James Mackler

Adapting

June 24, 2005

This has been a week characterized by my attempts to adapt. I am trying to adapt to a culture as well as to a way of flying. The flying is coming a little more easily.

The following comments were directed to me over the past several days at different time, in different contexts but give an example of the issues I face.

"Stop thinking so much."
"You should not cross the street without asking your platoon leader."
"You need a haircut."
"Your T-shirt is the wrong color"
"We all know about your past experience and your age but . . ."

I keep forgetting that, at this point in my army career, independent decision making is not a good thing. Whenever I make a decision for myself someone gets upset. What is worse, they usually seem to believe that I am acting on my own because I think I am "better" than they are. The reality is that free thinking is a hard habit to break.

I am writing this entry at 0217 early Friday morning so please forgive any rambling. I flew from about 1930 until a little after midnight. This was the third night in a row that I flew. I will fly Saturday and Sunday nights also. The instructors are trying to get me up to unit standards as quickly as possible. I am flying well but still have trouble holding a good hover at night with goggles on. The goggles limit my depth perception and field of view. I could tell that this was frustrating my IP tonight almost as much as it was frustrating me.

I should probably give an amusing anecdote at this point but, frankly, I am beat. I am going to bed.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

June 15, 2005

The weather this weekend was crappy so I did not get to ride my motorcycle as planned. Also, on Sunday morning the command surprised us with a three hour class on Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The class was intended to familiarize us with how to recognize and defeat roadside bombs, car bombs, booby traps and the like.

The class was actually pretty interesting. It was taught by a retired special ops soldier who is now a contractor specializing in hunting for and defeating these notorious weapons in Iraq. Brace yourself for some irony because it is coming up. The instructor -- are you ready for this? -- had one hand. That is right, we were taught a class on explosives by a one-handed man. Does that mean that he had valuable experience to pass-on or does that mean that he is exactly the person you DONT want to learn from? I dont know because he never mentioned how he came to be one-handed and none of us had the guts to ask.

I spent Sunday evening hanging out with Maltby and his girlfriend, Sarah. I was a little puzzled by their insistance that I come over for dinner but I couldnt resist a free meal. It turned out that the dinner was a pretext for a little belated birthday celebration. Sarah made a yummy cake that went very will with the beer and crab legs we had for dinner. She only put seven candles on the cake. I guess I have finally reached the age where people dont want to make the substantial investment needed to accurately reflect my age with candles. Oh well. It was a good cake and a nice thought.

I flew in the simulator on Monday. I did not fly at all on Tuesday or Wednesday. Rather, I took some of that time to stock the fridge and some to plan a route to fly on Thursday. There is so much going on right now that I doubt I will actually fly on Thursday.

Wiggling the Sticks

June 10, 2005

It is funny that, during flight school, the academics were easy. The hard part was "wiggling the sticks." I found last night that the mechanics of flying have come back to me much more quickly than the book work. I had a nice four hour flight entirely under night vision goggles. Moreover, I flew from the left seat. This is not the usual seat from which I fly. Despite the NVG flying from the left seat, I flew well. I felt like I could not, however, remember a single thing I learned in my classwork at Rucker. I answered question after question with a wild guess, a confident (but wrong) answer, or silence. When the flight ended and we were sitting in the pilot office, the IP nicely urged me to "stay in the books". "This should be easy" he added, "you were a lawyer." Without skipping a beat another pilot chimed in: "He must not have been a very good one - look where he is now." I know he was kidding but ouch.

Despite my aeronautical amnesia flying was the best part of my birthday evening. The bad part came after we landed. It turned out that I had been assigned as the "Staff Duty Officer" for the night. That meant that I had to sit from 0300 to 0900 on June 10th at the headquarters building, behind a desk, just in case an emergency occured. This was after arriving at work at 1600 on June 9th to prepare for my flight.

