The three of us in Seattle

Here it is, Tuesday already and I have to say goodbye to Liz and Jacob tomorrow. We've had a lot of fun and I only wish we had more time. Part of me actually wants to get on with the deployment so I will be that much closer to putting this behind us for good. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that as I remember feeling the same way in May 2005 while finishing up at Ft Carson. Over the past few days we've visited a lot of the down-town spots of Seattle and I think that Jacob has been enjoying his first vacation. One of the nights we went out to diner with some of my army buddies and Jacob was the man of the hour. Everyone wanted to hold him and he liked all the attention. Today we plan to see the space needle and then tomorrow we will see Mt Rainier and then its back to business for me. Thanks to everyone who comments or emails me, I really appreciate it.

Seattle (Pike Place fish market)

"on combat"

Yesterday’s lecture was a pretty cool experience. Dave Grossman literally spoke to us for 6 ½ hours. His ideas were interesting but it was a little too motivational/ political for me. I did buy his book so I could get it autographed. Today we have some make up classes to do and that’s about it. I see Liz and Jacob tomorrow and we plan to spend the next four days just the three of us in Seattle. Following our returning from leave we will be leaving the country very soon. The teams were finalized yesterday and I couldn’t be happier with the way mine worked out. I’m going to be leading a prevention team of five, which includes myself, two mental health specialists, an occupational therapist and his assistant. We have one fully trained and very experienced combat medic with us who we hope not to need. As soon as I arrive in theatre I’ll say more about the area we will be responsible for. It looks like we will have over 25,000 soldiers in and around our base. I’m expecting to be pretty busy.

Internet problems

Sorry to everyone who has been following my blog that I haven't posted in a while. We have had some internet problems and they are still not resolved completely. Over the past few days we have finished up all our convoy operations as well as our job specific tasks. This week we have been training each other on the various combat mental health stuff. My class was on unit climate surveys and needs assessments. Tomorrow we get about 6 hours with Dave Grossman, the author of "On killing" and "On Combat". Everyone says he is an excellent speaker so it should be time well spent. Today we met with our active-duty sister unit who will be covering the Baghdad area with us. It was a real eye opener for me to see just how broken the active duty army is. The 98th CSC is supposed to have the same numbers of people as we do but we were surprised to see that as of today they still have no licensed mental health clinicians. By contrast, we have 7. Not sure what they are going to do as we leave on the same plane. I know the day we are leaving as well as exactly where I'll be but of course I can't say. Thanks to everyone who emails.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

We had a good time last night watching my alma mater win the national championship. Finally one of my teams won big. One of the other officers also went to KU and some of the other guys were Memphis fans so the game was pretty interesting. We ended up watching via the internet and the sound was bad but you could pretty much tell what was happening. As for military business, we are still finishing up checking all our "boxes" so to speak. Not much left to do...which tells us something. All our equipment will be flown to Iraq this time rather than going by sea. Anyone interested can follow the link for the official Rock Chalk Jayhawk chant:http://www.rockchalk.com/john/john/rock.html

My Brother from another time

Today I spent most of the day learning the Army's computer system for documenting combat casualty care. For the most part it was pretty informative and a little above my head as it was all system administrator stuff. For lunch, the seven of us decided to go over to the PX facility where they have a food court of sorts. After eating, I was walking around the main PX just looking at stuff almost as if I wasn't in the active duty Army. At some point in the electronic section, a middle age man walked up to me, stuck out his hand and said "Sir, I was with the 1st Infantry Division in Viet Nam. Welcome Home"! After shaking his hand, I said "welcome home" to him even though he has probably been home for over 35 years. It means a lot to me to be accepted by the old school vets like this and it means a lot to the Viet Nam guys to hear "welcome home" as so many of them never got that when they came home. I'm very proud to wear my 1st Infantry Division Combat Patch and I'm reminded of all the brave Big Red One soldiers from Omaha Beach to Iraq. Take a minute to watch the clip

The Real World

No matter where we go or for whatever purpose, we always have what we call “real world missions.” Ft Lewis is no exception. Today our unit assistor (the active duty guy who tells us where we need to go and what we need to do while we’re here) called to tell us that a buddy of his, who just got home from deployment needed to talk to someone. I ended up meeting this guy at the local Starbucks and talking for about 90 minutes. As it turns out, this guy is an active duty Scout Sniper who has done 4 combat tours since joining the Army, one to Afghanistan and three to Iraq. As is so often the case, his marriage is falling apart and he is having some significant anger control problems. In talking with him, I get the impression that his issues are expectable reactions to literally spending over 1000 days and nights on forward operating bases in two different combat theatres. How can we possibly say what is normal or abnormal in this situation. Can anyone even come close to understanding what that must be like? I know I’m struggling to understand. I’m glad I was able to help this guy and his friend and I plan to research options for him while I’m here. On the way back to the barracks, they told me about the Legacy Veterans motorcycle club and I think I will look into joining when I get home.

