Posts

Posted on

Ship Visit

We went for a ship visit to the USS Peleliu.  It is named after a World War II battle in the Pacific.  It is a kind of mini-aircraft carrier. Helicopters and Harrier Jets can land on the decks, as you can see in the picture above and below, and it supports Marine operations on shore.   You can see some pictures from the ship up and around this page.

This was the first time that I met Marines projecting power from ships.  This was the traditional Marine role, but in recent times they have been deployed in the deserts and mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan.  One of the Marine colonels commented that there are Marines in their second or third tours that have yet to do any real amphibious actions.  This would never happen a generation ago. Marines are supposed to be amphibious.

We were invited on board by the commander of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the one we were doing the exercise with.  We had a really good lunch.  I sat next to the Commodore.  I remember Commodore Perry, but I didn’t think they still had commodores and they don’t when it concerns the actual rank.  Fuller is a Navy Captain doing the job of the Commodore.  He coordinates the movements of the ships and forces from the three ships involved with the exercise.

Above is the hospital aboard the ship.

Posted on

Making Water

A good lesson is that you should never count on machines.  Luckily, it was only an exercise.   We were supposed to demonstrate how the Marines could make fresh water from sea water.  In the exercise, we were supposed to let the Minister of Health drink the water directly from the desalinization machine.  Of course, the machine didn’t work while she was there.   It evidently worked before and after.  The evidence was that we had a lot of fresh water made.  But there are always breakdowns and hiccups.

Some are just little/big things, like the tide going out farther than the intake pipes can reach.  Other things are systemic, like filters getting clogged.   The better plan is to have the water ready to go, already produced. The machine can be in the background and if it makes water at the time of the visit, we can go down there and watch it.  But the show should never depend on it working at the exact time period.

This also goes, BTW, for web-based presentations.  I have seen it dozens of times.  The person tries to load something up and all we get are those hour glasses that show something is loading, or else it has to buffer so many times that nobody can stand to watch it.  

There is an old saying that one should not watch laws or sausages being made. It is probably good advice not to watch most things being made unless you are especially interested in the process rather than the result.  Most of the time, however, we really just want the finished project. It is tempting, but a little narcissistic, for the creator to want to show the work that went into his creation, but most people don’t care, at least not into the detail the artist himself wants to inflict on his audience.

Posted on

Peaceful Seas & Dark Waters

I understand why so many people are fascinated by the sea.   Its moods can change in such rapid and interesting ways.  As I watched for just about a half hour, I saw it go from gray and calm to bluer and wilder.  Finally near sundown it became the wine-dark sea of Homeric description, as you can see on the pictures.

I was lucky enough to get a little cottage on the Pacific instead of staying at the hotel.  The trade off is that I have to walk up to the mock embassy.  Of course, that is also one of the things l like about being here.   So I guess there is no trade-off, unless you count not having Internet access.  This is why you are reading this post a few days after I wrote it.  This is the off season for these cottages. I would not be able to get a place here otherwise.  It is also unusual in that the beach in almost deserted.   There are not many places along the Southern California coast where you can look out over an empty beach.

The ocean is primal and powerful.  It puts your troubles in their proper place.   I watched the sundown yesterday and today.   I guess it is good that I don’t live here.  I would probably eventually go blind from this sort of contemplation.  I have four nights down here on the shore, until I have to move back to the regular hotel.  I don’t suppose it will hurt me in that short a time.

As a Midwestern landlubber, I didn’t see the ocean until I was twenty-three years old and I am not sure that really counts.  I flew over the Atlantic Ocean from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, so I only saw it from very high up.   I didn’t actually touch the ocean until a year later, when we drove down to Florida.  I managed to convince some of my friends to go down.  My motivation was to pick up Chrissy, who was down there with her elderly aunt.  My first ocean touch was in the Gulf of Mexico in Bradenton, Florida.  I was surprised at how clear it was and how salty it tasted.

