"Dancing Lessons From God", Part 16.

Kitzingen I was really lucky to arrive in Germany when I did because it was May and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Every day was nice and sunny. The normal working schedule gave you weekends off which I always took advantage of. My first weekend there I decided I would do some exploring, and what better place to start than Kitzingen, the town that would be my home for the next two years? I got up early and headed out the front gate. I had no idea whether to go left or right once I got outside of the gate so I decided on left. Kitzingen is a small city of about 20,000 located right on the Main River. There were two small bases in Kitzingen – Harvey Barracks and Larson Barracks – which were located on opposite sides of the city. Larson, where I was stationed, was on a high hill overlooking the eastern part of the city and the surrounding area. The view was impressive and as I walked out of the gate I just could not help standing there, admiring it. I snapped a few photos and continued on. I really didn’t know where I was going so I figured I’d just start walking in the direction that I thought the main part of the city was. It didn’t take long to realize I was headed in the wrong direction as I was on a street with a bunch of houses. There was one house where the family was outside washing their car. At the time the US military members stationed in Europe had license plates on their cars that said “USA” on them and looked different than the host country license plates. So they were obviously American and I got directions from them on how to get downtown. The first thing I ran into was the local soccer field. Man, it was awesome. It was so much nicer and well kept than most of the fields I grew up playing on in the US. I watched some local kids playing for a while then continued on towards the center of town when suddenly there appeared before me a huge, funny looking medieval tower. It wasn’t very fancy, mostly just tall, round, and made of gray brick with a pointy, dark orange top. What made it funny looking was that the top part was crooked. The tower itself was perfectly straight but the pointy part at the top leaned. It was actually pretty amusing to see. I’d always heard stories of the famous “German efficiency” but looking at the tower I surmised that the term must have originated sometime after the middle ages. Kitzingen itself had a slight medieval feel to it. It was obvious that the city was very old and, due to its location right on the river, had probably been part of the wine trade that once dominated the Main River. One thing that really stood out to me were the paintings and illustrations on some of the houses and buildings. I had never seen anything like them and laying eyes on them immediately made me realize that I was indeed in a different country. It was like something you’d see in a history book while you were studying World War II history in school; there were drawings, paintings, and words written in the old German style. There were strange letters we didn’t have in the US, weird things that you couldn’t tell if it was a “B” or an “F” or maybe an “S”? I was loving it. This was the reason I joined the army and came overseas. To learn about other cultures, their languages and customs. And yes, even their alphabet. I hadn’t even started Head Start yet so I knew next to nothing about Germany and its culture. Fortunately I found out rather quick that most Germans speak at least a little bit of English. Many are practically fluent. I figured the main reason was because of the presence of the US and British military bases, which I’m sure had an influence on what the average German learned both in school and in their everyday lives. Whatever the reason, it sure was convenient to someone who had just arrived in country and was trying to find his way around. I found the Germans to be extremely friendly and helpful. The bases in Kitzingen had been there many years and I’m sure the locals had learned to appreciate the American presence there and many of the older folks I met were especially welcoming. The younger generation, who didn’t grow up during the Cold War, didn’t seem to think that the American presence was needed but, at the same time, didn’t really seem to mind that we were there either. In my two years in Germany I can safely say that I never encountered a single German who didn’t like Americans and didn’t make me feel welcome in the country. It helped that from day one I knew how to act in a foreign country. I didn’t dress like a tourist or in a manner that screamed “Look at me, I’m an American!” like others did. I came to Germany with the attitude that I was a guest and should try to act like one. I’ve always respected whatever culture I was living or traveling in, no matter how backwards or wrong I may have thought certain aspects of it were. For just as I wouldn’t take too kindly to someone from another country coming to the US and criticizing everything about it, it would be wrong of me to do the same to anyone else. When you have this kind of attitude, the locals tend to treat you better and are usually much more friendly and helpful. And that makes it so much easier and enjoyable to travel and experience other cultures. You also have to have a sense of humor about things and be able to adapt to various situations. My first day in Kitzingen was uneventful but it served as a good primer to exploring bigger and better things. There’s not much in Kitzingen for a tourist to see but I enjoyed looking around and taking in the new culture that I would be living in for the next couple years. I stopped at a little coffee shop to get a cappuccino and noticed that the Germans served their cappuccino topped with whipped cream rather than frothed milk. It was one of those little cultural differences that always interested me. After a couple hours of walking around I figured I’d seen everything and headed back to the base. On the way back I happened to glance down a side street and noticed a little sign jutting out from the second floor of a building halfway down. It read “Sports Bar”. “Well, well, this is exactly what I need!”, I thought to myself. I popped in to check it out and it was empty except for a young German guy watching a car race on the television. The World Cup was rapidly approaching and I needed to make sure that they would be showing the matches. The guy spoke very good English and set my mind at ease by informing me that yes, they would be showing all the matches. So I left and headed back to the base ever more eager to experience a World Cup living in Europe. The Falterturm in downtown Kitzingen (click to enlarge)

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"Dancing Lessons From God", Part 15

