I have to face facts. I’m not a young stud anymore.  I turn 40 next year, my oldest is starting his second semester of college, and I wake up every morning creeky and crabby.  My hair isn’t as thick and lustrous as it used to be, and there’s almost as gray in it as brown.

And to top it all off, my vision is going.  35 years of squinting at computer screens, reading in bad light, and sitting too close to the television have finally taken their toll.  I’ve had glasses of one form or another for years, but they were always necessary only when my eyes got tired.  Now, I think I need to wear them all the time. 

I’ve got my glasses out, and I’m seeing if the old prescription is good enough to not need to get a new pair.  I haven’t worn them in quite a while, so this is going to take some getting used to.

Watch this space to see how much of a poindexter I turn into now that I’m wearing glasses almost full time.

In memory of SGT David C. Dolby, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division,  May 14, 1946 to August 6, 2010.

The word hero gets used a lot in our culture nowadays, but it’s rare that a true hero is celebrated.  Only a very few heroes are awarded the Medal of Honor while still alive.  The actions that earn that highest award tend to be fatal.  David Dolby was one of those special men.

One such hero passed from our midst yesterday:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, when his platoon, while advancing tactically, suddenly came under intense fire from the enemy located on a ridge immediately to the front. Six members of the platoon were killed instantly and a number were wounded, including the platoon leader. Sgt. Dolby’s every move brought fire from the enemy. However, aware that the platoon leader was critically wounded, and that the platoon was in a precarious situation, Sgt. Dolby moved the wounded men to safety and deployed the remainder of the platoon to engage the enemy. Subsequently, his dying platoon leader ordered Sgt. Dolby to withdraw the forward elements to rejoin the platoon. Despite the continuing intense enemy fire and with utter disregard for his own safety, Sgt. Dolby positioned able-bodied men to cover the withdrawal of the forward elements, assisted the wounded to the new position, and he, alone, attacked enemy positions until his ammunition was expended. Replenishing his ammunition, he returned to the area of most intense action, single-handedly killed 3 enemy machine gunners and neutralized the enemy fire, thus enabling friendly elements on the flank to advance on the enemy redoubt. He defied the enemy fire to personally carry a seriously wounded soldier to safety where he could be treated and, returning to the forward area, he crawled through withering fire to within 50 meters of the enemy bunkers and threw smoke grenades to mark them for air strikes. Although repeatedly under fire at close range from enemy snipers and automatic weapons, Sgt. Dolby directed artillery fire on the enemy and succeeded in silencing several enemy weapons. He remained in his exposed location until his comrades had displaced to more secure positions. His actions of unsurpassed valor during 4 hours of intense combat were a source of inspiration to his entire company, contributed significantly to the success of the overall assault on the enemy position, and were directly responsible for saving the lives of a number of his fellow soldiers. Sgt. Dolby’s heroism was in the highest tradition of the U.S. Army.

 At the time of this action, Dolby was a Specialist 4.  He probably had no official leadership training, and it’s doubtful that he had anything other than rudimentary knowledge of how to call in artillery and air support.  It’s doubtful that he was even close to the top of the command chain in his platoon.  But none of that mattered when the world dropped out from under him and his comrades.  When his leadership was killed or wounded in the first moments of the battle, he stood up and took charge.  He placed himself in danger to take care of the wounded, coordinate the efforts of his platoon, and knock out enemy emplacements.   This 20 year old did more in that 4 hour stretch than most people will do in their entire lives, and our world is a better place because of his actions.

Sergeant Dolby, may the Lord keep and protect you. 

This isn’t for me.  I have quite enough books, magazines, and websites to read.

This is for Girlie Bear.  She’s about to turn 12, and I want to introduce her to science fiction.  Unfortunately, my introduction to science fiction at that age was geared extremely towards things that interested me as a boy, mostly written by Terry Brooks, Robert Heinlein, and J.R.R. Tolkien.  I honestly have no idea what a young girl wants to read in the SF realm.