Liz and I and little "J" at the airport

Idiots

While checking out the article linked below, don't forget to scroll all the way down and read the comments from people around the country. Some of them are un-believably stupid. People who make comments like "if soldiers have mental health problems then they shouldn't be there" are the same closed minded people who have never been in a combat zone and probably get their news from "Faux Noise" (Fox). That really pisses me off!

USA Today on CPT Shea

Check out what USA Today had to say about my battle buddy CPT Shea: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-04-01-Shrinks_N.htm

His story is briefly described near the bottom of the article

Three days of Ft Lewis

The past few days have been somewhat boring. First Army is not having us repeat some of our training but we are having to go through the validation process, which is kind of like taking the test at the end of the class but not having to take the class. The past three days were spent on reacting to IED’s dismounted, mounted, and base defense. As usual, the Commander made me the Platoon Leader, which basically means that I was in charge of our detachment for these validation tasks. I guess it’s kind of rewarding but there’s a lot of stress involved. The hardest part is getting some of the officers to act like soldiers. Some of the officers do not know anything about soldier tasks but they know they don’t know anything and don’t get in the way. Worse, are the one’s that don’t know anything but think they do. So far we have done very well on our tasks and I’m starting to see how valuable our training in California was. The evaluator yesterday asked SSG Kolar our detachment Sergeant if our Commander, meaning me went to West Point. SSG Kolar told him that I’m not our commander and that I got a direct commission after finishing Social Work school. He also told the evaluator that I was prior enlisted Filed Artillery, to which the evaluator said “that explains a lot.” It’s always good to get that kind of compliment from an active duty senior NCO who is a three-time Iraq veteran himself. Tomorrow it’s back to the machine guns for us.

Our house thanks to our neighbors

Today we flew from Denver to Seattle and then rode a bus to Ft Lewis. The scenery here is beautiful but the humidity in the air makes it feel cold. It reminds me a lot of Ireland. Upon our arrival we were not surprised to see that the 1st Army has reserved only the best accommodations for the activating reservists (Joke). We are living in very old wood buildings that look like they were built sometime around the Second World War. We didn’t do much today but tomorrow we are scheduled to begin our processing, which is one of the big tasks for us at this place. Not much else to report today, I’ll write more soon. Thanks to everyone for all the support. I’ve attached a photo of what our front yard looked like after our neighbor Brian somehow got all the scout flags for our area and put them on our lawn. This was really cool and I am very grateful for our wonderful neighbors these are the types of things that make this experience easier for us.

day three

3 Down, 397 to go!!!
The past two days have been somewhat of a waste of time. We arrived on Monday and have had several briefings and some classes that do not really pertain to those of us who have been deployed before. I was a little disappointed to find out that not only will I be in charge of one of the toughest missions, but also my original team was pilfered by some of the other teams. In speaking with the commander I was told that "I had to put strong people (meaning the 68X mental health specialists) with this officer or that one as they need help and we knew you could handle your mission with whoever we put you with.” Not sure if that is a compliment. At any rate, I was able to talk the commander out of one of our SGTs, who I get a long with pretty well and am happy to have as my team member. My other team member will apparently be some soldier from active duty who is being activated with us and none of us have met yet. We leave for Ft Lewis tomorrow and will be there for about a month or so. I'm excited to find out that I'll be getting a pass while there and that Liz, Jacob, and my mom will be coming up to Seattle to spend time with me. I appreciate all the comments of support. Thanks especially to Carrie and Jim Miller; your comments are much appreciated.

one down, 399 to go!!!

