Certainly we don’t want the current issue of the A66 near Wiesbaden where someone is driving down the wrong side of the road. But I can see how it could happen, in the dark where there is no traffic and the road is pitch black. There are certainly no lights along the autobahn to give you an idea of direction. Nothing. Not like in Belgium or the Netherlands where the gleam of yellow energy saving lights reflect like cat’s eyes from over the road. Nor is there the orangish glare common to some of the other major roads elsewhere on the continent.

No, Germany can remain proud of its decision to not waste energy on lighting major roads which normally do not have speed limits. Those same roads, when it is dark and the fog swirls up from the fields covering the roads and obscuring that place, just a soccer field ahead of you where there was (wasn’t there?) a rather large tanker just a minute ago.

The drive was long, dark and I arrived home exhausted from a day of teaching ATLS in Landstuhl.

I have a full tank of gas and a promise that I don’t need to be there before 0900 in the morning which is good because I am more than brain fried having left home at 0530 this morning.

It was a long time ago that war that was not the Great War, for no war is great. It was also not the War to end all Wars. Those of us with age and experience can think of all those lost to battle, wounds and illness.

I am grateful to be a Veteran no longer on active service. Military service is best performed by those young and fit.

May we as elders have sense, compassion and a commitment that does not allow us to squander young lives for foolish reasons and pride.

I think the price is excellent, especially since I am on the self pay plan. That is really not the reason that I skipped the outing to the Hoffbrauhaus. I just don’t care for a dinner with 300+ others in a large cavernous room where the highlights are beer, meat and Blass musik.

This is a barracks. Linoleum floors, echoing halls, stairwells with doors which are always open. You can easily hear voices, every door that shuts or slams and shoes as people walk down the long halls.

All of this is background to the fact that there are women (since we are not in cowboy country most men just don’t have those kind of shoes) clicking and clacking up and down the halls in high heels. It is driving me nuts.

To make it worse, most of the offenders seem to be from the former Eastern Block countries. It reminds me of the women in fatigues with teased hair, lots of make-up and high heels in the Russian camps in Bosnia. I think things have changed from those days, but sometimes I am not sure.

Technology challenges -Oh – and if you want your phone to ring – it really helps to turn the ringer on.

How many lectures have you attended where the speaker is totally oblivious to his/her allotted time resulting in a complete disruption of the schedule and cramped up the speakers to follow? citing time than I want to admit I have fantasised about different ways of evicting the discourteous person who is droning on and on. Perhaps a hook from the side? Noose from above? Water cannon? Occasional the speaker can be good or even great and entertaining. Even so, to blatantly ignore the time limits just drives me nuts.

Part of the blame must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the panel moderators who have a greater responsibility to the conference than just introducing the speakers and calling for questions at the end of the session. The good moderators insure that their panel runs smoothly and politely but firmly cut off those with verbal diarrhoea and an inability to tell time.

This year’s meeting added a nice tool; a countdown time ticking away in the lower right hand corner of the projected slides. Green turns to yellow at one minute remaining and at the end of the time the counter starts increasing in large flashing red numbers. Most speakers this year stayed within their limit. Even so, there were those who just didn’t get it. Coupled with most of the moderators who failed to do their jobs, I wasn’t able to avoid the aggravation completely.

Now, if we can just get an interlock so that anyone who goes more than 5 minutes over has his slides disappear to be replaces with large flashing letters saying “time up” I think the problem would be solved. Doubt that more than one speaker would need to be embarrassed to make the point.

Test Knitting

Success! I finished the third repeat in the morning and the fourth over lunch time cutting my time from an hour per repeat to 30 minutes. Sitting down at 1800, i managed the last four repeats then figured out how to close up the cuff (hint – just grafting doesn’t work neither does binding off) and need to remind the designer to put proper instructions in her pattern (first row and last row don’t have the same stitch count which means ….).

After that, you should not be surprised when brain death hit. I happily wound the second ball of Cherry Tree Hill for the Taj Mahal before remembering that I need a centre pull ball in order to knit both halves at the same time.

I am now retired. I might just have the time at least until I actively start consulting. I am driving the two college age kids doing their on-line classes nuts with my demands. One seems to be with the program and the other is still fighting me every step of the way.

I have been home for three weeks and my feet are getting restless.

Originally, there was a conference in the US this week that George had mentioned, invited me along even. Then his travel schedule became way too complicated and I sort of fell off the invite roles. So there I was sitting, having planned on being in the US this weekend and maybe visiting friends next week and thought of Space-A.

