I’m honor to be participating in the NY Time’s homefires blog:

LIFE LESSONS

I’m occasionally asked what I’ve learned from my experiences in the military.

My responses, particularly before my third tour, have always involved leadership, confidence, knowledge of myself and of people in general. This hasn’t changed. I remain grateful.

Sometimes I feel the pressure of expectation to cast myself as a victim of my experiences, but in truth, I think I’ve benefited from them.

The Army, and especially the infantry, gives its junior leaders tremendous responsibility. The rough world of the 82nd Airborne Division was a steep learning curve for me, a freshly minted lieutenant accustomed to the studious habits of Stanford University, of its School of Engineering, no less. I learned an awful lot and, I think, emerged a better person.

More recently, I’ve realized some of my beliefs have formed so slowly and subtly that their learning has been entirely unappreciated. I’ve learned that no matter what, life goes on — it’ll do so with or without any one of us — and I’ve found a measure of respect for selfishness; for people who look out for themselves and their lives yet to come. This is surely cynical.

If there’s redemption in the selfishness, it has to do with loving life, with respecting yourself enough not to end your days prematurely or in futile pursuits. Yes, I said it. Somewhere between my second and third tours, I came to believe that our foreign, undeclared wars flaunted our Constitution and made us less safe — from terrorism, from debt and from tyranny at home. Believing this wasn’t easy, but I couldn’t help it. Without faith in our military endeavors, my long-held notions about duty, heroism and fighting the good fight didn’t survive long.

I think you’re only a hero for as long as your image is useful. . . . (Read more from nytimes.com)

Now that I’m published in the NY Times, am I still allowed to complain about the media?

“These are perilous times to believe in liberty. Because I oppose Obama’s expansion of government (socialized health care), people assume I was for Bush’s expansion of government (wars, domestic spying, suspending habeas corpus for detainees, monitoring domestic travel, etc.).

Such is the world through the lens of left-versus-right glasses. I’ve been lumped together with neo-cons, called a Republican agent, and faced such comments as, ‘Think of [alternative-energy subsidies] this way: It’s a new weapon to use against the Middle East. It’s weapons research. That should satisfy your tiny repubtard mind.’

I’ll note that I voted for neither McCain nor Obama — neither for the old white guy who believes in bank bailouts and expanding foreign, undeclared wars, nor for the young black guy who believes in bank bailouts and expanding foreign, undeclared wars.

In both cases, dissenters were/are portrayed as fringe, radical, unreasonable, and irrelevant. In both cases, the conflict is crammed into a paradigm of left versus right, and, in both cases, it’s an uphill battle for those of us who oppose an expansion of government.” (from DailyIowan.com)

A friend of mine shocked the hell out of me recently and told me he was not just going back into the Active Army (from the I.R.R.) but giving ranger school another try. He asked for advice. I thought I’d share it with the world.

Realize, I went through in 2001, so some stuff may have changed. I also went through in the winter.

1. Toward the beginning, they make you dumb all your bags and then stress you out as you repack. When I packed for ranger school, I had one stuff sack full of everything that was smaller than a fist, and I dumped it in a tight pile on the edge of my bigger pile. Made it easier to find things when they called for “chap stick,” or “sewing kit,” or whatever.

2. They allowed us to have neosporin for my class. I used the hell out of neosporin, rubbing it on my knees all the time to prevent skin infections. They also allowed generic lotions which I used on my hands, though they still cracked and bled a little.

3. I did the first part of ranger school twice (on my first attempt, I dislocated my knee). The second time, knowing the schedule made it easier. Knowing that I only had three more times in sawdust pit, two more times, etc, made it easier. So, learn the schedule before you go.

4. I think they tell every class that they are the worst ever, that they’re not going to pass whatever is next. This mind game is part of Ranger school. Focus on the task at hand. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, one task at a time. Don’t worry about tomorrow’s problems until tomorrow.

5. Staying awake is hard. Eating helped me stay awake. I would save something for my guard shift at night, and eat it real slowly.

6. Don’t steal food from the mess hall, dumpsters or anywhere else. It’s not worth the risk.

7. Remember, the RIs continue watching you AFTER your patrol to see if you crash and turn into a shitbag. They’ll fail your patrol if you do. Your body will want to crash.

