Category Archives: Army

This Is Just Between Us, Right?

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I’m going to admit it:  I miss being in the Army.

It’s heresy to admit you miss it once you’ve been retired from active military service.  Most people can’t wait to retire, take all their old uniforms to the post thrift shop for consignment and do something different.

I was like that at first.

When I finished my 20 years of active duty (jammed into a nearly 29 year overall Army career), I was ready to retire. Lucky for me that the law requires officers like me who hold Reserve commissions to retire when they rack up 20 active years of service.  This keeps the most senior jobs open for those officers with regular Army commissions – the professionals, as it were.  So even if I could have found another job in uniform, by law I couldn’t have taken it.  I had done and accomplished far more than I ever expected but there was really nowhere left for me to go. 

It had been a crappy couple of years.  Late in 2005, my marriage failed and failed spectacularly.  A few weeks after that, I changed assignments. (Changing jobs is reported to be one of the more stressful life experiences and a new assignment is essentially the same.)  Late in 2006, nearly a year after we separated, my spouse was diagnosed with breast cancer.   I became her caregiver throughout her recovery.  The day in August that I had my retirement ceremony was the day after she completed her last radiation treatment and was declared cancer free.  At the ceremony, she got a standing ovation when I shared with my colleagues and friends her courage and determination.  I had gained about 40 lbs. by then.

Those last nearly two years were just plain miserable.  I did my best at work, but I wasn’t all there most of the time.  I emerged from all that beaten and defeated.

I was a hot mess.

I retired on November 1st, 2007 and within a few months, took a government contracting job supporting an Army agency.  It took me awhile to make that transition from colonel to contractor, but I did it.   I only answered the phone as “Colonel Wolfe” once.

Time passed.  I grew apart from the Army in many ways.  I still subscribed to the Department of Defense news service to keep track of my friends and former colleagues who got promoted to general officer ranks.  I continued to receive and read the Army’s daily feature “Stand To!”   And I still sorta felt like a part of it.

After about four years of the contracting job, nearly two years of unemployment and near financial ruin, I got hired about two months ago to work as a government employee at another Federal agency.  A couple weeks ago, I turned off all the military themed news feeds and email blasts because I’m not reading them and when I do, the people, terms and acronyms are generally unfamiliar to me now.

I wore a uniform of some sort since I was high school.  By the time I entered the Army in 1979, I was well aware that I was a part of something that was way bigger than me.  Of course, as I navigated my very odd and by Army standards very unconventional career, I came to appreciate being a part of it and knowing that even when I was sitting in a TV production truck among my entertainment industry colleagues, I was still a part of the Army.  Still belonging.  Still immersed in a system of doing business that I understood and in which I was comfortable and successful.

There are still quite a few uniforms hanging in a closet upstairs.  Not like I even notice them, or take them out or anything quite like that.  But they’re there, just down the hall just like the military school uniforms I’ve carried all over the world since I graduated back in 1976.  More and more, I need the closet space, so that stuff is going to be out of there one of these days when I get the urge to reorganize.  But since they’re all stored in an out-of-the-way closet, it’ll probably be there for a while unless I make a honest effort.  The likelihood of that actually occurring is questionable.

Most of the time, I don’t give it much thought.  I don’t actively sit around wringing my hands lamenting that my Army career is done.  But I gotta tell you, there are days.  Usually when I’m out on post for some reason, all of the positive feelings about being a part of the Army come to the forefront of my consciousness.  I drive past old haunts on post, much as I do when I’m in my home town in Ohio.  Mom says I like to drive around and make sure that everything’s where I left it and I think she’s right.  And I think I do that for the familiar Army haunts as well.

You can say what you want about the Army and trust me, Soldiers do.  I know I did.  For me, the Army was my life long companion.  And like all long-term companions, our relationship had its ups and downs.  The Army provided me with more than a job and income and a title.  I carry with me so much experience and so many positive lessons that I learned in 29 years.  It’s a welcome part of me.

But there are days when I long to be back in uniform.  It’s not every day, and it’s not even most days.  Frankly, memories of the last two horrendous years of my career keep me from really savoring the success of the other 27.  I don’t like thinking about that.  But when I go on post even just to the commissary I find myself standing a little taller and walking a little more smartly. I find myself exchanging more smiles and everyday courtesies with everyone I encounter.  It’s such a strong, positive, shared professional and cultural experience.  I realize how much I miss it when I’m back on post and immersed in it like that again.

I miss it.  There, I said it.  Out loud and everything.

Buy This Book: “Green Card Soldier”

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Former Army Public Affairs colleague and outstanding public affairs practitioner Bruce Zielsdorf has penned “Green Card Soldier.”  It’s a novel that…  Well, duh!  It’s his book.  I’ll let him tell you about it:

GCS_cover_front“Green Card Soldier is an historic adventure novel that follows the exploits of Andro Babich – a naïve, but inquisitive teenage soccer star frustrated by his mundane life on the family farm in Bosnia. In the early 1990s, Andro’s sporting hopes are drowned as the former Yugoslavia is battered by thunderous storms of religious and nationalistic disgust that rip apart families, villages and the vast Balkan countryside. Once-civil debate decays into hate mongering, land grabbing and ethnic cleansing on all sides.

