Pinwheels and Orange Peels

Medals

What do you do if you have a gigantic, warehouse-wall-spanning video wall?  Flip to NBC and watch Michael Phelps win his eighth gold medal, of course!  That's right, the CAOC took 30 seconds out of our day to watch history being made, to great cheers.  Then we went back to the serious work again.  It was neat to watch on the BIG screen.

Hot

Hmm, what has Pinwheels been up to?  Offline for months, no replies to comments...must be that favorite of LRO pastimes.  That's right folks, another deployment.  This time to an undisclosed location somewhere with lots of rubble.  And natural gas.  Can't forget that.  Especially on Sunday nights, which is Chinese night at the DFAC.  Whew.

Last time I was deployed, I could have paid some obscene amount to get wireless internet access in my tent.  This time, I'm in a hard billet with a real gym, lap pool, and air conditioning.  And zero commercial internet opportunities for months.  Finally, as I'm within weeks of going home, we get free access at the BX. I'm blogging with about 60 of my closest friends.  Whenever a power outlet opens up there is physical violence.  Approximately 95% of the people here are playing WoW, and the rest are on MySpaceBookTube.

And I get to see the family again.  Have you ever had a videoconference with a 6-year old?  In public?  He loves it when I make faces, or turn on the iChat effects to make my face turn into a jelly bean.  Good times.  Not sure if the rest of the folks think the heat is starting to get to me.

Today was 110 or so.  We thought it was cold at lunch.

So, what am I doing this time?  Warning!  Acronyms!  Working in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC), in the Air Mobility Division (AMD).  My Aerial Port Control Team (APCT) of 16 coordinate airlift with the 27 or so aerial ports spread across Iraq and Afghanistan.  You need something or someone moved, and we'll help get it where it needs to go.  We also run a commercial airlift program that augments the military assets in theater.  We've moved tens of thousands of tons of stuff, from helicopters to MREs.  And thousands of MRAPs.  One of the coolest moves was 100 up-armored HMMWVs, which we pulled off in just 13 days.

This was a 6-month tour, and I'm looking forward to returning home.  The new tempo bands dictate I'll get a year home and then be back out here.  Or Georgia, although I hope not.  Can someone say "too big a bite right now?"

Let's see.  In other news, I sold my 1997 328i convertible before I left, and bought a bright blue Honda Fit Sport 5sp.  It's fantastic, and gets mid-30 MPG no matter how you drive it.  The kids fit in the back seat now (which also flips all around) and the dealership doesn't steal $500 from me every time I drive by.  Weirdest part is that after the test drive, my BMW's airbag light came on and stayed on, as if it knew I was getting rid of it.  Is the Fit as cool?  No, but I feel like I bought a hybrid without the hybrid premium.  And, it's appreciating, just like a Prius! And it's nearly as fun to toss into a corner.

Finally, to all the family and friends who have sent letters, care packages, and mowed my lawn, THANK YOU!  We can't do our jobs out here without the incredible support and care your provide to us and our loved ones.

Commitment

I'm a car nut (just ask this lovely gal).  That fact doesn't usually collide with my staunchly conservative, pro-family values, but when I saw this commercial I was shocked to see such a strong pro-family statement within:

Wow.  "Whatever happened to commitment?  To standing by our decisions?"  Contrast that with the Ford Motor Co's ardent support of gay activism.  Ford's support of the gay agenda eliminates any Ford, Volvo, Jaguar, Mazda, Lincoln, Mercury, or Land Rover from my consideration.  My sis-in-law is considering Hyundai's new Veracruz SUV.  And I like the look of the forthcoming Genesis.  What do you think?  Does (or should) a pro-family commercial affect your potential likelihood of choosing a particular brand?

Dereliction of Duty

Listen up, fellow convertible owners.  It's spring.  The weather is perfect for a little top-down cruising, even if it's only 10 minutes to get home.  Put your top down.  Leave it down.

I think convertible owners should be required to drive with their top down if the weather demands it.  It should be a ticket-able offense to buy a pretty little top-down auto and then drive with it up on perfect days.  It's just wrong.  Give it to someone who will actually use it for it's intended purpose if you're just going to leave it up.

