One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog and remain consistent with regular postings was to detail events that are going on in my life at the time. Another reason was to document past events before they slipped from my memory. This entry applies to the latter reason.
January 2000 David came to work for me as a plant mechanic. He is an active soldier in the Texas National Guard Reserve. As such, he would need to be off one weekend a month for training and his commitment to the United States Army, in addition to the required two weeks leave in the summer for his Annual Training which was typically at Fort Hood Texas. I agreed to support him in anyway that I could.
In the spring of 2003 David asked me if I was interested in participating in a program called ESGR (the Army has initials for everything!) which stood for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. First I said sure... what is it? He told me what would happen and I jumped on the opportunity and signed up right away and was really looking forward to it.
A few weeks later I arrive at Meacham Field in north Ft Worth and met 15 other folks. It is a hot and humid morning. The sky is over cast with low clouds with a strong, gusting south wind. We walk out to 2 waiting Blackhawk helicopters. They were very massive and ominous looking. We are given a list of instructions as to what to expect from the flight. The doors will be left open and we all have a seat with a lap belt with a connecting shoulder harness. We are all issued barf bags & ear plugs as we are told it will be loud, very loud with the propeller and the engine. The flight will be a low altitude flight due to the low clouds and we will not be able to talk due to the noise. In a little bit we are airborne and I am very excited as this is my first helicopter ride. The pilot tells us it will be a 45 minute flight. Soon we are airborne and headed south. Due to the gusty south wind, the tail rotor is constantly correcting the helicopter keeping it straight into the wind. It is almost like a constant fish-tailing action. All goes well for about 35 minutes. At that time I start getting a little bit nauseated due to the constant motion of the helicopter. I am glad we are only ten minutes away. I look at my watch again in five minutes and am looking forward to being on the ground soon. Another ten minutes goes by and I am getting a little more motion sick by the minute. We have now been airborne for 50 minutes and finally the soldier at the gunner position looks back at us and holds his hand up with his fingers spread apart. I take this to mean we are five minutes away. We land in a field and I am really glad to be there!
We are greeted by a few Humvees that will take us around to the various areas. Our first stop is at the tank range. This is where David works. We watch for a bit and have the opportunity to ask questions and see the tanks up close. We then climb up several flights of stairs on an observation tower which gives us a quite a view of the range where we are. We talk to a few soldiers and as it turns out, I am visiting with a young soldier from Muenster which is only about twenty five miles from where I live. After a while we go back down as we watch the tanks fire. The percussion of the blast is almost indescribable. After it fires, about a second and a half later I can see the ordinance hit a target. The power of these things are unfreaking-believable!
After a bit we are about to leave this tank range and I ask if it would be possible to visit with David. They ask me several questions about him and then say, if it is possible to find him and get him away from his duties, it would happen.
We get back in the Humvees, and drive around to the other side of the facility. Here is where we have lunch. We are all issued with an MRE (Meals Ready to Eat, remember my earlier comment about the Army and the thing with the initials). We recieve instructions on how to make a hot meal with nothing but the dry plastic pack of food and just a few ounces of water. I know the soldiers have to hate these things, but on that day I thought it was really pretty good.
After lunch, we have the opportunity to look at the 'Bradley'. The Bradley I believe was named after General Omar Bradley of World War II fame. It like wise is a powerful piece of equipment, but in no way can be compared to a tank. It has a cannon and machine guns and carries troops in the back. After we have time to crawl around the Bradley, front and back, visit with the soldiers there and ask questions, I look up and David is there. We visit for a few minutes and he has to get back and they are ready to get us back to the helicopters for the trip home.
After we board the helicopter and get strapped in (before the engine and rotor crank up) the pilot asks us if anyone is prone to air-sickness. Since I generally am not, I keep the little episode of this morning to myself. With no one else 'fessing up, he says good. "I would like for you to sit back and relax and observe the power and manuverabilty of the famed Blackhawk helicopter".
