9th Post: Memorial Day 2011

I personally know of three men who have paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we enjoy (appreciate?) every day. Today I will honor them with three 'pour outs' and a prayer. Also, I will tell you a little about them (anecdotes, if you will) and the nature of their passing. Please keep their loved ones in your thoughts and prayers today.


SGT Jack Hennessy ( http://www.iraqwarheroes.org/hennessy.htm )

I knew Jack from Basic Training at Fort Benning, GA. He was a good friend of my good friend Billy Ratcliff and we all hung out together on pass and on our (scant) free time. They were both in 1st platoon and I was in 4th. Our two platoons had a pretty nasty feud going on all through basic and when it was statistically (overall platoon marksmanship, PT, individual awards, testing, etc.) determined which platoon was best (4th, of course), he led a prank raid on our FTX (Field Training Exercise) site that resulted in not only their resounding defeat, but his personal shame (he face-planted into a patch of poison oak). Despite all that, he had a tremendous sense of humor and helped me to - finally - pass the sit-ups on my PT test.

Our mutual friend Billy informed me that Jack was killed when his checkpoint was attacked in Baghdad in October 2004. His neighborhood chose to honor him in a wonderful way (see: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20100916/news/309169776/ ).



SGT Brett Swank ( http://www.iraqwarheroes.org/swank.htm and http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/uticaod/obituary.aspx?n=brett-d-swank&pid=3098408 )

I met Brett when we were shuffled into our Training Platoons at 2/19 in Fort Benning, GA. I have to admit I didn't care for him much; it was mutual. In fact we almost came to blows once (such is often the case when you lump 56 men into an enclosed space) over something...I cannot recall what exactly now. He was an exceptional shot and very good at PT. In short, everything an Infantry soldier should be (and neither of which I was...hmmm). I remember he came to notoriety when a picture of his girlfriend arrived and he was showing it around to everyone, and somebody remarked that she looked an awful lot like another guy in our platoon. It was true, she was a dead ringer for this guy (who shall remain nameless...No, it was not me) and it got so bad that the soldier in question went to the Drill Sergeants to have them ask us to stop calling him 'Swank's chick'. It was too funny...

I stumbled upon news of Brett's death when I was looking up another friend who I hadn't heard from in a while (Larry Sixberry was his name, and he is fine). He was killed in Iraq in January of 2005 by an IED; just two months before his 22nd birthday. The news struck me in an altogether different way than Jack's and Kip's (see below). While I didn't particularly care for Brett, I absolutely respected him as a fellow soldier and the world is - truly - a lesser place without him and other men of his caliber and their 'other's first' mentality. His community chose to honor him as well. ( http://dailyitem.com/0100_news/x1850234543/40-attend-renaming-of-road-for-soldier )


SGT Kip Jacoby ( http://www.fallenheroesproject.org/united-states/kip-allen-jacoby/  )

Kip was an amazing young man. I had the opportunity to know him for a few years in the civilian world of Good ol' Pompano Beach. He came to FBC Pompano with some mutual friends and we had many opportunities to hang out and talk together. I remember when he first came up to me saying how he wanted to enlist - at that time it was the Air Force - and I have said before ( http://edpurchaseiv.blogspot.com/2011/05/7th-post-my-thoughts-on-osama.html ) I feel somewhat responsible for his final decision.

What I remember most about Kip was his love for living! He was the best local skateboarder many people knew. He loved his music. He loved to drive very fast. In fact, he knew of a gas station waaaaaay out in the Everglades that sold higher octane gasoline than anywhere else and would repeatedly drive out there to fill his tank. He was a great listener and I knew he would make a great soldier. His loyalty to his friends, his love of country and his eagerness to serve was proof enough of that.

Kip was killed during Operation Red Wings (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Wings ) in June 2005. As you will read, it is truly one of the more harrowing tales of the war. No word on whether or not Pompano Beach will honor him officially. Hmmm...that may be something to look into...

On this day, I think of these men. I remember our interactions (both good and bad) and I speak a silent prayer for them and their loved ones. I am sure some of you know others who have served and fallen both in OIF/OEF and in the other wars/conflicts that mark (mar?) our nation's storied past. On this day, I would ask you to please do the same for them.