Courtesy of Ms Soprano, I looked at Ramstein PAX terminal Space-A listing on Facebook. Each day they list how many stateside flights there were, how many Space-A seats, how many filled and lowest Category of travel. This week there have been empty seats on every flight with people leaving the same day they sign up.

Why not? I can afford a few days and signed up to head to the East Coast – perhaps DC area or NJ as I know people in both places. Kathy kindly agreed to let me camp out at her flat tonight so that I might be able to meet an early morning time if needed.

I will let you know how it goes. For $29.95 if I wind up on the contract flight, it seems like a pretty good deal.

As per usual – Wikipedia has a good summary here. ZDF’s program placed the known death count from attempted escapes at 119 but acknowledged that there was not a completely accurate count. A far cry from the 3.5M+ that had bailed from East to West in the preceding decades.

I remember visiting both West and East Berlin in the early 1980s; the stark difference in the look and feel of the two societies. Unlike most Americans, I was not there to buy feather beds. Rather, George and I bought kids books by the dozens from presses which are no longer in existence. The rules for US military were strict – we could only go across at Checkpoint Charlie. I had to be in uniform, but rank, insignia and name had to be removed. Money changing was strictly regulated although I knew people who went around the currency regulations all the time.

After 1983, it was six years till I again traveled to Berlin. By duty train – an experience that ended with the end of the Cold War – a four-six hour journey could take 12 hours or more.

I have several pieces of the wall in my cupboard; small, simple looking bits of cement and stones. They don’t seem like much of anything, collected in a basket on my last trip, a friend and I walking along one of the crumbling areas and gathering up hand size and smaller pieces for everyone we knew wanted them.

They are still there, in a container waiting for me. A relic of the history I experienced first hand watching people stream into West Berlin in Nov 1989. I should mount them/shadow box them/secure them in some way before they are inadvertently tossed by a well meaning person helping in clean-up who might not recognize my memories in the plain, unpainted shards.

Fast forward to 1999 (ignoring a few meeting in the interveening years), when I found myself uncerimoniously dumped at the SanAk for two years. Ostensibly serving as a liaison officer; it was not a good time. Looking back at my email list from those years it is pretty obvious that I was not a happy camper. Other than increasing both book and yarn stash, I didn’t see much positive about the experience.

I was working with some great individuals in Occ Med, Microbiology, Rad Health, Public Health and Toxicology. Those relationships have lasted through to the present, so it was not all bad. And no where near as bad at the time as I led myself to believe. In a pattern that was going to become very familiar in upcoming years – support and direction from the US side of the equation was essentially non-existent.

The family loved München while, as I have stated, my attitude was less than positive. Perhaps it was because I did not have the German to do the job properly. OTOH, I made no effort to increase my speaking or writing abilities which, in retrospect was extremely dumb since there were a number of courses in which I could have easily participated.

My connections to the specialty institutes have survived and strengthened over the years. I am still attending the major conferences which have provided reunions, conversations, CME, education and contacts over the years. I have stayed in communication with various of the PM and OM docs which lead to exercise participation and emergency response planning cooperation. It meant knowing people on deployments, at committee meetings and working groups. Hosting folks and dinner invitations have rounded out portions of my life.

So here I am, retired. Sitting in the same lecture hall as 22 years ago listening to opening remarks made by a colleague who retired from the Bundeswehr last year (never mind he is still surving as chair of the German equivalent of AMSUS).

We are all getting older. The former head of the Rad Institute died last month. Two of my other good colleagues from here have retired with in the last year. The presenting researchers are looking younger and younger while the problems we are discussing might have been “reformatted” but are still essentially the same.

Perhaps there is a message in that? Me? I am going to spend the evening knitting. I can see progress after playing with yarn and needles.

München, Germany

Or maybe it was arriving at Ernst-von Bergman Kaserne and seeing the difference between US and Bundeswehr uniform hair regulations. The rules for head hair on male soldiers are esssentially the same. Facial hair does differ (Bundeswehr allows beards where the US obviously does not – except for certain people in the Navy and we simply are not going there.) Women’s hair is where you see country politics at their absolute best. Neat and well kept is the order of the day. The more senior women have either short hair, or when hair is long, it is pinned up neatly. Not so much with the younger women who sport various versions of pony tails; flowing freely even in field uniforms. And that is where I am so startled.

It didn’t take me overly long to learn that wearing my hair loose (or in pig tails that trailed down to my waist) was not going to pass muster in the US military of the 1970s. Especially near the end of the WAC era when many of the NCOs felt that their contribution to the Army was being seriously questioned or downgraded.

