A New Resolution

With the new year upon us, millions of people among us will undoubtedly be making New Year Resolutions. Some want to finally kick a habit that has bothered them for years. Some want to focus more on work. Some want to focus less. The bottom line, regardless of the resolution, is that people see something in their lives that they want to change, and January 1st is a great date to start it. There really is nothing magical about the date...although 1/1/11 looks pretty good. The fact is, by 3/1/11, most of these resolutions will have been forgotten, and the breaking of somehow justified by the quitter.

My father, much wealthier than me in terms of just about everything including wisdom and experience, has always said, "Don't tell me what you are GOING to do. Tell me what you have DONE." That's not to say you shouldn't set goals for your life. In fact, it's quite the opposite. For a long time, I just thought I wouldn't say what I was going to do in the future, and then I could be satisfied with the status quo. That's not it. Or maybe it is for some.

I can look at a mountain and say that I'm going to climb it. I can spend all this time gathering my gear, making plans for the ascent, and talk about what I'm going to do when I reach the summit. Everyone at the base looks at me and says, "Wow, John! That's great stuff!" Before too long, the weather changes. The gear that I've gathered to climb the mountain is now not suitable for the ice and snow. The planned route is now impassable, and the people start mumbling about no movement. That mountain peak now seems unattainable, and I start to talk about a different mountain that's a better fit for me...better weather, better routes, etc... When we get down to brass tacks, IF I HAD JUST STARTED CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN, I WOULD BE LOOKING DOWN FROM THE SUMMIT AT WHAT I HAD DONE.

Every day there is a mountain to climb. With every new year should come a new, bigger, more challenging mountain. I lived a life where each day was just another day of sameness. It's depressing to me. You can live life on a plateau, pleased with the status quo. A great many people do that and live full, complete lives. But why do that? It seems to me that all that's good for is keeping yourself busy until you die. Not for me. I'm looking down from this little mole-hill that was 2010, and I'm not satisfied. I see my K2 in the distance, and I can't wait to start climbing that in 2011 and 2012. There are mountains out there for everyone. It's up to you and me to get out there and start climbing.

A Christmas Story

For some of these guys out here, this is the third or fourth time away from loved ones since these wars kicked off. A lot of these guys deal with Christmas away from families by treating Christmas like another day in paradise. Being that this is my first trip to the desert and the first Christmas not with my family or a loved one's family, it's not just another day. I'm not sure that I want to ever think of Christmas as just another day. I'm sure this won't be the last Christmas away from loved ones, and my hope is that I never miss them on this day any less than I do now. This last week has been kind of rough on everyone...we're all thinking of home, talking to loved ones as they prepare the house for visitors, or prepare to travel, knowing that there's going to be an empty spot at the dinner table, or around the tree on Christmas morning. As our III Corps Commander reminded us today, those who have it hardest are often the families of the deployed. We're fortunate enough to spend Christmas here with our "second family." A great many families of ours are forced to spend their Christmas without a father or mother present, which is completely unimagineable to me. So, this Christmas day, remember those who aren't with you on this very special day, and leave a place set for them for their return. And especially remember those who are dealing with yet another Christmas at home without their husbands, fathers, wives or mothers.

A Message to Garcia

So, I ran across this essay the other day on a website and immediately fell in love with it. After some research on the essay itself, it turns out that it was once widely distributed (all Russian soldiers were given it in pamphlet form before arriving to the front lines in Germany in World War II...quite curious, considering the way the Russian Army worked at the time, but that's another topic). It took 27 and a half years for it to reach me, and while I don't claim to be well-read, I find that shocking. This essay should be required reading before graduating high school. The idea behind it is what I find most inspirational. It sums up how things REALLY get done in the real world, be it in business, military, or any other endeavor. After reading this, it should be the way we all approach a given task, or who we should seek when needing a task accomplished. Without further adieu, here is "A Message to Garcia."



A Message to Garcia

By Elbert Hubbard

In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.

What to do!

Some one said to the President, "There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- "Carry a message to Garcia!"

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.

No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.

Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio".

Will the clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

"You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in a large factory.

"Yes, what about him?"

"Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for."

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.

It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.

I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

The Good, The Bad, and The Pineapple Dinosaurs

So...Let's see here. Since I left off, it's rained more. It's gotten colder, which is nice...a bit more like Christmas. We don't go out much at night so I haven't had a chance to see if Mosul does it up big in the Christmas lights department...but I keep trying to get interest in going on a Christmas light tour. Sadly, I can't generate much of that. They keep saying the same thing...something about Muslim country this, Muslim country that. I don't understand it. Whatever.

Yesterday was officially 3 months out of country. Really, it seems like last week we flew into Kuwait, so hopefully the time continues to fly and I make it back to Texas sooner than later. I'm in the middle of putting together a "quarter-in-review" of sorts for the folks back home -- a pictorial, if you will -- so when I finish that, I'll try to post it here. In looking back over the course of the last 90 days, I've seen some good stuff, bad stuff, and just plain ridiculous stuff.

Good Stuff: I got promoted. I'm bigger, faster and stronger. I love my job more than ever.
Bad Stuff: People keep blowing stuff up around me. I'm starting to think they just don't like me.
Ridiculous Stuff: A giant pineapple dinosaur at our Thanksgiving meal. Apparently they left out the part of the Pilgrims defeating the pineapple T-rex with the help of the Native Americans in history class. Also, the Texas Rangers were in the World Series. Ridiculous.

I must say that I have enjoyed the last 3 months. It's been good for me in many ways, and hopefully, the next 3 quarters of this journey will be just as good if not better. We continue to see progress up here in the north, and it's exciting to be here during such a pivotal time in this nation's history. Here's to hoping all of this continues.