Both helicopters fire up at the same time and we are off the ground and headed away from the ground at a pretty high rate of ascent at about a 45 degree angle from the ground. He flies just about the tree tops, dipping and rolling from side to side, making hard turns both directions again at a high rate of speed. We fly around the entire fort area (which is massive) and head straight for a huge hill (since there are no mountains in this part of the state I don't think it qualifies as a mountain, but never the less a very, very big hill). What appears to be at the very last second he pulls the helicopter up into a straight up ascent, like a rocket. We are really moving now. We go up, up, up. We clear the top of the hill and keep going up. After a short bit the ascent starts to flatten out a little bit as we start the trip back to Ft Worth, but we are still going up! When we finally reach the altitude for the flight back, I estimate we are over 10,000 ft or more. It has been a hot muggy day, but at this altitude the temperature now is considerably cooler. It feels good. The sky has cleared except for just a few clouds. The flight home is fast and uneventful. About 15 minutes before we land I develope a tremendous headache. I am guessing it is due to the altitude as again the doors are left open and there is no oxygen for us. When we land my head is about to burst. I take 4 ibuprofen and hope they work quickly. I drive for about 45 minutes with no relief. Finally I stop at a truck stop about 45 minutes from home and take a cat nap. After about a 15 minute stop, my headache is beginning to subside and I head on home.
All in all it was a great day in spite of the negatives of the day and I was glad I had the opportunity to do this and I am gratefull to David for being nominated. Additionally, I am proud of David as well as all our soldiers, regardless if they are active or reserve and for the sacrifice they make. As it turns out, a year or so later David is called up to active duty. He leaves us for a 6 month up-training in Texas and Georgia. Then he leaves the following January. He asks me to attend the commissioning program to deploy hundreds and hundreds of Guard Reserve soldiers. This takes place in Waco, Texas New Years Day. Now this is about a 5 1/2 hour round trip, but I am glad to be there to support David and his family. I meet up with his wife and daughter. After the ceremony, I head out as I know they need some time together before he leaves in a day or so. Additionally, David spends the next year in Iraq then safely gets back home. He takes off a month and a half then comes back to work. A year and 3 months later, the same routine. He spends the next year again in Iraq. He is proud of the work he gets done there. They rebuild schools, buildings, roads, water wells and other infrastucture of the country. The locals are glad to have them there and hate to see them leave. I am glad David is back safe once again. After being back for a couple of weeks I ask him if he is through or will he be making another tour? He said, given the opportunity, he will go in a heart beat. He knows there is still work to be done. He is apologetic for leaving me short handed twice and with another possibility, but I won't hear of it. I am glad to support him and do what I can as a friend and an employer.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Blackberry pickin'
It is Sunday afternoon and the grass is mowed, the trimming and edging is done and it is a warm but a very pretty 94 degree day and just could not sit inside and watch tv. So we get on the 4 wheeler and ride through the back pasture to check on the progress of the wild blackberry bushes growing along the fence row. They are coming along nicely and some are just begging to be picked. So we do. I eat about ten percent of what is picked. This kind of reminds me of my trip to Ireland a couple of years ago. The blackberry bushes grow wild along most of the back roads. We took many opportunities that week to stop the waste of over ripened blackberries. However I do not remember the bushes being so thorny. I have scratched up arms and legs and several thorns stuck in my hands and fingers but it is worth it. They are so very sweet and good. I may get a belly ache a little later, but again I think it was worth it. It is a shame that I cannot eat fruit cobbler anymore, because there would not be a blackberry safe on the whole place. As we head back to the house from the back pasture, the cows are waiting to be fed. It is still too early, but I guess their watches are running fast
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Road trip to Houston
We spent the day at home on Sunday, and left about 3:30 pm. We drove through a terrible rain storm south of Madisonville and it finally slowed down south of Huntsville. We found a hotel room about 20 minutes from NASA. Our goal is to be there when the doors open at 10:00 am as we have a big day planned. Jacob is watching Jeopardy as I blog. I don’t know a lot of things but one thing I do know is he will not be up watching tv until 1:00 am, but since it is near midnight, it is time to hit the sack
Monday. We both slept pretty well. I got up early and went out for breakfast. I got back and got Jacob up for breakfast. Then we were off to the Johnson Space Center. We get there about 20 minutes before the doors open but by the time we get our tickets bought the place is open. We spent most of the day here, doing just about everything there is to do and see. It was not only fun and interesting, but was also educational. After that we go to the San Jacinto Monument. It was not crowded at all. We finished up there pretty quick and headed over to the Battle Ship Texas. Likewise this was very informative. I did not remember this ship being this old. It was built and commissioned in 1913 so it was over 30 years old when she was de-commissioned. It was the fist battleship to have an airplane take off from in 1919. We had a lot of fun and took lots of silly pictures. We leave about 5:15 pm and headed to downtown to the Houston Aquarium. It was a pretty nice place. The thing that I least expected was the tigers they had there. Now who thinks about have some white tigers at an aquarium? But it was fun and interesting. We had supper there and headed out looking for some gas and a motel. We found both. I expected gas to be at least a little cheaper than what it was considering all the refineries. I found out today that the refineries in Houston refine 25% of all the gas refined in the United States.
