's up close to the house so it's protected from the harsh, Shelby County winter winds. There were actually two of them, one for Danika's parents and one for us. The trees were part of the decorations on the alter at their wedding.

The crab apples are exploding with color and the rest of the named trees: Colonel Oak (oak tree the neighbors bought for me when I retired from the Army) and Catfish Joe (weeping willow down by the pond that the neighbors bought for me when my dad died) are doing just fine.

Bailey (our 12-year-old chocolate lab) is hanging in there. I think she is catching my arthritis. She got a cortisone shot this past week and is also taking Glucosamine tablets. She is having a little trouble getting around and although she wants to take her long nightly walks, she is only able to get one or two neighbor's yards in, depending on how her day is going. This is a painful time for her and us.


"The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day He created Spring." (Bern Williams)

Hooah