I grew up among veterans, from World War I to Vietnam.  My father and all of the fathers of my friends served in Vietnam.  All of them were normal guys who had gone and done their duty then returned to pick up their lives and drive on.  Some Vietnam veterans weren’t so lucky, and those who needed help or reported problems were out in the cold for way too long.

Thanks to Castle Argghhh!!!, I see that President Obama has proclaimed today to be Vietnam Veteran’s Day. 

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your service.  Please enjoy your day and remember that our country appreciates what you did for us all.

This memorial has the Three Soldiers staring off at The Wall

This is the only time I’ve seen this memorial without flowers to the nurses on it One of the nurses gazes over at the statue of the Three Soldiers, who she is watching over.

Today is National Medal of Honor Day.   Remember, ordinary men and women have it within them to be something extraordinary, even if only for one moment in their life.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life and above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Lt. Sisler was the platoon leader/adviser to a Special United States/Vietnam exploitation force. While on patrol deep within enemy dominated territory, 1st Lt. Sisler’s platoon was attacked from 3 sides by a company sized enemy force. 1st Lt. Sisler quickly rallied his men, deployed them to a better defensive position, called for air strikes, and moved among his men to encourage and direct their efforts. Learning that 2 men had been wounded and were unable to pull back to the perimeter, 1st Lt. Sisler charged from the position through intense enemy fire to assist them. He reached the men and began carrying 1 of them back to the perimeter, when he was taken under more intensive weapons fire by the enemy. Laying down his wounded comrade, he killed 3 onrushing enemy soldiers by firing his rifle and silenced the enemy machinegun with a grenade. As he returned the wounded man to the perimeter, the left flank of the position came under extremely heavy attack by the superior enemy force and several additional men of his platoon were quickly wounded. Realizing the need for instant action to prevent his position from being overrun, 1st Lt. Sisler picked up some grenades and charged single-handedly into the enemy onslaught, firing his weapon and throwing grenades. This singularly heroic action broke up the vicious assault and forced the enemy to begin withdrawing. Despite the continuing enemy fire, 1st Lt. Sisler was moving about the battlefield directing air strikes when he fell mortally wounded. His extraordinary leadership, infinite courage, and selfless concern for his men saved the lives of a number of his comrades. His actions reflect great credit upon himself and uphold the highest traditions of the military service.

 Note:  I used to teach at Sisler Hall at Fort Huachuca.  I first heard about 1LT Sisler by reading the memorial plaque there.

Popular Mechanics has a quick blurb on the facelift our fleet of B-52 bombers is getting so that they can be more effective weapons and stay in the air until 2040.  This includes improved radar and radios, better brakes, and an improved ordnance carrying capacity.

I have a lifelong affection for these big mothers.  I was born a few miles from Minot Air Force Base, and I can’t remember a time in my life I didn’t hear those things rumbling overhead.  Heck, the team at my first school (Grades 1 through 12 all under the same roof) was the “Bombers“, and there was a huge mural of a B-52 on the wall of the gym.  The terrain around the school must have reminded someone of somewhere overseas, because it was commonplace for a bomber to do a low-level practice run over the top of our playground.

A lot of my friends fathers either flew or maintained the bombers, and I knew something was up when all of the dads disappeared at odd intervals.  I remember one really bad Saturday sometime around 1980 when all the fathers ran out of their homes pulling on their uniforms and heading back to base as fast as they could.

So now we’re going to keep the B-52 in the air until I’m almost 70 years old, which would make the airframes almost 90 years old by the time they’re retired.  If they can make it that far, that’s got to be some kind of record.  It would be like the Navy still flying Curtiss biplanes to patrol the coastline, or the Army keeping Grant tanks in the active force.  Here’s hoping that these old, dependable aircraft continue to be an integral part of our air power for a long time.

H/T to Instapundit.

Over at This Ain’t Hell, John Lilyea discusses the not guilty verdict for a Marine Sergeant who was accused of hazing one of his troops by making him dig a fighting position after finding him asleep on guard duty.  The young Marine later killed himself, and other members of the unit are being investigated and prosecuted over accusations of hazing.  It doesn’t help that the guy was related to a Congresswoman who is apparently screaming from the rooftops over the verdict.