During this time of year weather underground is my home page.  I check it throughout the day to make sure no rain is on the way.  I find excuses to run errands just to hop in and let the breeze blow through my...well, caress my shaved head.  My rule:  top down between 65 and 95 degrees F, unless there is rain in the forecast.  I went 5 or 6 days last year without putting the top up at all.  And I keep a hat and fleece in the car for sun/cool nights.

I'm a nut.  But I'm a happy nut when the top is down.  I love this time of year.

Stoney Creek Inns (or, How I Found my Purpose in Iraq)

I was originally going to title this post "Long Story Long," so that should give you some idea here.  Go get a cup of coffee and a sandwich, because this one is worth reading through to the end.  I promise.

CMOC

The Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC) is a little facility located along one wall of the Victory Base Complex (VBC).  The VBC, you may recall, is where I spent a few month last year.  While my primary job was supporting logistics operations at one of the busiest military airports in the world, anyone on the VBC can volunteer to help out at the CMOC during their few precious hours of downtime.  The CMOC handles a lot of business with the local community, but a while back they decided to put an old town hall to good use as a free clinic for any local who comes in.  Military doctors provide free medical care nearly every day of the week there.  The non-medics that volunteer (myself included) play with the kids on the swingset or soccer field, hand out candy and toys, and help organize the donations tables.

The donations come in from all around the world, and each family that asks for one receives a bag filled with age-appropriate clothing, school supplies, and toys.  You can tell which kids have been to the CMOC before by what type of clothes they have on.

OK, decent story so far.  Nothing you haven't heard from a thousand other blogging troops.  Military folks roll in, give out candy and free medical care, win hearts and minds, etc.  But there's more...

Stoney Creek Inn

You may recall a brief dust-up in the MSM about a group of hotels in the midwestern US that dropped CNN from the cable TV offerings after CNN aired the terrorist propaganda sniper videos.  I supported their decision and took a few minutes to dash off a quick thank you on the Stoney Creek Inns feedback page.  I didn't expect any response back, so you can imagine my surprise when I got a personal email from the owner of the company thanking me for my service and letting me know they "had my back" while I was over there.  The last line offered to send me something and asked for my shirt size.

After mulling over how to respond to that for a few days (we need precious little over there), I responded that while the offer was kind, I didn't need anything, but if he still wanted to send something, how about sending a few soccer balls for the CMOC kids?  I also sent him a photo I'd taken, and a little bit about the CMOC.  One of the most-requested items from the kids was a "futball," but we usually only had a couple to give out each week, with 30 or 40 kids asking for them.

I didn't get a response, so I figured he was busy with the press and probably had more important things going on.

Boy, was I wrong.  I returned to the office one afternoon a couple of weeks later to find three huge boxes sitting in front of my desk:

They were marked "SCI," and my First Sergeant, Commander and I couldn't believe what they'd sent.  Inside the first box we found a dozen new soccer balls, an electric pump, and some hand pumps.  The second box contained brand new running shoes in all sizes from kids to adult, and the final box had 40 new soccer balls.  We just stared at the bounty in amazement, shocked at the kindness and beauty of the gift.  I get teary typing it up now, several months after the fact.

The next time we visted the CMOC I took over 60 soccer balls in several bags.  We left them on the bus to avoid being mobbed, and when the kids had settled down from our initial arrival I took them out and handed a soccer ball to every single child.  They'd never had that happen before.  It was incredible.  To be able to say "yes" to every kid was a gift better than any sweatshirt.  We even gave some to the Iraqi Army troops hanging out in the parking lot, and the adult-size shoes went to the 1st Iraqi Air Force located just down the flightline from Sather AB.

All this from a couple of emails sent around the world.  The power of the Internet sparked an outpouring of kindness from strangers, and brightened the lives of some of the world's most downtrodden children.  I wish I could post the photos I took during the handout, because the smiles on those kids faces would melt the hardest heart.