We got to the company and Hanover took me in to meet the First Sergeant, 1SG Holmes. 1SG Holmes was instantly intimidating but friendly. He sat at his desk and gave me a quick welcome and told me a little bit about the company and what would be expected of me. Then he asked some questions. “How old are you?” “26, First Sergeant.” “Are you married? “No, First Sergeant.” “Any kids?” “No, First Sergeant.” “Do you have a college degree?” “Yes, First Sergeant.” At this point he looked over at SGT Hanover. “Damn SGT Hanover, it looks like we found the perfect soldier.” I can only imagine what SGT Hanover must have been thinking when he heard that. But to his credit he just shook his head and said “Yes, First Sergeant.”. From there it was time to meet the other people in my section that I’d be working with. I was assigned to the Retrans section, which was primarily responsible for setting up radio retransmission stations between two points that were too far away from each other to be able to communicate. Hanover took me into the Retrans office and introduced me to the guys in the section. Nobody was particularly welcoming, instead preferring to portray the tough guy attitude until they had a chance to size up the new guy. But they weren’t that bad. The guy I took notice of right away was a short, stocky, loud, cocky show-off named Falcon. He was a Specialist (E4), same rank that I was, and just seemed to command that all the attention was centered on him as he spoke. He talked like he thought he was black and everybody was laughing at everything that came out of his mouth. Falcon and I would eventually become enemies for several reasons (more about that later) but I have to admit that I really liked him at first because he sure was entertaining. He was also a gym rat and was pretty muscular for such a small guy and he did pretty well with the ladies – or at least liked to brag that he did. Another guy in the unit was Crenshaw. Crenshaw was an E2 (PV2) when I got to the unit and was always good for comic relief. He was from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, he was overweight and couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to be a redneck, a beach boy, or a “brother” so he kind of acted like all of them at any given moment. As the lowest ranking soldier, Crenshaw got picked on a lot but he was a good sport about it and usually gave just as good as he received. We also had a Mexican-American guy named SPC Martinez who I liked. He was very friendly and easy to get along with. And then there was SGT Stewart, the other E5 in the shop. SGT Stewart didn’t talk much but he was really laid back and easy going as well. Overall I had a good feeling about the guys I’d be working with. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to say the same about my roommate. At the end of the day I went back to my room to meet the guy I would be living with for the foreseeable future. His name was PFC Michael Roberts and we had absolutely nothing in common. I was a white guy from a middle class town in New England, he was a black guy from rural South Carolina. This, in itself, was not a problem. After all, my roommate for four years in college was a black guy from the inner city who was there on a basketball scholarship and someone with whom I had nothing in common either. However, we got along really well and actually chose to be roommates each year. Roberts was different. He didn’t seem to like the fact that they’d given him a white roommate who might step on his “game”. From the moment I met him he never stopped trying to show off and he also went to great pains to try and make me realize that this was “his” room first and that he had the run of it. He would often come in and put his music on his stereo and turn it up really loud and then play the same song over and over which got annoying. His favorite song at the time was KJ and JoJo’s “All My Life” which, fortunately for me, I really liked so I didn’t mind hearing it 17 times in a row. Roberts was a mechanic and worked in the motor pool so I figured at least I didn’t have to work with him, I only had to put up with his act in the room. Our first day in the room together didn’t go too smoothly as Roberts set me up for failure immediately. I was brand new and had never been active duty before so I had no idea what the daily routine was. The army has gotten much better at helping new soldiers learn the ropes but at the time I felt like I was flapping in the breeze with no one to show me what the hell I was supposed to be doing and where or when I was supposed to be doing it. I figured I’d just follow Roberts since he’d been there for a while. Well, Roberts decided to oversleep that first morning and then jump out of bed in a panic yelling “Shit, we late, we gotta get to formation!” Following his lead I quickly threw on my PT (physical training) uniform and ran out the door on his heels towards the company area. By the time we ran through the gate into the company area the company was already formed up and the 1SG was preparing the company for PT. Showing up late to formation is a bad thing. Do it once and you’ll usually just get a stern talking to and a warning not to let it happen again. Do it once or twice more and you risk increasingly severe punishment. It was my first day and I was already 0-for-1. After formation, SGT Hanover took me aside and asked why I was late and I just said that I had no idea what the schedule was but now that I knew, it wouldn’t happen again. Hanover also called Roberts over and told him that since I was new, it was his responsibility to make sure that I knew where I supposed to be and what time formation was and that he‘d better not let it happen again. I kind of felt like a child being lectured like that but hey, this was the army, so I just told Hanover I wouldn’t let it happen again and he seemed satisfied with that. I really wanted to make a good first impression and do really well there so I was a bit frustrated at my bad start. But, what the hell, it happens. To his credit, Roberts even apologized and agreed that he screwed up. Since I had just arrived, it would actually be a couple weeks before I did anything with the company, including PT. New arrivals must spend about 3 weeks going through a reception and integration process. During this process, you fill out a bunch of forms, you get issued all your army gear, you get some drivers training for the purpose of getting your German driving license, you get training on so many different things, and then you go through a two week class called Head Start. Head Start was actually pretty fun. The purpose of the class is to give you an introduction to Germany – the culture, the food, the people, the language, the money (this was before the introduction of the Euro), how to take the trains, how to order food, pretty much everything you need to know to make your stay in Germany fun and easier to deal with. Since my main purpose in joining the army was to see Europe and do some traveling, this was right up my alley. For me, it’s not enough to just take a trip somewhere to look at some stuff and then leave. No, I want to know at least a little bit about the place I’m going and things I’m seeing. And I’m not talking about the usual mundane stuff you learn on a tour, “This church was built by King What’s-his-name in the 16th century and took 30 years to complete…” , I’m talking about the actual culture, the stuff you learn almost by accident when you’re traveling. Head Start was perfect for this because it allowed me to suck up all the information about my new country that I could handle. Unfortunately I seemed to be the only one who had such an interest. Most of the other people were young soldiers fresh out of basic training and their job schools and this was their first duty station. They were too young, inexperienced and naïve to appreciate this glorious opportunity that they had. I was almost resentful of the fact they were even in Europe at all. And the older soldiers who had been around were more interested in getting though the class as quickly as possible and getting to their new jobs. I couldn’t fathom why. To me, this was like a three week vacation, sort of the calm before the storm. US Army Europe had a strict policy that new soldiers who were going through reception and integration were not to be touched by their units for anything. They would go to formation in the morning for accountability, but they would not do PT, they would instead go to the reception station and spend the day doing their inprocessing or Head Start. Units also were not allowed to put new soldiers on any kind of duty until they were finished with their three week inprocessing, including Head Start. There were a few others in my class who were with me at the reception station at Fort Jackson such as Bosh and Stephanie and we kind of hung around together during the inprocessing and Head Start. Both of them were stationed at Giebelstadt so I only saw them during the day which kind of sucked because I didn’t really know anybody on my base. There was a guy from Puerto Rico who had come over from Ft Jackson with us named Rivera who was also stationed at Larson Barracks with me so he and I became friends. Rivera was a master at shining boots and tried to help me several times but shining boots was just one of those things that I’ve never been able to do very well. And not for lack of trying either; I’ve spent countless hours trying all kinds of different methods that people have shown me and have just never been able to get very good at it. I could get them to where they looked pretty good but compared to other people’s, they looked average. It was just one of those things about the military that I thought was given too much importance and was stupid. The thing is, it’s impossible to keep boots shined in the army because you’re working in some really dirty areas doing a dirty job most of the time. It’s just not practical. And what used to drive me crazy was the fact that the people who would always get on you about making sure your boots were shined were the First Sergeants and Sergeants Major. Their boots would always be glowing and they’d tell you that yours should be like theirs. Well of course their boots are always so shiny; they sit at a desk all day! They probably only have to actually shine them once a month! One uniform quirk that I didn’t have as much trouble with was making sure they were neatly pressed. I can’t iron very well but I didn’t have to because there was a laundry on base where you would drop your uniforms off and get them back a few days later, neatly starched and pressed. The funniest thing was that some guys would really overdo it and get them pressed using heavy, heavy starch. Their uniforms would come out like cardboard and make a loud whooshing sound when they walked. It was comical. But I did learn pretty quickly that shined boots and a nicely pressed uniform made you feel as sharp as you looked. It really did fill you with a certain measure of pride and confidence. 

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"Dancing Lessons From God", Part 14

“Charlie Rock” Monday morning rolled around and we went back to the inprocessing building to wait for our assignments. While we were there Stephanie finally arrived and was happy to see some familiar faces. So we waited and waited and eventually were given our orders. Mine said “C Co., 121st Signal Batallion, Kitzingen”. I’d never heard of that unit or that place but by that time I was so anxious to get to my unit and get started on my new life that I didn’t care where it was. I was happy to hear that a few of the other people I’d come over with had received orders either to the same base as me, or ones in the same area, so we all got on the bus marked “Wurzburg” and took a seat. As it turns out, Wurzburg was the home of the 98th Area Support Group which encompassed three main military communities: Wurzburg, home of the 1st Infantry Division; Kitzingen, which was made up of two small bases; and Geibelstadt, which was the home of a Chinook helicopter base nicknamed “Big Windy”. All three places were within about a half hour of each other so everyone stationed at any of them all had to go to the reception station in Kitzingen to do their inprocessing. The bus pulled up and I stepped off, looking around and surveying my new home. My excitement was just off the charts, I couldn’t wait to explore my new surroundings. But first there was the business of filling out more forms, getting an initial welcome brief, and meeting my new unit. They had called all of our respective units while we were filling out the plethora of forms and informed them of our arrival. When we were done, we were released to the hallway outside where our unit representatives were waiting for us. I looked around at all the faces wondering which one I belonged to. I hadn’t known very many active duty army people before so I had no idea what to expect or what they were like. Most of them were in the hallway yelling out the names they’d been given but I wasn’t hearing my name so I just stood next to my duffle bag and looked around. After a few minutes a sullen, hard-jawed soldier walked up to me and I met the man who would have the biggest influence over me for the next two years. “Are you Thibodeau? “Yep, that’s me.” “I’m SGT Hanover, your NCOIC.” By the time he left Germany almost two years later, I would consider him a very good friend but my first impression of SGT Hanover was not a good one. He had a pissed-off look on his face that seldom changed. His mannerisms and actions seemed to say that he didn’t want to be bothered with me, that he had better things to do. He had a real tough guy look about him too, a look that commanded respect, even though he was the exact same age as I was. I wasn’t really intimidated by him but I was a bit worried that this guy was not going to be pleasant to work for. His uniform was crisply pressed and his boots were impressively shined. I quickly noticed that SGT Hanover was a man of few words. In fact he seldom said anything unless you asked him a direct question and even then his answers were usually one or two words at best. Some people go to great lengths to try and project a tough guy image but this guy was the real deal. He didn’t even have to try. With him was a really skinny, scrawny black kid whose uniform hung off him like it was two sizes too big. Hanover introduced me to him as PFC Geathers and told me he was also in our section and we would be working together. Compared to Hanover, Geathers looked like a cartoon and I was privately relieved that not everyone I would be working with was going to be like Hanover. We picked up my bags and Hanover instructed me to follow him. I did so even though he walked so fast that I had trouble keeping up and he led me down to the barracks where we dumped my bags in a small room that wasn’t much bigger than the office that I occupied at the job I’d just quit. I wanted to take it all in but Hanover was moving so fast that I didn’t have time to even check out the room. Apparently the entire battalion was preparing for a big inspection and so everyone was on edge and running around trying to make sure everything was straight. We walked through the barracks and suddenly a larger than life figure appeared before us: Sergeant Major Paul E. Scandrick. SGM Scandrick was the battalion Sergeant Major, which meant he was the highest ranking enlisted (non-officer) in the battalion. He was about 6’3, had an impeccable uniform without a wrinkle on it, and cut an imposing figure. Everyone around seemed to be scared of him but, coming straight out of the civilian world, I hadn’t yet figured out how you were supposed to act around such people. I got a quick indoctrination. SGT Hanover introduced me as his new soldier and SGM Scandrick welcomed me. He was very nice and informal so it never occurred to me that I was an E4 addressing my battalion Sergeant Major which meant that I supposed to be doing so from the position of parade rest. Instead I stood there and addressed him like I was talking with one of my buddies back home, hand gestures and all. I can’t even imagine what must have been going through SGT Hanover’s mind as he watched his new soldier talking to the Sergeant Major in such a manner but he quickly leaned into my ear and whispered “Get at parade rest!”. Within about a millisecond I realized that this was a whole new world I was in. I’d been in the army reserves for 7 years but active duty was different. Hell, one time a Sergeant Major walked into the reserve center and when I yelled “At ease!”, everyone laughed at me, including the Sergeant Major, who then told me “I appreciate it son but we don’t do those kind of things around here…”. Well, I felt pretty stupid but quickly snapped to parade rest and shut up. SGM Scandrick welcomed me once again and then took off down the hall. Looking back, I think I even saw him chuckling as he was walking away. With that, Hanover turned and told me to follow him to the company area so he could introduce me to the First Sergeant. By this point, Hanover had to be wondering to himself “what the hell kind of terrible soldier have they given me?”. It had been about an hour since I first met him and he hadn’t uttered more than about six or seven sentences to me in that time. I was determined not to let him get to me and as we walked I tried to talk to him a bit. “So how long have you been in Germany?” “Few months.” “How do you like it?” “It fucking sucks.” “Really? What don’t you like about it?” “Everything. Fucking lazy ass soldiers, always complaining about working too much or bitching that they had to miss chow. I wish I was back at Bragg, I hate this place.” Yikes. This was exactly what I was afraid of when I was debating whether or not to join the army. Hanover seemed to be the living personification of everything I feared the army would be like. 