Lilyea makes a good point that making on-the-spot corrections is what NCO’s do.  Whether it’s a Petty Officer telling a seaman to re-mop and wax a floor in the barracks, a Tech Sergeant telling an airman to fix his uniform, a Staff Sergeant telling a private to tie down the antenna on his vehicle, or a Corporal telling a Lance Corporal to wake up when on guard duty, that’s the job.  NCO’s fix the small stuff so that officers can concentrate on getting their own jobs done.  Telling a private to get his entrenching tool out and dig a fighting position so that he won’t fall asleep on guard duty might sound extreme, but if it’s for a repeat offender, I don’t consider it outside the realm of reason.

I was a Sergeant in the Army, and I made corrections to my soldiers every day.  Sometimes I had to be creative to get through to them, but get through to them I did.

Case in point (Warning:  “No kidding, there I was” story dead ahead)

When I was a team leader, we got in a brand new Private First Class I’ll call PFC GildedTurd.  This guy was a recruiting poster in the flesh.  He was fit, he looked good, and he knew just the perfect way to salute and sound off to the officers.  He was intelligent, and could parrot chapter and verse from the study guides for Soldier of the Month boards.  The officers loved him because he made a great guy to put in front of a static display or Powerpoint presentation and give a briefing.

Problem was, he was a bag of shit.  Kind of rough way to describe a man, but that’s probably the best way I can do it. 

The man was a womanizer.  He’d been sent to us because he got transferred to Huachuca from Fort Campbell due to family considerations.  By family considerations, I mean he whined to his branch manager that he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant while he was a student at Huachuca, he wanted to marry said strumpet, and she didn’t want to leave Arizona for Kentucky.  Matrimony didn’t seem to slow him down, as I, being his team leader, got multiple calls from irate husbands and fathers about him.  On at least one occasion he was sent home from a high profile exercise because after being caught with a married woman and being told to have nothing to with her, he went back for more and got caught again.

His image as the perfectly dressed soldier interfered with our mission of keeping six tracks, six generators, two five ton trucks, and two HMMWV’s up and running in the motorpool.  He would show up in perfectly starched BDU’s and spit shined jungle boots (with green canvas sides, because, and I quote, that’s old school).  I would also show up to the motor pool with a pressed uniform and shined boots. Difference was, by the time the day was over, I’d look like I’d just stormed the beaches at Prudo Bay, and he’d still be as pressed and shiny as he was at first formation.  His track was always spotless, or at least the visible parts of it were, but it was also deadlined whenever someone else did the maintenance.  GildedTurd didn’t want to get dirty and mess up his uniform and boots.  As his leader, I learned to double-check his work whenever it was done in a dusty or oily environment.

He was also something of a malingerer.  You could always tell when he was due a PT test because he’d show up with some injury that would keep him from doing PT or taking a PT test just long enough for him to go on an assignment for a few weeks.  Thing was, you could tell he was in shape, because on the odd occasion where he couldn’t come up with an excuse to not take it, he scored pretty well on the test.  He wasn’t maxing it out by any means, but neither was he in danger of failing it.

He had a problem with punctuality and being in the proper uniform.  He’d show up late to PT wearing BDU’s, or not wearing the prescribed gloves, hat, and sweats during the winter.  His excuse seemed to be summed up with “I forgot” or “Only wusses wear that stuff”. 

Now, as leaders, the squad leader and I counseled him, worked with him, chewed his butt, and did whatever we could to help him improve.  We could tell that if he would just learn that looking the part was only part of the solution, he could be a good soldier.

But after taking another in a long line of butt chewings because GildedTurd showed up to PT late and in the wrong uniform, I had had it.  I wrote him up, and prescribed something that in retrospect was a pretty silly solution to an equally silly problem:

I told a grown man, who was actually a year older than I was, that he could not be trusted to dress himself in the morning.  I directed him to meet me at our office one hour prior to PT every morning for a week and to bring every uniform he owned in his duffel bag.  I made him lay out every stitch he had, and would then make sure he had the proper uniform available to him.  I directed him to take it into another room and dress, and inspected him before we went to the PT field together 20 minutes early for formation. 

