Veterans Writing Project Launches Journal

Here's another takeaway from this month's Military Experience and the Arts Symposium—a resolution, of sorts, regarding claims of therapeutic value to the writing-down of military narrative: Unless a writing instructor is medically or professionally qualified to deal with issues of emotional or psychological rehabilitation for veterans, it's probably best to focus solely on the craft.

Veterans Writing Project co-founder Ron Capps is on a right and righteous path when he draws a bright line between his non-profit organization's work with injured veterans at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence ("NICoE"), and more purely literary pursuits.

(Side note: That's also probably why Emma Rainey, founder of Iowa City, Iowa's "Writing My Way Back Home," thoughtfully and quietly ensures she has an on-site counselor hovering in the background during writing workshops. Think of it as emotional dust-off, there in case a workshop participant trips on a painful memory, or reopens an old wound. The counselor is there as a one-time resource, however, not as part of an ongoing, medically supervised healing process.)

Properly administered and eventually supported with research, Capps says, writing therapy will likely take its place alongside other forms of arts therapy, in both clinical and non-clinical settings.

As a bonus, avoiding use and overuse of the "therapy" word opens the door more widely to those who don't perceive of themselves as injured in any way. Not every soldier, veteran, or mil-family member needs to engage in writing as emotional or psychological rehabilitation. Some of us just want to get our stories down on the page, to make better sense of them, and to pass them on to others.

That's why the Veterans Writing Project is also launching an on-line literary journal, titled "A War Story ..." According to the journal website, the effort will comprise both curated and non-curated outlets:

Initially, we’ll have two sections. The first, Sound Off, is an open scroll of stories by our friends and readers. These works will receive only the lightest of review by our staff, mostly for content (some subject matter isn’t appropriate for all readers) but occasionally for spelling or grammar, etc.

The second is our quarterly literary Journal, called The Review. All works submitted to A War Story will be considered for publication in the journal. Works accepted for the journal will undergo a rigorous review process by our editorial board and may require some back and forth between the editors and the author. We seek work of the highest literary quality for this section.

Year-round, the project will accept submissions of previously unpublished poetry, fiction, and non-fiction (including memoir and profiles). The journal acquires first-time North American rights, which revert to the author following publication. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, provided notice is given of pending publication elsewhere.

The first edition of The Review is scheduled for release on Nov. 11, 2012, which is Veterans Day (U.S.).

Writing coaches, non-profits, editors, and others who are interested in engaging veterans through the arts would do well not only to look at the Veterans Writing Project curriculum, but also to how it is avoiding general claims of offering a therapeutic function.

After all, "Writing can be therapeutic, but it ain't a therapy." For most of us, at least.

*****

The Veterans Writing Project is conducting a free 2-day writing seminar for veterans, service members, and mil-families Aug. 4-5 on the campus of George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Attendees are responsible for travel, food, and lodging. For details, click here.

Re: Classification of Mil-blogs

Milblogging.com's one-of-a-kind index of military-themed blogs categorizes content by each U.S. branch of military service, as well as the labels of spouse, parent, reporter, supporter, and veteran.

With an eye toward generating a constructive conversation about how to inspire others to document and share their military experiences online, perhaps it might be useful to consider by content, rather than by author's experience, uniform, or vocation. This isn't intended to replace or redefine Milblogging.com's labels, but to offer a different way to look at blogs and other forms of online communication.

As an additional benefit, this exercise might encourage would-be communicators to consider forms and formats outside of "traditional" blogs, including: social media outlets such as Facebook pages, microblogging tools such as Twitter, or visual-media channels such as Flickr or YouTube.

Recently brainstormed with other bloggers and Facebook friends, here's a list of types of military-themed content that writers and artists might explore through online media:

• spiritual / inspirational

• family / spouse

• parent

• memorial

• first-person narrative

• support-the-troops project or organization

• veterans organization

• healthcare advice / experience

• financial advice / experience

• education / employment advice / experience

• political activism / advocacy (To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy: If you start a sentence with phrases such as "Congress should ..." or "You should vote for ...", you may already be an activist.)

• news aggregator

• news analysis

• war-story / oral history aggregator

• policy analysis / military strategy and tactics analysis

• humor / satire / cartoon

• historical (unit or family) / genealogical

• official military unit, office, school, or branch of service

• Stolen Valor watchdog

• combat multipliers / enablers / capacity-builders (Examples: U.S. Department of State; U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers civilians and contractors; private contractors, Non-Governmental Organization workers.)

What are we missing? What other suggestions do you have?

The Sherpatudes

Here is a list of epigrammatic tips inspired by the most recent Red Bull Rising post. It's a mix of maxims regarding organizational analysis, knowledge management, and working in a tactical operations center ("TOC").

Behold, the "Sherpatudes":

1. Continually ask: "Who else needs to know what I know?"

2. Continually ask: "Who else knows what I need to know?"

3. Never speak with complete authority regarding that which you lack direct knowledge, observation, and/or suppressive fires.

4. Never pull rank over a radio net.

5. Let the boss decide how he/she wants to learn.

6. Let the boss decide how he/she wants to communicate.

7. "I am responsible for everything my commander's organization knows and fails to know, learns and fails to learn."

8. Know when to wake up the Old Man. Also, know how to wake him up without getting punched, shot, or fired.

9. The three most important things in the TOC are: Track the battle. Track the battle. Track the battle.

10. Digital trumps analog, until you run out of batteries.

11. Always have ready at least two methods of communication to any point or person on the map.

12. Rank has its privileges. It also has its limitations.

13. Let Joe surprise you.

14. Don't let Joe surprise you.

15. The first report is always wrong. Except when it isn't.

16. The problem is always at the distant end. Except when it isn't.

17. Exercise digital/tactical patience. Communications works at the speed of light. People do not.

18. Your trigger finger is your safety. Keep it away from the CAPS LOCK, reply-all, and flash-override buttons.

19. The warfighter is your customer, and the customer is always right.

20. Bullets don't kill people. Logistics kills people.

21. Knowing how it works is more powerful than knowing how it's supposed to work.

22. Cite sources on demand. State opinions when asked.

23. Work by, with, and through others. It's all about empowerment.

24. Do not seek the spotlight, Ranger. Let the spotlight find you. Then, make sure to share it with others.

25. Both the Bible and "The Art of War" make this point: It's never a mistake to put oneself in someone else's boots.

26. Humor is a combat multiplier. Except when it isn't.

Zen and the Art of Organizational Analysis

I'm just a city kid from Iowa, but even I know how to watch the corn. Find the space at which the tassels blur into amber waves of terrain, that middle distance where you can see the cornfield for the stalks, the forest for the trees, the ocean for the swells. It is a magic moment, and difficult to maintain. The land is not flat or static ...

It is sculpted ... It is inhabited ...

See the contours ... See the connections ...

See the structures ... See the spaces in between ...

I have sought out this figurative sweet spot on the landscape, again and again.

On my high school speech and debate team, I specialized in an competitive category variously called "student legislature" or "student congress." I learned how to maneuver parliamentary process, how to whip and count votes, and how to listen to the floor debate while also eavesdropping on caucuses and conversations. Find the sweet spot, and you can sense the mood of the room, predict how the vote is going to go, figure out where and when you need to be.

As a journalist, I pursued an expertise in architecture and design. I realized later that I was actually writing about people, rather than bricks and mortar. One of my favorite philosophical cornerstones comes from Winston Churchill, who, after World War II, observed at the dedication of a reconstructed parliament building: "We shape our buildings, thereafter our buildings shape us." Find the sweet spot, and you can see how organizations think of themselves: Flat organizations build flat buildings. Hierarchical organizations build skyscrapers. Those physical forms serve to reinforce the power structures and communications within.