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"Dancing Lessons From God", Part 13

(NOTE: Since part I, last year, was broken up into 11 parts, I've decided to keep with that numbering sequence for simplicity's sake. Hence the last posting was part 12 and this one is 13) Landing in Germany was a moment I’ll never forget. We touched down at Rhein-Main Air Base, which shared a runway with the Frankfurt International Airport. The base was small and while most people would call it old and run-down, I called it historic. Rhein Main was the home of the 64th Replacement Station and, as such, was where all military personnel arriving in Europe had to go to do some inprocessing and receive their assignments. It was so named because it sits near the confluence of two major rivers – the Rhine and the Main. As I looked around and saw the big “Gateway to Europe” sign, I couldn’t help but think about all the soldiers who had been there before me and walked the same path. Elvis Presley was once stationed in Germany…had he once walked under that same “Gateway to Europe” sign that I did? There was so much history at that place. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers had served tours in Germany over the years and they had all gone through Rhein-Main. And I was now a part of that history. It gave me goosebumps. We went into the building where they looked at your files and gave you your assignments and sat in the waiting room. I had brought my walkman with me and put my headphones on so I could hear some real German music. Little by little I was starting to notice that things were different. They had rock music on the radio but there were also stations playing “oom-pa-pa” music, like you would hear in a beer hall somewhere in Bavaria. Never heard that before. Even the toilets were different. I was loving my new life so far. One by one the new people – affectionately referred to as “newbies” – were called and given instructions to get on this bus or that bus which would take them to their new assignments. But for some reason, I and most of the guys I had flown over with weren’t getting called. By the end of the afternoon the short female sergeant who was working the desk told us that our assignments weren’t ready yet and they were closing for the day. Since it was Friday, we were put up in some temporary barracks and told to hang out for the weekend and we would be given our duty stations on Monday. This was quite a pleasant surprise to me because I guess I was half expecting things to be a bit basic training-ish, where you have little to no freedom. My first weekend in Germany and I was on my own to do whatever I wanted. We got settled in our barracks and a couple of the guys made plans to go to the shoppette and get some beer for the evening while others made plans to catch a cab for downtown Frankfurt. Myself, I had other plans. It just so happened that one of my best friends from back home, Steve Lester, was in the Air Force and was stationed at Ramstein Air Base, about an hour south of Rhein-Main. We hadn’t stayed in touch very often in the previous couple years but I called him up and told him that I was at Rhein-Main for the weekend and hoped he might be able to come up. He was excited to hear from me and told me to sit tight, he would be there in an hour to pick me up and he’d show me around a bit and introduce me to a little bit of Germany. As I hung up the phone I became instantly aware of how lucky I was that Steve was in Germany as well. We’d met in high school at my church youth group and became friends immediately. He was an easy guy to like and was fun to hang around with. He’d gone through one year of college at the University of New Hampshire but ended up with piss poor grades, which I never understood because Steve was always really smart. After realizing that he was not college material he enlisted in the Air Force as an Air Traffic Controller and had been to places like Homestead AFB in Miami, McChord AFB in Tacoma, Washington, Turkey, and now Ramstein Air Base in Germany, which was fortunate for me. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, Steve and I would be spending a lot of time together during my stay in Germany and the trips and adventures we would share would strengthen our friendship more than I could ever imagine. Steve remains, to this day, my favorite traveling companion. He showed up at the barracks and we figured we’d hit the club for a beer then take in a movie and just catch up a bit. We went to the little club on base and that was where I had my first authentic German beer. For a beer lover like me, it was quite a moment. We went to see “As Good As It Gets” at the theater on base but I was so tired and jet lagged that I actually fell asleep halfway through the movie. Afterwards Steve said “Hey, why don’t you come stay with Erica and I this weekend?”. Erica was his coworker and girlfriend at the time and I figured why not? So we made the drive down to his place which I fell in love with immediately. He lived in a small little village called Thaleischweiler-Frochen and his place was so big and cool that I immediately dubbed it “the bachelor pad”, his relationship with Erica notwithstanding. As it turned out, Erica was on shift that night so he took me to downtown Landstuhl, which is the town that Ramstein is in, and went out for my first German meal. Of course I had to have schnitzel. I’d heard of schnitzel and since I was determined to get everything out of my German experience as possible, it was only fitting that it was my first official German meal. For the uninitiated, schnitzel is basically a breaded pork cutlet. It is served with a variety of different sauces and/or toppings. My favorite is the “jagerschnitzel”, which is a schnitzel served in a brown mushroom gravy sauce. The meal was fantastic. After that, we hit the local Irish Pub and drank Guinness all night until Erica got out of work and picked us up. My first weekend in Germany was turning into exactly what I was hoping for. On Sunday afternoon, Steve and Erica drove me back up to Rhein-Main, which I remember for one main reason. As we drove close to Frankfurt on our way to the base we drove right past the stadium where Frankfurt’s soccer team (Eintracht Frankfurt) played their home games. This was a big deal for me because I had grown up watching the German professional soccer league, the Bundesliga, on Sunday mornings and there I was so many years later actually seeing one of the stadiums in person. Anyway, I got back to the barracks and had a couple beers with the guys in my room. There was a Mexican guy with us named Gallegos who had bought a case of Tecate, which was a Mexican beer, at the shoppette and I just couldn’t stop laughing at him for being in Germany and drinking Mexican beer. Old habits die hard I guess. 

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Has it been 10 11 years already?