When 0900 arrived I was dragging my tail rotor. I could not go to sleep, however. I sold my motorcycle last week on ebay and purchased a lighter one for trail riding. The buyer was scheduled to arrive the morning of the 10th to pick it up. He arrived as scheduled and I said goodbye to the KLX650, my very first motorcycle. I am already planning a ride on my Suzuki DR Z400S for this weekend. Hopefully I will have some photos to share.

Bleeding Eyes

June 1, 2005

Be careful what you wish for.

I had my first flight here at Fort Campbell last night. I arrived at the hangar at 1400. We did some flight planning and studying until about 1600. The Instructor Pilot and I did a pre-flight from 1600 until 1700. We spent an additional hour planning the flight and discussing what we hoped to accomplished. I then flew from 1800 until 0200 with just a short break to re-fuel and have a snack.

Whew! I was exhausted. Having not flown, I devoted an extraordinary amount of mental focus to the flight and it wore me out. Fortunately, I flew pretty well. I flew day, night, and with night vision goggles. I performed emergency procedures, traffic patterns, and got a general orientation to the area. The Instructor Pilot was generally respectful and nice to me and taught me some good techniques.

I spoke with the lead IP after the flight. He said that they are determined to get me up to speed as quickly as possible. In his words, they are going to fly me "until my eyes bleed."

The moral? Be careful what you wish for.

Division Review

May 26, 2005

I went to bed on Wednesday at 2100 hours knowing I'd have to wake up at 0515 to be at the staging area by 0700 for the Division Review.

The air was still brisk as I rode through Fort Campbell Gate 7 at 0630 on my motorcycle. I smelled the sweet scent of honeysuckle as I approached the gate guard with my ID card and noted briefly that the other soldiers, secure in their cars, windows rolled-up, radios on, probably didnt even know that there were fragrant flowers clinging to the fences on either side of the road. I passed through the gate and quickly found parking for my bike at the staging area.

The plan, rehearsed the previous day, was for all of the companies in 5th Battallion to form-up at the staging area. We would then march together to the parade field and link up with the rest of the division for the planned review. I met with Bravo Company and joined my co-workers in a mass formation. The First Sergents proceeded to arrange everyone in the Battallion in size order.

I am about average height and, as a result, found myself standing in the center of the formation. This is an ideal location for blending in. I listened, smiling to myself, as the Specialist next to me complained to the Sergent next to her.

"All of my friends are short and not standing near me." she said

"Make some friends in this area", he suggested.

"Nah", she said, inclining her head toward me, "the only people around here are snobby aviators".

"They have no reason to be snobby", the sergent informed her, "they are not even required to have college diplomas anymore."

Week of the Eagles

May 25, 2005

The past few days have been busy but not particularly productive. Let me start by telling you about my weekend.

Several of the warrant officers in my Company invited me to go dirt bike riding with them at a National Recreation Area called "Land Between the Lakes (LBL)" (http://www.lbl.org/Home.html). The area is about 40 minutes from here and is covered with trails for both motorized and non-motorized use. We went to the Turkey Creek OHV area which is reserved for motorized off-highway vehicles.

Many of you know that I own a KLX-650 motorcycle. This is considered a "dual sport" bike meaning that is can be used on or off-road. It is kind of like the SUV of motorcycles. I rode my KLX to LBL where I met my friends. They brought their motorcycles on trailers because, unlike me, that had machines dedicated to difficult trail riding. Their bikes were much smaller and lighter than mine. Moreover, my friends are experienced dirt bike riders. This was my first time bringing my motorcycle off-road.

I got bloody and muddy, and tired and frustrated and had a great time! We spent the day riding trails that I never imagined could be ridden on my motorcycle. I spent a lot of time floundering in deep mud pits trying to pick my very heavy bike back up. The rest of the time was spent chasing my buddies over jumps, around trees, through boulders and up steep hills. It was great fun and good bonding with the guys I will be training (and fighting) with.

The rest of the week has not been nearly as much fun or as good for morale. It is the "Week of the Eagles" at Fort Campbell. This is supposed to be a week of self-congratulatory, esprit de corps events. In reality, it is a lot of group runs and parades and inspections.

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