Memorial Day Thoughts 2014

I am thinking about the dead on this weekend.  Specifically, those who died in our country's military service in war and conflict.  I am not an uninterested observer, as these were my brothers and sisters in arms. But I am not directly affected either, as none of my shipmates, battle buddies and friends have died in combat, for which I am thankful.  But I have been thinking about some that slept in the same camp I did, walked the same broken paths, ate at the same DFAC, used the same gym.  During my tour in Kabul, eight USAF personnel and one contractor were killed by an ANA Air Corps Colonel on 27 April 2011.  This was one of the so-called Green on Blue attacks, which heightened tensions and eroded trust with our ANA allies.  It also led to actual tactical pistol training, as some of the after action reports stated that none of those killed drew their weapons.  It was a bit of a shock around Camp Eggers.  Although we had heard of these types of attacks, it was rarely something we briefed to our teams before leaving base.  We changed some of our policies after that, strictly enforcing a buddy system on ANA bases, and getting our sailors range time to maintain weapons skills.  It changed our perceptions of disagreements and arguments with the ANA.  It left me a little twitchy for a while.  What I remember most though is some guilt and sadness.  These people lived on the same relatively small base.  I am sure I walked past them at some point, but I did not recognize a single face from the photos.  The sad thing is that with almost 3000 people on that base, and regular traffic from the Embassy and ISAF HQ, most faces of people you didn't know faded into the crowd.  I am sorry I didn't get to know them before they fell.  I am sorry I wasn't there to fight beside them in their last moments.  Farewell shipmates.

Here are links to some articles with the casualty list:
http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20110429/NEWS/104290302/DoD-identifies-8-killed-Kabul-shooting
http://www.airforcemag.com/features/personnel/pages/box050911airmen.aspx

Here are some other links to the incident:  http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/04/afghan_pilot_kills_8.php#
http://abcnews.go.com/International/afghan-pilot-disarmed-killed-americans-argument/story?id=13468438
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/air-force-advisers-remember-deadly-insider-attack-of-2011/2013/04/28/ec2fa5d4-b02a-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html (this one is a retrospective from last year)

Only 5 days later, President Obama announced the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden.  I remember watching the scenes on TV and internet news reports.  Other than a few high fives and probably a few America, Fuck Yeahs, we just kept doing our jobs.  An important milestone was reached, but we knew that America was committed to staying in Afghanistan through 2014.  That raid was amazing, and although there were a few near misses, we lost no one.

Just three months after Osama's death,  we lost over 30 people in one helicopter shoot down, including members of Naval Special Warfare Development Group.  One of my battle buddies read the casualty list and realized he personally knew almost every SEAL on that helicopter.  It was terrible to watch him deal with that, knowing there was nothing I could say or do to help.  He had also lost one of his brothers to a terrible accident in June.

Extortion 17 shoot down:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/06/afghan-president-31-americans-killed-in-helicopter-crash/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/2011-08-06-nato-helicopter-crash_n.htm

It seems Death stalked us all that year.  It seemed I was always somewhere else when it struck out at our forces, but it finally found a member of my family.  A week after the helicopter shoot down, I received a Red Cross message indicating my father-in-law voluntarily ceased dialysis and cancer treatments and was expected to die in 1-2 weeks.  I was granted emergency leave and had priority travel out of Afghanistan (only wounded service members got out faster than me).  I was in Flint, Michigan in less than 48 hours, after passing through Al-Udeid, London, and Chicago.  I lost my luggage and had to buy clothes on the way to my in-laws house.  I actually beat my wife and kids there.  About a week after I arrived, this old warrior fought his final battle with cancer, laid down his arms and breathed his last.

In Memoriam, James Washington Crichton:  http://obits.mlive.com/obituaries/flint/obituary.aspx?pid=153282117

Somewhat grim after good weather, good food and time with friends and family.  Hope you have no tragedies to ponder in your own lives this Memorial Day.

