Kindergarden

I signed myself and my dog up for puppy kindergarden at Petsmart. Our first day went really good. The other dogs in the class were big breeds too, so I didn't have to worry about Sully injurying anyone elses dog. However, I did have to worry about him injuring someones child. One couple brought their toddler.

I dont know exactly how old he was, but he was just learning to walk and didn't pay any attention to what mom and dad said to him. My dog still greets people by planting both paws in their chest, so I had to keep a really short leash on him. The puppy that the family brought had no immunizations. They had picked him up from the pound a few days prior, so who knows what he might have been exposed to. Nobody could let their dogs off their leashes for fear they would injure the baby walking around, or contract some kind of disease. At one point the trainer must have said something to the family about not bringing the baby with them. They got all offended and made a scene about how they want to talk to a manager. The manager told them the same thing. After they left we had a great time.

Seriously. Who does that? The kid was the smallest one in the room! Morons. And then when someone told them, "hey dude, maybe letting a 20 pound baby loose with a half-dozen 30 pound hyper-active clumsy puppies is not the greatest idea you ever had", they act like they are being picked on.

Otherwise that class was great. Sully really likes the trainer and does whatever she says. It makes him look like a prodigy and makes me feel like an idiot because he hardly ever does what I say the first time I say it. But whatever. We went over all the not's first. Teaching not to bite, bark, jump on people, eat things they aren't supposed to, and crap in the house. Then we started the sit and "watch me". I never heard that one before but it's kinda cool. It's just to get and keep your dogs attention. It seems like it's too easy but it really isn't.

If anyone has or is getting a dog I really recommend the course, especially if you have a big dog. It costs about 100 bucks for 1 hour long sessions over 8 weeks. If your are not satisfied with the results, or think your dog needs to go through it again, you can take it again for free.

I know some of you are thinking, why spend a hundred bucks on something you can do at home for free? The biggest reason was that I am so busy that dog training is sporatic. Another reason is that every day Sully gains about a pound and we have no idea if he is ever going to stop growing. We want to get him in hand as soon as possible, and that includes not turning into a moron every time he see's another dog or person he doesn't know. Going to the class gave him the oppurtunity to get familiar with other dogs and people, and to be obedient even with distractions. So it's still a good deal.

Here he is now at 4.5 months and 45 pounds. Growing so fast!

Daddy's Home!!

I'M BACK! And I love America. It's the best. I haven't sat down to write a blog because I've been to busy having fun, and I forgot all about it. Valli is at a lathe class so instead of pinning I'll write a blog about being home.

I got back to Ft Campbell around 8pm on the 23rd of December. Happy Birthday Joseph Smith, Lindsay Firth, and a bunch of other people not listed att. After 4 hours of time-wasting bullcrap I got to go home. The Army sucks. Literally, who on Earth wants to listen to the crappy band, sing the crappy Army Song, and be speached at about 'How great it is to have us back, now don't kill yourself or get sent to jail the first night back' for four hours, after sitting in airplane and airfields for 30 hours while our families are waiting in bleachers. Army: you suck for that. Suck. Anyway, after that mess I had seven days of repatriation/paperwork/dont-kill-anyone-including-yourself-beat-your-wife-drink-and-drive-drink-and-anything speaches.

I told you I was busy having fun. Now that that worthless crapfest is over with I have finally started my vacation. I have 30 days of Army-free bliss to spend doing all the things I've been waiting for. It's been awesome. Valli posted the bike pictures already- which is uber-cool, but not the best thing. The BEST thing is being with Valli, and includes a billion smaller reasons rolled up together.

Other best things about being home are:

Peace and Quiet. I could go on and on about the one. But I'll just say that Afghanistan was a very noisy place.

The House. Valli has done so much work on the house that I hardly recognise it. The bathroom is awesome and the eternal hot water is awesome and the new kitchen counters and cabinets and no more crappy carpet and crappy panelling is awesome too.

The huge truck Valli bought.