"The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."
-Gen. Douglas MacArthur

8th Post: Another "Tale From the Ridge"

What follows is another installment of my future magnum opus 'Tales From the Ridge'.

Chapter 3: He wants what?!?

It was a Thursday morning like any other, busy and full of promise and I was having none of it. I was feeling sick as a dog due to a mixture of eating garbage and staying up until all hours of the night (translation: my wife was out of town). All I wanted was the time to fly by as quickly as possible so I could go home and - finally!!! - beat that stupid level in Halo 3 that was kicking my tookus all over the place (the one where you have to infiltrate the crashed flood-controlled ship...I HATED that level). Anyway, the sleep-deprived haze I was under lifted suddenly when I was alerted on the radio by one of our Facilities workers, 'Vince'.

"Hey, Ed!"
"Go ahead, Vince."
"Hey, Ed we have a guy here in the Fellowship Hall looking for you!"
"I'm on my way."

Now Vince was a nervous guy, and he would get very nervous when it came to homeless people...not just the 'go-all-quiet' kind of nervous, but the awkward 'overly-worked-up-because-this-could-be-a-terrorist-or-a-Mormon-or-both-and-I-need-to-get-an-adult-to-deal-with-this' kind of nervous. Vince is 47 years old.

I walked into the fellowship hall and was immediately assailed by an over-whelming odor; a mixture of sweat, smoke, and general nastiness. My eyes instantly teared up, and it was through that glassy haze that I first beheld, 'Petey'.

Petey stood about 5 feet tall and weighed - easily - 85lbs (about 20 of that was beard). He had on a black t-shirt that said 'F.B.I. Female Body Inspector', very tight blue jeans (quite possibly sized for a toddler), and a pair of mismatched black boots. I noticed he had something in his front pocket shaped like a lighter...but I didn't want to know for sure...if you catch my meaning.

I walked up to Petey and Vince ran up to me and practically squealed, "I caught him smoking in the men's room!"
"Aw yur full'a ****. I wern't no smoking." Was Petey's articulate reply.
"You were so! Ed, the whole place reeks of it."
I made a gesture for Vince to calm down and looked at Petey, "What's your name, brother?"
"Petey, Sir. Are you the Lord Marshall?"
I really wanted to say 'yes' to that, because that is a sick title if ere there were one. Alas, I said, "No, Petey. I'm just the Security guy here. Were you smoking in the bathroom?"
"Nope, Sir...not smoking...not meeee. I always r'spect duh law'r."
"Petey," I said, "I'm smelling a lot of smoke coming from your (I waived my hand in a big circle in front of him) general area right now...and I think you're fibbing to me." I took a step closer, "Tell me the truth, please."
Petey had been staring intently at me the whole conversation up until this point and at my last statement, he looked at Vince, pointed and said, "He wants my body."
"He wants what?!?"
Vince visibly jumped and screamed, "THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID!!!" He turned to me and grabbed my arm, "Ed, I promise you...that is NOT what I said."
"Wait, you mean he might be almost correct in that statement?"
"All I said was, 'I will need to frisk you'."
"You're an idiot."
"He wouldn't give me the cigarettes."
"Are you a cop, Vince? Don't answer that, OF COURSE you're not! Therefore, you do not frisk anyone. Ever!"

I turned to look back at Petey and he was halfway down the Fellowship Hall at a full sprint. I ran after him and yelled, "Petey, stop!" In what was to be the third in a series of surprises that morning, he did.
"Whut d'yer want, Lord Marshall? I have to go."
"I want to know the truth."
"I may have been smok'n."
"Ok, do you know why you cannot smoke indoors and in bathrooms specifically?"
God love him, he really thought about it for a few seconds, "Cuz you might drop'em in der toy-lit?"
"Well, there is that...but I was going to say you could set off the fire sprinklers and that would make it a bad day for everybody."
"Do you even know whut a bad day looks like?!?" Petey asked me in a startling shift in personality. "I'll give you a lil' clue, you ig'nrant *******. It'zz a bus full'o kids and a bomb! A BOMB!!!!!!"

It's never easy dealing with the obviously insane and I have never taken a course or read a book, but I have learned more about looney-toons in 3 years at The Ridge than in any 40 books or lectures. Of course at that time I had barely been on the job a few weeks and was not quite sure where to take the convo from there. So I simply said, "I can dig it."
"Yeah." Was all Vince could think to add.