Yep, it's May 1st again. Anyone who follows this blog should know that May 1st is a special day for me - it's the day that I stepped off the plane at Rhein-Main AFB in Frankfurt in 1998 and got a new lease on life. You may recall that I celebrated the 10 year anniversary last year by posting the first few chapters of the book that I was writing about my journey, entitled "Dancing Lessons From God"...well, this year I figured what the hell, I'll post a few more. Part II details my journey from home to Germany and my impressions of my new home and my new life. For anyone who missed the first part last year and needs to get caught up, you can read last years postings (broken up into 11 parts) by clicking here. Without further ado, I give you the next few chapters of "Dancing Lessons From God"... “I’m leavin on a jet plane…” Before I could get to Germany I would first have to fly down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina to do all my inprocessing, get issued all my uniforms, get all my shots, all that wonderful stuff you have to do when you join the army. Fortunately, because I was prior service and had only been out of the army reserves less than two years, I was not forced to go back through basic training again. If I was, I probably would not have done it. Basic training is of those things that you’re so glad you did and proud you made it through but you never, ever want to do again. Ft. Jackson is the main basic training base for the US Army so there were plenty of young scared faces on the plane. We stopped over in Charlotte, NC on the way down and as I was sitting in the food court waiting for my flight, who walks by but Drew Bledsoe. In 1998, Bledsoe was the New England Patriots starting quarterback. He was only a year removed from a Superbowl appearance and was a major celebrity back home. Nobody else seemed to recognize him as he and his two travel companions stood in line waiting for their food so I nervously went up and said hi. “Uh, excuse me…Drew?” He turned and looked at me. “Hey, how’s it going?” “Pretty good…um…I’m actually from outside of Boston and huge Patriots fan…I just enlisted in the Army and I’m on my way to Germany for the next three years but I just wanted to tell you that the thing I’m going to miss most about home is watching you guys play on Sundays…” “Cool, thanks. Germany huh? I’ve got a couple of friends who are in the army there, they say it’s awesome, great beer” “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it…anyway, just wanted to say hi…good luck next season” “Thanks, good luck in Germany man, you’re gonna have a great time there” I felt pretty stupid but I’d never really met anyone famous before and had no idea what to say. I ran right over to the pay phone and called Mike and Jen to tell them about it but they were not home so I left a frantic message on their machine telling them of my encounter with Mr. Bledsoe. With my brush with celebrity behind me I got on the plane still a bit excited about meeting one of my hometown sports heroes. When I got off the plane in Columbia, South Carolina later that night I was snapped back into reality. There was an E7 in his dress uniform screaming his head off at everybody. Get your shit! Get in line! No talking! Eyes straight ahead! I said no talking! Are you deaf?! “Holy crap, what have I gotten myself into?! Am I crazy?! What the hell was I thinking?!” I’m standing there with all the young basic training recruits, most of them just out of high school, and for the first time I’m thinking that I made a big mistake when the guy spots me – I guess I must have stood out among the younger people – and walks over to me. “Oh no, what the hell did I do? Why is he walking towards me? Shit, this was a bad idea!” He stopped about 10 feet away and pointed at me. “Are you prior service? “Yes…” “OK, get out of that line, you don’t need to be with all those new guys.” Phew. Fortunately the prior service people were treated a bit better than the basic trainees since we had already been through it all before. We had to go through all the same inprocessing that they did but we had separate barracks and had a lot more freedom. I made some good friends during the 5 or 6 days that we were there waiting to go overseas which made the trip a little easier to deal with. There was one guy who really just begged to be made fun of. He was from the upper peninsula of Michigan. My brother used to work up there and told me that people make fun of “UPers” quite a bit as they see them as backwards rednecks. Well, let me tell you, this guy fit the bill. We called him “Youpee”. He actually brought a hockey stick with him. We were like “You know you can probably buy a hockey stick in Germany, right?” But he couldn’t stand to part with his hockey stick. We were allowed two checked bags and one carry on and Youpee used his hockey stick as his carry on and asked us about a dozen times if we thought we might be able to get a game together when we get to Germany. It was nearly May. That was Youpee. Another guy, from Montana, told me that he enlisted active duty to go to Germany for one reason and one reason alone: so he could ski the Alps. You must really love to ski if you’re willing to join the army just to do it. There was a kid named Bosh who was just crazy. He had a tongue ring and used to try and tell us that he had once done a secret airborne jump into North Korea. We just kind of humored him and said it must have been quite a harrowing adventure. He’d lived a hell of a life for a 19 year old kid. Then there was Stephanie. Stephanie was the very definition of white trailer trash. She was 24, from the swamps outside of Tallahessee, Florida, had worked in a bar since she was twelve years old, had three kids, wasn’t married, and had one of the thickest southern accents I’d ever heard. She was mildly attractive, loved to gamble, and was very friendly. I hadn’t met very many women like her in my life so I was kind of intrigued by her. We all flew to Germany together except for Stephanie who had to remain at Ft Jackson to testify against a married E5 who had repeatedly tried to coerce her into having sex with him while he was supposed to be supervising our work detail. 

Click here for the next part

New videos of the kids

Back to Germany and a quick update on Luca...

Headed up to Germany on business for the rest of the week, back this weekend.

Luca is now starting to stand on his own with no support. He'll stand for about 10 seconds and then fall on his butt. I'm thinking he'll be taking his first steps any day now...

Parenting Lesson #78

Videos of the kids

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Those wonderful search terms...

In the past few days, here are the search terms that have landed people on my humble little blog:

boyfriend crossdressed as girl
a letter to my newborn
blu marlin vernazza
letter to newborn
frankfurt red light district eros facial
inishark venice
venice pub crawl
underrated european cities
blogs on letters to newborns
mothers letter to her newborn son

20 Things I miss about Heidelberg

1. The Dubliner

2. Hiking the Heiligenberg

3. The salads at Medoc

4. The pletora of sushi joints

5. Walking up and down the Hauptstrasse

6. Eating panini in the biergarten at Hemingways

7. Sitting in the Marktplace next to the big church

8. Flammkuchen at the Villa Lounge

9. Chinese food at the Shanghai

10. The view from the Philosophenweg

11. Tannen Zapfel Pils

12. Quiz Night

13. Doner kebaps from Cedars

14. The Indian Plalace

15. Thai Food from the Chang Mai

16. 103 different kinds of schnitzel at the Schnitzelhaus

17. Tapas at the Bar d'Aix en Provence

18. The Herbstfest

19. STEVE-O!

20. Huge dinner parties at our house

I'm on 'roids.

Seriously, I got my first steroid injection yesterday, even though I hate needles. Of course it wasn't the kind of steroids that make you all buff, it was for a shoulder injury. I developed it a month or so ago and it's gotten progressively worse. Saw the orthopedist a couple weeks ago, he took x-rays but couldn't find anything bad like a fracture or anything so he said it was probably something called "impingement syndrome", which is pretty much like bursitis or tendinitis. He prescribed Motrin to reduce swelling in the area but it kept getting worse and when I saw him again yesterday he decided to try a steroid shot. The shot numbs the area (lydocaine) and reduces the swelling and it worked right away. The only problem was that I felt a bit of the numbness all the way down in my pinkie which is not supposed to happen. Because of this, he mentioned that it might be an indication of a secondary problem, perhaps even a torn rotator cuff. Of course they don't have an MRI machine here so if it comes to that, I'll have to either go on the economy or go all the way up to Landstuhl in Germany. Hopefully the shot will work and it won't come to that...

LOL ROR!

The View From My Upstairs Balcony

One of my favorite parts of our place, this is the view first thing in the morning:

More failure...

More on the X Man

Well, the mystery of what has been ailing the X Man is starting to come into focus a bit more. I had to reschedule his doctor appointment yesterday but I had interesting conversation with our neighbor a couple nights ago that helped shed some light on thigs. See, we live in a "bifamiliare" (basically a duplex) and the family that lives next to us has a grandchild living with them named Danielle. Danielle is about Xavier's age, is in his class at school, and the two have become best buddies. Xavier is often over their house playing with Danielle and it's cute to hear them playing together, the X Man speaking fluent Italian to him. Anyway, I happened to be talking to Danielle's grandmother the other night and mentioned Xavier's vomiting and diarrhea. She told me that Danielle has had the same thing for the past week as has everyone else in their house. Not only that but I've been told that it is some kind of virus and has been sweeping the whole area. Luca had it and I've even got a touch of it myself the past day or two. Fortunately Xavier appears to be over it and seems back to normal the past couple days. Last night he even kept complaining that he was hungry.

In other X Man news, he has developed a supernatural fear of bees. We have a big flower bush next to our driveway and the bees have been all over the past week as the weather has been beautiful here. Everytime he has to get in and out of the car now, he jumps out and runs halfway across the yard just to avoid getting anywhere near the bush. Not only that but, in his mind, spring = bees. The past several weeks, he asks me 10 times a day "How many more days til spring". And when I tell him "Spring will be here soon", he gets quiet and says "Oh no...bees". His obsession with bees is actually getting quite annoying. I can't imagine what will happen if he ever actually gets stung by one. He will probably pass out and be scarred for life...

FAIL.

What to do with the X Man?

Something is wrong with the X Man. Exactly what, we're not quite sure. He's been on antibiotics twice since January for ear infections which seem to have subsided. He's always had a weak stomach and pukes easily but lately it seems to be getting worse. The past couple weeks he's also developed diarrhea. At first I figured it must be a side effect of the antibiotics but he stopped taking those almopst a week ago and still has the shits. He has always been a fussy eater and underweight but lately he has gotten much worse in the this regard and coupled with the diarrhea, he's losing weight when he should be gaining. Not only that but he has been puking a lot lately. This makes it difficult because we can't force him to eat all of his meal for fear that he will inevitably puke it right up. He takes two bites and then complains that he's full or that his tummy hurts. It's extremely annoying. He still has plenty of energy though and he isn't displaying any signs of the flu or any other major illness, which is encouraging. I kind of suspect that he's caught some kind of virus or bug from one of the other kids at school - I don't think it's any coincidence that his health problems started right after he started going to school.