Memorial Day 2011

Most of you out there back in the world are probably still thinking of Memorial Day as a 3 day weekend with barbecues and fun. A small percentage of you know what it really means, because you have lost family, friends, lovers or comrades who lost their lives while placing themselves "Between their loved home and the war's desolation". Few know that pain today, when viewed by either absolute numbers or as a percentage of the population. For the most part, I suppose that is all to the good, but it is one more factor that is causing the military and the general population to drift apart. This photo isn't from the front lines, but more from the rear echelon (as in REMF). Still, I think it stands as a vivid reminder of what Memorial Day means. Four flags fly at half mast this week, including our own. We lost eight USAF personnel from our command on one bad day. In honor of them, this year's Memorial Day poem will be "High Flight", by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.:

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Usama Bin Laden Is Dead!

... and the first question that popped into my head, will it hurt any less on the tenth anniversary, knowing UBL was turned into shark shit? I hope so. I hope those who lost someone on that day or in the wars that followed feel something other than the hole where they once family or friends.

A little over three years ago, in response to an picture on Wired's Danger Room titled "Don't you f'ing forget", I wrote about what I was doing on 9/11/01 for the seventh anniversary. Today, I will write about what I was doing on the ninth anniversary. After years of wondering if I would ever be mobilized, I received orders putting me on active duty with the U.S. Navy in Afghanistan. I spent September making final preparations for my 400 days away from home. On the ninth anniversary, I had a reasonably happy day, watching my son and his team (Go Marlins!) play t-ball, knowing I would miss the last several weeks of the season. I tried to learn some Dari (with an iPhone app) and some COIN (from the infamous field manual). I was in the middle of reading Ghost Wars by Steve Coll (the fifth book on Afghanistan I had read since receiving my orders). I worked on our will with my wife. I transitioned what I could to my coworkers. I spent what extra time I could with my kids and my wife and my friends. It was not a bad time, but it was hectic and it went by too fast.

Even though I had nothing to do with the operation against UBL, even though I realize that his death probably means nothing, strategically or tactically, to winning this Overseas Contingency Operation (our new name for "the war"), I find it hard to express in words how proud I am to be serving in the military at this time and how proud I am to be an officer in the United States Navy (can I get a hoo-yah?). Perhaps a quote from another to reflect on my feelings at this time:

"I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'"

President John F. Kennedy, 1 August 1963, in Bancroft Hall at the U. S. Naval Academy.

[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, January 1 to November 22, 1963 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1964), 620]

To the operators and analysts and support staff that made the raid into Pakistan possible, I salute you (and envy you a bit). You serve in silence in a world rarely seen by the citizens of your country, but on 01 May 2011, you became rock stars. I have full confidence that one day, you will sail home with a broomstick tied to the yardarm. A clean sweep.

To our enemies still at large, rough men, willing to do violence on our behalf, are coming for you. May you die filled with the terror you sought to inflict on others.

I will observe the tenth anniversary of September 11th attacks from Afghanistan. Perhaps I will be able to answer my question then.

Veteran's Day Poem

In keeping with my grim tradition, I give you another poem about war, this one courtesy of Carl Sandburg. Oh, and Happy Birthday to all you Marines out there. Semper Fi.

Grass by Carl Sandburg (1918)

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?

Where are we now?

I am the grass.

Let me work.

Armistice Day aka Veteran's Day

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, most of the slaughter in Europe ended for a while. Most of the men and women that lived through that war are gone, so there are few to remember and tell the tales of that time.

Here is a poem from that war that ended fifty three years before I was born. The poet died one week before the armistice.

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

A late Memorial day post

I have decided to start a tradition for this blog. I will post a poem or something each Memorial day for my fallen brothers and sisters. This year's poem is easy. You all know it. Whisper the words along with me if you will. And remember to say you are sorry to your mother for causing her so much worry and grief...

Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
—By John McCrae

Happy Memorial Day 2007.

Send a post card to our troops

It's the winter holiday season, which is a hard time for people to be away from home. It's even harder if you are sitting somewhere in the middle of a war zone, with bombs going off, people trying to kill you, friends getting wounded or killed, etc. Send a post card to one of our troops. It's easy and it's quick. Select other for the message content and type in your own words rather than using the precanned messages on the site. In case the link above is not working, here is the URL again: http://www.letssaythanks.com/