Petey had taken a very aggressive posture and was fidgeting with his left hand at his back pocket. So I asked him, "What you got back there, Petey?"
"Mud-butt. I got the mud-butt purty bad. D'ya mind eff'n I smoke?" And he proceeded to produce a pathetic excuse for a cigarette from his back pocket, as well as a lighter...my eyes immediately went to the aforementioned front pocket and instantly regretted it...because a dark stain was spreading.
"Petey! It's time to go, brother...NOW!"
"I am a'goin."
"NO! I mean leave!"
"You can't kick me out, you ************. This is a ************* church!"
"Oh yes I can, and you will leave right now or I'm calling the police."
"YOU SIT ON A BLACK THRONE OF LIES!!!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO I AM!!!!! I'M THE KING OF FRANCE!!! I'M THE KING OF ************* FRANCE YOU *******!!!!"

I didn't really care what all he said after that, because he said it as he was running out the door towards US-1. I turned to look at Vince, and he was white as a ghost. Then Vince turned to me and said - I am not making this up, "I told you he was smoking."

Really?

EPILOGUE:

Later that afternoon, Petey was seen hiding behind the bushes in the back parking lot and I got called again. I ignored it.

FIN

What I am reading now:
You Can Change - Tim Chester
Think - John Piper
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco (Sean Connery did the movie based on this book, so you know its boss!)

7th Post: My Thoughts on Osama

"Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?"
- Alan Jackson

I was in Fort Benning, Georgia preparing to transfer from 30th AG (think of it as a prep-school for Basic) to 2-19th INF TRN REG (Infantry Training Regiment). I was going to be assigned to Alpha Company 4th Platoon 'Dogs of War' (We have such interesting nicknames for our units. As an aside I have been a 'Dog of War', a 'Gator', a 'Bushmaster', a 'Copperhead', a 'Scorpion', a 'Dragon', a 'Demon', and for a very short time a 'Delta Dog'...but I digress). It was 9-ish in the morning (I did not consult my watch) and I was seated on the floor (which is where you sit when you are a Private...chairs are for big-boy soldiers) at the end of a row of about 60 other Privates. There was a very angry Captain standing behind me muttering under his breath, "I cannot believe I have to ------- babysit these ------- Privates again." Or something to that effect, when a Sergeant walked in and whispered to him, "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. A big one. They think the pilot had a stroke or something." "Really? That sucks." I was the only person to hear that conversation and I shared the Captain's sentiment. I didn't get to hear any more on that subject as just at that moment we (all 250of us) were ordered outside to do the changeover ceremony.

Once the ceremony was complete we were marched around Sand Hill (the training area) and shown all that awaited us for the next 14 weeks. It took all of about two hours (and a lot of marching) to get everywhere, and finally we were marched into the formation grounds of Alpha Company. This is typically where the fun begins. If you've gone through Basic, or at least seen the first 10 minutes of Full Metal Jacket or An Officer and A Gentleman, you know what I am talking about...but this was very different...and far more unsettling.

There are three Drill Sergeants assigned to each training platoon (four platoons to a company), 12 total. But we only saw four at a time. They cycled in and out of this room with a TV on inside. Each time they came out they were more and more irritated; irritated at us it seemed.

Now, I expected the usual jibes:
- 'How tall are you, son?'
- '6ft tall.'
- 'SIX FEET TALL WHAT? SIX FEET TALL, MORON? SIX FEET TALL, JACK%$#? SIX FEET TALL WHAT?!!???!!!'
- 'Six feet tall, Drill Sergeant.'
- 'Really?!? I didn't know they stacked !#$% that high.'

It was that, but there was something else there...in the eyes. Something that betrayed an altogether different motivation than 'breaking down' a Private. I didn't realize it until later, after they had divided us up into platoons, taken us up to our platoon barracks, and THEN informed us what had happened, that the emotion they had was anger. Anger at not being with their units, not being able to retaliate. You see Infantry Drill Sergeants are culled from the ranks of the best combat units. They are usually the best soldiers and some of the smartest (think super-teachers). They have the skill and the aptitude to teach that skill to others. Imagine knowing you are a great soldier, but not being able to BE that soldier. It was a bitter pill, and we bore the brunt of it for the duration. Many of the Drill Sergeants put in for transfers back to their combat units once our training cycle ended. Hopefully they got their chance.