Take a step back from the building-scale, and consider a larger area. You can see how organizations connect to their communities, and how those connections can be manipulated to create change. For example: A lima bean silo connects to a community's agricultural, transportation, and business networks in certain ways. Maybe the lima bean business goes south. Re-purpose that structure into a hotel, and it now connects its surroundings in different ways: retail, travel, and tourism.

As an U.S. Army communications soldier working in a Tactical Operations Center ("TOC"), I learned to keep one ear on the radio and to listen for my callsign, to manage radio traffic according to proper procedure, and to keep track of the battle. It was like listening to a baseball game on the radio, mentally moving the players around the bases.

Later, working on the battle desk, I learned to watch how messages flowed in and out of the TOC. A radio message or phone call would arrive on one side of the U-shaped work area, and you could watch it ripple across the room. A sergeant major once posted this sign in the the Red Bull TOC: "Who else needs to know what I know?" Keep an eye on the battle-drill, and an ear on the TOC-talk. Find the sweet spot, and you can see the data flow, where the organization is headed, and where your boss needs to be involved to achieve his objectives.

I'm not trying to sound goofy or mystical, or like some science-fiction guru from "The Matrix" (1999). Sometimes, however, we don't know what we think until we write it down. Even as I'm writing this, I am beginning to recognize the threads and themes that run throughout my disparate experiences: I focus on process and procedure. I surf through conversations. I identify interconnections. I seek out the modes and nodes of influence toward specific outcomes.

I may be onto something. Then again, I may also be full of crap.

Maybe every practitioner—it doesn't matter of what—has a similar moment of transcendence. You do something long enough, and, suddenly, you know what you're doing. Even if you don't think about it. One day, you wake up and realize: You know Kung Fu.

I'm good at finding the sweet spots in some types of organizations. That doesn't make me a hero, but it occassionally makes me useful.

Similarly, there are infantry soldiers who can parachute onto a random piece of ground, and instantly describe what needs to happen to achieve tactical advantage: The high ground is here, start digging in here, put the machine gun here for optimal effectiveness.

There are military intelligence analysts who can look at a map and a chronology, and spit out a prediction about who is doing what to whom, and the most likely times and places they'll strike next.

There are combat engineers who can look at a road and tell you what's out of place, where the bad guys would be, how the bombs buried in the dirt would be triggered.

It's all about finding the sweet spot. Of doing something without thinking. Of becoming simultaneously aware of the details, while also seeing components in context. Of being an actor both within and upon a process.

There are seeds of genius available in such moments.

The trick is to know when to harvest the corn.

Letters from the Gulf, Part II

Blog-editor's note: This is the second part of a 1990 essay, which summarized the pre-war correspondence of my father, who had deployed to Operation Desert Shield as a U.S. Air Force Reserve navigator on a C-130 aircrew.

For the first part of this essay, as well as additional historical background, click here.

*****

'SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS' continued ...

Dad also took great delight in telling the family about the "hooch," as well as other places he had to call "home."

"Quarters are real spartan! We slept in a tent last night," he wrote. "The cots plus being tired made our evening's rest very adequate. In the UAE, we have a 'wood' box with a door for 12. I believe the term male bonding comes to mind" (Sept. 15)

Dad later wrote more about his hooch, which on the bad days and nights quartered two aircrews, about 12 personnel.

"Out house is a plywood 12 x 25 box with a door, two small windows, and two air conditioners," he wrote. "The Furniture is limited to 14 beds, 3 folding chairs, and 1 concrete block with board table. Finding a place to put the 'stuff' is tuff. The B-4 bags and A-3's [different types of Air Force-issue luggage] are pushed under the beds just to give a bit of walking space." (Sept. 18)

Still, one gets the feeling Dad wasn't complaining. At least, not too much.

"A Marine sgt. [on Bahrain] that he was ready and already tired of waiting," Dad wrote. "I should that add that even with our spartan conditions we living at the Holiday Inn compared to the Marines. They had basic tents with no sun shades. War is hell!" (Sept. 19).

I've seen pictures of the "Chi-town Sheik Shack" (Each hooch had its own name, apparently, if not its own Frisbee golf course.) The crews apparently got into constructing lampshades, shelves, even a working 'refrigerator' out of cardboard, red duct tape, and one of the air conditioners. If Necessity is the mother of invention, Boredom must be the father.

*****

Dad usually opened his letters with some discussion of setting, the weather and what he was doing besides writing letters.

"The weather here on an island in the land of O is hot and clear during the day," he started in a typical letter. "The breeze starts coolking things off at sunset which makes sleeping great. The big part of the day is make passable by living in our air conditioned tent. Isn't that a dichotomy in terms?"

He started another, "It is 8 p.m. here and I am in front of our hooch enjoying the evening. There is a breeze and a bit of noise from a C-130 engine run about 50 yards away. I hope the place moves soon or my just move inside and forget the evening breeze." (Sept. 22)

*****

One of Dad's more significant themes seems to have been the "all this stuff that's out here nowhere" motif. Rather than set it up myself, here it is in all its basic continuity:

I would tell you where I'm located, but it isn't on the maps. The same is true of the airports we're operating into. I wonder how some of these complexes got built in these locations—they are in the middle of nowhere and without roads, etc. (Sept. 19)

I am still amazed at the places we are operating into. They are large complexes with major runways and accessories. The fact they don't appear in the airfield directory and on our charts is also interesting. It would appear that our "hosts" are well prepared in some ways to defend themselves. (Sept. 26)

We flew into Jeddah, SA yesterday and I found it hard to believe. According to some ground personnel, the airport is built to handle up to 1 million people a day during the "Holy" days. From the size and numbers of facilities, I would think that handling that number is possible. What makes it hard to believe is that all this construction is at the middle of the desert and nowhere. (Sept. 29)

I'm still both impressed and depressed by this land. We fly for hours and view nothing but sand and rocks—miles + miles of wasteland. then in the middle of nowhere we'll find a four-lane divided highway that goes nowhere but runs for miles. The depressing part is the money that is spent on facilities that have no real purpose. (Sept. 30)

That's about as political as Dad got.

*****

So what have I learned from reading my mother's mail? A little about the war, if one chooses to call it such, a little about Dad, and a little about the way I write. There's something in the phrasing, "ready and already," "impressed and depressed," that smacks familiar, not to mention the continual discovery of dichotomy and oxymoron. That's not where I want to end this, however. I've been saving that part until the end.

*****

Dad's always had a particular sign-off, which I once regarded as dangerously close to affected, which I now find myself using in the appropriate settings. (We are doomed to become our fathers.) Through the years, he's said it enough that it seems natural enough, and it seems right that chose to close his many letters with "see you in my dreams."

"I'm sure glad I'm getting paid to do this because I would hate to pay for this tour. Got to go—see you in my dreams." (Sept. 30)

If his letters brought the war home, that phrase brought Dad home. Even before he got back.

Letters from the Gulf, Part I

Blog-editor's note: The following essay was written in November 1990, when I was my last semester of journalism school. The assignment wasn't for journalism class, however. The class was an experimental one, an interdisciplinary exploration of American identity and family history. It was taught by Bob Woodward—the other Bob Woodward, the one who had worked at the Washington Star, rather than the Post.

Sorry, some inside jokes never get old.

I must've kept the paper as much for Woodward's red-ink marks as I did to in order to preserve my sentiments. I'm glad I did on both fronts. Who could've predicted that, more than 20 years later, I'd find myself writing about similar themes: citizen-soldiers, overseas deployments, family histories.

I've decided to share the essay with Red Bull Readers, inspired by the examples provided earlier this week by Kurt Greenbaum's "Well, Happy, and Safe" blog-project, as well as Daniel Gade's "In the Event of My Death" project. Here's the lesson-learned: Everyday letters or words can help family members understand not only where we've been as citizen-soldiers, but who we were when we went.