As it turned out, the new, all voluntary, US military would not have survived had it not been for the thousands of young women who flocked into its ranks. Finding in the military, like nowhere else in the US at that time, jobs where equal pay for equal work was a reality. Where base pay did not depend on being male or having a family. (leaving aside for the moment the challenges of getting interesting jobs and promotions). A PFC was a PFC. One with 2 years in rank got paid the same regardless of gender.

I got üast my initial embarrassment of not understanding the uniform regulations, learning to pin up my hair in uniform and some how the years have rolled by.

Now it is 2011 and I am just about over the culture shock after being out of theater for a couple of months of seeing men in uniform with a serious amount of hair on their heads. My mind does not automatically think – oh, there goes another 90 day reserve/national guard doc who is blowing off the hair regulations. I am no longer living in an environment where the impetus for close cropped hair or shaved heads has to do with limited water and a dislike for spending time in group showers and not with personal long term preferences.

I am home. I don’t have to put on a uniform any more. No one cares whether my hair is up or down, what color it is or how long. Must be why I still wear it pulled back, altho in a long tail or braid rather than giving me a head ache pinned to my head. It also just might be why I whacked off 40 cm this morning prior to going out the door to München. Not catching my braid all the time is a good thing.

-Holly
München, Germany

Do you have any idea of how annoying it is to have every single gate guard remind you that your ID Card expires in the next couple of days? I know that they are trying to be helpful, but the third time in a day going through a gate gets to be really, really annoying.

At 1300 the lovely guy who runs the Heidelberg transition center opened up his door. He had all the information he needed and in the next 30 minutes managed to cut my retirement and transition orders (only one error – and that was entered at DA which he can’t fix). Complete all the forms related to actually doing the retirement, issue the DD214 and otherwise manage everything.

After that – it was a matter of getting though finance without part of the needed paperwork (would you believe that the Embassy in London is not functioning today?) and getting and signing more copies of everything. By 1500 I had finally reached the rest of the crew who came over to get ID cards updated.

I am now the proud owner of a blue ID card, have sent Ms Soprano her paperwork in the mail so she can do the update this coming week and have changed out of my uniform for the very last time. I joined the reserves in Jan, 1978. My last day on the payroll will be tomorrow – 30 April 2011. It has been a long and unintended 33 years. Just going assignment to assignment had the years piling up. I don’t have words or wisdom or a great farewell speech. Not even had this whole process gone smoothly would I be writing a long essay. I would hope that I have made a positive difference over the years.

In any case I think I am going to lie down in the hammock for a while. I think I have earned it. Of course, since it has rained – the hammock is soaked. Next bright idea?

I never thought it would be harder to get free from the Army than it was to get in! Tomorrow will be pretty busy. I have a briefing at Landstuhl in the morning which leaves me the afternoon to deal with finance and personnel (which includes getting new ID cards for the crew).

Did I mention that I don’t have orders?

Given that I am assigned to the Pentagon with duty in the UK and attached to USAREUR for admin support, obviously the situation is complicated. Further, I am a great believer in Murphy (aka the domino theory of events).

Something goes wrong. This leaves you outside the normal ways, means and procedures; a very bad idea when your organization numbers somewhere over half a million). Being outside of the usual limits means that you are exposed and ripe for getting knocked further off kilter. Being in a remote location is never a good idea – leaving it up to an organization in DC to support you is asking for trouble.

Shall we now add in a deployment? I started corresponding with the DC crew when it got to be mid-Feb and I had no orders. Funny thing – I had orders just a couple days later – and they were wrong. After a couple of corrections – they were still wrong.

And then the fun began. It took a full three weeks back in country before I finally got all the paperwork for the European out pushed through the system. Once I had those – my orders were really, really wrong (not just incorrect). Since the end of last week – emails have gone unanswered in DC. Since that particular office never put a phone number in signature blocks – I managed to hunt up a couple of numbers which were never answered.

Today – panic mode was setting in. You can’t get to the on-line phone books anymore unless you are on a government system computer. I am not local, I don’t have a government computer. I don’t have a local account – all I have is AKO, which wasn’t letting me do much in the way of look-ups. Bless the IMD folks at HMEDDAC – they let me on one of their open user computers and I started to work my way through the system. As it turns out – looking up Ft Myer, going to the installation page, then looking at services got me introductory phone numbers.

Early this afternoon – I actually got through on the phone. She even answered! Says she never got any emails from me or the other people here in the last week (hello – one I can understand, but all of them?) and promptly said she had been waiting for the go ahead to rescind the orders she had cut so that they could reissue them in Germany. That was exactly what I had requested in those emails which she didn’t get/read.

Then I received an email from her (a direct reply to an email from me in which I provided her one of the many emails she had not received) asking if I had received the revoke.