So I need advice from any of you ladies that started reading science fiction at a young age.  What authors and books would you recommend for a young lady who likes to read, but hasn’t started reading science fiction yet?

My plan is to buy her a couple of books and just have them on her bookshelf ready for her to pick up when she wants to, so there won’t be any forced reading, book reports, or testing involved in this.  If she wants to pick it up, then I want to have something that she will enjoy and will make the world of SF reachable to her without it being something that will bore her.

So, what say you?

If you come to me to ask how I do something that I do routinely, I will show you the method I use to do it.  This isn’t the “right” way to do something. It’s the way that has worked best for me over the times I have done this particular task.

Please don’t insult me by saying such things as “That’s a kludge” or “That’s a stupid way to do it”.  Also, if I have showed you how I do something, I will point out traps that are easily fallen into, and will adise you away from them.   If, however, you then go on to do said task in a way that you think will work better, I will applaud you.  No-one says you have to follow my suggestions like a robot.

If, however, you should purposefully jump into those traps I told you about, or discount my advice and get stuck in a large set of problems caused by your choice of methods, please don’t expect me to play the part of Mr. NiceGuy while I work to extract you and our servers out of the quagmire you have thrown them into.

Like a lot of children of baby boomers, I grew up listening to the music of the 1960’s.  My mother was an unrepentent hippie, so I heard a lot of Hendrix, Moody Blues, Jefferson Airplane, and of course, The Beatles.

She had every scrap of vinyl the Fab Four ever released, both in LP and 45.  She kept them in a special box, in a special corner of her closet.  Once or twice a year, she’d sit down with a stiff drink or something a little more herbal, take the records out, look at them, and play them one by one. 

When I was five or six, just prior to the beginning of school, I decided I wanted to figure out what the big deal with all of these records was.  I somehow got into her closet and dragged the box out to the porch.  I took each of the albums and 45’s out and looked at the jacket art.  Most were interesting, although I remember thinking that the white one was pretty boring looking.  I wanted to see if there was anything else interesting inside the album covers, so I took each of the records out and set them on their respective covers.  And I sat there and looked at the liner art for a long time.  I couldn’t read, but I recognized some of the words, and looked over all of the lyrics and liner notes.

Did I mention that this was in the summer just before school started, during a hot, sunny, North Dakota afternoon?  And I had those vinyl records out for a long, long time in direct sunlight.  At the time, I thought it was really cool how the vinyl changed shape over time.

My mother came out of the house looking for me, and found me with her prized possession slowly warping its way to oblivion.  It is a testament to her self control at the time that I was not beaten to death right there on the spot.  I did, however, receive the worst spanking I ever had, and was sent to my room for the rest of the day while she tried to salvage her collection and have a good cry.

I did a lot of really bad things as a kid and teenager, but nothing seemed to upset her as bad as the day when, in the innocence of a child, I destroyed her Beatles records.

In tribute to my love of the Beatles, and my grown-up understanding of why she was so upset, I submit this, courtesy of GraphJam:

Lo and behold, I finished a book.  For me, that’s an accomplishment.  When I can only get about 20 minutes a day to read, finishing anything lengthier than the back of a cereal box is memorable.

Last night, I finished Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey.  Plot synopsis without too many spoilers:  Man returns to this world after spending 11 years in Hell without dieing.  He’s back to kick ass and chew gum, and he’s fresh out of gum.  He bumps up against unholy ethereal creations, Homeland Security, and life in Los Angeles.

It’s a gritty and fun page turner.  The main character is the ultimate anti-hero.  That is to say, he’s a mean SOB who’s mean for a reason. 

If you’re devoutly Christian, be warned that this book pokes all kinds of holes in and fun at Christian dogma about God, Lucifer, angels, and the residents of Hell. 

I’d suggest this as a good weekend read.  Since it’s the first of a series, I’ll be getting the rest of it as time goes by. 