I didn't think in a million years that I would see the sands of Afghanistan. I was in the National Guard for crying out loud. I mean, I was in the Infantry, but I enlisted in February of 2001 to pay for college and hopefully get some self-discipline. Shoot, I spent the 6 months between enlistment and leaving for Fort Benning, not in training with my soon-to-be unit, not in getting prepared physically for the strain of training; I spent it laying about doing nothing in particular. I hung out with my friends, spent a lot of time with my girlfriend, saw movies, went to concerts, etc. I thought that joining the Infantry would be a cool way to spend a weekend (blowing stuff up, which I did...and IT WAS AWESOME!!! Example: Have YOU ever fired a rocket launcher?) AND it was the quickest Basic Training/AIT (Advanced Individual Training), so I could get back home in time to start the spring semester...and on the Army's dime. Such was my detachment, such was my naivete. Of course I instantly regretted all of that on Tuesday morning.

I won't go into how they told us, needless to say there were a lot of 'F-bombs'. I won't go into the reactions from my platoon, needless to say fear and anxiety ran rampant. I do want to say this: We were lined up in front of our assigned bunks in a sort of giant rectangle (beds lined up along both long walls with a big open space in the middle of the bay) and each man could turn his head and see the rest. The Senior Drill Sergeant said, "Look around, Privates. Some men in this room will die, on foreign soil, avenging this act." He was right.

We did lose a man from 4th, Sgt. Brett Swank and another from 1st platoon: SSG Jack Hennessy (that I know of, perhaps there were more. There were at least a dozen wounded.). Swank wasn't my friend per say...in fact we almost got into a fistfight once. Hennessy was a really good friend of a friend, and helped me on my PT test prep runs from time to time. When I heard of their deaths, it saddened me, obviously...but it made me think that on that September morning when they heard about the attack (the same way I did), and they looked around their specific platoons did they think it would be them?

On an even sadder note, I lost another friend in Afghanistan. He was shot down in a rescue chopper in the mountains during Operation Red Wing in May 2005. He was a member of the famed Night Stalkers (again, we love those cool names in the Army), 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. They are making a movie about that mission, I do not know when it will come out. I heard about his death from my brother while I was in Mississippi preparing for my own excursion into the sandbox. It was sobering, not simply because it reinforced the dangers of what I was preparing to do, but that I had actually talked this man out of joining the Air Force and into joining the Army. His name was Sgt. Kip Jacoby of good ol' Pompano Beach. I know if he were here right now, he wouldn't hold it against me, but I'm here and I will hold it against me.

I said all of that to show that I am not insulated from the tragedies and wars stemming from 9/11, not so obtuse as to think that death is something to be celebrated and not so vain as to think that American lives are more special than Afghan lives, or Iraqi lives, or Libyan lives, or Vietnamese lives, or North Korean lives, or Japanese lives, or German lives, or Italian lives, or American Indian lives, or British lives. But isn't the point of 'life' to live it well? To contribute to the betterment of mankind? Shouldn't a life be spent not in striving against accepted societal norms, but in a way that hones them further; focuses them sharper. Shouldn't it be that all humankind exists/lives for the perpetuation of humanity? To that end Osama failed as a human. Just as Hitler did. Just as Stalin did. Just as Saddam did. Just as Robespierre did. Just as Nero did.

I suppose it is reasonable to assume that all of those listed above showed love and genuine compassion at some point in time. I am sure they loved their children, spouse (sometimes more than one), pets, friends etc. However, each saw the world, not as something to better or enhance, but as something to force-meld into their image. Sure, they had followers, some numbering in the millions...but they clearly went against the grain of common decency. Clearly.

Now I know we're getting into 'debatable' territory, 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' and all that, but when you look at it, really look at it, What they wanted was so aberrant, so wantonly devoid of morality and benevolence that it caused the rest of the civilized world to unite and fight against them. Those types of individuals have spurned the value of life and pursued - in the words of Coldplay - Death and all his friends. So...is it really such a shame that they found him?

On a lighter note:

Did you hear about the latest trendy drink, the 'Osama Bin Laden'? It has two shots and a splash of water.

FIN