No – and I checked all my accounts. I emailed back – and heard nothing so I called again.

Computers are not responsible for making errors. It is people who make major mistakes, computers and Outlook just make it easier and faster to make truly bad mistakes. Outlook, for example, will keep a “frequently used addresses” list for you. When you start to type in a name, it will give you an address. If your habit pattern is to continually write new emails and add people to the CC: line rather than hitting , you will wind up with addresses from your personal address book – and not necessarily the address from which the person just wrote.

See where I am going? I had been writing from AKO. She had been responding using her address book which contained my Afghanistan address. @swa.afghanistan alphabetizes before @us.army and I never got any emails from her. No replies – nada.

As of 1500 – I received the revocation. Now it is going to be a challenge for the Heidelberg Transition Center, at the eleventh hour, to cut orders. Cross your fingers everyone.

As it turns out – MDW (aka Military District of Washington) no matter how nice people they are, apparently can’t get my retirement orders correct. Especially they don’t seem to be able to rescind the transition orders which they cut the end of Feb and have redone four times now (and are still not correct). That is, not with revoking the retirement orders right along with them. According to the Heidelberg Transition Office (who do overseas retirements on a more than regular basis) the format of the orders and all the codes (which in term provide transportation entitlements) are not correct.

Not surprisingly – they used the CONUS format and authorized me for a CONUS to CONUS move. Said move has to be completed with in a reasonable amount of time. Catch, of course, is that I am OCONUS and am looking for a OCONUS to CONUS move with the ability to get extensions on the privilege.

The very nice manager of the retirement program here finally understood why I have been so frustrated. In fact, he told the stateside people to just revoke the whole mess, email all the pertinent information and Heidelberg will cut the whole orders in the right format with the right information.

And we have between now and next Thursday afternoon to make this happen……

Personally, I don’t like being held hostage to some right wing agenda. I make a very good living as does my husband. And we should have our tax rate drop from 35% to 25% because? Why? So that some one on the poverty line can drop below as they pick up a larger share of the burden? So that we cut health services to the impoverished – driving even more into the ERs where care is even more expensive than the basic pre-natal care, childhood immunizations?

To top it off today – it was a USAREUR training holiday. Means that active duty were off work while civilians worried about having a paycheck. About making their own rent, feeding their families. Fretting that they could not get to the commissary today. Which might be shut tomorrow, leaving them without bread, milk and TP.

Never mind you might be able to buy many things cheaper in Germany than in the PX, it is the principle of anxiety foisted off by those who “are holding the troops hostage.”

Last time I looked – that was one of the definitions of terrorists.

Well, it is a lot. At least when accounting for 30 years in “one practice.” Since the military uses a consolidated, cumulative record that “goes where ever you go” (provided that the information from the pre-electronic medical record actually ever made it back into permanent records).

Even if one rarely got seen – there are records checks which are recorded, routine physicals, mandatory blood work. Now, with the new electronic record there is little to no reason to conserve space. Forms don’t take up electrons. Blank space doesn’t take up much room. But when you got to print out an electronic visit – what used to be one of three visits on one side of a double used page now takes up three pages all by itself (that is right – where up to six used to be on one sheet -> probably 18 pages).

Even having gotten LRMC medical records room to print out a lot for me – it was still pages and pages and pages of print.

There is a logical reason to be doing this – the VA wants as complete a copy of your medical record as you can provide. They don’t accept electronic copies – it has to be hard copy paper. If I am going through the effort of doing this, unfortunately it means that conserving trees doesn’t factor into the equation. Instead, I have to make it as clear as I can for the person who is going to have to wade through the mess. That means skipping the double sided printing.

Much of it is a copy of a copy since my originals took a walk a number of years ago (2005?) and have not turned up since. The few originals I had actually slowed things down – 30 year old flimsy paper doesn’t do well through a sheet feeder.

More than 1/2 a ream of paper (with all the AHLTA notes printed double sided anyway). Thinking, while I feeding through paper and organising the output, of jobs Carmen and I working at the University of MN library while undergrads – running a xerox machine……and thinking that I have come full circle after 40 years.

Now to see if I can get manage to pull together all of the paperwork.

Following up on earlier thoughts about finishing jobs, careers and celebrations – I have decided to have a party. Looking at the house -there is no real way I can manage on the 30th. I need the extra month to clean up the place.

But going to have a “Been There, Done with That” Party. Now I just have to get the T-Shirt made.

So here I sit on a Friday – arriving back in Germany last Friday and getting home sometime on Saturday. My analogy is off (for resting on the Sabbath) but still – I sorted of sat around the day I got back. For the rest of the week I have done a bit of this and that. Call it chasing down paperwork, packages, passports. Nothing all that exciting and actually quite guilt producing.