So if you're traveling through any of these cities and need a place to stay for the night, give the Stoney Creek Inn a try, and think about the lives they touched halfway around the world.

I did a lot of things over in Iraq, but I never expected a couple of emails to so affect the lives of everyday Iraqis.  We moved thousands of tons of cargo, millions of gallons of jet fuel, and hundreds of thousands of troops, but I think what the Stoney Creek Inns and I did may have mattered more than all of that combined.  And I'm humbled to have been a part of it.

I'm baaaack

OK, I'm back from Baghdad, settled in to work/home/church life again, and I've got lots of things saved up to blog about.  Should keep me busy for a week or so, at least.

Lots of things happening on the tech side of things.  I've gone all-Mac (finally!), so I'll be sharing some of that experience.  Surprisingly, it hasn't been all good (gasp!), but I still love it.

Lots of things going on at work--when I left for Iraq my Division had solid civilian and senior NCO leadership, but when I returned I'd lost several key civilians and most of my senior NCOs are retiring or already gone.  It's been interesting.  Top that off with an interview with my one-star senior rater General yesterday and things have been "interesting," to say the least.  Oh, and I pinned on Major four days after I returned.

OK, this is bad.  It's been so long since I've even looked at PaOP that I've forgotten if I've already told you that.  Stand by.

Nope, hadn't told you that yet.  My parents and brother came up for the promotion.  My folks have been to every promotion (and my commissioning, where my Dad did the honors), and this time it was even cooler because I'm now the same rank my Dad was when he retired.

Eww, realized that the theme I'd chosen made the site look pretty ugly when photos are introduced.  I like big photos.  Bye-bye nice predefined theme, hello not-so-nice but easier-to-manage custom theme.  I'm thinking of giving up typepad and moving to .mac, but I'm not sure how painful that move will be, or if I"ll be able to take this content with me.  More research needed, I think.

Home

I'm home.  After hours-long delays a big, beautiful C-17 landed at Baghdad International Airport, offloaded its cargo of 82nd Airborne troops and took on about 70 of us headed home.  The cargo bay was bathed in red light and we all had our body armor and helmets on as we spiraled up and away in the light of a Baghdad dawn.  I remember how heavy that body armor seemed when I first arrived, but that morning it didn't feel like it weighed a thing.  When the pilot announced we were clear of enemy airspace we all smiled and broke out the cameras.

I stayed in a friend's room in Qatar for a couple of days, then sat in the passenger terminal for 13 hours (more delays!) before boarding a chartered aircraft for the flight home.

I've been home about a month now, and the reintegration process is still going pretty smoothly.  I've been reluctant to post about the homecoming.  It seems too personal to share with the world, if that makes any kind of sense.

I do want to thank you all for your kind words, prayers, and thoughts throughout the deployment.  The American public is still doing a wonderful job supporting the troops, regardless of their personal convictions about the war.  I've got a great story to share about that, but that's for another post.

I don't know how often I'll be updating here because there are things that seem a lot more important right now.  Contrary to even my expectations, deployment to the hell of Iraq demolished any thoughts I had about getting out of the USAF.  The job there is so vital and the work so rewarding that I can't' think of anything I'd rather do.

A little peace

It's been said there are no atheists in foxholes.  I don't know how true that may be, but we had the opportunity to observe a baptism in our "emergency water supply" a couple of weeks ago.  God continues to move even in an all-Muslim country halfway around the world from home:

Published, but not answered

Out here in the desert we get free copies of the "Stars and Stripes" newspaper, and I usually pick one up for the comics, if nothing else.  I'm not much of a newspaper person, preferring the immediacy of the web and broadcast news, but when you're stuck out here (no thanks to my Master's degree, JK) you take what you can get.

Now, according to their Information page,

Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community. Editorially independent of interference from outside its editorial chain-of-command, it provides commercially available U.S. and world news and objective staff-produced stories relevant to the military community in a balanced, fair, and accurate manner.

