The Land of the Midnight Sun

Finally, I've escaped, at least temporarily, from the desert. I'm spending two weeks in Alaska with Andrea and all the kids. It is sort of a celebratory vacation to honor Kathleen's graduation from high school and Nicholas' seventh birthday.

I thought the hardest thing to adjust to would be going from the 120 degree, desolate, flat deserts to the 58-72 degree, lush, mountains - but I was wrong. The strangest adjustment, thus far, has been the white nights. The white nights, or midnight sun, is the phenomenon common near the Arctic Circle in which the sun stays above the horizon for over twenty hours a day and nightfall is never darker than twilight. The most obvious effect is the lack of natural time sense. On more than one occasion, we've been sitting in our mountain cabin in the afternoon puzzled at why everyone is so hungry. A simple glance at my watch reveals the mystery - it's ten o'clock at night and we haven't had dinner! Of course, the positive side is that we have more than enough hours of daylight to do activities with the kids and to see the amazing mountain ranges that encircle us.

The landscape and the wildlife here are amazing. Bald eagles fly overhead and moose occasionally wander into people's yards. Local hiking stores carry ample supplies of large pepper spray canisters to help hikers and campers ward off bears. The accepted protocol for dealing with bears, besides avoidance, seems to be as follows: make noise so the bear is inclined to go the other way; if the bear continues to approach because he appears curious or in want of your food, make threatening noises that let the bear know that you "mean business"; if the bear is not dissuaded by your noises and charges, you should stand your ground as most bear charges are bluffs (most). Finally, if the bear does attack, your choices are to get into a fetal position to protect your vital organs or, and this is my favorite advice, fight the bear. Yes, folks, you read that correctly. The correct and appropriate defense against a bear attack is to fight the 1500 pound alpha predator and hope for the best. Obviously, I hope our vacation happens without a hitch, but if I did happen to find myself hiking in Denali National Park with my family and end up kicking a bear's ass - I'll have the best vacation story EVER.

I photographed this guy stealing nest building materials from other birds at Potter Marsh, a Coastal Wildlife Refuge located just south of Anchorage. The marsh has a boardwalk to make it accessible to pedestrians and allow people to view wildlife up close.

Music Across the Ages

My friend George and I have started sort of a music exchange recently. A while back, he posted some information about a new album by a band called The Hold Steady. I'd never heard them, so I asked him to load some tunes up and send them to me. What I got was a flash drive with a couple of dozen albums. Really good shit, too. Mostly guitar heavy, story-teller type stuff and jam bands. I decided to return the favor so, after I loaded the music onto my hard drive and iPod, I loaded up a couple of dozen different albums and sent the flash drive back to George.

A generation ago - when I was a young man in my early twenties - having access to that much music while on a deployment would involve having boxes and boxes of cassette tapes. That simply wasn't practical when space is a premium.


I still recall packing for our U.N. deployment to Egypt in 1987. I don't recall if I purchased a new Walkman for the trip, although I probably did; but I do recall sorting through my cassette tapes to ensure that I only picked the very best of the best. Stuff I wouldn't mind listening to over and over again. 

Not to sound nostalgic, but those ancient music players had some great qualities. For example, if you dumped your Walkman in the water - like I did with my iPod when I fell into my canal a few months ago - all you lost was maybe the Walkman and maybe the one cassette that was inside. You didn't lose your entire collection of over five thousand songs, which is what almost happened to me. Luckily, I had backed my music up with an external hard drive.

Five or six of the albums George sent were unplayable my me because those cancerous jackals at iTunes blocked me out since I didn't buy the songs and, therefore, lacked the proper licensure. Guess what??? No friggin' cassette or CD ever refused to play for me because I couldn't produce a receipt form Spec's!!!

Anyway, it's good to have some new music. That becomes critical during the long and boring hours that these deployments can be made up of.

What's In a Name?

I certainly named this blog accurately. Darkness has fallen on what is now the fifth straight day of sandstorms - or is it just the same long storm? The fascinating thing is how similar in their behavior the sandstorms are to the rains back home. Sometimes it is like a drizzle and other days it is torrential, figuratively speaking. Today, for example, was relatively clear most of the day, except for some heavy winds and sand around lunchtime. Two days ago, they wouldn't let convoys launch because the sands were so bad that the medevac helicopters couldn't fly out to rescue wounded if anything bad happened. Better to delay the missions than risk not being able to get help to them if they need it. I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings.

                                        A sandstorm blowing across Kuwait City last week.

School starts again next week. Only two classes this time, so it should be significantly less brutal than last semester. In the fall, I have one CLEP-like exam and one more class and I'll be finished!

Peace!

Of Heritage and Horror

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to watch some movies on DVD. By chance, two of the movies dealt with the holocaust. One was Roman Polanski’s Academy Award winning masterpiece, The Pianist. (Note: For those of you who haven’t seen this film, I recommend you watch it as soon as possible. It is that good.) The 2002 film, based on the memoir of the same name, follows Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman’s day to day life from the early days of the German occupation of Poland through the end of the war.
The other was 2008’s The Reader, starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet, who, by the way, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal. The movie details a youthful affair between the two protagonists and how their lives cross years later in light of the revelation that Winslet’s character had been a guard at Auschwitz during World War II.

