My two cents on the book “No Easy Day”

First, you cannot compare it to Wikileaks, that was done by a disgruntled asshat who grabbed as much secret stuff he could and sent gave it to someone to share with the world which probably caused a lot of people to die and he somehow expected not to get into trouble.  If anything, that guy deserves the Darwin Award just for being a dumbass, he purposely wanted to do as much damage as he could.

No Easy Day on the other hand is a story that I bet a fair percentage of the population dreamed about for the last 11 years.  The boogieman was finally caught, I rejoined the military to see this guy taken out and I, for one wouldn’t mind hearing the story.  This is the tallest of tall tales, what we have spent trillions of dollars to accomplish and as me being Joe Public, would like to hear about the end result, unedited and uncut.  Hopefully the truth as told by a highly motivated decorated warrior. 

Some secrets are too big to keep and I’m glad this one is getting aired to the world and I’m looking forward to drinking a cold beer while reading about it.  I’m just wondering about who got the reward and if someone did, did we set him up nice.  That story and Roswell, then I’ll be a happy camper.

My two cents on the discharge of Sgt Stein

Here's how it goes, every time an enlisted man takes the oath of enlistment, part of it says, "and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me". It's pretty black and white, something that goes before everything else you do in the military, before they shave you bald and everything else is built around it. If you don't like it, get out after your enlistment is up or get kicked out.  The only way you can change oath is to pass a law to change that which you can not do while serving.  Being the center of a political movement while serving on active duty is just foolish, no matter which side of the political divide you are on and this gentleman had been warned multiple times.  We are all just gears in a machine who can be replaced and the slightest change in the wind and that's how the system was designed.

Being in the military, we have the illusion of freedom of speech and there men in hats who troll the nets looking for people who work for the government who step beyond outside the bounds of that invisible fence, probably the same people who track terrorists, cyber criminals, haters and that lot, nice people you get grouped with.  Stein crossed the that line, probably didn't think much about it at the time but it's the line drawn at the core of our oath of the military of a country that elects a civilian leader to call the shots instead of a military government.  Most of the people who complain his discharge over this issue are people who haven't served or military people who have only taken that oath once, for the people who have taken it more then a few times and can still hear it ring in their heads, we look at it a bit differently.

Good luck with your life Sgt Stein, I appreciate you standing by you guns and I'm sorry I didn't pull you aside and tell you, "dude, if you post that, the brass is going to hammer you".  Which I have been known to do to my blogger buddies when I see someone stepping over that line.  But I can't follow everything that goes on with the military in cyber space, I do have a life.

For Hire

World renowned blogger, medic, photographer & mechanic. If this sounds like something you need to record your next trip into the badlands after the zombie apocalypse, trip or wedding. I’m your guy, can do photos, video, fix anything, machine, body or spirit and write about it, also a fair shot and a decent cook. Flexible is my middle name, will work for money, geek gear, food, beer or gas, in that order.

Chillin’ in Fallon

I drove out here last Friday and the skies were clear and blue, I arrived stopping by the commissary picking up my normal Det fare of sandwich makings and top ramen. My squadron trains F/A-18 pilots on how to fly and Fallon is one of the check-off blocks in the student pilot syllabus, my job was to provide medical support to the people we have deployed out here and side job, work on what readiness issues I could.

When I got to my room, the first thing I did was call the bride to let her know I had made it alright then turned on the weather channel. I had heard that there was a cold front moving in and sometimes Fallon got an inch or two of snow, if you look at the pictures on Google Maps Street View, they took the pictures of the local area with an inch or 2 of snow on the ground. I wanted to be prepared, clothing wise, I was fine but had forgotten my gloves, can’t get everything right. The weather channel was saying a chance of snow, lows in the single digits and accumulation of 3-4 inches. Sunday rolled around and between noon and when I went to bed there was already 4 inches on the ground and the snow wasn’t letting up.

The next morning there was 6 inches on the ground and the roads were covered with packed snow. My car was also covered with a full thickness. The night before, the Weather Channel said the low was supposed to be 7 but the current reading said -5 and the snow was falling, hard. I needed to go to the clinic to meet up with one of my guys, and my car was buried in 6 inches of snow, cleaning it all off without gloves was not great fun at all and was probably one of the closer times I’ve ever come to frostbite. No kidding, it was cold, in my civilian gear, I would have been jolly warm but in my navy utilities, long johns and jacket, just wasn’t cutting it for any sort of outdoor fun. I made it to the clinic, frozen clothes stuck to my skin to meet up with a patient. Thawing out, I never thought heat felt so good, sorry about puddles I left everywhere.

The snow kept up throughout the day, we still had some folk stuck in Reno, by nightfall, the snow was 8 inches deep but was slowing down. The next morning, the car was covered with a new 3 inches of snow and ice due to driving my car around and heating it up. I praise the folk the invented deicing fluid. This time I went out in my civilian gear cleaned the car off then went back to my room to change over and off to work.