Today Liz and I got up at Hotel Monaco in downtown Salt Lake City and drove the short trip to the airport where my deployment officially began. To say this experience was tough would be an understatement but it was sure nice to see my mother, brother Eric and sister Anna and her family one more time before leaving. It's touching to see the Olsens drive the three hours to be at the airport by 7:00 AM. Saying goodbye to Jacob was excruciating as he lay there smiling, not having a clue what was happening. I guess its better that way. I'd rather him not have any memory of this horrible time. I'm proud of what I do but the sacrifice seems unimaginable some times. The only way this seems possible is through the support of close family members and friends who step up when we need them the most. I remember sitting in my hotel room in Denver in April of 2004 getting ready to go to Iraq for the first time and remember seeing the death toll in Iraq was 760. It's sobering for me to see the headline in most newspapers reporting this morning that the number of brave U.S soldiers killed in this conflict to over 4000. Once I arrived, I rented my car and was surprised to see that CPT Shea and I were upgraded to a big black Lincoln Town Car at no additional cost to us. Once we arrived at the unit, I found out where I'll be stationed in Iraq and a little about what I'll be doing. Nothing to report now due to operational security but I'll let everyone know after it has happened. That's all for now.

NICE!!!

The following is an excerpt from an email I just received. As usual, the Army's timing is impeccable.

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE ALCONThe Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) is in dire need of 60Ws(Psychiatrists) 73Bs (Clinical Psychologists) and 73As (Social Worker).The Medical Treatment Facility in Bavaria, Germany may require one ortwo Behavioral Health Specialists as well. See below further details.1. Duration may be 2-3 weeks, BOG or 12 - 18 months. Pendingindividual availability and previously assigned FY08 training.

Lets see, Iraq or Bavaria, that's a tough one! Somehow, I don't think the Army will let me choose.

MOUT

One of the things we had to train on out at Hunter Liggett was military operations in urban terrain or MOUT. This is basically interacting with the local people and attempting to do our job, while wining the hearts and minds. We did several days of classes on various subjects from clearing buildings, setting up cordons, using interpreters and negotiating. The training center at Hunter Ligget has hired a Hollywood production crew to use some of the same things they do for the movies to make our experience more life like. The culmination of our MOUT training was a graded practical exercise where we were to enter an Iraqi village that is suspected to have a weapons cache, locate and negotiate with the Sheik and hopefully find the weapons without too much trouble. Our commander asked me to be in charge of this operation as the Platoon Leader, which meant I had to plan the mission, assign the personnel and lead it the following day. I came up with a good plan, which called four our 4 HUMVEEs and one LMTV to roll into the village and three of us would get out and negotiate with the Shiek. For this task, I chose my good friend and battle buddy Captain Shea, our clinical psychologist from up state New York to do the talking with the villages top religious leader. So our HUMVEE stops, Captain Shea and I get out accompanied by SSG Kolar, our detachment SGT who is going to pull security for us and operate our radio. We left our gunner in the HUMVEE on the 240 B and I asked "Stress Four" (the next closest HUMVEE) to send one of their soldiers up to help our gunner with the vehicle as there were a lot of real Iraqi civilians, whose job it was to distract us wandering around; and oh by the way, they had the Mosq music playing from the loud speakers just like it is in country. Anyway, there is a saying in the Army that no plan survives initial contact and ours came fast. No sooner than Captain Shea, SSG Kolar and I get inside the Sheik's house our HUMVEE is destroyed by an IED and our gunner is killed. I left Captain Shea and SSG Kolar to do their thing and I went outside to try to coordinate the chaos. To make a long story short, the Sheik gave us permission to search some of the houses and I ordered my two search teams out of the LMTV and directed them to the house the Sheik had identified. All hell seemed to then break loose and were were shortly in a fire fight with really cool special effects. My teams ended up finding the weapons cache as well as the booby trap and we got most of our people out alive. Boy was this a stressful day for me. Not likely that I will actually be doing this for real but having practiced it gives me some confidence.

One of the videos from our IED class

home from california

I flew into Salt Lake this morning at around 0900 following my three weeks at Ft Hunter Liggett. We had a lot of good training but it is nice to be done. During the last week I ended up getting a cold, which sucked. The weather was great for the past few days and we all had some fun at the end. I now have about two weeks off before leaving for Ft Lewis WA by way of Denver. At this point they are telling us that all our training will transfer to Ft Lewis and we won't have to repeat any of it, but I am sceptical. I ended up turning off the security feature on the blog as I could not even log on myself. We got our usual OPSEC briefing yesterday and we were all reminded to not announce details about movements and locations etc. Some of it makes sense so I will likely talk about things after they happen. Hope everyone is doing well. I'll add some photos later.