Christmas Holidays and rad gifts like friggin-awesome fuzzy slippers, REI gift certificates, and a monster gas grill. Also, Jenny- your gift is almost done, I swear I'll have it sent by February. And Ed, sorry man, not this year either.

Cooking my beautiful cow. He is so delicious.

Not working. There are no words.

Not being in Afghanistan. Way too many words.

The. Bike. Is. AWESOME!!! In case you also want one now, it's a Yamaha RoadStar Warrior 1700, and it has a ton of power! Who knew? Apparently not the insurance company because the premiums are so cheap! About a quarter of what they were for the last one. It is so sexy and loud and fast and shiny and cold to ride on in January but I DON'T CARE! I just bundle up and suffer because it so much fun!

The list has to end somewhere and I guess this will work, but I could go on and on. Being home is wonderful, and Valli and I are doing great, and if I haven't got around to calling you yet you are not alone because I've hardly called anyone. But I love you guys and hope you are having at least as good a time as I am, if not better.

Why I Can't Get Promoted

Some of you who have experience with the military might wonder: Why hasn't Dave been promoted in nearly three years? I myself wonder that all the time. In this post I am going to try and answer that question.

To get promoted in the Army you need four things: time in grade, points, a peer recommendation and a visit to the promotion board.

Way back in the day- when I got back from Iraq- I was too lazy to do anything about it. I didn't have the time in grade, and I didn't feel like gaining points through gay Army correspondence courses when I had a new wife, new house and various other distractions.

A year down the road- Now I have the time in grade, and I've stocked up a bit on points by now. Now I have no time. My boss (the one who is supposed to recommend me) is gone for months doing some kind of Army training and I am left in charge to keep the Aid Station functioning and get us all packed up and ready to go to Afghanistan. We worked long days and weekend during this time. I sure as heck wasn't studying for any boards, and I can't recommend myself. So- no dice there.

Then we get to Afghanistan and I move to the Medevac. Now I have lots of time to study and scrape up the few remaining points I need to make that cutoff. So I told my new boss I was ready to go to the promotion board. I had all my points, awards, comendations, letters from previous supervisors- everything all ready to go. And he said he won't send me to a board until I have finished my progression as a flight medic. And that is understandable. He wants to know that I can do the job I have now, not the one I was doing for the last three years. Fine. Another month or two won't hurt.

After seven months of delays, broken aircraft, trainers going on leave and getting send to other bases, crappy weather, and an overwhelming number of medevac missions I was finally progressed and signed off as a flight ready crew member. I went to my boss again to send me to the promotion board. He said not yet. I needed some more experience flying missions and getting familiar with working with a crew, managing mass casualty scenes, and working on the patients. Okay- whatever. He wants me to have more mission experience. Cool.

Two months later: I don't know anyone who has been the rank of Specialist as long as I have unless they have been busted or can't pass a physical fitness test. People who have been in the Army less then two years now outrank me. It's getting a little insane. Every week I hounded my boss asking him to either recommend me for a board, or give me a written counseling statement explaining why he wouldn't, and what I still needed to do or be before he would. Finally he did. He said he would send me to the board. I would go in November and I have tons of time to prepare.

Two weeks later, or about a two weeks ago: I pissed off my platoon leader. I bit the hand that feeds. I had just finished a really crappy mission where lots of things went wrong. My platoon leader was chastising me for something that I had no control over while I was trying to restock my aircraft in the dark for the next mission. And instead of saying- Yes Sir, it's my fault. Everything is my fault and you are right. I said something like- I'm doing the best I can and you don't know what you're talking about.