Both movies explore the human experience during Hitler’s attempt at exterminating the Jews – in showing both mankinds’ ability to maintain hope in the face of the most adverse conditions imaginable and in its ability to savage fellow human beings.

While watching these films, I could not help but recall my visit to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 2005. We were at the end of a three-week training mission in Hohenfels, Germany. The visit to Dachau was part of a tour of cultural and historic sites.

It was early March, so the winter winds were still biting. It was very somber, as you might imagine. Even my Soldiers, who are normally constant wise-asses, were quiet and reserved as they walked through the exhibits and prisoner barracks that the curators left standing so visitors could see the wretched conditions the Jewish prisoners lived in.

Towards the end of our time there a group of Soldiers approached – each in his own way appeared disturbed by what he had seen. One of them, a corporal, asked me the question nobody in the civilized world has been able to answer for sixty years: “How did this happen?”

I told them to think about what they had seen and to remember that this is why we fight. Because men are still willing to prey on their weakest neighbors and commit unspeakable atrocities against the weak and the defenseless. We do what we do because we have an obligation, as free human beings, to travel to faraway places and try to make things right – or at least to protect the weak who cannot protect themselves. Bosnia, Somalia, Darfur… All places where human beings have descended into the evil shadows of themselves.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like for those American Soldiers in Europe when they stumbled upon the concentration camps. Death camps filled with the skinny, wretched victims of the worst mankind has to offer.

I can’t imagine what they felt, but I am proud to share my heritage with them.

Relief at last...

Finally, a moment to breathe. Last night - well, this morning really, thanks to the seven-hour time difference - two of my three classes ended. I'm still exhausted. I finished my last paper and submitted it around 0830, but then I had to attend an IG briefing at 1000. I walked to my room and managed a thirty minute nap. Of course, the briefer was late and we didn't start until twenty minutes after. When I finally got to sleep, it was only good for a couple of hours because I had to meet someone at my office for an investigative interview. After that, I figured I might as well stay up for the remainder and try to click back into a normal sleep schedule.

This week, I will drag myself back to the gym and try to tighten up before going on leave.

I'm very excited about my mid-tour leave coming up next month. I'm flying to Alaska where I'll meet up with Andi and the kids. I haven't checked it on the globe, but my suspicion is that I am flying the long way around the planet. I have to remember to bring my travel mug on the plane - Soldiers are not permitted to imbibe of delicious adult beverages while in uniform, so I will do what we warriors do best: camouflage!

We have a beautiful cabin rented about an hour north of Anchorage. A salmon filled stream runs through the property behind the house. It sounds like a perfect break away from this sand-filled spot in the middle of nowhere. We have some different activities planned to do with the kids, but mostly I just want to chill out and enjoy my time with my family.

My sister found some old pictures of me from when I was a young, 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper - lean and mean. Hard to believe I was ever that young...or that thin.

Hail Scholasticus!

I can almost see the finish line from here. Two of the three college classes I'm taking end next weekend. I might actually get a chance to breathe after that. Lately, my days are filled with company business during daylight followed by reading textbooks, writing papers, and taking online exams in the evening. Saturday and Sunday are usually my crunch time - that's when I hit the deadline for most of my assignments and the best days to atone for the week's procrastination.

Tonight is no different. Fueled by gallons of fresh, black coffee and an iPod filled with Black Flag, Lou Reed, and N.W.A., I will be reading and typing until dawn. In the morning, I'll crawl to the chow hall for eggs, Tabasco sauce, and more coffee; then use my new found energy to stagger across the compound to the trailer where my bed is. If I time it right, I'll stay awake long enough to undress before I fall into my Monday morning coma.

On the upside, one of my assignments this week was to watch Crimson Tide and then answer several essay questions about the leadership styles of the two main characters, played by Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. Not a bad gig, watching DVDs for homework. I expect to have my degree complete before the end of the deployment.

Next week, I'll celebrate by cracking open a book that has nothing to do with school and then find my way back to the gym. My trips to the gym have screeched to a stop until the end of the semester next week (I actually still have a week or two left in my Behavioral Management class, but once the work load drops to one class, the gym becomes realistic again), but my morning runs have stayed pretty constant. I've hit a plateau with my 5K time, though. I have to integrate some interval training and speed work into the runs if I want to break the stalemate.

Time to sign off and get back to the books. This has been a welcome distraction, but unless my professors start giving extra credit for blog entries then this is getting me no where.

Hellion Six, out!

St. Paddy's 5-K

25:40 in the Saint Patrick's Day 5K - not my best, but acceptable. 

Two of my Soldiers received medals this morning. One took 3rd place female in her age group and the other took 2nd place overall. Great job by both of them!

The temp this morning was fairly cool, although it was windy and hazy. Not a full on sand or dust storm, but a lot of sand in the air. That's nice for cutting down the glare of the sun in the second half of the run, but it can rough on the lungs.

Today, I'll be blasting those in the area of my CP with plenty of Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone!