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May 28, 2009 · 21:27

Going Nuclear….Kim Jung Il, Carlos Zambrano and Padre Steve get Sporty

This week we witnessed a couple of big explosions, that of a nuclear test conducted by North Korea and one at Wrigley Field conducted by Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano.  Both were pretty sporty.  However, there the difference is more than one being the test of a weapon of mass destruction and the other an emotional response after a close play at home.   One was a deliberate premeditated act and the other in some sense a “crime of passion.”  They are very different types of acts.

North Korea under the despotic Kim Jung Il decided to give the big fat flying middle finger to the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.  It is interesting that even the Russians and Chinese seem kind of pissed about what the boy named Kim did.  Kim now known as the “Great Leader” having been promoted from simply the “Dear Leader” is kind of wacky but in a dangerous sort of way.  The surly North Koreans then decided that they no longer considered the 1954 armistice valid.  This of course raised the pucker factor on the Korean peninsula and Japan.  Nukes are serious stuff, ask the Japanese.  I remember back in 2002 when my ship, the USS Hue City was deployed supporting Operation Enduring Freedom the Indians and Pakistanis came perilously close to a nuclear confrontation.  We were in between the Indian and Pakistani fleets and their patrol aircraft buzzed us frequently.  It was as my Captain said “A bit sporty.”   Back in my days as a Company XO and Company Commander in Cold War Germany we waited for the day that the Russian would come across the Fulda Gap.  While there I was trained as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Defense Officer.  The training was kind of cool.  We got to learn how much radiation, measured in “Rads” that we could take and live.  We learned about blast effects, fallout patterns and decoding EAM’s.  The really cool yet scary thing was that the 1:50,000 maps we used to plot the fallout patterns showed our housing areas.  It really brought home that this was not a game.  When the nuclear plant at Chernobyl had its little meltdown the radiation cloud actually went over where we lived.  I think this is why some people refer to me having a “glowing” personality.  So what the nutty North Koreans have done is kind of serious.  Of course they do crazy stuff all the time, but this appears to be their first successful nuke test and significantly raises the stakes.  Of course I want this to pass as it is baseball season and for the first time I have season tickets.  I don’t want a huge war to screw this up.  Of course I want it to not happen at all, but if it does I would prefer it to wait until after the baseball season is over.

Speaking of baseball, Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano was suspended for six games following this meltdown.

http://cubs.fandome.com/video/112492/Carlos-Zambrano-Tantrum-May-27-2009/

Now I will not cast stones at Zambrano.  He plays with passionate fire and really strives for excellence. I have seen him pitch and he is amazing.  I love to watch him and only wished that he pitched for the Giants.  I have a passion for what I do and want to be the best at that I can.  Like Zambrano I have had similar meltdowns when I have felt like I was getting screwed, be it by an umpire or someone else.  I have been tossed from church softball games, pulled aside by coaches and when I watch Zambrano doing his thing I want to hide because I have done this before…well I didn’t take a bat to a Gatorade cooler, but had we had one I might have.  I have thrown things, kicked dirt on umpires and got in people’s faces.  As noted in a previous post when I was in the Army I got thrown out of the officer advanced course and did not help myself by having a Zambrano like meltdown in the process.  I was so lucky to have Chaplain Rich Whaley save me on several occasions both when I got thrown out and when I was the assistance course leader of my Chaplain Officer Basic Course.  With my PTSD I had a number of meltdowns at the tail end of my Iraq tour, before I knew I was whacked out, and have had my moments since I came home.

Now to be fair to me, I am not proud of those kind of outbursts. I usually feel worse afterward because I don’t like being out of control.  I like to control my emotions and stay calm.  I am like a Romulan in that aspect.  I try to keep myself in perfect control but can blow it big, unlike my Vulcan cousins.  I have been fortunate.  First I had people who helped ensure that I did not destroy my Army career.  Likewise, I have had a number of people in my life since I have come back from Iraq help me learn to manage this.  In fact I was able to step back from the brink at one Chaplain Conference where I thought the main presenter had ambushed me and violated essential facets of how cases are presented. I discussed the matter with my colleagues and run a plan by my Department Head on how to publicly address the situation, get my point across and not look like an ass in doing so.  It was like doing a “brush back” pitch rather than a “bean ball.”  I was controlled and afterward got out before I could do anything stupid while department head smoothed ruffled feathers.  The audience was pretty much in a state of shock when I did this, many in sat in silence as I finished and a number of my colleagues who felt the same way as I applauded when I finished.  I left the room and a colleague came out with me and walked with me for a while to make sure that I was okay.  I avoided going nuclear.  I didn’t get tossed this time.  It was a victory.  At the same time I know that when I start playing softball or old man baseball again I will get fired up, and probably like Zambrano tossed out.  If I go into coaching I will probably have arguments with the umpires and hopefully they will not be like this classic Minor League blow up…talk about nukes.  This one is for the ages:

http://www.fandome.com/video/102293/Mississippi-Braves-Manager-Goes-Crazy/

Anyway, I do thank the Deity Herself from keeping me safe from my own tirades and am glad for all those who help me stay in the game and keep my head now.  Because of them and others who have both helped and protected me in the past I hope to be able to mentor and teach others.

Peace, Steve+

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May 21, 2009 · 19:08

Remembering the Veterans in My Life…Memorial Day 2009

Today has been a day of rest and recovery from the past 10 days, especially the past 3 days when Judy had to be hospitalized. She is recovering nicely and may actually visit her friends at her church choir practice tonight even if she does not sing. I’m now finishing this post a Harbor Park, the Tides are up 1-0 and going to bat in the bottom of the 2nd.

Also please see Judy’s blog at http://abbeynormalabbess.wordpress.com/ for a good patient eye view of Epiglottitis.

honor and remember with american flag and pow flagOld Glory, the POW-MIA and Honor and Remember Flags

Monday is Memorial Day and I will be both on duty at the medical center as well as participating in a Memorial Day ceremony at the historic Naval Cemetery located on our grounds.  Memorial Day means a lot to me, probably more each year.  This is personal, more personal than at any time in my life.  I guess it comes with experience and maturity as well as a lot of reflection.

I’ve been in the military for almost 28 years now.  I enlisted in the National Guard while in college and entered Army ROTC back in 1981.  Since then it has been to quote Jerry Garcia “a long strange trip.”  My dad served twenty years in the Navy.  He retired in 1974 as a Chief Petty Officer and did time surrounded in the South Vietnamese city of An Loc when it was surrounded by the North Vietnamese for 80 days in 1972.  He didn’t talk about it much when he came back; in fact he came back different from the war.  He probably suffered from PTSD.  All the markers were there but we had no idea about it back then, after all he was in the Navy not the Army.

My second view of war came from the Veterans of Vietnam that I served with in the National Guard and the Army.  Some of these men served as teachers and mentors.  LCDR Jim Breedlove and Senior Chief John Ness at the Edison High School Naval Junior ROTC program were the first who helped me along. They have both passed away in the past year and a half.  I will never forget them.  A post dedicated to them is on this blog. Colonel Edgar Morrison was my first battalion commander.  He was the most highly decorated member of the California National Guard at that time and had served multiple tours in Vietnam.  He encouraged me as a young specialist and officer cadet and showed a tremendous amount of care for his soldiers.  Staff Sergeant’s Buff Rambo and Mickey Yarro taught me the ropes as a forward observer and shared many of their Vietnam experiences. Buff had been a Marine dog handler on the DMZ and Mickey a Forward Observer.  Sergeant First Class Harry Zilkin was my training NCO at the UCLA Army ROTC program.  He was a Special Forces Medic with 7th Group in Vietnam.  He still had part of a VC bayonet embedded in his foot.  He received my first salute as a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant as well as a Silver Dollar.  I understand that after the Army he became a fire fighter.  He had a massive heart attack on the scene of a fire and died a few years later from it.  Sergeant Major John Butler was our senior enlisted at UCLA.  He served with the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam.  Sergeant First Class Harry Ball was my drill sergeant at the ROTC pre-commissioning camp at Fort Lewis Washington in 1982.  He was also Special Forces and a Ranger and served multiple tours in Vietnam.  He was quite influential in my life, tearing me apart and then building me back up.  He was my version of Drill Sergeant Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman. Like Zack Mayo played by Richard Gere in the movie I can only say: Drill Sergeant “I will never forget you.”

With MTT near Syria

As I progressed through my Army career I encountered others of this generation who also impacted my life. First among them was First Sergeant Jim Koenig who had been a Ranger in the Mekong Delta.  I was the First Sergeant that I would measure all others by.  Once during a ARTEP we were aggressed and all of a sudden he was back in the Delta. This man cared so much for his young soldiers in the 557th Medical Company.   He did so much for them and I’m sure that those who served with him can attest to this as well as me. Jim had a brick on his desk so that when he got pissed he could chew on it.   He was great.  He played guitar for the troops and had a song called Jane Fonda, Jane Fonda You Communist Slut. It was a classic.  He retired after he was selected to be a Command Sergeant Major because he valued his wife and family more than the promotion.  It hurt him to do this, but he put them first. Colonel Donald Johnson was the commander of the 68th Medical Group when I got to Germany in January 1984.  Colonel “J” as well all called him was one of the best leaders I have seen in 28 years in the military.  He knew everything about everything and his knowledge forced us all to learn and be better officers and NCOs.  On an inspection visit you could always find him dressed in coveralls and underneath a truck verifying the maintenance done on it.  He served a number of Vietnam tours.  He died a few years back of Multiple Myeloma and is buried at Arlington.  Chaplain (LTC) Rich Whaley who had served as a company commander in Vietnam on more than one occasion saved my young ass at the Army Chaplain School.  He remains a friend and is the Endorsing Agent for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As a Mormon he was one of the most “Christian” men that I have ever met.  I know some Christians who might have a hard time with that, but Rich demonstrated every trait of a Christian who loved God and his neighbor.

When I was the Installation Chaplain at Fort Indiantown Gap PA I was blessed to have some great veterans in my Chapel Parish.  Major General Frank Smoker flew 25 missions as a B-17 pilot over Germany during the height of the air war in Europe. He brought his wonderful wife Kate back from England with him.  Henry Boyd who I buried was one of the 101st Airborne soldiers epitomized in Band of Brothers. He had a piece of shrapnel lodged next to his heart from the Battle of the Bulge until the day he died. Scotty Jenkes was a Air Force pilot in Vietnam flying close air support. Colonel Ray Hawthorne served several tours both in artillery units and as an advisor in 1972.  CWO4 Charlie Kosko flew helicopters in Vietnam.  All these men made a deep impact on me and several contributed to my career in very tangible ways.

image9391Marines at Hue City Tet 1968

My life more recently has been impacted by others.  My friends of the veterans of the Battle of Hue City including General Peter Pace, Barney Barnes,  Tony “Limey Cartilage ” Sergeant Major Thomas and so many others have become close over the years, especially after I did my time in Iraq. They and all the Vietnam vets, including the guys from the Vietnam Veterans of America like Ray and John  who man the beer stand behind the plate at Harbor Park all mean a lot to me.  My friends at Marine Security Forces Colonel Mike Paulovich and Sergeant Major Kim Davis mean more than almost any people in the world.  We traveled the globe together visiting our Marines.  Both of these men are heroes to me as well as friends.

Finally there are my friends and brothers that I have served with at sea on USS HUE CITY during Operation Enduring Freedom and the advisers on the ground in Al Anbar mean more than anything to me. Perhaps the most important is my RP, RP2 Nelson Lebron who helped keep me safe and accompanied me all over the battlefield.  Nelson who has done Iraq 3 times, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Balkans is a hero.  The men and women of Navy EOD who I served with from 2006-2008 have paid dearly in combating IEDs and other explosive devices used against us in Iraq and Afghanistan are heros too.  There is no routine mission for EOD technicians.

I give thanks for all them men that I mention in this post, especially my dad. God bless all of you guys. Please honor the Veterans that you know this weekend.  Honor also those who gave their lives in the defense of liberty in all of the wars of our nation. They have earned it.

Peace, Steve+

Post Script: The game went to extra innings and the Tides lost 5-4.  They left the tying run at 3rd base in the bottom of the 12th.  That ended a 8 game winning streak.  On a positive side I was able to get a ball autographed by former Dodger’s pircher ill Singer and Pirate’s Pitcher Bob Kison.  Singer pitched in the Dodger’s rotation with Drysdale, Koufax and other greats.  He threw a no-hitter in 1970 against the pirates and now is a scout for the Nationals, Kison won game one of the 1971 World Series in six innings of releif against the Orioles who he now scouts for the Orioles.

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April 24, 2009 · 22:58

Wear of the FWU-“Faggoty White Uniform” or Summer Whites

fwu-crete-2002Me in my FWU’s as a LT on USS Hue City CG-66 off Crete July 2002

We in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Navy have now transitioned to our summer uniforms.  I’ve talked in depth about the NWU or Navy Working Uniform which is now an all year working uniform.  While this is not the most traditional Naval uniform, we do still maintain some traditions.  Both enlisted sailors and officers still have white uniforms for the summer.  Enlisted in the pay grades E1-E6 wear the Service Dress White, or the Cracker Jack uniform for Dress occasions.  A new service uniform which looks similar to the Marine Corps Charlies with black versus olive green trousers is replacing the short sleeve summer white and long sleeve Winter and Working Blues.  So for the enlisted the Cracker Jack remains for dress occasions, the Summer Dress White and Service Dress Blue for summer and winter respectively.

Navy Chiefs and Officers have three, make that four variations of whites.  We have the Summer Dress White which is short sleeve, Service Dress White, which is the choker jacket worn with ribbons.  The Full Dress White, which is the same with large medals and ribbons as well as white gloves.  Lastly there is the seldom worn Tropical White which includes shorts and knee socks, a very colonial British look if you ask me, though the thought of the sun maybe reaching my legs and allowing them to tan while I am at work is an interesting thought.  Since when summer hits I normally am in shorts almost every day when not in uniform, I think shorts with the Whites would work fine here.

However, here lies the problem.  White is white and it is nearly impossible to keep clean.  If you sneeze and blow a huge luggie that ends up on them, it will be seen.  If your coffee is too hot and some drips on the uniform, it too will be seen.  Please do not even think about trying to eat a chili dog, wings or ribs in any of these uniforms.  If you end up making a splort on them it will be there for all too see and someone will be asking who the homeless dude masquerading as Captain Stubing from the Love Boat is. So when wearing any of these summer uniforms caution is required, and if you are eating, probably a bib.  However I am not sure if Naval Uniform Regulations permit you to sport a bib or not.  I suppose that if it was a Go Navy bib it might be okay, but otherwise I believe that it would be frowned upon as violating the decorum of the Wardroom.

Additionally, every time I wear this uniform I can hear the theme from the movie Top Gun playing in my head.  I’m sure that my dear Judy would kill me of I were to walk up to her in a bar or Officer’s Club singing You’ve lost that Lovin’ Feelin.’ Neither the humor or the singing would be appreciated as I think that they should be.  Likewise every time that I wear this uniform, especially when I was serving with the Marines I can almost hear Colonel Nathan R Jessup (Jack Nicholson) of A Few Good Men snear at me and say:

“You see Danny, I can deal with the bullets, and the bombs, and the blood. I don’t want money, and I don’t want medals. What I do want is for you to stand there in that faggoty white uniform and with your Harvard mouth extend me some f**king courtesy. You gotta ask me nicely.”  (sorry if anyone is offended by the language but it is the line from the movie and yes Marines can and do often talk that way, sometimes using the F-bomb as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective and sometimes even an action verb  in past present and future tenses in the same sentence. After all I am sure that the Deity Herself will forgive them as she will have Marines stationed on post around the Pearly Gates.)

Thanks to Colonel Jessup I have thought of the Summer Whites as the Faggoty White Uniform or by the acronym FWU since I arrived at Camp LeJeune North Carolina in 1999.  I figure now that we have the NWU this will work.

Today was my first chance to wear this uniform since last year.  I have to admit that it looks pretty good on me, especially with my weight loss, which I do plan on maintaining and continuing.  As I walked through the hall I could hear the Top Gun Theme going through my head and Colonel Jessup growling at me.  When I was stationed with the Marines I would ask what uniform we might be wearing for a certain ceremony.  If the answer was Your Summer White I would say, “Oh, the Faggoty White Uniform” often drawing looks of amazement and comments of “That’s really bad Chaplain,” followed by a laugh.   Now I simply call them the FWU.  Let’s keep things simple.  As long as I don’t run into Colonel Nathan R Jessup anytime soon I should be okay, at least I am not scheduled to go to Gitmo anytime soon.

At the same time this is a classy uniform.  Sorry to say, or beat the hell out of anything in the Army or Air Force inventory, and only is really outdone by the Marine Service Dress Blues.  It is traditional.  You can go to any Navy around the world and find a similar uniform.  I find this kind of cool.  I do like tradition and hope that the wear test of the Service Dress Khaki uniform is successful and that it will be brought back by the Navy.

So anyway, those are my thoughts about the uniform change.   A final note.  I went and saw the Tides tonight.  They won their 9th straight beating the Durham Bulls 8-2 and moving into first place in the Southern Division of the International League.

Peace,

Steve+

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April 12, 2009 · 14:40

Alleluia! Memories of Easter…Past and Present

easter-2002-on-hue-cityEaster aboard USS Hue City CG-66 off the Horn of Africa 2002

I find Easter to be an interesting time.  I tend to get reflective and while I do joyfully say “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” I also tend to be somewhat subdued.  By nature I am reflective person, I like to watch, observe and think.  I am not into big Easter productions and extravaganzas. I prefer much more simple expressions of the Risen Lord.  I think that Jesus would go along with me on this as he spent that first Easter walking with friends, who failed to recognize him, and then breaking bread, he celebrated the first Eucharist after the Resurrection at Emmaus.

For me my most memorable Easters have been connected with my life in the military.  They have almost always been simple affairs, and most involving the liturgy somehow.  I think the first Easter that I remember was at Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Philippines, it was seeing the Chaplains in their Summer White uniforms that still stands out to me today.  I remember a Easter Sunrise service at Naval Station Long Beach and looking in wonder at two “mothballed” carriers of World War II vintage, the USS Boxer and USS Princeton moored near the site of the service on the waterfront.  When my dad was in Vietnam and we had been made unwelcome in a civilian church, we attended Mass at the Quonset hut that served as the Chapel on the little Naval Communications station.  In my senior year of high school I made a cruise on Navy ships to and from Pearl Harbor Hawaii.  During the week at Pearl I made the trip to the Arizona Memorial on Easter Sunday.  For some reason that experience reverberated as loud as any church service I have ever attended.  When I was a young Army Officer running from God and hiding in the Chapel, the Deity Herself patently used the events of Holy Week to “rend my heart” so to speak.  I left the Good Friday Tenebrea service praying that Easter would come.  Our good Lutheran Chaplain, Lee Rittenbach had driven home the reality of Jesus’ death so well that I really started to understand what the disciples went through.  When Easter came I learned to say “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”

After that I went through kind of a spiritual desert as far as Easter was concerned.  In seminary I was attending mega-churches which did nothing with Holy week, and made a big evangelical production of Easter, complete with overly loud and insipidly shallow “worship” music and laborious preaching.  I have to say that these big productions were more of an ordeal than a celebration for me.  During seminary we were going through sickness, financial disaster, loss of our home, cars and struggling to survive working multiple jobs while being a full time student.  How we got through seminary I will never understand, other than that the Deity herself provided for us through a lot of wonderful people.  The “happy talk” at church, the prosperity Gospel, focus on signs and wonders seemed to reflect almost a gnostic other worldly view of life that I did not see in the Scriptures.

Academically and from a theological point of view Easter began to rally take shape for me.  Reading the Church Fathers as well reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, Emil Brunner’s The Scandal of Christianity, Alister McGrath’s The Mystery of the Cross, Hans Kung’s On Being a Christian and Jurgen Moltman’s The Crucified God brought me to greater understanding of the connectedness of Easter to the Incarnation and the Passion.  One of my professors, a kindly gentleman named Yandall Woodfin, made a comment in his Philosophy of Religion class:  “We do not do Christian Theology without coming to grips with the reality of suffering and death.”  That comment was at first offensive to me because my mega-church pastors all focused on the Resurrection.  Death to them seemed to be a bother. One pastor said in a sermon how he did not do visits to the sick.  When asked by someone how sick they had to be for him to see them, he stated “You don’t want to be that sick.”

However, what Dr. Woodfin said planted a seed in me.  This went from an academic question, to daily reality during my Clinical Pastoral Education Residency at Parkland hospital.  Doing various Holy Week services there, in the midst of the amazing amount of pain, suffering and death in that gargantuan Medical Center brought into focus and made real what Dr. Woodfin said.  At Parkland there was no avoiding death or suffering, and what Dr. Woodfin said was right.  We don’t begin to do Christian theology until we we deal with suffering and death.  Easter and the Resurrection don’t happen without the Incarnation and Passion of Jesus.  Easter disconnected from the reality of suffering and death is nothing more than a “happy thought” or escape that avoids the the great Mystery of Faith: Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.

After Parkland my understanding of Easter grew as I was immersed in the liturgy, began to observe the liturgical year, and occasionally “clandestinely” attend Anglican churches during Christmas and Easter. During this time Judy became Roman Catholic, something that accelerated what was already going on in me.  During my formation process and following my ordination to first the Deaconate and then the Priesthood, the understanding deepened as I saw how the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. As an Army Reserve chaplain serving on active duty I experienced the life of a parish pastor at a small base in central Pennsylvania.  There I saw how the how the liturgical year and life are so intimately connect.  In life and death, in sorrow and joy, in good times and bad, the Holy Spirit touched people.

Easter became even more part of my life when I became a Navy Chaplain and left the Army in the “rear view mirror.”  Here I began to see how wonderful Easter is when you do not have all the “smells and bells” “praise teams” or great music or facilities.  It goes back to simplicity.  On Easter Sunday 2001, I was on the USS Frederick, LST 1184 with my Marines going from Korea back to Okinawa.  It was on Frederick 23 years before that I had first felt the call to be a Navy Chaplain during the trip to Pearl Harbor.  In 2002 I was deployed on USS Hue City CG-66 at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. Off the Horn of Africa we had both sunrise services as well as a morning Eucharist on our flight deck. While with the Marine Security Forces I spent an Easter celebrating Eucharist on the fence-line adjoining Communist Cuba.  I now have come back to critical care hospital ministry in my ICUs.  Here we live Good Friday every day.  For me Easter is not just a nice thing to observe, but a necessity in life.

This morning I attended the early Mass with Judy at Ascension Catholic Church.  I love the church, though it is a bit big and busy for me now after Iraq.  So I found me a corner near the choir where I could sit with my back against the wall, an emergency exit to my left, and where I could observe what was going on.  Yes I was having a PTSD moment, but I got through it with the help of the Deity herself and a little ant-anxiety medication.  But the really cool thing was seeing a man who was one of our patients on the ICU a couple of months back.  A man who almost died on us several times, and his wife.  We had grown close during that 2 1/2 weeks and he made it through.  He looked great this morning.  We all hugged and talked of how good God is before Mass, exchanged the Peace and then spent some time together after Mass. That was really cool.  What a way to celebrate Easter.

Life and death, pain and suffering, healing and resurrection.  Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!

Peace, Steve+

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