By doing this I hoped to get through to him that I was willing to inconvenience myself and him in order to get him to be where he was supposed to be and in the proper uniform.

Was it silly?  Yep. 

Was it a pain in both our asses?  Yep 

Did it get him to PT in the proper uniform five days in a row, a feat that he had been unable to accomplish in the year he had been with us?  Yep. 

Did he ever show up to PT late or in the wrong uniform again?  Nope.

Did he complain to high heaven and everyone who would listen that I was a big meanie and I didn’t like him?  You betcha.  I got, and may lightning strike me if I exaggerate, telephone calls or in-person questioning from the Platoon Sergeant, Platoon Leader, First Sergeant, PFC GildedTurd’s wife, and the battalion chaplain.  I heard that he had threatened to call the Inspector General and his Congressman, but I never heard of anything official on it.

Did I get a quiet talking to by the First Sergeant to check to make sure I wasn’t taking the young man behind the barracks for an ass beating?  Yep

Did I have a not so quiet debate behind closed doors with the Platoon Sergeant over my authority as a leader to correct my soldier’s deficiencies?  Yep

Did I correct his behavior, even if it was only one aspect of it, without putting a black mark on his permanent record and making my leadership problem into my commander’s leadership problem?  Definitely

My point is this:  By the time a leader gets creative in trying to correct the behavior of a subordinate, it’s almost always after trying all of the normal, sane methods.  There is a fine line between correcting a problem soldier often enough in a way that gets through to them and abusing or hazing them.  Every NCO has to learn where that line is and respect it.  But using somewhat unorthodox, but still legal, methods to fix defective soldiers is better than referring them to the commander for official punishment.

Peter over at Bayou Renaissance Man links to a New York Times essay by a young woman who plans to break up with her boyfriend on the day that he deploys.  Now, she’s been totally honest with the young man in that she has no desire to be a long-distance girlfriend and be there for him when he gets back.  She seems to care about him, as evidenced by the nightmares she reports about his well-being while deployed.  And they seem to only have been dating for a few months, so it’s not like there is the obligation that a long relationship would give both of them.

But she is going to walk away from a man who loves her because she can’t handle the loneliness of having someone she loves far from home.  She’s honest enough to say that she doesn’t think she can deal with the worry and anxiety of him being in harms way for so long.

So for her honesty, both with herself and with the soldier, I give her a lot of credit.  A lot of young people will get caught up in the rush of deployment and try to make something that hasn’t fully mature permanent.  It’s a romantic fantasy of the dashing young soldier marrying his sweetheart just before shipping off to some godforsaken battlefield, and there is no more overused female stereotype as the virtuous wife and girlfriend who sits by the fire, bravely pining away for Johnny to come marching home.

So I think they’ll both be better off not being involved as he deploys.  She gets to clear her psyche so there won’t be any guilt if she finds that anxiety and those nightmares fading over the coming months. He gets the security of knowing that no-one is cheating on him while he’s away, and he comes home to a clean slate for his post-deployment reacclimatization. What man doesn’t want to come home to an empty apartment and a schedule totally free of romantic entanglements?

Who knows, maybe she’ll realize that she truly cares enough for him to try to keep their relationship working in some form while she’s away, or maybe she’ll discover some other toy to fascinate her for a while so that her self-doubt can work itself out.  Either way, she’ll be able to say that she was strong for herself rather than for someone else.  She’ll remember that this is the time when she was loyal to herself, instead of the man who loved her and would have gained strength from knowing that someone back home was there for him.  He can say that he knows that she was there only for the good times, not to be there as a friend, if not a lover.

So I wish them both luck.  I hope that in one way or another, she discovers she’s made the right decision.  I also hope that if she follows through with her plan to let him go, he finds something or someone else to give him a reason to look forward to going home.