Another Great Flood, This Time in Ninevah

It is currently POURING rain, and I fear I might be washed away inside my chu (compartmentalized housing unit, Brit. :)) Last night, I went to sleep to a rain shower. Being that I live in a metal box, I can sort of imagine it's a tin roof, and that's a nice thought to carry into sleep. Tonight, though, it's harder rain and I'm not 100% sure, but I think it has gotten into my wall. That should provide some fantastic odors once it heats back up a bit. The good thing about all this rain is that bad guys hate being out in it as much as we do, so it's rather quiet outside other than the rain.

Today we visited one of Saddam's old palaces in Mosul. It was probably very gorgeous once. Around 2003, the air force came around and said hello with a few thousand pounds of ordnance. The land (and crumbling palace) is now owned by the University of Mosul and they want to use it, but there's a slight problem...a slight 2,000 pound problem. One of the air force's "smart" bombs hit it's target, but failed to explode. According to the military lawyers, since it was dropped during war, we weren't responsible for clearing it. But since we've nothing better to do with a Saturday, we grabbed some structural engineers, a team of Explosive Ordnance Disposal guys(EOD - yes, like Hurt Locker), 1 shovel, 1 pick axe, and a screw driver to go look at it. Seriously. That's what they brought. For a 2,000 pound bomb. Clearly, it did not go off, because I am typing this now...but next time you're around a dictator's palace, make sure you bring a pick axe just in case you run across any UXO (unexploded ordnance).

Do you know what boosts morale, dear readers? Christmas cookies. Not Hooters girls.

Late Night Thoughts on Another Saturday In

Today we went on a mission to inspect a few agricultural projects the State Department in funding up in Kurdistan. Great projects...we ate some of the fruits of their labors. It is amazing what a little irrigation and education will do for a people. It reminds me of West Texas and their cotton. That's not why I write tonight, however. On long drives through northern Iraq, conversation often turns to what we're going to do when we land back in the States, both in effort to stay the boredom as well as to stay awake. An interesting point was brought up by a visiting Staff Sergeant today. He mentioned that some of us might go through a period of "culture shock" upon return. Things like well-paved roads, manicured landscaping, clean air, and an overall lack of trash will indeed seem foreign...at least for a while. Not having to scan for IEDs and men tossing grenades will also force a bit of an adjustment. But what I find most...alarming?...of all of that is that THIS IS MY HOME. 2 and a half months in, it's finally hit that this is my home, at least for now. It no longer feels odd going everywhere with a loaded M4. It's become as natural as putting on a seatbelt for me to throw on my "battle rattle" (body armor, helmet, gloves, etc...). Explosions and gunfire in the distance is what puts me to sleep at night. That stuff has become my West Texas thunderstorm. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I watched "The Hurt Locker" when it came out, and enjoyed it for what it was...a great film. I watch it now, and I UNDERSTAND the main character. For better or worse, this is my life. This, Iraq John, is who I am. This is my world now. This is hard for me to accept...except that this is where I have blossomed. When I spent a couple of weeks at my parents' house in August, after a few days, all I could think of was getting back to work. There is ALWAYS something that needs to be done, something that needs to be done better, something to pass on to younger soldiers, and it is my job -- my reason for getting out of bed each day -- to get it done. My fear is that I've fallen in love with a job, with getting better every day, with becoming a better soldier/man, that I am doomed to miss out on the things that I have always felt are most important...family, friends, and perhaps a wife and a family of my own. I love what I am becoming every day, but at what cost is all of this happening?

Cancelled Missions and The Resulting F-Bombs

Time does fly when you're having fun. It also appears to fly when in a combat zone. It is now December. It has also been a week since Thanksgiving, and also, my last post. We've had some missions go well, some missions not go at all, and a whole lot of nothing going on...which I've found to be good. On just about every mission we go on, we are provided escort by either the Iraqi Army (IA) or the Iraqi Federal Police (IP). If they don't show up, we scrap the mission and call it a day...just part of our agreement with the Iraqi government. Frustrating? Sure. 2 missions in row were cancelled earlier this week due to IPs not showing up to escort us into the city. One of these we found out about the night before, which provided a nice day off...a precious commodity, as I think I've mentioned before. However, the other mission we didn't find out about until we waited at the gate for nearly an hour. That proves to be the most frustrating. Every mission that we do here requires hours of planning, regardless of how mundane or monotonous it may seem. Along with the planning goes hours of preparation, whether that be fueling the trucks, checking radios, equipment, water, etc... We're often out on the trucks hours before we actually roll out the gate. Along with all of that, there is a period of mental preparation. While we haven't had any direct action with bad guys, we must prepare ourselves for that event with every trip "outside the wire." Even the most goofy guy in the platoon has to get a little amped up and show his war face from time to time. In the event of a mission cancellation at the gate, it is as if all the preparation leading up to the gate was for naught. So, that feeling combined with being amped up and ready to fight makes for expletive-laced, but rather quiet (and usually humorous*), ride back to the house. I really think our Iraqi counterparts are just trying to keep us on our toes. Good training.


* - Many of our missions involve the Provincial Reconstruction Team from the US State Department. That involves us taking "suits" to various places around the Ninevah Province. Most of these guys are pretty nice and cooperative. It's clear they don't like riding around town in our trucks with body armor and helmets on, but the rules are there for a reason...we had a PRT member catch an ammo can with her helmet-less head a few months ago...she's ok now. Anyhoo...On one particular cancelled mission the other day, we had a passenger mention to my platoon sergeant how he'd overheard the "f-word over 30 times." He actually spelled it out for him, but I don't feel I need to. The PRT fellow couldn't remember what truck it was, but it really didn't matter. My platoon sergeant laughed. I remember, though, and we're careful to not talk so loudly when he's in our vehicle these days.