If you return with a unit, there is a mandatory formation (I got to meet some interesting people, a member of the Bundesgrenschutz, and haul around heavy luggage) followed by a 48 hour pass. Next up is supposed to be a week worth of reintegration activities. Items like lectures on reuniting with families, laying off the alcohol, not taking stupid risks and whatever medical appointments are critical one’s well being. After those festivities – most people sign out on block leave.

Returning by oneself – it is a bit different. Under normal circumstances you return to a unit which makes sure that you attend the appropriate activities. Being detached to the Brits – it is not like I have a home unit, a location, a job. In any case, non of the things that I need to do can be accomplished in the UK at the moment. So, I hang out here – and have quickly run out of things I can control and do leaving me with a couple of choices – take leave (why would I do that?), find some educational activities, or find a job.

I have the weekend to figure things out. Since I am no longer deployed, I might just have to cope with a five day work week and weekends off.

Oh, wait. That makes seven days.

Otherwise I will need to be frustrated – I can’t do a “European out” because, on paper, I am assigned to the US. Never mind I haven’t been officially working in the US since summer of 1993 – that is what the paper says. So I need the paper changed, but no one seems to be empowered to make that happen.

Argh! less than 40 days, but who is counting?

So that takes me back to cables. And cords, can’t forget the cords. To get you oriented, please remember that I have been living in Europe for a while – that is two round prongs and 240V. Except for when I was living in the UK which is three flat prongs, but still 240v (or is it 220? never mind). Unfortunately, the various back up drives I have purchased over the years seem to have come with 110 plugs (those two skinny parallel flat prongs?) which means I need to find adapters.

Or a different cord. None of which seem to be marked with amps so I know what can be substituted. This might seem like a small thing, but I have bags and backpacks of cords and cables. Everything seems to come with a cable; each unique. iPods are not the same as Zunes or Sansas or Zens let alone let us talk about all the different connectors for cell phones and PDAs which seem to have been mixed in over the years.

All of which leaves me to the two small, WD external hard drives sitting there glaring balefully at me. They, instead of a normal USB to 5 pin (hidden) mini plug just happen to have a “micro” plug on one end. So far I have been through three bags, two back packs and a fistful of strays that came back from downrange with me.

Now, since I have the two nasty little black beasties – I know that I had the appropriate cables at some point. I haven’t given up yet – no, not me. You see – you can’t buy this kind of cable in isolation. For 19.95 I can buy a USB kit that will let me make such a cord, but not just the single cord. For that – I am 1/2 way to the cost of another little hard drive that also will scuttle its cord, just to make my life cheerful.

For the knitters – this is like needing a 3.25mm needle. You have 3.0 and 3.5 but the flipping pattern just has to call for a US size in the middle.

So back into the fray – trying to consolidate audiobooks, eBooks and TV shows so that I might actually know what I have.

Failing that – I suppose I could just wrap the cords and cables around someone’s neck till they re-do my paperwork the way I want? Oh, that is right – I am in Germany and the fools are in the US….

No, my orders are still not correct and I am starting to despair of them ever being right. Never the less, what I had was good enough to turn in ALL of the field gear that I had in my duffel bags. Not just part of it, but all of it. Actually, the CIF guy was pleased. He said it was all in new or excellent shape and was going to be able to be re-issued.

That means that I no longer have Kevlar, IBA or a holster. This is all cool since I no longer have a weapon, having hand receipted it over to someone else today along with my pro-mask. Those last two items are the only items on my whole list which have to be returned to Ft Benning.

Any who – I was not able to avoid having a retirement award ceremony. Attended by members of the task force with a few extras from CJTF101, it was brief and over.

This means that I don’t have to do anything fancy at all when I get back to where ever. No parade, no cake, no sail, no nothing.  It is wonderful!

Yes, I have 33+ years in the Army. My satisfaction comes from feeling like I have made a difference in the health care for those deployed in theater, take care of those I work with, and leave a positive legacy behind.

One of those terms that has evolved is the “left seat – right seat” ride. Where this might initially sound confusing, it actually makes logical sense. Think of drivers and passengers in a car (US/EU style not UK).

First the driver is in charge. After the passenger gets the idea, they take over as the driver with the original person sitting in the passenger seat – for just in case.

So, how we do it is take the new people around for a few days, get them familiar with everything. In the middle of the transition we change responsibilities. We put the new people in charge and stay to back them up.

And then we split out the door to get our own “stuff” done prepartory to leaving.