In November 1990, my father had just returned from a 30-day deployment to Operation Desert Shield as a member of the 928th Tactical Airlift Wing, a U.S. Air Force Reserve unit that flew out of O'Hare Air Reserve Station, near Chicago. I was approximately 30 days away from graduation, and about to receive a commission in the U.S. Army. My father would administer my oath of enlistment. Because Uncle Sam had paid for two years of my schooling, and because of ongoing preparations in the Persian Gulf, I anticipated I would be ordered to 4 years of active-duty service.

The United States was then ramping up toward Operation Desert Storm. The Air War launched on Jan. 17, 1991. The Ground War launched on Feb. 23, 1991. Despite the uncertainty of post-graduate life, I joked that I was in the safest place in the Army—I was an untrained officer, unlikely to be placed into a position of harming himself or others. I still had an basic specialty course to complete, which, depending on my assignment, could range from three to six months of additional military schooling. Army school would start sometime within 12 months of my civilian graduation.

I figured the war would be there when I got back. I was wrong.

*****

'SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS'

Dad went off to war again in October.

It wasn't a "war" then, even if it later became one. It wasn't a "police action," or even a "conflict." If anything, it was a "deployment."

Dad's first war was Vietnam. That didn't start out as a "war," either, but during my own lifetime I've seen it grow into one.

Dad's second war was deployment to the Persian Gulf. It could have just as easily been a war, what with the press pandering to the public's worst fears of inevitable bloodshed in the Middle East. The perception was the reality, at least at that point.

*****

Mom said she never expected to go through it again, which I took at the time to mean she never expected to have Dad to again go off for weeks or months. Later on, I suspected she was talking more about war, about the chance of losing Dad.

She also said something about how friends and family might somehow be more concerned about Dad than she was, the military experience being a bit foreign to most. Mom probably wasn't less concerned about Dad than the rest of the world, but she was used to it, as much as one can be.

*****

As a young Air Force officer and navigator, Dad flew tactical airlift in Vietnam—a C-130 "Hercules", big four-prop camouflaged trash-haulers capable of flying in and out of just about anything, carrying just about anything. Dad's Vietnam experience was stereotypical Air Force—when he got close enough to the ground war, he didn't have to stay for long.

Almost 20 years later, Dad wore silver clusters instead of silver bars. He was back to flying C-130s, though, and he was back to flying in and around it.

His Air Force reserve unit supplied volunteers to Operation Desert Shield for 30-day rotations. Long enough to get the idea.

*****

This fall, Ken Burns' 11-hour public television series brought home the human drama of the Civil War not only through the words of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, but through the letters and diaries of the more common soldier and spouse.

The series so possessed the public mind that Newsweek magazine put the Civil War on its cover.

More recently, Newsweek magazine devoted a cover article to "Letters in the Sand." Like the Civil War series, that article brought the military experience home to America in real, personal terms.

For 30 days, Dad's letters brought the war home to Mom, in real, personal terms.

*****

Dad wrote about 10 letters to Mom during his 30 days, plus a couple to me at school and few to his folks. They were usually short, two pages at most, and on USO "Home Away From Home" stationery. He consistently stuck to four themes: the military mind, the "hooch," the weather, and how many things one could find in the middle of nowhere.

Throughout his writing, he managed to keep his sense of humor in play. He had to.

"The arrival was generally a mess," he wrote Sept. 15, having just gotten off a Tower Airlines jumbo jet. "Four hundred people with a pile of baggage can create a real disaster. Add to that—400 people leaving with a similar pile of baggage and I believe you've got the idea. [...]"

Dad continue to note examples of the ever-present, ever-oxymoronic "military intelligence." He wrote, "I might add the similarity between this 'Op' and 'Nam is the mentality of keeping 'military.' The edict yesterday was no sweatbands are to be worn with the uniform—unless working. Give me a break." (Sept. 21)

And on Sept. 22:

All is find as long as we keep finding things to do—fly and shop, etc. We are finding some of the precautions that are being observed are really "crowd control." I read that the Arabs are pleased to have our support but worry that we will influence their way of life. To reduce this "contact" our commanders are restricting our movements out side of our operational area. (compounds). What is amusing is that the UAE is currently 80% foreign nationals—I guess "they" don't influence the Arabs?

In a similar story, Dad grew fond of telling the about the safety briefing his crew received staying overnight in Cairo, which achieved record levels of contradiction. It went something like:

• Don't go anywhere alone.

• Don't go anywhere in groups.

• Don't leave the hotel.

• Don't be predictable in movement or routine. (The hotel bus to the airport left at the same time every day, however. Probably travelled by the same route, too.)

And one other favorite of mine, about one day's mission: "Just two stops but long legs with a rather interesting load—bomb parts made by Texas Instruments. Seems to be a dichotomy there somewhere."

[Editor's note: More than 20 years later, this last joke falls a little flat. Dad went to work for an avionics manufacturer for a few years after leaving the active-duty Air Force in 1979, so this might've been a jab against a former competitor. Operation Desert Storm also saw the first large-scale employment of smart-bomb technology by U.S. forces. He might have been making a wary reference to technologies the public was about to be seen on the nightly news for the first time. After all, since when did bombs drop where people actually wanted them?]

To be continued in the next Red Bull Rising blog-post ...

Iowa Group to Raise 'Red Bull' Puppies

Official U.S. Army Photo: LAGHMAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan--U.S. Army Spc. Ahren Blake, a combat medic from Clinton, Iowa, with Company D, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, Task Force Ironman, a part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, Task Force Red Bulls, holds two puppies he found at an observation post in the Aziz Khan Kats Mountain Valley range near Jalalabad, Afghanistan April 15. The puppies have been living with the Afghan National Army Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 201st Infantry Corps, which man the Observation Posts that 3rd Platoon visited. See related news article here. (Photo by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Matson, Task Force Red Bulls Public Affairs)

*****

Paws & Effect, a Des Moines, Iowa-based non-profit organization that raises and trains service dogs for Iowa combat veterans, announced earlier in April that a litter of five service-dogs-in-training has been named in honor of 3,000 Iowa National Guard soldiers currently deployed to Afghanistan. The puppies will be raised by local volunteers for up to 18 months, then professionally trained and placed with veterans diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) or mobility impairments.

Psychiatric service dogs assist handlers in navigating stressful environments and situations, both at home and in public. In public, service dogs often wear uniforms to indicate their special purpose. According to Paws & Effect, raising and training one psychiatric service dog costs approximately $20,000.

Born in the United States, the black Labrador puppies of the “Red Bull” litter are named:

• “Ryder”: In the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division (2-34th BCT), the commander's radio callsign is "Ryder-6." During World War II, Maj. Gen. Charles W. Ryder commanded the 34th Infantry Division in North Africa and Italy. The 2-34th BCT is headquartered in Boone.

• “Avauncez” (aka “Vance” or “Van”): The 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment (1/133rd Inf.) motto is French for "advance" or "forward." The 1/133rd Inf. is headquartered in Waterloo.

• “Sabre”: Radio callsign of 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment (1/113th Cav.), Sioux City.

• “Archer”: Radio callsign of the 334th Brigade Support Battalion (334th BSB), headquartered in Johnston. Task Force Archer is currently in charge of administering Bagram Airfield, the largest installation in Afghanistan and home to approximately 30,000 U.S. and coalition troops.

• “Havoc”: Radio callsign of the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 34th Infantry Division (2/34th BSTB), headquartered in Cedar Rapids.

“Our latest litter of dogs has been named in honor of the 34th Infantry ‘Red Bull’ Division, which has a proud Midwestern history, dating from the World Wars to present-day Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Nicole Shumate (“shoo-mayt”), executive director of Paws & Effect. “Additionally, while in training, they’ll wear the same special camouflage as the Iowans and Nebraskans currently deployed to Afghanistan.”