A couple days later my boss told me I wouldn't be going to the board. The PL had shot down his recommendation because I have zero military bearing and respect for my leadership. Which isn't completly true. I have a little military bearing, and no respect for hypersensitive crybaby officers or condescending pigheaded jerks. It's been my biggest problem since joining the Army. And that incident confirmed it. So being hardworking, dependable, highly skilled and knowlegable, experienced and exibiting many other leadership qualities is not enough to get promoted. Not in this platoon anyway. It's so frustrating to watch my peers fly through the ranks. Friends with easy jobs and supervisors who don't care. Peers who are overweight or undertrained- but get sent up the ladder because they have a buddy somewhere. It's discouraging. But at least now I know what I need to work on. All the hard work in the world doesn't get me what I want until I learn how to bend over.

Hopefully I will be sent up in the first few months back in Fort Campbell. A lot of the leadership is moving to other places or getting out of the Army, and I will be one of the most experienced medics left. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And did you guys all see the size of that truck Valli bought? Its as big as our house! My wife is the awesomest.

Stink-eye

This morning we gave a lift to local guy. He kept giving me the stink eye during the whole flight. I thought it was a little rich. We patched him up and gave him a ten thousand dollar ride, but he glared suspiciously at me the whole flight. And in return he made the whole aircraft stick like crap. I even gave him morphine. I didnt have to. I could have just let him suck it up. He wasn't stink-eyeing anyone else in the bird, just me. The flight doc had a thought about why that might be. I have a red cross patch on my helmet. Apparently that means I am an evil christian crusader, and want to take over the muslims. So there you go.

Perspective

Sometimes I think that I should focus more on positive things. Peoples accomplishments rather than their failures or pain. Someone reading my blog might get the idea that I am a negative person who delights in embelishing on the suffering of others. I want to say that this is not true. I am a very positive person. I am an optimist. And I do not enjoy watching people suffer. Perspective is what is needed here.

As a flight medic in Afghanistan, I see people at their lowest. The service we provide brings me close to suffering, injured, sometimes dying people on a daily basis. These people are innocent victims of cruelty, or brave volunteers who accepted the mortal risks of being a warfighter. Only a small percentage of our clients deserve to be in their situation. Being a medic can be really difficult sometimes. Pain is never funny.

Or is it?
Being able to compartmentalize makes things easier. I take one part of a situation and put it in the serious drawer, and another part of the same situation goes into the hilariously ironic drawer. Today for instance:

This afternoon my crew got a call to fly to Jalalabad and pick up a young woman with burns to her face, right arm and hand. On the way there, we were guessing how she got burned. We were pretty sure it didn't have to do with fighting because of the place and manner in which we were picking her up. Was it from a hot coffee spill, an accident in the shower, did her clothes catch on fire somehow? I found out when I arrived. Apparently she was trying to burn some pieces of wood, and they weren't burning as fast as she wanted. So she decided to dump gasoline on them and light it with her cigarette lighter. Um... duh. Back to that perspective thing. On the one hand- oh, sad. On the other- Friggen awesome with a side of serves you right. Taking into account that she's fine- no permanent damage, and she gets a free trip the Germany for recuperate for a few weeks. Like free leave! So yeah I think it's funny, and I'm sorry you were hurt because you did something super-retarded.

The story gets better/worse.

While the doc and I were getting her all ready to go, we got another call. There was a second helicopter on it's way to Jbad with a middle aged local guy for us to take to Bagram, with gasoline girl. He had some bad eye and face trauma and a big laceration on one of his arms. So I'm thinking- was in an I.E.D., a mine, some kind of industrial accident, or was he kidnapped and tortured by the taliban? Nope. And I kid you not... Mauled by a bear. I didn't find much funny about this one. But it brought a bunch of questions. We have bears here? How did he manage to find one? How do you get it to attack you!? Flying around the mountains out here I've never seen or heard of anything accept goats and camels. And the biggest question of all- How did I wind up with these two bizzare cases on the same day, even on the same flight?

I have no doubt that this is the weirdest job I will ever ever have. Good thing I'm so positive.