So that is where I am. Pretty much getting my replacement up to enough speed that he can handle things for a few hours while I desperately try to sort out the room. I still have post office, CIF (gear turn in) and weapons/ammo to deal with on Thurs.

Of course, all of this assumes that I can get myself in gear.

Should I mention that I was meeting an inbound group at 2200 last evening who we finally got, with gear, into their rooms at 2300? Since no one had seen anything remotely resembling food since early afternoon, the gear drop off was followed by midnight chow.

I then faced a dilema – should I sleep for a couple of hours or stay up, considering that I had another plane to meet at 0330?

Thinking that perhaps this would a great time to start on the room, I spent a few hours a few hours getting absolutely nothing done before going back over the PAX terminal.  While waiting, I had a chance to speak with several NCOs coming back from R&R, a few who were redploying and a number hanging in a hold pattern after several flight cancellations.

0330 turned into close to 0500 before I had my two rounded up, bags dropped off. Once again I was standing at the door of Dragon DFAC looking for food since the guys were hungry.

I lasted till ~1400 then went to my room and crashed.

Not being under 21, I just can’t stay up for 30+ hours without starting to feel stupid!

Otherwise, I am scrambling to sort out various projects, track down the in-bound replacement personnel and decide what gets packed, what carried, and which things just need to belong to someone else.

All of this means a bag of trash, a pile of books to be logged through BookCrossing before being dropped off at the USO and a tough decision. Do I spend part of Sat standing in line at the post office to mail out stuff, or do I tuck a Tuff Box in the PM Dets container and see it at the end of the summer when the Connex arrives back in Vilseck?

The people issues are a bit more important – the original right seat/left seat ride was planned for ten days. This presumed that everyone arrived on time- something that none of us truly believe ever happens.

The first indication that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy happened last week when the 44th got held up at Manas for a few days. Then the PROFIS (professional fillers) and Augmentee personnel got stranded in Kuwait.

The overlap which had been hoped to start yesterday or latest today will not happen tomorrow (if everyone actually is on flights arriving before and after midnight tonight). Challenge is accentuated by the fact that I have two MAJs outbound at the crack of dawn on Wed leaving less than 24 hours to get their replacements oriented. All of this leaves aside internal politics, tons of meetings and travel that is not going to happen because of delays and a new requirement that everyone is back by the 17th. According to my calculations, that is Thurs.

The official change over is next Monday – 62nd outbound on Tues, PROFIS on Wed. I am starting to believe that I might actually get home!

We have sunshine here in Bagram. Beautiful weather of the spring variety. According to all the online weather sites – it is only mid 50s (F) but if you read the fine print – the weather on the charts is actually that at Kabul – not Bagram. The whole day has been mild and beautiful, partly cloudy with mountain tops covered in snow visible in all directions.

In some worlds it might be Sunday. In this one – it is a work day made more annoying by the fact that all the people with whom we need to talk just aren’t at work.

Certainly it does not seem to be a down day for the busy Airmen running forklifts in the transfer yard. Markedly expanded from when I got here, the stacks are now three deep, three high and 100 meter long erector sets.  Ladders up the ends and a catwalk alongside the back of the top layer, stuff is packed into them and overflowing in holding areas. Just as I walk alongside the fence I see bin after bin of cargo straps, stacks of metal pallets, contains of hooks, fasteners, stanchions – all those components needs to manage cargo or reconfigure the inside of a plane.

This is not the entire holding yard; the medical is delivered straight to the med log warehouse down the flight line from where I stand on the other side of the terminal toward the hospital. Other pieces/parts go directly to the maintenance hangers. Another area contains some large, metal and completely unidentifiable objects that must have come in by air or they would not be on that side of the fence.

Being someone without a whole lot of depth perception (ball sports are negative on my list of activities) I can only watch and appreciate the skill and speed with which the operators move, place, pick up, deliver and stack the loads coming off the planes. Even given tagging, it is still an amazing mechanical ballet where everything actually winds up in its place.

I also had found three NCOs who were inbound to one of our subordinate units, stranded there since the previous weekend at CRC. Convincing the nice people at the desk to boost up their priority – we managed to snag seats on the 0100 passenger call flight. Moose 58 no less. With two other chances prior to 0600 and no more R & R due in before that time, it looked like a real chance to clear out a back log in the hundreds of people waiting for flights north.

Given palletizing bags, hanging out, formations, bus riding and plane loading it was after 0430 when we were finally taking off. Add in a time zone change and you can understand why it was after 1000 when we landed in Bagram. Marching off the plane to the Pax terminal, I was more than glad for the DV treatment since it gave me enough time to call the NCOs unit, drop off some of my gear at my BHut and get back before the pallet was unloaded.