The organization had earlier hinted at the pending puppy news at a March 28 event, celebrating a series of televised Public Service Announcements that featured Iowa National Guard soldiers and airmen.

Before it deployed to eastern Afghanistan in October 2010, the Iowa National Guard’s 2-34th BCT was one of the first U.S. Army units to be issued the Afghanistan-specific “MultiCam” pattern. Military apparel manufacturer Propper International Inc., Weldon Spring, Mo. has constructed and donated MultiCam service-dog uniforms for the “Red Bull” litter.

“As a company rooted in military heritage, we fully support Paws & Effect in their mission to provide services to Iowa veterans,” says Megan Henderson, marketing manager for Propper International. “We look forward to watching these puppies grow in the months to come, and to welcoming our troops home.”

In addition to training service and mobility dogs, Paws & Effect provides “Pet Partners” for animal-assisted therapy and activities. It also regularly conducts agility trials as fund-raising events. Because it is a 501(c)3 organization, donations to Paw & Effect are tax-deductible.

For more information on the Paws & Effect organization, visit: paws-effect.blogspot.com

The Enemy Already Knows You're Here

According to a Mar. 26 Army news release, members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division launched helicopter-based operations in the Galuch Valley of Agahanistan's Laghman Province on Friday, Mar. 25.

News reports from the Des Moines (Iowa) Register and the Omaha World-Herald, each of which currently have reporter-photographer teams on the ground in Afghanistan, posted their respective coverage of the announcement here and here.

Army leaders did not speculate as to the expected duration of the operation. News reports specifically mention involvement of 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment (1-133rd Inf.), 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment (1-113th Cav.), and 334th Brigade Support Battalion (334th BSB), although other "Task Force Red Bulls" soldiers can also be expected to participate.

The operation involves the movement of soldiers by helicopter--what the military calls an "air assault"--to search villages for equipment used by those fighting against Afghan and coalition forces. In addition to weapons, homemade explosives, and communications equipment, soldiers are also to look for specific enemy personnel. Throughout the operation, soldiers meet with village elders to encourage cooperation against anti-Afghan forces.

According to the Des Moines Register post:

The plan was for Iowa and Afghan soldiers to show up at each village in force and to ask village leaders to voluntarily let the Afghan troops search buildings peacefully. But Guard leaders warned that some villages might resist.

“You need to go into there with the mentality that you’re going into a fight. If you think any differently, you’re fooling yourself,” Major Aaron Baugher of Ankeny said during a briefing of officers and senior sergeants before the operation kicked off.

Despite the fact that Army leaders themselves announced the operation shortly after its launch, friends and family in Iowa expressed mixed reactions regarding the publication of the news. Some worried that even general information would place loved ones at risk--the result of what the military calls a violation of "operations security" ("OPSEC"). Others said they were worried about their soldiers, but were proud of their mission and service.

A number of Red Bull family members reacted to news of the operation on the 2-34th BCT's official Facebook page. Said one:

Just so you know, articles like these make it IMPOSSIBLE to sleep when you are the wife at home with the kids. This is hard enough, thank you for adding to it. Hard enough laying my head on a pillow knowing that at the same time he is putting a helmet on & heading out. It is one thing to be informative, it is another to try to sell a story with total disregard to how it may affect people. There was a time when combat zones were no place for reporters ... and it should have stayed that way.

Said another:

I guess I have mixed feelings about this. During the Vietnam assault my parents, brother, and I sat on the couch every evening watching for a glimpse of my brother's Marine unit. Dreading it and longing for it at the same time. With today's instant news sources ... it's scary to read my daughter is participating in this assault ... but it narrows the playing field and allows me to focus on just those news items that might apply to her situation. I can't control the events ... but I can sure pray more specifically for the teams involved! God bless the warriors and their loved ones back home.

Said a third:

I am so proud of all of these soldiers! They are doing what they have been trained for! My husband would much rather be doing "something" as apposed to sitting around doing nothing while he is deployed. I don't think it's fair to blame the reporters for our fears as army wives war is war and it would be silly of us all to expect it to be all sunshine over there while our husbands and wives are over there. Although I understand the stress that comes from having a spouse gone and a part of a war, don't miss the part of the story where our soldiers are helping these people so much! They are going in and possible saving many lives because of these missions! Thank you all! Your truly amazing and I believe God's angels will protect you all!

When training soldiers to assault an objective--a house or village, for example--military trainers often stress the importance of surprise and secrecy. Soldiers sneak around, and communicate quietly using hand-and-arm signals. Once the helicopters and bullets start to fly, however, the trainers just as often have to remind mute soldiers that it's OK to start communicating out loud, even if it means shouting over the noise.

"Talk to one another!" they say. "The enemy already knows you're here!"

DIY History: Write Yourself (or Us) a Letter

From Africa to Afghanistan, from Italy to Iraq, the roads traveled by the U.S. 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division are many. Infinitely more interesting than dusty records and faded ribbons, however, are the individual stories that make up Red Bull history.

You can help write that history. It's as easy as writing a letter to yourself, your wife or husband, or your kids. It's as easy as writing a church youth group, or a high-school English class.

You don't have to be a war hero. You don't have to be the biggest, baddest mother-f'er in the 'Stan, and you don't have to be the home front supermom who keeps it all together--job, house, kids, family--while also keeping a constant eye downrange. You don't have to wait until you're long retired or returned, but you also shouldn't worry that you've already forgotten too much for your words and thoughts to be of value.

All you have to do is write a letter. (And, if you don't like to write, consider making an audio recording, or at least sitting down with the grandkids and having a conversation.) Maybe it's a page or two, maybe it's 20. You don't even need to send it, or share it with anyone right away.

Instead, put it in a safe place, along with your mortgage documents, or your wedding photos, or your collection of prized military souvenirs. Trust me: When you, your family, or your friends encounter this letter in later years, you'll be blown away by who you were, and what you did.

Maybe then you'll even send the letter to a museum, or your now-grown-up kids.

Start off by putting a date at the top of the page. You'll want to remember when and where you started this project. Then, move on to introduce yourself: Where you're from, what you do for a living, where you went to school, where you go to church.

If you are or were a soldier, explain your military job in terms civilians might understand. Avoid using Army slang or acronyms without somehow defining them. How and why did you find yourself in military service? How long were in you uniform?

Describe what your unit's mission is or was, again in civilian-friendly terms.

If you're a spouse or child or friend who experienced a soldier's deployment from the homefront, you can address similar questions: How did you find yourself connected to someone in military service? What were your thoughts and reactions to it before--during and after? What events, large and small--floods and family baptisms--occurred while your soldier was away?

Don't set out to write the great American autobiography. You don't need to cover every detail. In fact, it might be easier--and potentially more educational or entertaining--to focus on specific stories.

Everybody has "war stories." Even the those who never heard a shot in anger.

Here are some starter questions to help get you writing. Any one of these might be sufficient to document a significant slice of your experience. Keep in mind, these seemingly informal questions are proven to work. I've successfully used similar tactics while conducting journalistic interviews and recording oral histories:

• What was your proudest day during your/your soldier's deployment?

• What was the funniest thing that happened during your/your soldier's deployment?

• What was your happiest day during your/your soldier's deployment?

• What was your saddest day during your/your soldier's deployment?

*****

Here on the Red Bull Rising blog, I've recently created a channel through which Red Bull soldiers--past and present--might share their deployment stories. While most of my current effort focuses on the current deployment of the division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.) to Afghanistan, I am increasingly interested in stories from the the division's other units. Regardless of when, where, and how you served, I invite you to help tell the Red Bull story.

Click here for more details!

The View from Here

FORT IRWIN, Calif., Sept. 26--Regardless of size or type of unit, the Tactical Operations Center ("TOC") is the nerve-center, the hub of activity, the reptilian brain of the organization. Working in "current operations," the staff tracks where people and equipment are, what they're doing, and to whom they're doing it.

Twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, working in the TOC is simultaneously thrilling, infuriating, and boring beyond belief. The TOC is like a casino, in that there are no windows. "The sun never sets in the TOC," the brigade executive officer likes to say.

Reports constantly go up, down, and sideways through the TOC. Calls and contacts go out seeking more information, more detail, more ground truth. "We're driving the war from this building," the S3 Operations officer reminds his crew. "But it's the battalions that own the battlespace."

It's like playing a party game of "telephone" while simultaneously assembling a jigsaw puzzle and juggling parrots.

And at least one parrot is always on fire.

Some people love this TOC stuff. Others hate it. The latter are the guys who would be out there doing it, taking it to the streets and to the bad guys, rather than working in the air-conditioned dome, sorting through problems and moving pins around on a map.

It takes all kinds to run an Army, of course. We're all pins, one way or another.

For the next 14 days, the operations staff of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) has set up shop on the first floor of the two-story "Igloo"--a newly constructed, dome-shaped permanent building at the National Training Center (N.T.C.). The layout resembles something like the bridge of Star Trek's Starship Enterprise. There are three or four video screens across the front, depicting maps and real-time video feeds and message traffic.

A battle "captain"--the position is rank-immaterial, and can be held by a captain, major, or seasoned non-commissioned officer (N.C.O.)--keeps an eye and ear on what's happening. Located up close to the video screens, multitasking "radio-telephone operators" (R.T.O.) send and receive communications via radio, telephone, e-mail, Blue Force Tracker (B.F.T.), instant- or text-messaging.

The battle captain sits on a raised platform one step up and back from the "battle desk," in order to be able to take it all in at once. Around and behind him, there is a constantly changing collection of people from other organizations and staff functions, a combination "peanut gallery" and "Greek chorus."

Even in a digital age, technology can't replace the value of embedding a knowledgeable inter-organizational liaison, someone who can answer quick questions about unit status, capability, and location. The same time, these liaisons listen in on TOC traffic, and call their respective organizations with the latest news and heads-ups.

Like a fisherman floating on a favorite lake, if you sit in the right place and watch the water, you can see the physical ripple and flow of communications throughout the TOC. The report comes in here, it should go there and there. Now, watch to see where--and if--it goes. Sitting in the back of the room is where I do most of my "knowledge management" mojo, eavesdropping on multiple conversations, making connections, putting the question over here together with the answers over there. People in the TOC ask themselves a never-ending question: "Who else needs to know what we know?"

Sometimes, I am hindered in my eavesdropping efforts. The operations sergeant major attempts to keep the TOC as quiet as a library, and periodically yells at everyone, regardless of rank, to shut the heck up and take all conversations outside of his TOC. Lucky for me, he is stymied by the igloo's poor acoustics and the staff's chatty good humor.

For example, a bulletin board on which "significant actions" ("SIGACTS") are to be listed goes missing. Spartacus starts asking loudly, "Where is the SIGACT board? Somebody took the SIGACT board!"

Pilz, for some reason, is hanging around the battle desk. "We'll need to log that as an incident on the SIGACT board," he tells Spart, "after we find it, of course."

In another corner of the room, one of the wargame referees is whining about the brigade's prohibition on civilian "gut-truck" food vendors in the training area. "That's kind of jacked-up," he says. "Because, No. 1, you're simulating being on a FOB, and you'll have that kind of stuff available in-country. And, No. 2, that's how these guys make their money. They come out every rotation."

Man up, sir. Embrace the suck. The 2-34th is an infantry brigade combat team, not a tasty stimulus package. We're the "Red Bull," not the "Red Burrito!"

There's real lessons-learned stuff to be had, trolling around the conversational airwaves. One battalion, for example, repeatedly calls in emergency medical-evacuation ("MEDEVAC," pronouced "med-evak") request, specifying "red smoke" will be used to mark the landing zone for the helicopter. The TOC staff repeatedly have to validate whether or not the mission is a real emergency, or one that's occurring within the NTC's wargame simulation. "Someone tell them that red smoke is for real-world emergencies only," says the Battle NCO.

Immediately below my perch, a young liaison officer (L.N.O.) from one of the infantry units is schooling the brigade S4 (Logistics) staff on how to use its computer systems to track supplies and equipment. Granted, the kid is some sort of quartermaster savant, but it's a little bit like having a 6th-grader fix daddy's computer. Daddy should keep up with the 21st century, if he doesn't want to get left in the dust.

Just then, the Army laser-tag sensing equipment worn by the brigade information officer starts beeping--indicating he's now a simulated casualty. It's an obvious malfunction--no one has fired a weapon in the TOC, but he looks around, bewildered. Maybe it's a simulated heart-attack. Or spontaneous human combustion.

Another wargame adminstrator walks over with a God-gun to reset the officer's system. "It's all these fluorescent lights," he says. "Working in the TOC will kill you."

Scrapbooks, Flat Daddies, and Can-Can Dances

Last week, I asked Red Bull Rising readers about methods they're using to record their friends' and families' deployment histories. I'm pleased to report a number of thoughtful responses ...

Anonymous said:

"Even though I don't scrapbook, my son and I are making a scrapbook. On each full layout - one side is what Daddy did that month (or where he was that month or whatever he could take pictures of and send electronically!) and the other side will be some highlights of what we did that month. I thought it would be a nice way to look back and see what life was like for both parts of the family :)"

I could see doing this with my own kids. Because it gives the family something to work on together, soldiers can send photos and notes electronically, or little souvenir items via postal mail.

Tami C. echoed the scrapbook tactic:

"I too am making a scrapbook for my son Jacob. I will include newspaper articles, printouts from blogs and links from here and his computer conversations with us. Also family photos of events and holidays. Also pics of support participation we do and much more!! Would love ideas from others!"

Kevin T. described how his family preserved instant-messenger "chats" with his deployed son:

"When my son was deployed last year we used Messenger for chat throughout our family. With everyone on the same platform there weren't any issues. At the end of each session I would copy and paste the text into an email and mail it to myself. Later this winter I will compile all the conversations and have one document that holds everything. We didn't use the voice option just the video and typing because the quarters he had were for soldiers on many different shifts and someone was always sleeping."

Crystal L. talked about using a "Flat Daddy"--a large-format photograph of a soldier mounted on corrugated plastic, foam board, or other stiff backing--and documenting "his" adventures with a photo-blog:

"We are using 'Flat Daddy' and taking pictures of various places Flat Daddy has been through out the deployment. I really should setup a blog to tell about Flat Daddy's adventures. This weekend he went with his parents and our children to visit Great Grandpa!"

I know of another soldier whose friends have mounted a life-sized facial photo on a stick--it looks like something one might fan oneself with at the Iowa State Fair. Somehow, even though he's deployed, "Larry" keeps popping up in photos like "Where's Waldo?" He even has his own Facebook group!

Finally, in one of my favorite responses, Mary B. sent a great picture that illustrates exactly the kind of whimsical and heartfelt activity that might otherwise be lost to more-official, less-personal histories:

"Just wanted to let you know that the 'Floozy Susies' of the Golden Slipper Saloon [a venue at the annual Midwest Old Threshers Reunion in Mount Pleasant] sold RWB garters to raise money to help support the 832nd Engineers down there in Camp Shelby. Can any other NG unit there say THAT!!!!"

Isn't history fun?

Dressing Right for the Fight

If you haven't gotten the idea yet--remember "floppy socks"?--the commander and command sergeant major of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division are each sticklers for uniform standards.

"I get a little emotional about it," the decidedly unemotional commander told his staff recently here in Camp Shelby, Miss. "It will save lives. It shows discipline in our unit. If we show [the bad guys] any weakness, we're going to get it."