Anyway, he's got a doctor's appointment on Thursday so hopefully we'll know what - if anything - is wrong with him.

Luca and the X Man

Application to be a parent...

This was sent to me recently and thought I'd post it for all the other parents out there...

PARENT - Job Description

POSITION :
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma
Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION :

Long term, team players needed, for challenging, permanent work in an often chaotic environment.
Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends
and frequent 24 hour shifts on call.
Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!
Travel expenses not reimbursed.
Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES :

The rest of your life.
Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5.
Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule
and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.
Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
Must be a willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next.
Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
Must always hope for the best but b e prepared for the worst.
Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.
Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION :

None.
Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE :

None required unfortunately.
On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION :

Get this! You pay them!
Offering frequent raises and bonuses.
A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent.
When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS :

While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered;
this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth, unconditional love, and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.

Five 80's TV shows I loved

1. Cheers

2. Hunter

3. Spencer: For Hire

4. Family Ties

5. Moonlighting

My 10 favorite Italian wines

1. Marchesi di Barolo

2. Brunello di Montalcino (never had a bad one)

3. Amarone (preferably from Recchia)

4. Cannonau di Sardegna

5. Nero d'Avola (Sicilia/Sicily)

6. Chianti Classico (MUST be a Classico)

7. Barbaresco d'Alba

8. Valpolicella Classico Superiore

9. Valpolicella Ripasso di Recchia

10. Any Pinot Nero from the Trentino region

10 European cities I think are underrated

1. Bologna, Italy

2. Wurzburg, Germany

3. Strasbourg, France

4. Ljubijana, Slovenia

5. Nurnberg, Germany

6. Salzburg, Austria

7. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

8. Porto, Portugal

9. Andorra La Vella

10. Padova, Italy

5 Reasons why I love watching Rugby

1. Scrums

2. The Hooker

3. The Sin Bin

4. Blood Subs

5. Extra points for blowouts.

My 10 favorite Red Sox players

In honor of the start of spring training, here are my top 10 favorite Red Sox players:

1. Yaz
2. Dewey
3. Jim Rice
4. Tek
5. Gator
6. Pudge
7. Papi
8. Tim Wakefield
9. Youk
10. Curt Schilling

Random thoughts upon my return from Germany.

Got back last night from Germany. A lot going on so I thought I'd give a quick update...

First of all, our laptop got some nasty viruses the day before I left and sure enough, it is now inoperable. I tried the usual fixes - full system scans, etc. I even bought a copy of Spy Doctor" to help. It helped somewhat but alas, there was one or two recurring viruses that both the antivirus and Spy Doctor software caught but were not able to delete or quarantine so they apparently went unchecked and have now rendered my laptop inoperable. I would like to think that there is a special place in hell for all the lowlife scumbag sonsobitches who are responsible for computer viruses. Anyway, I've had so many people tell me that I should buy a Mac because it's not as susceptible to viruses that I am considering now doing just that. If anyone has any advice along these lines, please feel free to advise.


Our dream house here has quickly turned into a nightmare. Northern Italy has suffered from record rainfall this winter and back in late December, a few days before we moved in to our house, there was water leaking into the taverna. The taverna is the finished basement rooms. there are two rooms, one large room complete with indoor fireplace/barbeque that was supposed to be our main living room area and another smaller room off to the side that was supposed to a combination of my gym and the wife's hobby room. The landlord cleaned the water up but the bigger problems is that the walls suffered tremendous water damage. The paint started peeling off and not long after, disgusting mold developed on the walls. The landlord feels extremely bad as this has never happened before to the house (all the neighbors in town say the same thing, they've never had this much rain here before) and has spent hours upon hours downstairs scraping the mold and paint off the walls in preparation of someone coming in to fix them. However, the rain has not let up until a day or two ago and several times we've gone downstairs to discover that water was starting to leak in again. The landlord has all the walls scraped clean and I've got a dehumidifier running 24/7 which I'm hoping helps. We are having our second straight day of sunny weather as well so hopefully the ground will start to dry out.

As you may know, this winter has been the worst in my entire life for sickness. I originally caught some kind of uberbug in Germany before arriving back to Italy and I have not been completely healthy since probably September or October. And pretty much everyone else in the house has been sick as well. The X Man came down with something similar to what I had shortly after starting school so I figured he either got it from me or one of his classmates. Turned out that he had an ear infection and a terrible dry cough that lasted for weeks. The doctor put him on 10 days of antibiotics and he seems back to normal now, thank God. Luca has also had a bit of a cold complete with runny nose and the occasional cough as well. The doctor said it was nothing serious, just a normal cold. And most surprisingly, the wife has been more sick this winter than I can ever remember her being. As for myself, I have also been more sick this winter than any other in my life. Just one thing after another, sinus infections, dry hacking coughs, flu with a fever, you name it. The cough that I developed in Germany before we arrived continued to get worse and worse until I finally went to the doctor after about two months. He wasn't sure what it was so he put me on antibiotics. They did not work but the cough finally went away by itself a few weeks later. A few weeks after that, the wife got sick, then I got the flu and was bedridden with a 102 temperature. Then the wife developed a really bad sore throat which I came down with this past week in Germany. And now I am starting to develop my cough that I thought I had finally gotten over again.

So a few weeks ago I started wondering if the mold from the basement could possibly be causing at least some of our recent health problems. I asked Giampi about it and he said no, the problems we have been having wouldn't be caused by the mold and that it's not just us, many people in Italy and Europe in general are suffering similar health problems this winter. But it has still been sticking in my mind as I just have never seen the amount of illness we have suffered before. I received an email from my step mother this morning describing how someone in her family once had to move out of their house because of a recurring mold problem that was making their little boy so sick that they almost lost him. So now I am almost convinced that the mold has something to do with everything and am looking into trying to get it tested or whatever. I'm hoping that it is not the case as we do still love our place and it would be impossible to find another place in Caldogno as perfect as this one (minus the water damage and mold of course). Once we figure things out I'll post an update here.

In the meantime, postings may be sporadic as we are currently without a computer at home...

On the Road Again...

Leaving for Germany in a bit, be back this weekend. You all be good while I'm gone...

"What Comes Around...": A True Story (Part 5)

[NOTE: This is a retelling of what is probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to me and how I ended up getting a small measure of revenge in the end. Everything in this story is true to the best of my recollection.]

The next day I called my project manager in Afghanistan and explained the situation to him and asked his advice on what I should do. He said not to worry, that I didn’t work for Barrett, I worked for LTC Fanning. I tried to explain that it didn’t matter because Barrett totally had Fanning like a puppet on a string and that he had managed to set it up so that if you worked for Fanning…you pretty much worked for Barrett. I did exactly what he told me to do, which was email Barrett and cc LTC Fanning. I was very cordial and did not let on that I knew about his master plan. I simply said something like “Tom, I noticed that you’ve sent some stuff to SFC Peterson and forgot to cc me on it. In the future, please be sure to cc me on all traffic as soon we’ll be planning redeployment and I need to be in the loop on everything”. Well, Barrett must have sensed what I was doing because he did not like it one bit. He blasted a reply on which he cc’d Fanning and several other people in the chain in which he angrily demanded to know everything that I had done so far during the deployment and that he wanted to see copies of all the products I had produced and what I was working on, etc. It was a genius move. He knew that isolating me in the rear would give me little chance to be involved and so demanding to know everything that I was working on would be like exposing to the world that I was just an overpaid contractor who wasn’t doing all the things I was hired to do. The irony was that he had schemed successfully from day one to put me in that position. I knew that if I pushed it, I would probably lose and probably have my position cut so I dropped the matter and never replied. In fact, Barrett and I had no further communication the rest of the deployment. I tried to get stuff through Fanning but Fanning sent everything through Barrett so I was screwed. Given what I had already learned, I was sure that Barrett had already convinced Fanning that I was worthless and not needed.

The months that followed were probably the most stressful of my life. I woke up every morning worried that that was the day my contract would be cut. I had a wife and small child at home and had no idea what I would do if that happened. It was a terrifying thought and it gripped me day and night. I started eating and drinking more and more out of stress and my weight rapidly ballooned to unforeseen proportions. I was constantly stressed and on edge and often took it out on the wife which made things worse. I had to sit each day and watch as someone who had pretended to be my friend systematically ruined my life and there was nothing I could do about it.

I did get a slight reprieve. A few months before the deployment ended, the contracting officer approached me and said he’d heard that an NCO was giving me trouble and trying to get me fired. He told me I had nothing to worry about, that they were happy with me and had no problems with my performance. I was a bit relieved but then in the same breath he also leveled with me and told me that the contract would almost certainly be cut when the unit redeployed. I said I understood and he asked me if I would be interested in staying as a Department of the Army civilian. I told him I definitely would be and he said he was trying to get my position converted to a DAC billet. Though I was happy about the new development, I was certain that as soon as Barrett found out about the DAC billet, he would do everything in his power to ensure that I would not get it.