Being terrific guys – they had rounded up my bags along with theirs. In turn, I hung on to all the weapons while they got them out of the baggage yard.

From there, it was my last bit of intelligence for the day. I headed back to the room with the rest of my gear, got cleaned up, picked up and dropped off laundry before heading to the office.

I knew I was tired, after all, this was my third night of travel in the last 7 days in the “no sleep, up all night” mode. Maybe it didn’t bother me in college, med school or residency (we will not mention all those years of small people in the house), but I think I just might be too old for that nonsense now.

I am sitting at my desk with a simple list of tasks – and they are insurmountable. I finally wade through the email – sorting, stashing and trying to figure out some priorities. I have OERs (5) and NCOERs (2)  to complete.

It is at this point I realize that I am answering an email again and that the comments I am drafting for the evals make no sense.

Gathering up my notebook and coffee mug – I am heading back to the room. I need some sleep. (and where I happily added this post, forgetting to hit the send).

All the grumbling stopped; everyone was rather quiet. Any ramp ceremony and travel takes precedence over those of us traveling under our own power.

When we finally boarded, there they were – two metal coffins with fitted flag covers. There was no joking, horseplay, stumbling or shoving. Just travelers carefully adding extra bags to the palates and going to the left or right of those two solemn reminders positioned directly behind the last row of center seats with their feet toward the door.

The last row stayed empty.

Right before arrival in Kuwait – we were informed there would be an additional stop at KCIA. We return to our seats to make the short hop to Ali As Salem.

Landing – we all exited through the rear – then formed up in ranks of 12 on each side of where the ramp would come back down. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, civilians and contractors standing at attention and waiting.

Waiting for the back tail section to raise, the ramp to come down and the caskets to be carried quietly by an AF detail through the silent ranks and the slow salutes.

One at a time – off loaded – carried toward their next mode of travel on the slow route home to family via Dover.

We are all going home at some point. Some now on Emergency leave, some on R&R and some on redeployment. Home to family and friends. On our feet with rucksacks and duffels, through multiple airports and formations. Those will be joyous trips, formations creating irritation because of delays in getting and doing what we want.

There was more than one quiet prayer said in that formation – for the families of those who have to live forever with the other kind of return. For the families greating the return of their 19, 22 year old sons.

C-17s have a lot of seats – a few less on some flights, a few more on others. Since there were suppose to be over 100 seats with less than 50 R&R types, I was a bit optimistic, especially when the admin type person came out to announce that everyone had made the flight.

Unlike at Bagram – bags go through the scanner and immediately to pallets right after showtime and manifest at Kandahar. Then you get to go and hang out in the upstairs of the terminal. It might just make up for the fact that there is no pre-call waiting area inside and that the USO is blocks away.

By 1730 we were through and up in the waiting area to wait, wait and wait some more.

One false call had us all down at the gate at 22++ before heading back upstairs.

Wish I could say that we actually left on the 9th….

I attempt to be a good neighbor when I am on the road. I set my bunk up ahead of time, I am quiet and have this wonderful flashlight with which to navigate so that I have no need to flip on overhead lights when others are sleeping. This avoids stumbling, smashing around and otherwise disturbing others in a dark room.

Not so for 2/4 of of the other room occupants. (BTW – the two good occupants are the Navy CDR with whom I am traveling and a bright, extremely capable Marine MAJ who is also from Bagram but I see more here than there).

But the other two? Argh!

One was here when we arrived. From the appearance of her meticulously neat bunk in the far right corner and gear – she is permanent party awaiting a permanent room assignment.

The final member arrived sometime between midnight and 0300 this morning with a crash, flash and bang. Turning on the light, she stomped into the room and started hauling in what turned out to be a dozen various boxes, gear, and containers; topping the whole mess with a number of puzzles and games. The “stuff” all landed at the foot of my bunk on the left side.

Perhaps she noted my top or jacket with rank lying there, maybe not. But in any case, she chose then to take the top bunk in the far back right on the other side of the middle lockers from my location. In fliggin gear around, she managed to thourogly disturb the woman in tbe bottom bunk by tossing things on the bunk, opening and closing the wardrobe and then taking everything back off the bunk in order to make it up.

Now, obviously, if you arrive in the middle of the night, you arrive in the middle of the night. Mil Air is mil air and no one has control over when they arrive – just how you act.

The woman in the bottom bunk got a might bit upset. Pulling out her cell phone, she proceeded to have a fit with billeting -effectively demanding to know why she should have to share her space. (yes that top bunk was empty and the other three bottom bunks were full).