‘This tragic tale is told by Heath Winslow – a cynical, yet self-deprecating, war correspondent who, for decades, has seen much the same in other locales around the globe. Both characters challenge readers with the question: Can life become richer – and people stronger – when we look beyond labels to appreciate one another for the unique individuals we are?

“In the years that follow, Andro escapes to Greece, sails to America and joins the Army. As a Green Card Soldier, he soon earns his U.S. citizenship. Andro then returns to Bosnia as a USAID worker. During these vexing escapades, he meets a multitude of dynamic people and faces a mountain of barriers to reaching his life’s goal. This swarm of forces tests his drive and attempts to skew his moral compass. Andro eventually has an epiphany about achieving his quest… his life’s goal. In the end, our Green Card Soldier identifies several simple, but universal truisms that he intends to plant as part of his former homeland’s rebirth.” 

You can see more about Bruce and his book by clicking through to the book’s website here.  From there, you can download a preview and preorder the book.

Go ahead.  I’ll wait.  Come back when you’re done.

Good job and welcome back!

It’s being released in paperback on January 14th by Hellgate Press. I’ll be there to get my copy.

You should be too.

Congratulations on the book, Bruce!  All of us from Army Public Affairs are proud of you!

Bruce Zielsdorf, author of "Green Card Soldier"

Bruce Zielsdorf, author of “Green Card Soldier”

From the “Day Late and a $100,000 Short” Department

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Quoted from Department of Defense Email:

Statement by George Little on Death Gratuity Payments

Today, senior DoD leaders consulted with the leadership of the Fisher House Foundation on moving forward with providing death benefits to the families of fallen service members.

Now that Congress has enacted legislation permitting DoD to provide families these benefits directly during the government shutdown, DoD is moving expeditiously to pay each family the $100,000 death gratuity they are owed. These payments were initiated today and the families will receive them early next week, when their banks reopen for business. In addition, Fisher House Foundation will donate $25,000 to each of these families from its own funds.

Secretary Hagel greatly appreciates the generosity of the Fisher House Foundation, as well as other groups which have stepped forward to help these families in their time of need. With Congress no longer preventing DoD from making these payments to the families directly, he is pleased that DoD will be able to fulfill its responsibilities to the families of the fallen. The Secretary remains deeply concerned about the disruptive impact the ongoing shutdown is having on Departmental operations, and continues to urge Congress to restore funding to the entire federal government.

  

One Day in the Oval Office

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Let’s make a couple of assumptions here.

For the sake of our hypothetical situation below, let’s assume that the White House was notified at 9 AM about the lack of payments of death gratuities and other benefits to the survivors of the four Soldiers killed in action whose remains were returning to Dover. Let us also assume the existence of telephones, a chain of command, a White House Secretary and common sense.

I’m also assuming that the Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, owns the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Department of Defense agency which I believe actually pays these benefits when any Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine is killed in the line of duty. (I bet a months pay that he does and they do, but I’m unemployed so a month’s pay ain’t much.)

Let’s also assume that we’re in the Oval Office at that very moment just after 9am that the Commander in Chief is being notified that these families are not being paid.

Let’s listen in for a few moments. Here’s what should’ve happened:

Jay Carney (White House Press Secretary): “Mr. President, we’re getting reports that the remains of the four Soldiers who died in Afghanistan are coming back to Dover and their families aren’t getting their death benefits because of the shutdown. The press is killing us, sir and we’ve got to do something about this.”

(Now and hereafter, please imagine the voice of the president in your head as you read his words.)

Obama: “I’ll get right on that Jay.” (To his secretary) “Get me Secretary of Defense and the Chief White House General Counsel on the phone immediately!”

A few minutes pass by, and the President’s secretary buzzes in. “Mr. President, I have Defense Secretary Hagel and the General Counsel on the phone for you.”

Obama: “Thank you”  (To the Defense Secretary and the General Counsel now on a conference call) “Good morning gentlemen. I understand there’s a problem with paying death gratuity to the families of four Soldiers returning to Dover who have just given their lives in the service of this great Nation of ours. Have it fixed by noon.” <click, dial tone>

Here’s how it probably went:

Jay Carney (White House Press Secretary): “Mr. President, we’re getting reports that the remains of the four Soldiers who died in Afghanistan are coming back to Dover and their families aren’t getting their death benefits because of the shutdown. The press is killing us, sir and we’ve got to do something about this.”

Obama: “Gee, that’s a shame. Wish there was something I could do about that.”

Oh, and confidential to Jay Carney, I know there are lengthy, convoluted processes involved with getting things done in Washington. Six years in the Pentagon led me to that conclusion on my own.  But when you’re the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, and you make a call to get something done it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to cut a couple of checks.

This is an unparalleled failure of leadership.

Those of who have had the honor of serving in the United States Army know precisely what it means when they say, “There’s Strong and then there’s Army Strong.”

Watching this unfold, I now know that there’s despicable and then there’s White House despicable.