It’s Thursday now, over the past few days, temperatures have ranged from -15 to 11, that 11 degrees was almost a warm moment. According to the weather channel, every day the low was forecasted to be 7 or 8 but each morning, so far, all we’ve seen is the negative teens. The base fix it guys have had their hands full with broken pipes across the base and probably the people out in town too. Even though it hasn’t snowed in 2 days, the snow hasn’t melted a bit and most of the roads are still covered with packed snow.

I don’t have room to complain though, most of my work is done inside of an office. The guys that work on the flight line have been moving piles of snow from one place to another and making sure the jets are ready to go just in case the airfield opens. All of this great flight time we’re supposed to have is on hold for now with another storm coming in tomorrow with more snow in the forecast. It’s supposed to warm up a little bit because the system is coming from the south but after the last couple of days, I’m not sure I trust the forecasting guys over at the Weather Channel. At least I’ll be home for Christmas, well that is if I don’t get snowed in here.

El Centro

One thing about medical, when business is slow, it means everyone is doing alright. I’m currently in El Centro this week and having a hard time finding gainful employment which is good but hate feeling like a slacker. El Centro is much like the base I was in Iraq would feel like if it had potable water and cable TV or how it would look like in a decade from now. Otherwise the countryside looks the same, there’s the same feeling of dryness in the air and deserts that stretch out into the horizon. My new unit, VFA-125, trains Marine and Navy pilots on how to fly the F/A-18 C’s and D’s, there’s also another squadron on my base that trains pilots to fly the E’s and F’s. El Centro is one of the check marks in the students syllabus and medical tags along these little detachment to make sure everyone is doing alright, taking care of sick call, first aid or part of the human factors investigation team if there is any sort of mishap.

This is actually my first time out here El Centro, I‘ve seen the sign numerous times driving Yuma, a place I‘m familiar with being with the Marines. I would have to say the housing here is worlds better then Yuma. WiFi in the rooms, cable TV, DVD player, all of the comforts of home. My ride out here wasn’t so nice though, I put in NAS El Centro into my GPS and ended out in a place in called Campesinos Unidos Region Ix Carmen Pe Nas in Brawley, 20 miles out of my way, lost in the middle of the desert on the far side of midnight. So I went to a connivance store and asked how to get to the Navy base and drove for another half hour and pulled into Naval Air Field, not Naval Air Station El Centro. At least I didn’t end up in Mexico.

I’m heading out to a Bar-b-q this afternoon and tomorrow, back to Lemoore.

Navy Ball Lemoore Style 2009

Just sharing some pictures from the latest ball that the bride and I went to last week. The last few weeks have been a blur of flu shots and filing forms, not much of interest happening on this side of the world. Busy mostly with living life instead of writing about it and life hasn't been too bad. I need to find my writing bug again and I'm sure it will come again, it's just not hitting me right now.

Rat in his Wheel

A piece of interactive art I took part in last weekend at a NIMBY event that we went to, the bride did an excelling job at the filming. NIMBY is a place to create anything that your mind can come up with and they rent out space to artists with a wild hair. They have shows every month that are like mini Burning Man festivals, only these people are doing it all year long. Even though I haven't been online as much, it doesn't mean life has stopped. Check out the web site above, if you're ever in the Bay area during one of their events, I promise you a show that you will not soon forget plus it's a really cheap good time, good music, robots shooting fire and things that you could not imagine.



But work is nothing like being in a cage, I'm in the process of checking in still. Corpsman out there, listen up, keep up with your NKO courses or your next command won't give you your keys! Half of my time since checking in has been doing online courses. So far, friendly people and a job that is in need of my skills, I can do this.

Tomorrow I'll be attending the local Corpsman Ball with the bride where we get to make a first impression with the local medical community.

Impressions? I enjoy being so close to the bride, after spending time at Edwards AFB and China Lake, this place is nice. Besides, it's not where you're stationed at, it's who your stationed with. I think I have some good material here. Fresh faces and fresh impressions, wish me luck.

Last Spring Break in San Diego

I got my orders on Tuesday to report to VFA-113 in Lemoore at the end of May so the bride and I spent this week checking out the sights of San Diego while she took her Spring Break. The upcoming week will be spent looking into the move and where I’m going to live after I transfer while we used the prior week saying our goodbye’s to San Diego.

If you’re in the military down here, whale watching only costs 8 bucks at ITT which is much cheaper than the 25-30 dollars that you pay at the pier. Our trip, we went 13 miles out and saw 11 whales, fin whales and humpbacks, the captain said it was a good day. The season is ending soon so you might want to hurry, the 2 hour harbor cruises are also 8 bucks and are not a bad deal either.

Gatsby and I are going to miss all of the dog beaches in the area, hours spent tossing a ball in the water and racing up and down the sand. Taking him out on all of the hiking trails and forcing me to explore my neighborhood foot by foot has given me some great insight on the area. New neighborhoods for us to explore I guess.

On trade off, the drive to see the bride much shorter, my son Collin is a 33 dollar Amtrak trip away, there are all sorts of interesting community festivals that go on in the central valley. I have half a decade till I hit my 20 year mark and have to start thinking about what to do when this path reaches its end.