By this time both Navy and Marine were wide awake and contemplating who was worse, the late arrival or the one on the phone. I probably would have found the whole episode completely Rude, had I not been so exhausted that I slept through the whole thing!

“the places you’ll go, the people you’ll meet” with applogies to Dr Seus

Especially the people.

I meeting interesting people just sitting around in the lounge between 2100 show time and 0000 when it becomes obvsious that our flight is not here, has been diverted and the snow coming down makes it extremely unlikely that the flight is every going to happen. (Flight will, instead of going to Kandahar – first will go North to Kabul, reload, come back here and then go to Kandahar. I have ocean front poperty in Dragon BHuts…).

The GOs don’t hang out that long, but there are a lot of very interesting reserve and guard CSMs on their way out and about in theater seeing to their soliders. (We will ignore the 1600 and 1630 flights that changed from one C-17 to 2x C-130 -> cargo).

There is the smiling young SrA behind the STOL desk who let me move our manifest over to his flights at 0250 in the morning when it looked like the other flight was DOA. And assisted in helping me move over to the next C-130 flight show time at 0930 when it was obvious the smaller planes were grounded due to weather.

The TSgt who managed to talk a flight crew into opening another seat on the C-130 when I was offered the last seat (which would have left Tara stuck in Bagram – dumb when getting her to Kandahar was the purpose of the drill) and the CSM who offered up his seat to us so that we could travel, delaying his trip till 1715.

And the lovely woman running the training center at Kandahar who is supporting us with training facilities, coffee, water and smiles for the next two days while we run another course.

There are a lot of wonderful people who enjoy doing their jobs, like supporting people and go out of their way to help. Now to pass all this support forward to the next person who needs it…..

PDHAs – Post Deployment Health Assesments.

Along time ago in a war far away, a lot of service members had problems after they returned home. There were millions spent on studies and lots of theories, but the only thing that was conclusively proven was that an unknown subpopulation had problems. The only thing in common was “deployment.” Certainly not length of deployment or location of that deployment- just simply that they had deployed.

Forever after, any and all adjustment problems and medical problems were blamed on the deployment. Fact is, there were people who were exposed, injured or became ill with documentable problems. And then there were the rest who had non-specific symptoms.

The research, studies and arguments are still raging. Congress (US) has, of course, decided that we simply are not doing all we can to document what is going on. A lot of thought, money, effort and way too many eggheads went into survey design and databases. If you are someone who wants to run a study – cool – there are hundreds of thousands of data points to research. If you want real information – well, I will just say that the system documents what someone is willing to put on a form at a certain time and place. It may/may not have anything to do with reality.

The Post Deployment Health “Assessments” are conducted at the end of the deployment. There are two parts: the first is a questionnaire that the service member fills out; the second is the health care provider review.
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The assessment is intended to capture the medical events, “exposure concerns”, alcohol abuse potential, mental health status, and health concerns of the redeploying individual. Most, but not all of the questions are clear. The new ones related to head injuries are not….

All individuals are then supposed to have a face-to-face encounter with a provider who reviews the form, identifies high risk individuals (for alcohol and behavioural issues) and notes the various medical/community/counselling etc referrals that will be needed on return to home station.

[If you were reading my scribbles in 2003-2004 - this is the web-based version of that onerous hand held PDA version that I was stuck with fielding for the Kuwait/Iraq theaters in summer 2003. ]

The current system is web-based; we no longer have hard copies, up loads or delays. All the information is on the server and can be easily accessed back at home station.

Even so – active duty has a different attitude on the form than Reserve or Guard. They have lots of time to get follow on care, not so for R/NG. More importantly for my crew, I simply don’t want them to run out of their normal meds prior to return to home station.

Hence, web-based PDHAs, AHLTA-T for the note I have to stick in the electronic medical record and T2 for ordering of meds. Don’t you just love it?

Somehow the two days have gotten blurred together in my mind. Sometimes I think that the Battle update is this morning, other times I know it is tomorrow. I did get a solid six hours of sleep last night which was excellent. (If those jets flew 100 feet over my head, I obviously did not hear them).   My panic level has dropped a bit, and I have managed to shovel out two of my desk drawers while steadily making my way through the projects which have piled up in my in-box. My to-do prior to departing theater has now stretched beyond the length of my arm. This is one time when being an ostritch would really bite me.  

So anyway, I have this list of about 30 critical items none of which seem to change. None of which I can manage to finish. And, my retirement orders were wrong and still need to be fixed.  

Any who – I have sometime this afternoon, prior to noon tomorrow, then I hit the road again till the end of next week.

And doing post deployment health assesments on our unit between 1800-2200 everynight.

Would you believe that I am tired?