My previous experience was with Lake Michigan.  It is really not that different.  Lake Michigan is too big to see across too and there are some ocean areas that look a lot like the Lakeshore.  The Baltic Sea near Gdansk, for example, reminds me a lot of home.  Maybe that is why immigrant from that area moved to the shores of the lake.  The lake doesn’t get such big waves as the ocean can, but there are lots of times when the ocean waves are no bigger.  The big difference is the lack of salt and the lack of tides.  This means that it tastes different but also that trees and plants can grow much closer to the edge of the lake.  This gives it a different aspect. 

I find the ocean attractive but a little scary.   I walked a short way into surf to get the picture up top and I was paying a lot more attention to the setting sun than to the oncoming surf.  I was surprised by a wave. It didn’t knock me down, but I did get a little wetter than I expected.  The sea has power.  My mind drifted wildly to tsunamis.  I suppose the chances that a big wave will sweep me and my cottage off this beach are very small, but … I am writing this in the middle of the night.  I just came in from looking out over the dark sea.   There was some light provided by the almost half moon and the man-made lights in the background, but mostly I could just hear and feel the ocean.  Suffice to say that I didn’t walk close enough that I could fall off some unseen edge or in range of an errant waves that could reach out and pull me down to Davy Jones’ locker.  Lots of things seem possible in the middle of the night that look really pretty dumb when seen in the light of day.  But it is dark out there for now.

Posted on

Exercising Marines

HAST – The first two letter stand for humanitarian assistance.  I am not sure what the others are for, but if you just use it as a noun, it means a Marine operation that provides local populations with thinks like food, water and basic medical care.

HAST was part of the exercise, but before the Marines could start doing good, they had to land their equipment.   The hovercraft you see in the picture is called a LCAC.  It skims across the surface of the water and then can also skim across the surface of the beach.  It is much more reliable than those landing craft we remember from John Wayne movies.  You know, the kind that are shaped like long boxes and open in the front.

The problem is that the landing craft have to go back and forth to the ships to bring in the materials and that just takes a lot of time and is very dependent on the state of the sea.

One of the keys to relief is clean water. The Marines has a combination filter/desalinization machine that can make fresh water from sea water or clean water from polluted water. We went down to the landing beach to see this thing in action. Unfortunately, sea conditions slowed delivery and it was not ready to do. Maybe tomorrow.

I am playing the DCM (Deputy Chief of Mission) during this exercise. While the exercise is for the Marines and I am just a prop, I am learning some useful things by playing the role. I would like to be more helpful to the Marines, but since this is supposed to be a learning experience for them and a test of their abilities, I have to been less forthcoming. I suppose that makes it more realistic.  In real life I would indeed know more and try to be more helpful. On the other hand, in real life there would be a lot more uncertainty. In the exercise I know or have a very good idea of what the future will be. I could be “helpful” and reveal some things, but that would mess up the whole thing, ruin the game. So I have to let it happen, knowing that around the corner something will happen to ruin their well-laid plans. Of course is the real world most plans don’t work; I just don’t know in advance. It is much better that they learn the lessons here than when they are playing for keeps.

Posted on

Smell of Memory

The helicopters landed today delivering the Marines for our exercise.  The noise, dust and smell of fuel are unpleasant, but they reminded me of those things in Iraq.  Smell is hard-wired into memory in a way other things are not.  Iraq sucked most of the time, but there were some interesting experiences and lots of great people.   After time has passed, things seem better.   It is much easier to see the joy in something retrospectively than prospectively.  

I can put myself back in that mind set, if I try hard.  I remember when I looked forward to a year of heat, exhaust, dust, boredom and danger.  It was not very inviting.   I remember my friend Reid Smith comparing our predicament to a prison sentence.  “We can’t leave & what got us here seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said.  

Posted on

Some Miscellaneous Things about Southern California

The stretch of I-5 that goes through Camp Pendleton is named after John Basilone, a hero of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima who won both the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. One of the values of naming things after special people or events, rather than some non-committal thing like “Happy Crest Road,” is that they are remembered. John Basilone was a great hero and I am glad that driving along this road made me think of him.