Naval Air Station Fallon Nevada

I should be getting orders sometime this upcoming week to that area of the world. Over the last few days, I’ve been mildly distracted by research in the area and over the last day have taken to reading the local paper, the Lahontan Valley News, it has an online site with a comments section on the stories. It‘s interesting reading the local stories and seeing the comments of people who were actually involved in them. 

A little about the area. Fallon is located 60 miles east of Reno NV, has a population of 7500 in the city proper and one of the major employers of the area is NAS Fallon, home of TOPGUN since the Marines took over Miramar.

I’m going to miss the ocean, beach and beauty of southern California. I really do love the area but my wife is going to grad school in northern California and my son lives in Sacramento. I’m about to hit the 15 year mark in my career and I think it’s time to make some sacrifices for the family. It’s closer to both of them, not quite as close as the NAS Lemoore I wanted but 200 miles closer then where I’m at. Inside, there are parts of me that do miss the qualities of living in a small town and if anything, it’s not where you’re at, it’s who your with. I’m looking forward to working with a new crew.

29 Palms

I’m off in another land, another desert but this time with less internet access. I have a Sprint wireless card and Sprint seems to be the only carrier that works out here at Camp Wilson (a camp located in the middle of 29 Palms) even so, the service is really spotty. A common sight to see out here are small clumps of people that at first glance look to be smoking but when get closer and see that they’re all talking on cell phones and waving them in the air to try twisting that last little electron out of the ether. These little gatherings are hotspots that Sprint receives service even so, still not strong enough service for my broadband card. Hopefully I’ll be able to drive over to the main side of the base and log on and post this.

One thing about the Marines that doesn’t change much is Camp Wilson. It’s like going back to the 50’s, living in can shaped structures (quonset huts), cots, multiple sleeping bags in the winter and a sheet in the summer. Nights are cold and his place has never seen climate control, just layer on more clothes at night and take them off in the day. It’s difficult to dress to cover all of the bases because the wide temperature fluctuations.

Changes? The exchange is a little bit bigger and has the largest selection of beef jerky I have ever seen, in all seriousness, I think beef jerky takes up a 5th of the store. And someone thought it would be funny to have an ice cream truck drive by with music playing, I'll post pictures later. The only improvements on being here instead of Iraq is that you can drink a beer at the warriors club and in general the people out the front gate don't want to shoot you. Sleeping conditions are generally a little bit better forward, they're trying to keep us happy out there, 29 Palms was built to get us ready for whatever they could throw at us. Some things never change.

At least I’ll be home by Christmas hanging out with the lovely bride and son, for now, I’ll just try keeping my guys healthy and concentrate on making it home safely.

Road tripping San Jose and some thoughts about Veteran’s Day

I’ll be out of town hanging out with the bride this weekend but I wanted to put a post up with a few thoughts on Veteran’s Day before I left.

I served all throughout the 90’s without really thinking about what it means to be a veteran. It was peace time and being in the military was just another job with a lot of travel perks and interesting people to meet. The only weapons I saw were at the range and could identify countries by the names and flavors of the bars outside of the front gate.

We’ve been at war for 5 years and I can honestly say, I haven’t visited a single bar out side of any gate. Being a veteran during a peace time is a different experience then during war. Now, there is always someone out there who is more then willing to punch your card and people look at you differently. You can see the thought cross their eyes, “what kind of action did he see?” You tell someone that you’ve been to so and so warzone an X amount of times and get the evitable “I’m sorry”.

Don’t be sorry because there is nothing to be sorry for, as a member of an all volunteer force. It was a conscious choice on our part to sign up during a war. There is not a single person that enlisted that doesn’t know what they were getting into, in the early part of the war, that wasn’t always true but all of those enlistments have since expired. War isn’t for everyone nor should it be, in this transparent world, much of the mystery of being at war is gone. Log on to your favorite Milblog, check out some military videos on YouTube, watch the History Channel, CNN or Fox and you can get snapshots of just about every aspect of what we do. It’s not easy nor is it the fun vacation club that I remember from the 90’s.

So every Vet you shake the hand of this weekend who is currently in the military, don’t say “I’m sorry” say “thank you” for the conscious choice we made of knowing exactly what we're getting into and still be willing and able to make that sacrifice.

MCAS Miramar 2008 Airshow F-22 Raptor

I've seen many shows, I can't even count how many times I've seen the Blue Angels but the F-22 was something totally different. This plane did things I wouldn't have expected to see out of a Robotech cartoon. The thrust vectoring really does make a difference, while other shows showed off speed and power, this aircraft danced across the sky, making incredibly tight turns. Remember the movie Top Gun and the spin that killed Goose? This plane did that on purpose and it was a strange sight to see a big fast military jet doing the tricks that are normally reserved to aerobatic biplanes.

Miramar Air Show 2008 MAGTF Display (Marine Air Ground Task Force)

Marines showing their stuff, it gives Joe Public a small but exciting glimpse of what the real deal is like. The show is put on by regular Marines with no other special training then doing what they normally do day to day yet they pull it off perfectly each year.