8. Know the words “roger, Sergeant” and get used to them. There is no arguing/reasoning with an RI.

10. Memorize the Ranger Creed before you go to save yourself a little heart ache.

11. Don’t bulk up with muscle. Muscle takes a lot of calories to sustain itself. I think rucking with 40-60 pounds is a great exercise.

12. A good way to dry socks or wool gloves is with body heat. Tuck the ends into your belt, and dangle the socks or gloves into your crotch.

13. If it’s winter, bring ten pairs of wool gloves.

14. On one hand, you have to want the ranger tab very badly, because ranger school is extremely painful, and you need a lot of drive to get through the pain. I told myself the only way I was leaving without the tap was on a stretcher. Unfortunately, this came true on my first attempt. On the other hand, lots of great guys don’t pass ranger school. There are all kinds of stupid reasons why you might fail. If you do, you need to be able to walk away from it with your dignity intact. Some guys attach way too much self-esteem to the Ranger Tab.

15. When you’re in charge, *everything* is your responsibility, whether you can control it or not.

We canoed the Upper Iowa, and spent most of the first day floating and fishing from the canoe. We’d cast into the dark deep swirls in bends behind rapids.

This was ideal. Where there were no such spots, we cast where little creeks flowed into the Upper Iowa, or behind fallen trees, or into deep spots.

When possible, we cast upstream, and pulled our lures down toward us ahead of the current, so they’d wiggle in the water. I caught the first fish, which was a joke. It was barely double the size of the lure. An ambitious little guy.

In places, the river was wide and no more than eight inches deep all the way across, the surface rippling over the stony bottom. Now and then, the canoe dragged, and we pushed against the bottom with our paddles.
(Read more from gonomad.com)

I recently received an e-mail from Sen. Tom Harkin expressing outrage over the AIG bonuses and vowing to ‘pass legislation that completely taxes those bonuses away,’ and ’send a message to AIG and other companies who received bailout money.’

While I think the anger is well-founded, I fear it misses the point.

Government should never have entered the business of giving our money to failing companies. The line between government and private enterprise is now perverted. Because of the bailouts, politicians are now posturing by interfering in businesses they know little about, and businessmen (bankers in this case) now have more reason than ever to lobby and influence politics.

The whole process is outrageous. Bad companies should simply go bankrupt. There are plenty of banks here in the Midwest that have been responsible. If we lived in a free society, they would find themselves in a position to buy assets from the hugely irresponsible and incompetent New York banks. Instead, money is taken from the competent and given to the incompetent.

At the same time, politicians are pretending to have stuck it to the man. Scolding AIG over several hundred million in bonuses after handing them several hundred billion is ridiculous.

If Congress wants to scrutinize something, they should scrutinize the Federal Reserve. Instead of worrying about AIG’s millions, they should provide transparency to the Fed’s trillions. (from press-citizen.com)

In their March/April 2009 edition (online), STANFORD Magazine published this brief essay, a rebuttal to my own perspective, Email from Iraq, from five years earlier.

“. . . . I have not been victimized by my military experiences, or by the Army. Claiming so is such a common refrain among veterans I’ve been tempted to adopt it, simply because it would require less explanation. In truth, I’ve benefited from my experiences. I have no complaints about pay, though I would likely have done better following through with my long-forgotten computer science degree. I haven’t suffered from shortages in benefits or care, though I don’t doubt others have. I enjoy the respect and credibility veterans seem to get for free and entirely independent of their competence. I’ve made many friends, and got to bear witness to that mysterious and heavily mythologized thing called combat. The great responsibilities I’d been entrusted with—leading men in combat as a platoon leader, preparing paratroopers as a jumpmaster, serving as a diplomat with Iraqi councilmen or Afghan tribal leaders—taught me much about myself and about people.

I think the breadth and depth of these responsibilities overwhelmed my perceptions when I wrote “E-mail from Iraq.” To me, now, it reads like war propaganda—a demonstration of the goodwill, energy and character of war’s participants, while beckoning the reader to ignore how we got there. . . .” (Read more at STANFORD Magazine)