Today I’m starting a series of posts that detail some of the things I learned during my years in the Army.  I’ll try to not turn these into a bunch of “no shit, there I was, up to my ankles in mud, blood, and beer” posts, but some of these things have been rattling around in my mind for a while, and it’s time to let them out into the wild.  I’ll rely on you guys to keep me honest and not let me turn this into a series of war stories.

First, a couple of disclaimers:

First of all, a lot of the things I talk about in this piece are taken from other sources. Either it comes from people with whom I’ve served, whose work I’ve read, or who’ve I’ve heard speak on television or at lectures.  Where possible, I’ve attributed my quotes or phrasing to the source.  If I’ve missed something, please bear with me, I’m only human.

Second, I’m not Sergeant Rock or Audie Murphy.  I did some really fun and cool things when I was in the military, but I was never a Ranger, Special Forces, or even Airborne or Air Assault.  I had the privilege of working with and for some excellent leaders who came from backgrounds in these specialties, and their influence is found thoughout this piece.  Also, I didn’t attain high rank within the military.  I served as a Sergeant (E-5) for the last 6 years of my 9 years on active duty.  Sergeant was the rank I wanted when I was a private, and that’s where I got to and stayed.  I don’t have some hokey reason like “I wanted to stay in touch with my people” or some such garbage for not doing those things necessary for promotion.  To be honest, I was having too much fun being a buck sergeant to want to be promoted.  I did try for OCS once, and when I left the Army, I was promotable to Staff Sergeant, but I took the tests for OCS to satisfy someone else’s ambition, and I went to the promotion board so that my supervisor wouldn’t get in trouble.

Last, I don’t want to drop names, but I feel that some people need to be singled out by name.  The people who influenced me are still a part of my life, even though I haven’t seen most of them in years, and they deserve my thanks and recognition.  Drill Sergeants  Decker, Hill, Busby, and Dunlap, who taught me that convincing your subordinates that you’re a little crazy is an effective motivational tool.  SFC Gardipee showed me that ability is what makes you a leader, not gender.  Command Sergeant Major Byron taught me that it’s more important to accept a bad order with dignity than it is to let the bastards know they’re getting you down.  Captain Degnan taught me that a good leader cares more for his troops than he does for himself.  Captain Fasone taught me that you should never be 100% satisfied, and you don’t have to be a nice guy or be liked to get results.  Captain Randy Jones showed me that it’s OK to be liked as long as you are respected.  Lieutenant Harold Brown taught me that teaching is a two way street, and noone goes home if we all don’t go home.  There were others of course, and I will bring them up as we wend our way through my ramblings.

As for those who I never knew, but who influenced me, they did it mostly through the books I read.  I’ve been reading military nonfiction, fiction, and science-fiction for most of my life, and it’s had a pretty profound influence on what I’ve become as an adult. 

First to come to mind is David Hackworth.  Colonel Hackworth entered the Army as a private, was battlefield commissioned in Korea, and served several tours in Vietnam.  I read his autobiography “About Face” when I was a 19 year old private, and I’ve re-read it about once a year ever since.  I regularly read his newspaper and magazine articles, and have read all of his books at least twice.  If only half of what he wrote about himself and his life is true, he’s still as hard as chicken lips.  One of my regrets in life was not to have met Mr. Hackworth before he died to thank him for his service and message.  I’m 39 years old, and I still want to grow up to be David Hackworth.

Next is Anton Myrer.  Mr. Myrer wrote an excellent novel titled “Once an Eagle”.  It’s the story of a man who joins the Army just in time for the Mexican expedition, serves in France in WWI, leads a division in WWII, and finally ends his story as an observer in Vietnam in the early 1960’s.  He’s the archetypical good soldier and leader.  Juxtaposed to him is the careerist officer that works his butt off to get promoted at the expense of his subordinates and peers.  Excellent reading for anyone who wants to be a leader.  As a matter of fact, I’ve never met a good officer or NCO who hadn’t read this one at least twice.