Focus on that last statement "stories relevant to the military community."  Then ask yourself why the 24 Oct issue featured a story by the San Francisco Chronicle titled "Programs surfacing to help meet needs of aging gay population."  You won't find it on the Stripes page, but here's a link for you.  I had to go on the SF Chronicles "Gay and Lesbian" news portal just to find the article.

So I'm sitting here in the sand and mud of Iraq reading a newspaper with the stated purpose of providing relevant news articles, and I get this instead.  I see no point in informing the military population that gays are getting older and having problems finding support.  So I fire off an email to the editor.  And it gets published a few days later.  Yay, I'm in the paper.  Big deal.  I want an answer to my question:

Good afternoon,

I’ve been deployed to the CENTAF AOR for a couple of months now and always enjoy my daily read of Stars and Stripes.  I’ve found it has a good mix of local stories as well as those that help us keep in touch with events around the world.  However, I have to take issue with Wyatt Buchanan’s article on page 8 of the 24 Oct 2006 issue, titled “Programs surfacing to help meet needs of aging gay population.”  As I’m sure you’re aware, homosexual behavior is incompatible with military service and the article, which I read completely, did not address anything even remotely military.  Frankly, I am offended and view it as an attempt to push the homosexual agenda on the military population.  I fail to see why such an article was included in your publication.  Perhaps you could enlighten me?

Respectfully,
Capt Ian Hester

I thought I was pretty nice in the letter.  If the article had addressed some new development in the gays in the military argument, then there would have been no reason to challenge it.  But it didn't, so I protested.  And I got no enlightenment, either.  I'd threaten to stop reading but it's free here so that won't exactly hurt them.

I think running the article was a mistake, and the space it used up could have been put to much better use, such as an empty square to cut out and use as toilet paper. 

Sharks

Found in one of my ACSC lessons (yes, I'm at war and going to school at the same time!):

It is dangerous to swim with sharks, but not all sharks are found in the water. Some people may behave like sharks, and a best-selling book for executives written a few years ago took its title from that theme. However, an article appeared in the journal Perspectives in Biology and Medicine nearly two decades ago claiming to be a translated version of an essay written in France more than a century earlier for sponge divers (Cousteau, 1973). The essay notes that while no one wants to swim with sharks, it is an occupational hazard for certain people. For those who must swim with sharks, it can be essential to follow certain rules. See if you think the following rules for interacting with the sharks of the sea serve as useful analogies for interacting with the sharks of everyday life.
Rule 1: Assume Any Unidentified Fish is a Shark—Just because a fish may be acting in a docile manner does not mean it is not a shark. The real test is how it will act when blood is in the water.
Rule 2: Don’t Bleed—Bleeding will prompt even more aggressive behavior and the involvement of even more sharks. Of course, it is not easy to keep from bleeding when injured. Those who cannot do so are advised not to swim with sharks at all.
Rule 3: Confront Aggression Quickly—Sharks usually give warning before attacking a swimmer. Swimmers should watch for indications an attack is imminent and take prompt counteraction. A blow to the nose is often appropriate since it shows you understand the shark’s intentions and will respond in kind. It is particularly dangerous to behave in an ingratiating manner toward sharks. People who once held this erroneous view often can be identified by a missing limb.
Rule 4: Get Out of the Water if Anyone Starts Bleeding—Previously docile sharks may begin attacking if blood is in the water. Their behavior can become so irrational, even including attacking themselves, that it is safest to remove yourself entirely from the situation.
Rule 5: Create Dissension Among the Attackers—Sharks are self-centered and rarely act in an organized fashion with other sharks. This significantly reduces the risk of swimming with sharks. Every now and then, however, sharks may launch a coordinated attack. The best strategy then is to create internal dissension among them since they already are quite prone to it; often sharks will fight among themselves over trivial or minor things. By the time their internal conflict is settled, sharks often have forgotten about their organized attack.
Rule 6: Never Divert a Shark Attack Toward Another Swimmer—Please observe this final item of swimming etiquette.

I've only worked with one shark, and I was such a nice guy I let him take a chunk before I realized what he was up to. Learned my lesson quickly, and learned how to marginalize him so it wouldn't happen again. Good tips.