I Will Never Learn

I got a call on my radio today to get ready for an urgent mission. When I ran up to my room to grab my jacket, gun and drug bag, I discovered that I had locked myself out.
My door is a flimsy sheet of half-inch plywood hung on two hinges. It is secured on the outside by a hasp and a little masterlock. I checked my pant pockets again to be sure. Then I kicked in the door, grabbed my stuff, and went out to the aircraft. The mission was cancelled before it started on account of bad weather. I went back upstairs to fix my door. I wasn't at all perturbed because this is the fourth time I have had to kick my door down. After the last time I started keeping a hammer and nails in my room just for this purpose. It only takes a minute to bend the latch and hinges straight and nail them back on the door frame. My key was on my desk, right where I always leave it.

A Sharp Increase in Sphincter Tone.

I hit another benchmark today. Today I had my first cardiac emergency patient!

We got the call to pick up a guy at a little outpost over an hour away. The only information we got was that it was a US Army male and "unconscious and clenched jaws". That was all. Thanks a pantload people. About five minutes out from the pickup we were radioed that the guy wasn't breathing anymore and they were going to do an emergency cricothyrotomy. That means cut a hole into the trachea through his neck and push a tube down into his chest. We were still getting ready for that when we landed. So we loaded him up and took off while we hooked him up to a ventilator (that only worked for 10 seconds- we did it manualy after that) and a cardiac monitor that told us his heart wasn't beating. Instead of coming back to Bagram we flew really really fast to a closer base. After 5 or 6 minutes of CPR, two shots of adrenaline, some atropine and 200 joules his heart started beating on its own again. After the first few minutes I didn't think he was going to make it. I thought he had a head injury because he had some bruising and blood was coming out of his mouth and nose- but that blood was actually from the hole he had cut in his neck being pushed up to his mouth because of the CPR. Cardiac arrest cause by head trauma is a really bad injury. The base we went to was only about 15 minutes from the place we picked him up. I kept bagging him until we got into the hospital and then someone else took over. I also learned there that his condition was caused by a drug overdose of sleep aid and other unknown drugs, not head trauma. He looked like he was doing pretty under the other doctors care by the time we left the clinic.

It was a good thing I was flying with a more experienced flight medic and a very experienced trauma doctor. That dude was a handfull. He would have been screwed if it was just me and the crew chief. I learned a lot from that one patient about cardiac care. And about messing with sleep aids. It's too bad because I know that is a problem that a lot of soldiers struggle with here. That guy was just trying to get to sleep and nearly went to sleep forever. Plus having to wake up with a hole through his neck, subcutaneous emphesema, multiple broken ribs and an assortment of other aches and pains to be sure. Maybe he will get legal action against him by the Army as well; for drug abuse and destruction of government property. I'm glad that I'm not that guy.

So to sum it up. Yay for me for getting to learn some cool stuff about patient care and gain some awesome hands-on medical experience. Yay for the other medic and doc for saving the guy and teaching me to do awesome life-saving stuff. And yay for the patient for only being dead for a few minutes.

Bilbo Finds a Bomb.

A couple months ago we brought a patient to the hospital. He was a US Army guy that got a little banged up. The emergency room is always loosely organized chaos to begin with. There are a million hospital workers that pour into the tiny room whenever we send them a patient. Half the people that go into the room aren't even doing anything, they just want to watch the show. On the peticular day I'm thinking of: one especially excitable little guy makes an interesting discoverey. This doctor - who I will call Bilbo because he kindof looks like a hobbit- is going through the unconscious patients gear (presumably because he has nothing improtant to do) and finds a grenade inside a grenade pouch on the said patients vest.

I want to pause the story for a sec. Here is what I would have done: Nothing. Most people would have thought- cool, a grenade- and went on doing whatever it is they are paid to do. Our patients carry all kinds of neat toys on them and the protocol doesn't change for any of them. The clinic staff makes a big pile of all the patients stuff and leaves it in a corner until the patients unit comes and picks it up.