Next comes Robert Heinlein.  OK, most of his work is escapist, right-wing pulp.  But “Starship Troopers”, while pretty naïve about military life, is an excellent read, and some of its message means a lot to me.  I especially like the theme of “If you haven’t proven that you are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of society, you don’t get to have a position of authority in society.”  More politicians should have to pass a quiz on this one.

Also, please forgive me for rambling.  Old age tends to do that to me.  Don’t think 39 is old?  Ask any 18 year old private what he thinks of a 39 year old veteran, and one word will come out:  old.

My buddy and I got up at Oh-God-It’s-Early this morning and headed off to the wilds of North Ohio.  After keeping his VW just barely on the ground on the way up, we got to Camp Perry.  This small Army post has a retail store for the ODCMP.  Additionally, it is hosting the annual National Shooting Matches.

Buddy went to buy himself an M1 Garand, and I was along for the ride.  We spent quite a bit of time looking at all of the Garands, and eventually he picked out a very nice Field Grade Garand with mostly WWII parts.  Not being there to buy a gun, I had to show a lot of restraint to not buy anything more than a tee shirt.  I already have a Garand, and I just bought a metric buttload of rounds for it.  That’s not to say I wasn’t tempted.  There were quite a few beautiful shooty things to be had:

The CMP appears to be running low on M1 Carbines, but had a LOT of Garands.  There were also a few stripped heavy barrel 1903A3 actions, but no complete 1903 rifles.

One Garand in particular grabbed my eye.  It was a 1950’s vintage manufacture, probably with the original barrel.  There was almost no muzzle erosion, the bluing was about 90%, and the only defect that I could see was that the wood in the stock didn’t match the hand guard.  It was a Service Grade, which ran $600.  I looked it over with Buddy, looked it over myself, carried it around for a while, looked at it again, then took a deep breath, wiped away a tear, and put it back on the rack. Just didn’t have it in the budget, and asking Irish Woman to live on ramen noodles and generic hot dogs for a couple of months so we could afford it was not a good idea.

One thing occurred to me while we were looking around:  Gun people are some of the nicest people around.  As you can see, there were quite a few people in the store looking at guns.  Some were newbies like us, but a lot were old hands who were looking for a diamond in the rough.  When they noticed that we were seriously looking, several older shooters took us under their wings and explained how to grade these rifles, how gauging the muzzle and the chamber works, and how to tell when the receiver, muzzle, trigger, stock, and all of the other parts were manufactured and by whom.  Tell me you’d find that at most other activities where the old hands are competing with the newbies to buy quality merchandise.

After we left the store, we wandered down to the area where the matches were being held.  Today several shooting clinics were occurring.  One in particular caught my eye.  The Marine Marksmanship Team was teaching long range shooting to high school students:

Those targets in the background are 600 yards away.  The AR-15’s the students were shooting are usually only shot at point targets out to between 300 and 400 yards.  These kids were hitting the targets.  Pretty impressive.

By the way, knowing what good shots most of the Marines I know are, just how godawful good with a shooting iron do you have to be to qualify for the Marine Marksmanship Team?

Overall, this was a wonderful day.  I definitely need to work to improve my long-distance shooting and get into a club.  I want to shoot at Camp Perry one of these years.

We packed up ourselves and the new purchase, and made a low-level flight down I-75 and I-71 back to Louisville.  I have had a very long, very good day.  Hopefully more days like this are in my future.

Customers at a BP filling station in New York were showered with fire retardant chemicals after a small explosion.

“It was crazy! It first poured out like it was water, and then turned into a huge white cloud,” said Henry Pacheco, 29, a moving company worker who had just bought a lottery ticket at the station.

You know, I’m just paranoid enough that my first thought would have been chemical weapon, not fire extinguisher.  Bravo to the men and women who helped each other out until emergency workers could get to them.