Southern California is semi-arid and the natural vegetation would be scrub and brush.  When you see large trees, they are almost always planted and watered.  This is the best time of year to see the area around San Diego.   The hills are green and flower covered.  When I examined the ground more closely, it is clear that the vegetation is not thick.   It is, as I said, semi-arid.

The Spanish tried to colonize California using missions. They were founded about a day’s journey apart and there were twenty-one of them.  The San Diego mission, built in 1769, was the first one built.

Camp Pendleton is really big. It is one of the largest de-facto natural preserves in the U.S.   If the Marines didn’t own the place, it certainly would be covered with condos, like the rest of the coast here about.

Posted on

Deadly Serious Games

I have never met a young man who doesn’t enjoy shooter games; at least once they have seen one.  But video games are more than just fun.  You can learn a lot from games.  Games implicitly embed various assumptions and incentive particular actions and behaviors.

The Marines are taking advantage of the possibilities of gaming to help young Marines understand real-life combat situations. I think it will end up saving lives, as Marines will more effectively fight the bad guys and be better able to protect civilians in combat zones.

In this video simulation, Marines get to play both sides.  First they drive a simulated convoy through a dangerous part of Afghanistan.  Next they play the role of the insurgents and compete against their colleagues.  They can respond much more effectively when they see the situation through the eyes of the insurgents. 


We next went into a mock up of a village.  It was like a museum or a scansen. There were actors who played the roles of Afghan civilians and insurgents.  It was a very realistic. They even piped in the smells. I have never been to Afghanistan but I recognized some of them from walking around in Iraqi villages. The most obvious difference I notice was lack of live animals. They had stuffed chickens and goats, but in real life they are running around and getting in the way. I think that probably makes a difference if you are really walking the streets, especially if you are talking about trying to pay attention to subtle movements and sounds around you.

The goal of these simulations is to make sure Marines can encounter these sights and sounds before they see them in the real-life dangerous situations. They even have an RPG simulation, where the rocket passes over your head and slams into a wall. It scared the crap out of me, even though I know it was going to happen. The shock and the smell is something you cannot properly imagine no matter how many times someone tells you about it. Of course, I can only imagine what it is like when it is a real explosive that could hurt or kill you.

I got to do the simulation handling the 50 caliber machine gun on the gun turret. I have been under the gunner on many occasions but it was different seeing it from the top perspective.   Suffice to say that I would not have done a very good job in the real world. I couldn’t keep track of all the things happening around me and I was especially bad about having a 360 degree perspective.   Even in the safety of the simulation, I developed a kind of tunnel vision.   I was also very clumsy on the reloading.  I suppose with practice I would get better, but I don’t think I could ever develop the alacrity of the Marines I knew.

Posted on

Pacific Sunset

I watched the sun set in the Pacific.  It seems to drop so fast and be so close.  I almost thought I could hear it hiss as it hit the water.

Below is sunrise on Lake Michigan last September.  I suppose the latitude and the time of year make a difference.  There is a much longer twilight time farther north.

Posted on

Alex Update

Alex still has some headaches and body aches and it is hard for him to concentrate, but he seems to be doing okay.  I will drive up to Harrisonburg to see him later today and bring him home if he is still feeling bad.  This will create some troubles for his classes, since papers are due and exam time is here, but I think he has a valid excuse.   His attack made the Harrisonburg papers, although they didn’t mention him by name, so he has some credibility

There is an interest health care debate permutation, however.  Alex has only a few days left on our insurance, since he turned 22 last month and he gets a month of grace time.  We have signed him up for insurance, which will take effect on May 1.  So he will go into eight days of non-insurance.  Even when he gets the insurance, it has a high deductible, so we may end up paying a lot anyway.