What this guy did was different. He pulls it out of its perfectly safe pouch, grasps it tightly in both hands, holds it alofts and fairly screams "GRENADE!" over the mass of bustling doctors, nurses, techs and patients. Everything stops. All eyes go to little Doc Bilbo. For about two seconds nobody moves. That's how long it takes the room to see that the pin is in, spoon is secured with 4 or 5 wraps of electrical tape, and there isn't anything to worry about. After that, everyone goes back to doing what they were doing- except for Dr. Bilbo and me. I think he expected his coworkers to swarm the exits at his pronouncement because he kept looking around the room and calling out "Grenade! I have a grenade in my hand! Look out everyone! Grenade!" evey few seconds. He was in arms reach of me this whole time and I thought about taking it from him at this point. I almost did but I had this nagging thought that if I did, he might misunderstand my actions and shoot me. He was pretty wound up. So I just watched, open mouthed, as he slowly walked to the door. You couldn't even really call it a walk. Each step looked like it was an enormous effort. His arms were holding the little ball out as far from his body as possible. His bulging eyes were fixed unblinking at the object in his hands. From the look of him, you would think he was holding on to his own beating heart. And still shouting out "Grenade! Move aside for the grenade! I have a grenade here, in my hand!" as he slowly made his way to the exit. I saw him about 10 minutes later outside the hospital. He was still holding the 'thing' out at arms reach. (I can hardly bring my self to say it anymore- it's so retarded) He was telling everyone who walked in, out, or by- "Please, be careful everyone. I have a grenade. Just go on about your way. I have a grenade."

I'm sure that he called his wife and told her how he saved the entire hospital from an abrupt and firey death. It was nothing though, just doing his duty to humanity, just doing his job. Just a grenade. I and my fellows at the hanger went around the rest of the day holding up ordinary objects and yelling in terror- "Oh my gosh! I have a muffin! A muffin in my hands everyone! Look out for my muffin!" And wetting ourselves.

Letters Home

There is an organization within the Army called the Family Readiness Group. Everyone calls it the F.R.G. because in the Army, everything must have an acronym. Must.

Anyway, its purpose is to provide support for and information to the families of service-members. Our company creates a newsletter once every month or two with pictures, stories, etc. and posts it on a F.R.G. website. One of the features of this newsletter is a section called- Letters Home. Someone here writes a letter to their spouse/family and it printed for everyone to read and go- awww. I think it's gay and hoped I would never have to do it. But.

I got asked it write one up last week and have it done by the end of the day. After politely declining the opportunity, I was ordered to write one. The next day I was even sternly reminded to write one. This is the problem I have with it. I dont care about the F.R.G. organization. I never read the newsletter and neither does my wife. I don't even know where to find it. So the whole thing is a sham. I dont know any of the people who are actually going to read it and I didn't feel like I had anything to say to them. My company had cancelled every flight I have had scheduled for the last 36 days. I only need one before I can start pulling flight duty. I have been stagnant for months, and it's been pissing me off. On top of not flying or working, I can't start college classes or get promoted until I am signed off.

After contemplating my situation for a few hours, I tried one last time to get out of the assignment. I tried to justify myself sighting some of the reasons listed above, but it was pointless. I was still stuck with it, and I only had a couple hours left to finish it.

So my initial letter was something like rant that became a very sarcastic verbal assault on the Army, Afghanistan, deployment, my flight company, and several individuals therin- followed by a slew of language that was quite beneath me. I felt much better afterwards and managed to barf up a decent letter after deleting attempt number one. Once I got that frustration out it was actually pretty easy. It is at least half bullcrap but it was positive and supportive and hopefully one of the poor pining saps who reads it will get some warm fuzzies, put down the twinkies, leave the sofa, and go to something productive.

And to anyone who thinks I'm appraoching this from a very shallow and uncaring direction- you're absolutely right. I never felt qualified to do it to begin with, remember?