This morning I got up first had a cup of coffee and some breakfast. I got Jacob up later and read a little while he ate. We left for the Holocaust Museum in downtown. It was quite a bit smaller than the museum in Washington, but it was a very good museum. When we got in, we were greeted by this old gal (about 4 foot nothing) that could barely get around and her English was not very good either. We visited about the content of the museum and as we were about to start the tour, she promptly told us that she was a survivor of the Holocaust. Now I am feeling bad that I have been wondering why this old gal is not at home, doing what old ladies like her should be doing. But that was precisely what she should have been doing. I was very impressed and gave her a little hug. There was a lot more audio-video information here than the Washington museum which more than made up for the smaller sized facility. Again, I am astounded to the hatred and suffering that is represented by this whole event, as well as how charismatic Hitler had to have been to swing Germany around from post World War I to the state it was n in such a few short years. He had such a power, I wonder how he would have succeeded in the world today or even twenty five years later than when he rose to power. I would like to think that the world would be less tolerant of a tyrant like him now, but who knows. Anyway, after we left the museum we headed to Ellington Field where I had reserved a helicopter ride over Johnson Space Center, and the area we were in the day before. I really like helicopter rides and now Jacob does too. Our pilot was a very interesting guy. He had served in the Special Forces and told us of an experience or two while he was on a real ‘Halo’ mission. We got to see several Apache war ships as we took off, and as we were walking to the helicopter we were within a few hundred feet of four A-10 Warthogs (tank killers). They are both very awesome and powerful pieces of equipment. The flight was short, only about 16 minutes and I am not sure it was worth the cost for the flight, but I am sure it was worth the experience to Jacob. We also bought a video of our flight that was made as we were flying our route with a camera mounted outside the helicopter. Our pilot says he flies for the Houston police department doing air chases. I asked him how often that happens and he replies “everyday there is a nut doing something”. We hang around the air field for a little while and watch a fighter jet take off, then the A-10 planes leave. As the last A-10 leaves, we can see there are some folks standing outside the hanger and office area waving to the last plant (we figure it is family of the pilot due to the ages and the number of people) and as he is airborne and is up in the air a little he does a wing tip roll back and forth as he is waving goodbye to them. We leave, grab some lunch and head to San Antonio for the 225 mile trip. When we arrive at 5:20 pm it is too late to tour the Alamo, so we do the Tower of Americas, walk around down town and the river walk area. Then after it gets dark we go up the tower again to see how it looks with the city all lit up. It was fun, but now we are both tired. Our goal was to be in bed before 11:30 and we make it at 11:20.
Wednesday morning we get up and have breakfast then check out of the hotel and head down town to the Alamo. We are there for a little while then we head out to Gruene to raft the Guadalupe River. We select the three and a half hour trip and head out up stream. The water was pretty cool, especially at first. The river was running pretty good. I took the camera with us but thankfully I had it in a zip lock baggie. I never had the opportunity to take any pictures and I was thoroughly drenched on more than once. Jacob almost finds himself out of the raft and in the river over one set of rapids. It was a lot of fun. Instead of the three and a half hours as we expected we were through in an hour and 15 minutes. So we head home and we are ready to get there. We make good time on the trip back and we are both glad to be home, although we did have a great time together.
