Note: This story may be recorded for quality assurance purposes…

I was in the Crystal City Underground, returning from some mindless errand that I had decided to incorporate into my lunch break.  The "Underground" is a series of connected stores – a mall – that is in the collective basements of all the buildings in Arlington, a block or so from the Pentagon.

I decided to call my dad while I had lunch – an international call.  I carefully dialed the country code and number and was directed to customer service to activate "international calling" on my calling plan.

Now, I know I’m asking a lot, here.

more…

I have proudly served in the Michigan Army National Guard for about eighteen years now – it has filled my life with challenges, travel, interesting people and countless other rewards (and it pays a little, too). I highly recommend it!

Probably the most rewarding and memorable opportunity I’ve had in this time was at the end of 2006, when I was called to duty (canceling all my New Year’s party plans) to serve on the State Funeral of President Gerald R. Ford.

We had all volunteered far in advance for this duty – numbering in the thousands. State funerals are a HUGE undertaking with the President’s wishes, and then his family’s coming first. Prior to President Ford’s Funeral, all of the recent state funerals had, by chance, occurred in states with large active duty military bases. Since Michigan doesn’t have one, it fell to the National Guard to run the show.

With so many duties to be performed, I found myself

more…

Ok, so there I was…

There WE were…

No, I’m not Tom Cruise, but I am an Army helicopter pilot.

I was the pilot of the fifth ship of a flight of six.  The other pilot was the aircraft commander.  (There are always 2 pilots in a Huey).  My friend Tom was one of the pilots in the trail ship, which makes this as (or more) memorable for him as it is to me!

The pilots’ duties are split up in the following way: the pilot at the controls flies the aircraft, the other pilot talks on the radios and navigates.  Since each pilot has a nearly identical set of controls, it is easy and routine for the pilots to alternate these duties.

On this particular training mission, we were conducting a practice Air Assault, which means

more…

I love it when soldiers take the initiative to get something done without being asked… except when it results in uncoordinated, inefficient or wasted effort…

I had a couple young men in my company that I liked to refer to as Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dee.  They are both the type of soldiers you want in your command – hard working, enthusiastic and get the job done even without being told.  (Notice I didn’t include “smart” on the list… but I’d rather have a dull go-getter than a smart lump of laziness any day.)  I openly referred to them by these names – they seemed to accept it as a badge of honor (and clearly all in fun).  I never titled them as one or the other, though – I’d just wait until they were both present and ask their boss to, “find something dirty for the Tweedles to clean!”

One of them finally asked me once – while both were present – which was which.  I replied that 1) I wasn’t sure yet, 2) they probably wouldn’t want to know the answer anyway, and 3) I wasn’t sure I wanted them to know!  (I suspected they were both vying for the coveted title of Tweedle-Dumb.)

The following month I fought my way to drill in a pretty intense blizzard – about six inches of snow had fallen sometime between

more…

In the midst of my normally chaotic duties as the Commander, I was approached this morning by a young tenacious Staff Sergeant that I did not recognize. This is not completely out of the ordinary as, even though I’ve been here a year now, I don’t know all my soldiers on a personal level, yet.

We run continuous operations here – operations that I can’t halt simply to declare that I want to see all my soldiers in one place at one time. So, as things continue on normally, I meet and get to know them one at a time, starting with the ones most geographically close to me, first and working out… then working on meeting those with those same duties but operating on other daily shifts. Finally I’ve been trying to identify, by roster, those people, through sheer chance (or otherwise), have not drilled on the same weekend as our main body since the time I assumed command.

In any event, I made what fate would eventually prove to be a mistake and made eye contact with the Staff Sergeant. Accepting the slight rise in my eyebrows as an invitation to a monologue, she began to speak. To some, speaking is a chore… to some a task… yet others it is an activity. But to her it was a state of being.

more…

I awoke after only 2 hours of sleep to write this because God herself wanted me too. Actually, I know God is male through the process of deduction: Men dominate the world. I think this is a well documented fact and not my opinion. A fact that may be slightly more open to opinion is that they certainly didn’t attain that status on the merit system. Therefor, God being a man tends to make more sense…

Anyway, God sent me an angel that told me I had to get up and write this – if angels come in the form of big sweaty, slightly oldish, slightly overweight, permanent-5 O’Clock-shadow-bearing Army Sergeants… Come on! - my mom always told me angels would appear in forms you wouldn’t expect! … more…

The first day here, while I was sleeping (or driving), the day shift set up a pop and candy fund. When I showed up for my first shift, I noticed a sign on the fridge in the "break room," that stated "pop – $.50, candy/snacks – $.50." So I peeked in the fridge and didn’t feel like a sugary pop, so I grabbed a Gatorade. A couple hours later I grabbed another. I threw a buck into the can and never thought about it again…

Last night we were joking about how the COL and the MAJ had started writing their names on their ice cream bars and then only eating each others! It was kind of funny… then one of the SGT’s told me that all started when someone drank all of MAJ Cain’s Gatorade on the very first night we were here!!!

Uhhhhh…. Oooops!

Well, I haven’t seen the Major since then, but I ran into town this evening and replaced his Gatorades. I didn’t really need to, since I’m obviously already in the clear, but now I feel bad about it!