In the end, I did not get selected for the DAC billet. In fact I ended up a distant third on the list for the very job that I had done for the past 6 years. Although I will probably never know exactly how much Barrett had to do with it, I did find out later on that he had filed and sent out several after action reviews in which he totally destroyed “the civilian” and went into great detail about how worthless “the civilian” was during the deployment and about how “the civilian” was a waste of money, etc. Losing out on my own job was an unbelievably humbling experience for me. For a long time afterward I questioned whether I was even in the right line of work. I was set to take another contract position in Hawaii for minuscule pay because it was the only offer I had when at the last minute a DAC position was offered to me working in Army Europe HQ in Heidelberg, Germany, the same place I had turned down the GS9 position a year and a half earlier. This position was a GS11 so I eagerly took it as it was in Europe and I could still come to Italy once or twice a year on vacation at least. As it turned out, the opportunity was a Godsend for me. While I had been passed over for my job in Italy, now I was working at a much higher level. It was like going from the minor leagues to the major leagues. And you know what? I excelled at it. I was learning new stuff, I was doing ten times the work I had done in Italy and I was making even more contacts in high places. That job went a long way towards restoring my confidence in my abilities. I kept in touch with Peterson and the individual who had ended up taking my position (we sort of knew each other already) and not surprisingly, they too ended up falling victim to Barrett’s schemes. The stories they told me about him sounded very similar to what I had lived through the previous year and a half. Eventually Barrett came down on orders for Ft Bragg but was able to finagle his way into an active guard slot somewhere in Iowa. He has since retired and is working as a GS9 the last I heard.

After 6 years in Italy, I had apparently made a name for myself. Everybody was quite surprised that I had not gotten the DAC position in Italy. One day, the LTC that I was working for at in Heidelberg was working late and it was just he and I so he asked me, what the hell happened in Italy that cost me the job? I told him I really didn’t know but I had my suspicions. I then told him the story about Barrett and what he had done to me and he said he has met NCO’s like that in his many years in the Army and they never surprise him. With the job in Italy, we were constantly doing business with Army Europe HQ in Heidelberg as they were our higher headquarters. A few of the guys who had worked with Barrett were quite shocked when I told them of Barrett’s actions as they all thought he was a smart, squared away NCO. That’s what always made things so hard to take – Barrett WAS extremely smart and he WAS a squared away NCO. Just made it harder to fathom how he could do something so underhanded and dirty.

I settled in and adjusted to my new position rather nicely. Although I missed Italy tremendously, I did enjoy working in Heidelberg. The guy who had taken my job in Italy ended up having so much trouble at it that after a year he requested to be released so he could go back to his old job in the US. I was hoping to get back down there but alas, the Colonel that I was working for at Army Europe HQ did not want me to leave and secretly convinced the new leadership in Italy not to fill the position (something I will never forgive him for). Looking back, I guess they were really happy with me and my performance which felt really good after the Barrett debacle. I even turned myself into somewhat of a go-to guy. After about a year and a half, my immediate supervisor left for a job in the US. I was asked by the leadership if I would be interested in the job and it was a GS12 position so I said yes. Unfortunately, the position ended up being posted as a temporary position so I didn’t even bother applying as my current position was permanent. A month or two later my big boss asked me to look over the list of people who had the referral list for the open position and see if I knew anyone. I scanned the list and there it was at the top of the second page: THOMAS BARRETT. It was like reliving the nightmare all over again. I went back to my boss, showed him the name and told him that if they ended up hiring this guy, I would quit on the spot. He asked why and I gave him a brief description of the history between us, after which he wholehearted agreed that this guy was not someone they wanted working there. The other hiring official was the LTC that I worked for so I asked to speak to him privately. I showed him the list and told him that “Thomas Barrett” was the NCO who I had told him about that night we were working late. He shook his head and said don’t worry, I was not the only person who he had heard negative things about Barrett from and there was no way they would hire him in light of this fact.

The funny thing is, out of a list of about 20 people, Barrett was far and away the most qualified candidate. Nobody else on there had anywhere near his experience and under normal circumstances, I would have recommended him in a heartbeat. In the end, someone else got the GS12 position and is, to this day, firmly ensconced in the position which is apparently about to become permanent. It could have been Barrett’s but for all of his scheming, manipulating and dirty tricks. In the end it probably won’t matter as I’m sure he’ll probably end up with a better job if he hasn’t already. But for that one brief moment, I got my little slice of revenge, even if it pales in comparison to what he did to me.

Sometimes you do indeed reap what you sow.

"What Comes Armound...": A True Story (Part 4)

[NOTE: This is a retelling of what is probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to me and how I ended up getting a small measure of revenge in the end. Everything in this story is true to the best of my recollection.]

The contract ended up taking a long time to get finalized and as a result I didn’t actually start the job until around December 1st. Sometime in late November as it was being finalized, I was introduced to the man who would be my new boss, LTC Ned Fanning (Not his real name). As it turned out, LTC Fanning was from Brockton, Mass. And was a huge Red Sox fan like me. The Red Sox had won the World Series for the first time in 86 years just a few weeks earlier so Red Sox fever was at an all time high and so we had an immediate bond. LTC Fanning had been brought in a month or so earlier to manage the deployment cell and my old section had been placed under him for the deployment. The problem was, he had no clue what my job entailed and he joked about it often – ‘Well, I know how to spell it now!”. He was always going 100 miles an hour and was so focused on other things that he didn’t want to have to take the time to worry about what we were doing, which was another reason why I was hired. However, as I quickly discovered, Barrett had become quite good at the job. He had taken advantage of my 2+ month absence by completely taking over everything and making it his own. I was not worried though, we were good friends, we worked together well before I had gotten out and I knew we would have no problem working together again under the new arrangement. He did seem different from the get-go though. He suddenly was a lot more serious and didn’t joke around as much. Whereas before it had always been a tradition to grab a mid morning or mid afternoon espresso, he suddenly claimed he was too busy to do so. It almost seemed as if he resented my presence there. I figured this was probably normal and didn’t worry about it too much but it was a bit difficult at times because I had been out of the loop for over 2 months and every time I asked him to bring me up to speed on where we were or let me take some of the workload I was rebuffed or thrown a bone that was supposed to pacify me. We did still maintain a good rapport though and it was obvious that he was just a little overworked and stressed about having to leave his family for another year deployment.

It also became obvious to me rather quickly that Barrett had turned himself into LTC Fanning’s right hand man. LTC Fanning loved him and gave him a lot of leeway to run “his” shop because he kept the heat off Fanning. The way the shop was to function was that Barrett and a Captain would spend the deployment at Ft. McPherson in Atlanta as the liaisons to the Central Command’s Army headquarters. Meanwhile I was to deploy to Afghanistan and run our shop from there. However, something very strange happened. A few weeks before we were supposed to leave, LTC Fanning informed me that had decided not to bring me to Afghanistan. This was strange because the reason why my position was created and why I was hired at all was to deploy with them. So if I was not deploying, there was a good chance my position would be cut and I would not have a job. I never got an explanation of why he suddenly changed his mind but it just seemed strange to me because only a few weeks earlier, his first words to me upon learning I had been hired were “Awesome, you’re deploying with us, right?”. By the grace of God, the contract officer decided not to cut my position. Instead I was to remain in the rear, in Vicenza, and support the unit however I could from there. This was not an ideal situation for me and I would spend the next year fearing that I could lose my job at any moment because there wouldn’t be enough to keep me busy.

Barrett (who had since been promoted to Master Sergeant) departed sometime in January for Atlanta and I was left running the show temporarily until everyone else left. He had lightened up considerably in the couple weeks before leaving and things seemed almost like the old times, joking on the phone and such after he got to Atlanta. I had told him straight out that I was worried about my job and constantly reminded him to keep me in the loop with everything. Since I was not deploying, he would be doing most of the work from Atlanta, so I told him I was counting on him to help me out by sending as much stuff my way as possible. He reassured me that he would do just that.

Shortly after Barrett and the rest of the unit had left, we received a new NCO, Sergeant First Class Jerome Peterson (Not his real name). Like most NCO’s who came into my shop, he was a signal NCO and had absolutely no experience with the job. So I set about my usual task of training him as I did with everyone else over the past 5 years or so. I liked him right away, he was a sports nut like me and loved a good discussion so we had plenty to talk about and we got along really well. He was also a very religious man and was one of the most honest people I’ve ever met. He was very easy to work with. Unfortunately there was not a lot for us to do in the rear.