And then.
Something really good happened the next day- my commander and my flight instructor got together and had a talk. After deciding it was totally pointless to try to get a training flight approved- ever, ever, ever- they fudged the paperwork and gave me the thumbs up to start pulling missions. After languishing here for a full 6 months, and 4 days before leaving the country for another month, I finally flew my first mission! And then another, and another, and another, and another. It's been so nice to actually be working and doing what I came here to do. It's been almost a year since I reenlisted to come to a medivac unit- and finally I am doing it!

I'll talk more about that stuff later. Today is my last day flying missions, tomorrow I am packing, and sunday I am leaving!

Meet Me In Saint Louis

This weekend we went to St Louis.  A first for both of us.  We had a great time.  This trip was engineered by my wife- who came into possession of a pair of major league baseball tickets.  A friend of hers from work had the tickets but the game was rained out. But the friend couldn't go on the reschudualed date.  He offered them to said wife instead- woohoo!  We drove the 250 some miles Saturday morning to beautiful St Louie.  Downtown was really impressive.  The new Busch Stadium and The Arch are both next to the river and only a couple blocks away from each other.  We watched the game- Cardinals vs Brewers.  

 

We were almost the only people NOT wearing red in the entire stadium.  There were 3 guys in the same section as we were- Milwaukee fans and all wearing blue jerseys- resolutely cheering against the overwhelming boos that erupted every time the Cards got spanked.  No booing from the boys in blue though.  We were a pretty long way up though.  They were probably scared of getting thrown over the railing.  At least they weren't Cubs fans.  The second-most-popular apparel at the game behind Cards paraphernalia was "Cubs Suck" shirts.  So the game was cool.  Our seats were in the shade.  And there were lots of entertaining little blurbs and gimmicks in between each inning. I was disappointed that there wasn't any free stuff getting passed out for the early birds- like they did at the Oakland A's games I went to as a kid.  It costs $4.50 for a bottle of water.  Gay.

 
I touched it!  I touched it!



Cheese.                                                                                                                                    

After the game we walked around the waterfront and checked out The Arch.  Elevator tickets were sold out for the next 5 hours so we didn't go inside.  The weather was sunny and HOT.  We splashed around in a fountain to cool off a little and went down to the free St Louis Zoo.  It was small as far as acres go, but they had a lot of really neat animals. It had a suprising number of endangered and nearly extinct animals- like the Amur Tiger, and the Mountain Gorilla.  
We tried to see all of these first and take their pictures in case they are all gone by the time my kids are old enough to start appreciating them.  The one constantly crappy thing about the zoo were the people in it- and especially the kids.  I look at going to the zoo like going to a museum.  There should be a little respect and reverence observed for all the poor captive suffering animals.  Especially the ones who are on the brink of extinction.  At one point a little Hispanic boy and his fat mommy were hitting the glass on the other side of which was leaning a pair of resting chimpanzee.  I dearly wanted to pound on the glass with her fat stupid face and then feed her kid to something.  There was a shirtless white trash hill-billy whooping and hollering into the gorilla enclosure, and a black all-girl family big enough to pass as a school field trip in which every member litterally screamed every pithy, ignorant thought that passed through their narrow, closed minds.  (I am not racist- I hate all stupid people the same)
 

  My wife taming a black mamba.                                               

Otherwise- It was an amazing experience.  Almost all the enclosures were clean, dynamic, and inhabited.  The grounds were beautiful, and the animals inside all looked healthy, and only slightly dazed and neurotic.  The highest point for me was getting to feed a giraffe.  I wished my wife got to as well.  As soon as the other patrons saw what I did, there was a tsunami of children.  Some were literally climbing over the fences and into the pens to hold up handfuls of grass.  Concerned parents assuage this with- "Billy, do you really think you should be inside the giraffe cage?"  Nice job, dad.  We split quickly before anyone got trampled- and have it pinned on my bad example.  My other favorite thing was getting to watch the chimps from really close up.  They are awesome- and seem so smart.  After watching them for a while I half expected them to look up and start talking.
We didn't get home until almost two in the morning on Sunday but we had a great time.  Hope you like the pictures.  We finally got our camera replaced.