I remember hearing that, after Operation Desert Storm, the Army determined units that slung their M16 rifles over a shoulder were 80 percent more likely to be engaged by the enemy than units who kept their weapons in front of them at all times. And that was with the old slings--with newer "combat" slings, shorter M4 rifles, and collapsible butt stocks, the Army has made it much easier for soldiers to keep their weapons handy.

Last week, a Cavalry trooper friend of mine was driving his up-armored Humvee out to Camp Shelby training areas. "I was headed out the gate," he says, "and guess who's there, checking uniforms?" It was the brigade commander. My friend suddenly realized he wasn't wearing his gloves, or his ballistic eye-protection--goggles that will stop bits of gravel and shrapnel.

Since he was the first vehicle in line, my buddy got busted. To his credit, however, he also had the right equipment with him, and quickly made the correction.

"Soldiers know what 'right' looks like," I had overheard the brigade commander say later that same day. "If you see something that isn't right, correct it."

It might sound a little silly to civilians, but enforcing what and how uniforms are to be worn is Army Leadership 101. At Basic Training drill sergeants often put out small, arbitrary changes in the day's uniform. It can range from "tomorrow, wear only your helmet liner" to "tomorrow, lace your boots left-over-right."

Why? To see if individual soldiers display enough attention-to-detail to properly execute even the smallest change. To see if buddies look out for other buddies--"hey, dude, your uniform is wrong." And to see if peer-leaders get the word out throughout their respective fire teams, squads, and platoons.

See, soldier? There is a method to the Army madness. Your drill sergeant wasn't as crazy as you thought she was.

A couple of other random notes on uniformity:

When Red Bull soldiers are in the Camp Shelby barracks areas--an environment variously described as "in garrison," "on cantonment," and "on the FOB"--they're either to be dressed in Army fatigues or the Army Physical Fitness Uniform (A.P.F.U.). If they're in APFU, they're also supposed to wear a reflective belt for visibility--even in daylight hours.

Wearing the APFU also standardizes off-duty appearance across genders, as much as the Army can. While still more revealing than the Army Combat Uniform (A.C.U.), no one would ever describe the APFU as provocative or alluring. The Army simply doesn't want soldiers ogling other soldiers.

Civilian clothes are not authorized. You're supposed to pack at least one set of civvies for going on pass--but that's about it. Oh, and civilian clothes have to be nice enough for your chaplain to see you in. No tube-tops and Daisy Mae shorts, or "F--- the Army" T-shirts.

Finally, of course, there's the issue of the new MultiCam fatigues. The 2-34 BCT was the first Army unit to receive the Afghanistan-specific uniforms and equipment. Red Bull soldiers have been instructed to wear the new mountain boots enough to break them in, but to pack the MultiCam uniforms away until after their National Training Center rotation. After all, we wouldn't want soldiers to get the mud-colored uniforms dirty.

In the meantime, the Public Affairs team has been working on a poster that depicts "what 'Right' looks like" while wearing the new uniforms. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand uniform corrections.

More on MultiCam madness tomorrow!

Red Bull on the March, in the News

Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry Division (2-34th BCT)--as well as their National Guard counterparts already downrange--have been in the news a lot recently. The send-off ceremonies in Iowa are over, and the units that comprise the 2-34th BCT are now mobilized and training at Camp Shelby, Miss.

Des Moines Register writer Reid Forgrave is consistently delivering insightful, well-crafted narratives about the deployment. Yesterday's newspaper featured the story of some Red Bull soldiers on their 2004 deployment to Afghanistan. Not all of them came back.

It's pulse-pounding, heart-breaking stuff.

Take, for example, these words from a father of a soldier killed on the mission:

"Every one of those well-wishers, whether they knew it or not, were sharing that little piece of the Almighty that rests within. When everybody is sharing just that much of the Almighty with somebody else ... you can't hold it in. You gotta give it back."

Last Friday, Col. Ben Corell and Chaplain (1st Lt.) Martha Kester were interviewed at length on Iowa Public Radio's "The Exchange." Corell is the commander of the 2-34 BCT. Kester is the chaplain of the 334th Brigade Support Battalion (B.S.B.), and the first female chaplain in the Iowa Army National Guard. For a time, the 46-minute interview is available as a free download and streaming-audio: Click here.

The radio interviews feature good info on conditions at Camp Shelby, how the unit was the first to be issued the Afghan-specific "MultiCam" uniform, and how soldiers and families are dealing with the first days of separation.

(Click here for a slide show from the Hattiesburg American depicting the new camouflage gear. And here's an official National Guard news release about the same.)

Lastly, Spencer Ackerman of Wired's "Danger Room" blog tells how Vermont National Guard soldiers are using their technology skills to help maintain a computer lab in Tokchi, Parwan Province. I don't just find this interesting because I'm also a communications guy: Previous news reports in Iowa have indicated that at least some of the Red Bulls will eventually relieve the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont.

Ackerman's article (click here) is a good snapshot of how soldiers attempt to build bridges with small, concrete projects. Dealing with people through an interpreter can be frustrating, as can be trying to untangle the local political webs. At least one commo crew on one day, however, reduced all the confusion down to providing tech support to the locals:

[Capt. Cristian] Balan, true to form, thinks it was a good day. He’s got big plans for the computer lab. He wants to network the computers so they can print to a single printer – maybe add some speakers, too; oh, and he’ll need printer cartridges – so he says he’ll write home to solicit donated equipment. After the platoon rolls back to Bagram, he hangs out in front of its office on some picnic benches and talks about the new software he wants to install. Maybe something about learning English. [...]

Balan’s eyes indicate that he’s already musing about all the cool stuff he can introduce to the Tokchi computer lab. Whether his tech upgrades will be useful as a counterinsurgency tool may require some more imagination.

Convoy Communications 2.0

The bus ride from the middle of Iowa to Camp Shelby apparently takes about 16 hours, judging by this week's "radio traffic" on Facebook. The brigade has been moving out, piece by piece, unit by unit, on a nearly daily schedule.

Watching the Facebook news feeds has been a little like eavesdropping on the radio, with my fellow soldiers conversing between buses. Sometimes, they're even on the same bus.

Messages such as "I'm so glad that dog-and-pony send-off ceremony is over" to "Welcome to Camp Shelby, where there is no gravity, but everything sucks," clued me in to where people are on the map. Time between "dog-and-pony" to "Camp Shelby" message? Approximately 16 hours.

When I first learned how to do stateside convoy operations, we maintained communications via our FM radios. We were lucky to get a few miles out of them, from front of our first serial (or "stick) of vehicles, to the middle of our convoy. To talk from the front to the rear of our entire battalion, we'd have to relay messages, like a big game of tactical "telephone."

"Bravo-Tree-Six, THIS IS Bravo-Four-One. I have contact with Bravo-Two-Four. I will relay your message, OVER."

"ROGER, Bravo-Four-One, THIS Bravo-Tree-Six. What is Bravo-Two-Four's location and rate-of-march, OVER?"

And so on.

It helped pass the time, I guess. And the miles.

Some 20 years ago, on my first convoy move, our battalion had three sticks moving eastbound through my old stomping grounds in Eastern Iowa. There is/was a confusing split between Interstates 74 and 80. The unit was supposed to stay on Interstate 80.

Suddenly, some convoy-leading lieutenant--yes, I still remember his name; no, I'm not going to tell it right now--gets on the horn. His message over the radio sounds like something out of an old M.A.S.H. TV episode: "My location is ... I am passing a Red Lobster ... right ... NOW!"

As most of the radio net was laughing at the young officer's inappropriate choice of landmarks--identifying a mile marker or intersection would have been more useful--I realized something else. For many years, I lived in this particularly part of Eastern Iowa, and I knew this:

There is no Red Lobster located on Interstate 80.