Monday. We both slept pretty well. I got up early and went out for breakfast. I got back and got Jacob up for breakfast. Then we were off to the Johnson Space Center. We get there about 20 minutes before the doors open but by the time we get our tickets bought the place is open. We spent most of the day here, doing just about everything there is to do and see. It was not only fun and interesting, but was also educational. After that we go to the San Jacinto Monument. It was not crowded at all. We finished up there pretty quick and headed over to the Battle Ship Texas. Likewise this was very informative. I did not remember this ship being this old. It was built and commissioned in 1913 so it was over 30 years old when she was de-commissioned. It was the fist battleship to have an airplane take off from in 1919. We had a lot of fun and took lots of silly pictures. We leave about 5:15 pm and headed to downtown to the Houston Aquarium. It was a pretty nice place. The thing that I least expected was the tigers they had there. Now who thinks about have some white tigers at an aquarium? But it was fun and interesting. We had supper there and headed out looking for some gas and a motel. We found both. I expected gas to be at least a little cheaper than what it was considering all the refineries. I found out today that the refineries in Houston refine 25% of all the gas refined in the United States.
This morning I got up first had a cup of coffee and some breakfast. I got Jacob up later and read a little while he ate. We left for the Holocaust Museum in downtown. It was quite a bit smaller than the museum in Washington, but it was a very good museum. When we got in, we were greeted by this old gal (about 4 foot nothing) that could barely get around and her English was not very good either. We visited about the content of the museum and as we were about to start the tour, she promptly told us that she was a survivor of the Holocaust. Now I am feeling bad that I have been wondering why this old gal is not at home, doing what old ladies like her should be doing. But that was precisely what she should have been doing. I was very impressed and gave her a little hug. There was a lot more audio-video information here than the Washington museum which more than made up for the smaller sized facility. Again, I am astounded to the hatred and suffering that is represented by this whole event, as well as how charismatic Hitler had to have been to swing Germany around from post World War I to the state it was n in such a few short years. He had such a power, I wonder how he would have succeeded in the world today or even twenty five years later than when he rose to power. I would like to think that the world would be less tolerant of a tyrant like him now, but who knows. Anyway, after we left the museum we headed to Ellington Field where I had reserved a helicopter ride over Johnson Space Center, and the area we were in the day before. I really like helicopter rides and now Jacob does too. Our pilot was a very interesting guy. He had served in the Special Forces and told us of an experience or two while he was on a real ‘Halo’ mission. We got to see several Apache war ships as we took off, and as we were walking to the helicopter we were within a few hundred feet of four A-10 Warthogs (tank killers). They are both very awesome and powerful pieces of equipment. The flight was short, only about 16 minutes and I am not sure it was worth the cost for the flight, but I am sure it was worth the experience to Jacob. We also bought a video of our flight that was made as we were flying our route with a camera mounted outside the helicopter. Our pilot says he flies for the Houston police department doing air chases. I asked him how often that happens and he replies “everyday there is a nut doing something”. We hang around the air field for a little while and watch a fighter jet take off, then the A-10 planes leave. As the last A-10 leaves, we can see there are some folks standing outside the hanger and office area waving to the last plant (we figure it is family of the pilot due to the ages and the number of people) and as he is airborne and is up in the air a little he does a wing tip roll back and forth as he is waving goodbye to them. We leave, grab some lunch and head to San Antonio for the 225 mile trip. When we arrive at 5:20 pm it is too late to tour the Alamo, so we do the Tower of Americas, walk around down town and the river walk area. Then after it gets dark we go up the tower again to see how it looks with the city all lit up. It was fun, but now we are both tired. Our goal was to be in bed before 11:30 and we make it at 11:20.
Wednesday morning we get up and have breakfast then check out of the hotel and head down town to the Alamo. We are there for a little while then we head out to Gruene to raft the Guadalupe River. We select the three and a half hour trip and head out up stream. The water was pretty cool, especially at first. The river was running pretty good. I took the camera with us but thankfully I had it in a zip lock baggie. I never had the opportunity to take any pictures and I was thoroughly drenched on more than once. Jacob almost finds himself out of the raft and in the river over one set of rapids. It was a lot of fun. Instead of the three and a half hours as we expected we were through in an hour and 15 minutes. So we head home and we are ready to get there. We make good time on the trip back and we are both glad to be home, although we did have a great time together.
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