Weeks and then months had gone by and I was not receiving anything from Barrett for some reason except for jokes and/or updates about mutual acquaintances. Every so often I would remind him that, for my job’s sake, I needed to be included in things as much as possible. He would say yeah, don’t worry, there just isn’t anything to send. Something didn’t seem quite right but he and I were such good friends that the thought that he might be purposely withholding stuff from me never entered my mind. Then one day, Peterson asked me to explain something to him. I looked at it and it was an email from Barrett discussing some aspect of the deployment. I thought it was kind of strange that Barrett had sent it to him and not me. Then he showed me his inbox and there were dozens and dozens of emails that Barrett had sent him or cc’d him on. It made no sense to me. Why would Barrett send that stuff to Peterson, who he had never met and who still didn’t know anything about the job and totally ignore me? I put it in the back of my mind because there really wasn’t much I could do about it. Besides, the deployment was about half over by that time and I still had a job so I was happy. Still nervous…but happy nonetheless.

A couple weeks later, at the end of the day, Peterson says good night and walks out the door, then reappeared a few minutes later. It was just he and I in there and he says he needs to talk to me. I said what’s up and he says “Look man, I really didn’t want to get involved in this and I wasn’t planning on saying anything but I can’t keep quiet anymore. This just isn’t right and I feel bad about this and I feel like I should at least warn you”. My reaction was something like “Huh?”. He then proceeded to inform me that Barrett had devised a grand scheme to get rid of me and was trying to enlist his help. He talked about how he never wanted me there as a civilian because he didn’t think they needed me and described in great detail his vision of the section after they redeployed – him and Peterson running things and no civilian. Apparently he had been working to try and get rid of me since the day they hired me. It became painfully obvious to me that Barrett was the one who had convinced Fanning not to deploy me, figuring they would cut my position on the spot (which they very nearly did). It was very hard for me to accept that someone who I thought was a good friend was actually scheming behind my back to get me fired. If we weren’t such good friends I probably might have seen it coming but I was just floored. It was literally like a punch in the stomach. I’d never felt so betrayed. I felt kind of like William Wallace when he ripped the helmet off the King’s guard and discovered it was Sir Robert the Bruce. I still had a hard time believing anyone was capable of such a thing but Peterson showed me emails from Barrett that backed up everything he said. It was true, every word of it.

It was instantly the worst thing anyone had ever done to me in my life and I had a hard time dealing with it. I started ruminating over everything Barrett had done since I’d known him. It all made sense now. He worked so feverishly to help me get out because he wanted control of the shop. He was pushing me to the job in Germany because he knew he could never be “the guy” as long as I was around. It was why he would not allow me into the building when I was on terminal leave, he had to keep me out of the loop as much as possible. It was why he had managed to get so much control over LTC Fanning before I came on board.

Barrett and I had had several conversations over the months about his future. He would go into great detail about how he was dropping his retirement paperwork after the deployment and how he was going back to Tennessee. He even told me several times that he had passed the state trooper test back home and was planning on becoming a state trooper. He described how he was sick of Europe and wanted to go back to the US. And yet, his plan all along was to get rid of me and take my job, plain and simple. And he never let on. If it weren’t for Peterson, I never would have known. I told Peterson he was a good man for at least warning me. He reiterated that he really didn’t want to get involved but, as he put it, “you’re a good man with a beautiful family and what he’s trying to do to you just ain't right”. I had no idea how I was going to handle the situation but I reassured Peterson that I would keep him out of it and that I would not tell Barrett that he has said anything to me.

'What Comes Around...": A True Story (Part 3)

[NOTE: This is a retelling of what is probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to me and how I ended up getting a small measure of revenge in the end. Everything in this story is true to the best of my recollection.]

On the job front, things were also progressing. I’d known a few other people around the European theater who did same job as me and who had also gotten out of the Army. Each of them walked into either a GS11 or GS12 position right away, so that was my benchmark. I felt that with my qualifications and skill level, I should at least be able to jump into a GS11 position right away. I spoke with a MAJ that I knew up in Heidelberg and he informed me that they had a GS9 position opening up very soon and that I should definitely apply. This did not please me. I told him that I thought I should be starting at least at the 11 level and he agreed but said the 9 was all he had. It was the most promising lead I had so even though I was hoping something better would come along I reluctantly applied for the GS9 position when it got posted. If nothing better came along, I would have taken it, as it was in Germany (still Europe!) and featured full living quarters allowance (housing and utilities) so it really wasn’t a bad starting point. Barrett assured me that it was a good move and continued to do everything he could to ensure I’d be getting out of the Army on time. Eventually I got selected for the GS9 position. I tried psyching myself up for the big career move but I just couldn’t get excited about it. I was so in love with Italy that I was extremely saddened at the thought of leaving. Oh how I wished I could find a job in Italy somewhere!

Suddenly one day, I started hearing whispers that Northrup Grumman was making progress on a possible contract with my unit to support them in various capacities during their impending deployment. And one of the “capacities” happened to be my job. I was elated to hear this and was hoping something would happen soon. I’d already accepted the GS9 position in Heidelberg but if I had a chance to stay in Italy, however small, I was taking it. It would be a lot more money than a GS9 position and best of all, it would allow me to remain in Italy, the country I loved so well.

You have to understand how much I loved it here. It was my home for over 4 years, I was learning the language and the X Man had been adopted by our neighbors, Giampietro and Agnese. He was already speaking Italian better than English! Italy was in my blood, it was my home. I didn’t want to live anywhere else. And so, even though I didn’t like doing it, I secretly did everything I could to draw out the in-processing with Heidelberg in hopes that the contract would be finished soon. I couldn’t take a chance at turning down the GS9 and then finding out that the contract was dead, then I’m out of the Army and jobless. I still needed the GS9 position as a fallback. While all this was going on, one day Barrett decided to give me some unsolicited advice. Out of the blue he tells me that I can do whatever I want but that the best thing for me would be to take the GS9 position in Heidelberg. The reasoning he gave was that I had gone as far as I was going to go in Vicenza and going to work at Army Europe HQ was the best thing for my career. I told him I didn’t care, I loved Italy too much to leave so it’s not even something I need to think about. And besides, the amount of money I would make as a contractor would be hard to turn down. He tried hard to dissuade me but I would not budge. The fact that he was pushing me hard to take the Germany job didn’t seem that odd to me at the time, after all, he seemed to be looking out for my best interest.

So here was my timeline: my official last day in the Army was 12 December. I had saved up two months of what is called “terminal leave” so my actual last day at work was on or about 14 October. You usually start clearing a few weeks out so pretty much by mid September I was gone. I was doing what was called a “European out” which means that I was getting out of the Army in Europe instead of the US. Barrett was masterful in making sure that all the necessary paperwork was in order and submitted in time. The contract was very nearly complete and I was excited. I pretty much knew that I would be hired as a contractor so I tried to ensure that I kept myself in the loop with the planning effort regarding the upcoming deployment. I didn’t want to miss a couple months and then come back and try to get caught up. I asked Barrett to please keep me apprised of any major developments so I could hit the ground running when the contract was finally done and he agreed. However, one day after I had finished clearing and had started my terminal leave, I stopped up to the office to say hello and see how the planning effort was going. Barrett met me at the door and informed me that I wasn’t allowed in the building. I was sure he was joking. He then explained that since I had cleared the unit and technically was not part of it at that moment, I was not cleared to enter the building. I still thought he was joking. Turns out, he was serious. I kind of laughed and said “C’mon Tom, everybody here knows me, you know I’m going to be working here as a contractor very soon so I need to stay involved” but he stood firm, saying it was “Army policy”. I thought he was being unnecessarily strict all of a sudden but I didn’t push it. I left and figured I’d just wait until the contract was finished.

Eventually the contract did get finished. I applied for my position and not surprisingly was selected since I’d done the job the past 4 years and was pretty much a shoe-in for it. It was one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to me and it was the dream of almost every low to mid level soldier in the Army; get out and get a high paying contract position doing the same thing you did as a soldier. My salary literally doubled over night. The position would require that I deploy to Afghanistan with the unit and that would mean anywhere from $25-50,000 on top of the normal pay. I was just floored. When I ran into Barrett, I excitedly told him of the offer I had received. In my mind, Barrett had played a huge part in my dream coming true and I really thought he would be excited for me but he didn’t seem to be. I figured he was probably just being his usual even-keeled self, that he was secretly happy for me deep down. I told him that I owed him a huge debt for all of his help over the past few months and invited him and his wife over for dinner to say thanks. After dinner, I presented him and his wife with a set of expensive wine glasses as a thank you gift. I remember making a little speech telling him that he was the best NCO I had in my entire time in the Army and that I could never repay him for everything he had done for me. I meant every word.