The lieutenant, in other words, was mis-oriented and headed south, both figuratively and literally.

I tell that story not only because is sounds like Maj. Frank Burns fiasco, but because those days are pretty much over. During our travel up to Camp Ripley, Minn., for this year's Annual Training, most of our vehicles did not have FM radios installed. Instead, our company commander and his lieutenants tried to communicate via civilian civilian cell phones, because that's all they had. The problem was, no phone is loud enough to hear or talk over the noise of a Humvee engine. And putting your phone on "vibrate" doesn't work, either, because--believe me--the Humvee vibrates way more than your phone.

Downrange and in country, most of our vehicles will have Blue Force Tracker (B.F.T.) devices installed. We use a dismounted BFT device in the Tactical Operations Center ("TOC") in order to track the whereabouts of each vehicle in near-real-time. The position of each BFT-capable vehicle updates via Global Positioning System (G.P.S.) refreshes every few minutes, and is displayed on a map as a little blue dot or square. In Army terms, "Blue Force" is friendly; "Red Force" is bad guys.

We can also use BFT to text-message among vehicles and the TOC. It's great technology: Great for putting your finger on nearly everyone's location on the battlefield. Great for reaching out and touching people: "Hey, you're turning your convoy the wrong way!"

Then again, troops using Blue Force Tracker will never land a war story like the "Great Red Lobster Turnaround."

The Message to Lt. Col. Garcia

This happened a few months ago, while the brigade headquarters was temporarily operating out of Camp Dodge, Iowa ...

One of my TOC buddies called. I had made the mistake of taken a late lunch--said I'd be back at 1430 hours. Apparently, the brigade's deputy commander (D.C.O.) had walked into the Tactical Operations Center 5 minutes after I'd left at 1330, and requested that all battalion commanders report to him immediately. Face-to-face.

It was now 1425 hours.

When I got back, I asked what was up. "The DCO needs the cell phone numbers for all the battalion commanders," was the answer. My radio-telephone operator training kicked in.

"OK, but what does he want to DO with those numbers?" I asked.

"He wants all the battalion commanders to report to him as soon as possible."

"Is that 'drop everything right now' ASAP, or 'as soon as you've completed whatever mission you're on' ASAP?"

"'Drop everything' ASAP."

We proceeded to e-mail a couple of commanders--they were Blackberry users and we knew that was faster and more reliable than calling them. We called one commander's cell phone number, and got his daughter. "My dad gave me his old cell phone when the Army gave him one," she said. "Sorry to bother you," I said, "but could we have your Dad's new phone number?"

Thinking fast in problem-solving workaround mode, I feel like I'm in that Clint Eastwood movie--the one where they called in naval gunnery using a long-distance credit card. Adapt, improvise, overcome.

When I contact him, I relayed the message, making sure to add that the message was being delivered to all commanders. After all, I didn't want him thinking he was in trouble. And, because I said that, he made another connection for me.

"I've got another commander sitting right next to me here in training," he said. "Want me to bring him along?"

As staff specialists in the brigade headquarters--in logistics, operations, intelligence, communications--we're always trying to educate our "customers" to give us their requirements, not their requests. A logistician might only give you two trucks if you ask for them specifically, but if you tell him you what you want to move and how much of it you have, he'll be able to give you options. Options you might not even know about.

That's because he's the expert, not you.

Same dynamic applies to communications.

An informal motto in the U.S. Army Signal Corps is "get the message through." Don't tell us how to deliver it. Don't fall into the trap of worrying about the medium--whether e-mail, texting, phone call, or asking a commander to grab his peer and get it in gear--just give us the message.

We'll do the rest.

(By the way, in The Signaleer's archives, you'll find the Signal Soldier's Creed. Check it out! And the obtuse title of this post echoes "A Message to Garcia," another great moment in had-to-be-in-the-Signal-Corps literature.)

Take your Foot off the Fire-Gas

More notes from Annual Training, which took place at Camp Ripley, Minn., in June 2010:

At risk of a certain amount of sibilance this morning, I must state that soldiers are neither saints nor sinners, but simply citizens under stress. We're not perfect, and we know it.

For better and for worse, every deployed dog-soldier has his day.

Take, for example, this cautionary tale, recently told by one barracks wag--a buddy who graciously allowed me to report it here:

During Annual Training at Camp Ripley, Minn., my buddy's wife had texted him from behind the wheel of his $2,000 riding mower. "Something is clanking," she wrote.

Instant messaging isn't always instant, however: He received her message 45 minutes later. "GET OFF THE MOWER NOW," he replied.

"Too late." Soon after her original message, the engine first sputtered, smoked, then seized.

It turns out that she had used the yellow gas can, the one with diesel fuel in it--the stuff that my buddy uses to burn weeds and trash on his acreage. Apparently, his 3-year-old son had tried to ask, "Mommy, why are you putting fire-gas in the mower?" The warning, unfortunately, wasn't understood until it was too late.

My buddy was hot when this happened. He did the wrong thing. He poured gas on the fire. "If this is what you do on Day 2 of my being gone," he says he said, "I can hardly wait to see what you come up with for the rest of the 482 days!"

He called back later to apologize. "Obviously," he says.

My buddy is a stand-up guy, a role model for me and others. No question, I'd follow him in firefight. But it's important to remember that even stand-up guys can have a bad day. Downrange, the trick is going to be to learn how not let our individual bad days spark hurtful words with our spouses. Today's communications technologies make it too easy to light fires of frustration. Words can hurt. Words can leave everyone feeling burned.

I hope I can learn from The Fire-Gas Incident, to take extra care to be understanding and supportive through the telephone lines. I'm going to make mistakes. So is my wife. We need to be open to that. Name-calling and I-told-you-so's don't get anybody anywhere but miles away from each other.

At the same time, I need to remember that figuratively counting to "10" before hitting the "send" key is probably a good e-mail practice.

My Army rifle has a safety on it, after all--why shouldn't my e-mail account?

The Next Insurgency Will Not Be Televised

More notes from Annual Training in June 2010 ...

It was a little surreal when the brigade Public Affairs Officer called me onto the figurative carpet one day. He casually let slip that we needed to talk about "Sherpa." After I figuratively picked myself up the (might I add, uncarpeted) floor, we talked about blog-stuff: what works, what doesn't, what's good for the cause, what isn't. It felt good to come in from the proverbial cold.

Apparently, he's known about the Red Bull Rising blog since April, when he and some mutual colleagues discovered a post that, coincidentally, just happened to involve them. "Hey, this is a pretty funny story that sounds kind of familiar ... HEY, WAITAMINUT!"

I wish I could've been a fly on the wall to see that!

So, Sherpa is no longer "hiding in plain sight"--but neither is he taking out full-page advertisements in the local newspaper.

Against this background static, imagine my surprise when twice the new command team separately inquired as to my off-duty activities, without apparent awareness of the blog. Here's how it lays down: I've served under the new brigade commander once before, when he was in charge of the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment (1/133rd Infantry). And the new brigade command sergeant major was then the first-sergeant of a line company in that unit, while I was a "commo dog" in the headquarters company.

During the "Ironman" battalion's deployment, you see, I ran what you might call a "humor-driven underground newspaper," there in the desert. I only had to publish one issue--literally one page--per week, conserving paper and ink by posting it over the urinal in our "hootch" trailer.

The name of the publication was "The Bull Sheet."

Even with the earlier adrenalin provided by the Pubic Affairs Officer, I was ill-prepared for the following Annual Training moment, which occurred after I briefed both the brigade commander and command sergeant major on some computer-related stuff.

"By the way, when does the covert back-talk start?" asked the commander, chuckling.

"Yeah, where's 'The Bull Sheet?'" asked the command sergeant major. "We need some humor around here."