The irony here is that if he had been in an accident, if someone had hit him with a car, he would probably had everything paid for by the insurance of the driver.  He would probably get an extra pay out for pain and suffering.  Or if the authorities had acted inappropriately he would have been in line for a huge compensation.   But since he was the victim of random but deliberate violence, he is just on his own.  Well, not on his own since we will take care of him, but you get the irony.

If I accidentally hit a pedestrian while riding my bike, and he sustained injuries similar to Alex’s, I would probably have to pay damages to include the actual medical costs, plus pain and suffering and probably punitive damages.   But if I successfully avoided the crash and the guy fell into the hands of a thug who beat him, he would get nothing.

We have created a system where an honest citizen must fear lawsuits even for things he doesn’t directly control and a legitimate victim of deliberate violence can expect nothing.   Violent perpetrators w/o significant assets can pretty much get away with anything from the civil point of view and even from the criminal one.   We are also more likely to take seriously a bent bumper on a car than a bump on somebody’s head. 

Posted on

Hate Crime

We got a call last night that Alex was in the hospital in Harrisonburg and would be soon having a CAT scan to see if he had any damage to his brain. He was transferred to UVA hospital in Charlottesville. We drove through the early morning darkness to get him. It is not good, but it looks like he will make a full & rapid recovery, fortunately, although he will have some scars and will be in pain for a while. We hope follow up exams find nothing new. The story that we learned between that call and now is troubling. I don’t know if I have all the details down right, but let me try.

Alex was attacked by six young men in what evidently was an act of random hateful violence. They hit him over the head by a beer bottle, so Alex doesn’t remember much about the attack.  What we learned came from witnesses, the police & the perpetrators themselves.    

Alex remembers someone running past him and then he was on the ground being kicked by six guys. What happened, according to witnesses, is that these guys  wanted to beat somebody up. Their first victim was the guy that ran past Alex, but as they chased him they decided Alex would do just as well.  So one of them hit Alex with a beer bottle from behind and the others joined in the beating. The original victim called the police, who were already in the area and quickly arrived; this and bystanders scared the perpetrators off before they did lasting damage.

The police told Alex that they caught the guys who did it and that they would probably be charged with felony assault. Alex and the running kid were not the only ones they attacked last night.  This was not a simple case of drunk and disorderly.  These guys were looking for someone to hurt. They didn’t know Alex; they didn’t try to rob him, ask him anything at all or even look him in the face before smashing him over the head and commencing the beating.  The motivation was simply atavistic hatred, based on nothing, nothing at all, maybe a lust to do violence.

How do you deal with someone who wants nothing from you except to do you harm? We look for motivations.  We might feel more at ease if they had tried to steal Alex’s wallet or if we could discover how he antagonized them in even a trivial way.  But there is no comfort there. 

Chrissy is staying with Alex in Harrisonburg tonight and maybe tomorrow to make sure he is okay.  Espen had been up there visiting one of his old HS friends who also attends school up there.  He didn’t know about Alex until we told him this morning. I drove back with Espen and we talked along the way.  It seems the block party got out of hand generally. People were throwing beer bottles.   

Espen and his friend headed toward his friend’s dorm room and Alex went toward his, which was only a short distance from where he was attacked. Unfortunately for Alex, his dorm was right in the middle of a place where lots of rowdy people were gathering and Alex had to walk through the crowds.  Fortunately, the police were there too and that is probably what ended up saving him from a more severe beating.

The cops interviewed Alex. They took pictures of his various injuries and examined his bloody clothes, but he couldn’t tell them much that was helpful, but there are lots of witnesses and the perpetrators are evidently talking. I am interested to see how this case plays out and I want to learn more.  I don’t know anything about the perpetrators and I will admit that I am more than a little angry at them for hurting my boy. But I think there also is a rational argument for making sure this does not get passed along. I don’t think the attackers are hardened criminals but the kind of hatred and violence that went into this attack is dangerous. It is not something we can ignore or forgive.  Letting the attackers too easily off the hook would do them no favors if the lesson they learn is that what they did is no big deal.  It is something we have to confront.