"What Comes Around..."; A True Story (Part 2)

[NOTE: This is a retelling of what is probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to me and how I ended up getting a small measure of revenge in the end. Everything in this story is true to the best of my recollection.]

It was early 2004 when I made the decision that I was getting out of the Army and there were two main factors that drove the decision. The first was the whole Air Force officer packet screw job that I just described. The second was my re-enlistment situation. I was fast approaching my ten year mark and apparently the rule in the Army is that when you re-enlist with 10 or more years in, it is an indefinite re-enlistment. What that means is that the Army basically owns you until you retire. You can request to get out before retirement but they do not have to let you. You can submit your retirement paperwork at 20 years but they don’t have to approve it. Needless to say, there was NO F’ING WAY I was going to allow the Army – or anybody else for that matter - to have that much control over my life. My current enlistment was slated to end on December 12th, 2004 which seemed like perfect timing to me. I basically had about 10 months to start getting my ducks in a row and start looking for civilian jobs. The X Man was only a few months old at this time so it did make me a little nervous but for the most part I enjoyed my lame duck status for most of 2004.

Not long after I decided that I was getting out we found out that my company would be deploying to Afghanistan sometime in early 2005. I debated long and hard about whether to stay in for another year and go with them but in the end I was just too burned out and couldn’t get past the thought of missing an entire year of the X Man’s life. Besides, I had already made decent progress in my job hunting and was worried that some of the opportunities I had would not still be available in another year and a half. Several people tried to scare me by telling me that I would be getting stop-lossed and would not be able to get out of the Army but some quick figuring put my ETS (end of time in service) date slightly outside of the stop loss window so I wasn’t too worried.

In the spring of 2004, I had to accompany my boss on a three week trip to the US to work on some details of the rotation to Afghanistan the following year. He apparently found my contributions of decent value and upon returning often inquired about my timeline in getting out and occasionally wondered out loud how he was going to get by without me (for the record, I always thought he’d have no problem). Several times he remarked that he would love to keep me there as a civilian if he could. Unfortunately there was still no civilian position here so he was out of luck. Around this time I had a friend up in Army Europe Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany who was a contracting representative for Northrup Grumman, the second largest defense contractor in the US. They had several contracts at bases in Germany and were really interested in expanding to Italy if they could. I mentioned this to my boss and said if he really was interested, I knew guy who might be able to work with him in getting a civilian position created. Eventually he agreed and I put the guy in touch with him, then recused myself from the situation, hoping for the best but not really expecting anything.

Also in the spring of 2004, while all of this was going on, we received a new NCOIC in our shop. His name was Sergeant First Class Thomas Barrett (not his real name). Barrett was different than every other NCO that ever came to our shop in that he had a transportation MOS. Everyone else, including myself, had a signal MOS. This usually made it hard for people to learn the job because it’s a lot more closely related to transportation than signal. He had quite a background, having deployed to Iraq with the airborne brigade on base and working pretty much every aspect of the transportation and deployment world in both the US and Europe. I liked him right away as he was not like most of the NCO’s I’d worked with during my time there. He was friendly, jovial, liked to laugh and joke around and wasn’t a “hard ass”. I went through the normal routine of training him as I did with every new person that came into the shop and to my surprise he seemed to pick up the job a lot quicker than anyone else ever had since I’d been there. With his background, this was not surprising and I was pleased that there might finally be another person in the shop who could do the job, especially with me getting out of the Army at the end of the year.

Barrett and I hit it off on a personal level as well. We had a lot in common and he treated me like an equal, not someone who was two ranks below him and thus subservient to his every command. He had a rather sizable family – a wife and five kids – whom I met and they were all very nice. He was originally from Tennessee and he had that sort of good old boy charm about him. I noticed right away that he was a master at working the system. He seemed to know every Army regulation in the book and, when it suited his purpose, how to get around them. One time in the middle of a work day, he told us that we had a mission to attend to so we were closing up shop for the day. The mission? Meeting his family at the movie theater to watch the movie “Dodgeball”. Yes indeed, Thomas Barrett was my kind of NCO.

As the year progressed, I started doing all my paperwork to get out of the Army. As with anything else the Army does, there is a ton of paperwork and bureaucracy involved when you decide to separate from the service. I needed to ensure that everything was in order so they could not end up stop-loss’ing me on a technicality. Around the time I was beginning the process, Barrett took me aside for a chat. He asked me if getting out of the Army was what I really wanted to do and of course I said yes. He then told me that he was going to make it his mission to ensure that all my paperwork was in order and that I don’t get screwed. I was very impressed as I’d never had an NCO take such an interest in my well being; in most cases it was usually the exact opposite. And true to his word, he went above and beyond in assuring that I had no problems getting out of the Army. Whenever I hit a roadblock, he would navigate me through it. Whenever I had trouble dealing with one of our personnel clerks, he would have a “chat” with that person (or his supervisor) and things would get straightened out. I was quite surprised by the whole thing to be honest. I thought to myself “If I’d always had NCO’s like him, I might have made a career out of the Army!”.


To be continued...

"What Comes Around..."; A true story. (Part I)

[NOTE: This is a retelling of what is probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to me and how I ended up getting a small measure of revenge in the end. Everything in this story is true to the best of my recollection.]

I came to Italy from Germany in May 0f 2000. I ended up working on the division staff doing a job that was highly sophisticated and detail oriented. I loved it right away because jobs like that are few and far between in the Army. In Germany I worked on radios and spent a lot of time in a field environment which I’ve never really enjoyed so when I fell into a job where I would be working at a desk in an office behind a computer, I welcomed the change. But what I loved most was that the job was difficult, challenging, always changing and so you had to stay sharp to keep up. There was a lot to learn and I devoured it all. I took to it right away and became rather good at it. Most of the officers that I worked for didn’t really know exactly what my job was but they knew it was important enough that if they had someone who was good at it, they were extremely fortunate. And so I developed a good relationship with pretty much every officer I worked with and enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy. I never thought the job was so hard that the average person couldn’t learn it but for some reason, every single other soldier, officer and NCO alike, had trouble learning the job. Most never even got the slightest grasp on it at all and because of that, spent most of their time doing everything BUT what they were supposed to be doing. I didn’t mind as much because it made me, by default, the go-to guy. For all of my time doing the job as a soldier, I was quite literally the only person there who knew how to do it. Over the course of my time there I’d met and worked with civilians who did the same job as me and I always had it in the back of my mind that I would love to one day get out of the Army and do my job as a civilian. After all, it would mean better pay, still serving my country and yet not having to put up with most of the Army crap that I didn’t like. Unfortunately there were no civilian positions here in Italy doing my job so I continued to re-enlist to stay in Italy because I did not want to leave this beautiful country. There were several civilian positions in Heidelberg, Germany but…Germany is not Italy. And so I stayed.

In the summer of 2003, I was approached by an Air Force friend and told that they (the AF) were now accepting candidates from the Army for their officer training school. I had always wanted to join the Air Force and had often toyed with the idea of getting a commission and finishing my military career as an officer so I took the test and scored high enough to submit a packet. Several officers I worked with at the time were thrilled and wanted me to succeed so through them I was able to acquire not only a letter of recommendation from my Commanding General, but also an emphatic recommendation for admittance from an Air Force General Officer who was the 86th Wing commander at Ramstein AB. I was told by the Air Force recruiter who was supervising my packet that these two recommendations together meant that my acceptance was guaranteed as soon as my packet was submitted. Unfortunately, the Army was late supplying me with the last remaining document I needed and literally nine days before the packet was due, the Air Force filled their slots and closed the process for that year. The recruiter told me it was no problem, I just had to wait a year and submit the finished packet, that it was guaranteed, but for me the die was cast. My future as an Air Force officer was not to be. I was already 32 years old so waiting another year and then getting a commission at age 34 just was not an option for me. But by that time, I had really grown tired of much of the day to day Army bullshit that I had to put up with. I enjoyed my job tremendously but didn’t enjoy being subjected to the whims of idiot NCOs (and occasionally officers) who had way too much control over my life for my liking. I hated the fact that I couldn’t just come in, do PT, do my job and then go home. I’d always told myself that I’d stay in the Army as long as I enjoyed it or could at least tolerate it and after nearly seven years active duty, the time had come. And so my options became limited to one: get out of the Army and get a civilian job.


To be continued...