I stammered and backed my way out of the briefing tent, vowing never to play poker with any of these soldiers. If they already knew about the Red Bull Rising blog, they sure as heck weren't letting on.

Besides, after all that, I wasn't about to give them the usual Bull Sheet, now, was I?

Best. Army Training. Ever.

I don't know what exactly trainer Timothy Baigent did to get where he got, traveling the country and teaching people a practical mix of cultural awareness and interpersonal communications skills. And I don't know how he can do it with such high energy, hour after hour, day after day. I can honestly say, however, that in about three hours at Camp Ripley, Minn., he gave us Red Bull soldiers some of the most useful and most memorable Army training that I can personally remember in my more-than-20-years in uniform.

Bottom-line up front, with a little hint of the A-Team intro: "If you are in an organization that needs cultural awareness or interpersonal communications skills, and if you can find him, hire Timothy Baigent."

Taking notes was a little like being a court stenographer at a Robin Williams concert. I'm really not going to be able to do it justice, but here are some snippets to give you an idea of the topics and tips discussed:

Homosexuality in Islamic cultures. "'Man-love Thursday,' does it exist? Yes. Is it on Thursday? No. It's everyday, and twice on Thursdays." [...] "You are going to see some crazy stuff. Be mature enough to counter your emotions. Don't fly off the handle. Realize that other people are different than you."

Don't over-promise. In fact, don't promise at all. "Don't make promises--use 'Inshallah' to your advantage! If you promise something, and you don't deliver, that's your fault. If you say, as the Afghans do--'God willing'--then, if something doesn't happen, it's between the other guy and his God."

Don't make jokes--jokes don't translate. "If you say, 'My kids are furry and have tails,' Afghans will not understand that you are talking about your dogs. Not only that, they will think that you have just compared their kids with dogs, and they will take offense." (Dogs are not highly regarded in Afghanistan.)

Avoid casual blasphemy. "Gid rid of these phrases: 'Oh my God,' 'Jesus Christ,' 'God damn it.' In parts of Islam, it is Jesus Christ who comes to bring judgment. You can F-bomb to your heart's content, but end the religious stuff now."

Don't expect things to run on time. Ever. "In this country, we're time sensitive. In the military, we're time sensitive on crack." Afghans, on the other hand, may not ever get to work on time because everything happens according to God's will, even traffic jams.

Don't expect Western life-experiences to translate. "Tell people in Afghanistan that you're a stay-at-home Dad and that your wife is the one who works, and see how well that works for you. Relationship over--you're a loser."

Use the acronym "C.A.R.E." to connect with people: "Concern, Acknowledge, Respect, and Empathize." By connecting with others, soldiers can build trust across gaps in language and culture. If someone trusts you, maybe they'll tell you about the bomb in the road. Maybe they'll tell you where the bad guys are. "I don't care if you do all this [communications] stuff naturally. I care that you do this stuff when the crap hits the fan, so that you can save the lives of people."

I've overheard soldiers tell their officers that the officers really missed out on some good training. I've witnessed solders applying Baigent's training tips during subsequent events, including discussions after a special screening of the documentary Restrepo. A lot of times, so-called "must have" training ends up to be a stack of PowerPoint slides go in one glazed eye and out the other end.

Not this one. This one stuck.

Our Eyes in the Skies

Earlier this Annual Training, I was able to observe a couple of take-offs and landings of our Military Intelligence Company's ("MICO," pronounced "my-koh") Unmanned Arial Vehicle (U.A.V.) platoon. The MICO is part of the 2/34 Brigade Special Troops Battalion (B.S.T.B.), headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The platoon flies the RQ-7B "Shadow," a radio-controlled aircraft with a 14-foot wingspan, capable of flying for up to 6 hours. Not only can it provide observation and radio-relay coverage, but an upgrade will soon allow it to be used to laser-direct artillery.

Training with the Shadow requires a mix of luck and good weather. "If it's too windy, too cloudy, or too rainy, we don't fly," says one soldier. It also requires a little organizational flexibility. The aviation section in the brigade's headquarters, for example, has to coordinate with the local airport to de-conflict airspace. The FAA doesn't want "robot planes" flying near manned aircraft, so using the drones shuts down local air traffic for a couple of hours at a time.

A trailer-mounted pneumatic catapult launches the gray-colored bird, accelerating the 400-pound drone to approximately 66 mph in the space of about 15 feet. To land, a system of arresting cables laid across the runway catches the aircraft's tailhook. The gasoline engine sounds like a weed-whacker on steroids, but can barely be heard if operating at high enough altitudes.

(By the way, below this post are two videos, each approximately 36 seconds. One is a Shadow take-off, the other, a landing.)

On the Star-Trek-like system of video screens in the brigade Tactical Operations Center ("TOC"), we were able to display the live video feed from our Shadows. The TOC personnel learned to simultaneously track the Shadow using our 2- and 3-Dimensional map systems, and to better understand and guide our eyes in the sky. Saying "hey, what's that over there" just doesn't work when you're on the radio with a guy or gal who is piloting an aircraft remotely.

The Shadow is a brigade-level asset. At the lower "battalion" level, soldiers use the RQ-11 Raven, a 65-inch-wingspan UAV that is launched by hand. It reminds me of those Styrofoam gliders they used to sell at the beach when I was a kid--extremely lightweight and designed to fall apart when it lands on the roof of your house.

The story goes that one of our Infantry guys were training with their Ravens under supervision from some Minnesota trainers. It was kind of windy, and it had been a judgment call to even conduct the training. While trying to land the aircraft, a sudden gust forced the Raven hit a white government-owned van in the front passenger-side door, denting it.

Of course, when it was later reported to the brigade TOC, it had grown by word of mouth into a full-blown "aviation incident." There was a quick investigation, but nothing was broken. Because the training had been conducted under the supervision of a Minnesota trainer, and because it was a Minnesota van, the safety officer determined that the Viking-on-Viking violence (or, if you prefer, the "Airbender Fender-Bender") qualified as a ground accident.

And the note on the Battle Captain's board the next day in the TOC?

"Ravens 1, Vans 0."

***

Video of a Raven take-off:

Video of a Raven landing:

The Loudest Quiet Place in the Army

I found myself camping out in the "ALOC" ("Administrative-Logistics Operations Center") the other day, just to hear myself think. Even with the back-and-forth bustle and bicker of the S1 (Personnel), S4 (Logistics), and other "support" sections, it was good to get away from the constrant drone of the generators that light and air-condition the "TOC"--the "Tactical Operations Center."

Normally, the S1 and S4 and others would be working out of the TOC tents. Given the requirement for some regular, non-classified computer connections, however, they took over a refurbished-but-still-rustic dining facility. Cinder block walls, with single-pane windows, and no weather strip around the peeling-paint doors. Inside, the ceiling is open to the rafters. It's not difficult to imagine being off "at camp," which, I guess, is what some of us old timers still call Annual Training anyway.

As an Army communications guy, I've always found the constant white noise of a generator strangely lulling. When my wife wants to knock me out for a nap, she knows that all she has to do is start the dishwasher.

Dishwashers and Army generators make me sleepy.

I wanted to clear my head and organize some thoughts, so I stopped by my ALOC cloister with a stack of note cards and a cup of coffee. Inside, I had a picnic table all to myself for a few blissful minutes. My whole world was: coffee, quiet, table.

The S6 (Communications) tent connects to the TOC circus tent. If the Army were a business, that tent would be a combination information technology "help desk," a server room, and a retail tech-shop counter. There are lots of laptops laying around, and it's crowded with data cables. The big green-box servers are high-pitched and loud--louder than the generators outside the tent. You can hear the computers think, but not yourself.

"This is the loudest quiet place in the Army," one of the commo guys told me, as we tried to have a trouble-shooting conversation in the S6 tent. "No one talks all that much in here."