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| The Panamanians in Maine |
The Panamanians blew back into town yesterday
full of complements about their time up in the great state of Maine. I think
the Maine Musquetera has the hosting of my wife’s visiting family and friends down
to a science. I returned from work to find my brother in law up on the hillside
behind the house. He was inspecting the work I’d done in their absence and
wanted to know if I planned on continuing. The ladies were conspicuously absent
as my wife inducted her sister in law into the mysteries of the fabulous Luigi –
her hairdresser.
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| Back on the Hill Working |
I spent another of those harried lunch
hours where I rush home, change clothes, run to Home Depot, buy/load forty more
wall bocks, unload blocks at home while simultaneously cooking burgers, change back
into work clothes, eat burgers while simultaneously getting burger grease on
the brand new shirt my wife bought for me. So kind of busy. Since I had the
blocks and my supervising authority was absent I immediately launched onto the
hill. My brother in law was an immense help carrying the blocks up the hill and
the work went so much faster because of that. We ran out of blocks well ahead
of sunset which was a first. I figure at least two more forays to Home Depot
and the third terrace will be done.
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| Progress After Brother in Law's Help |
I finished off my latest Jack Noble
novel with Noble Retribution by LT Ryan. Jack has been resurrected from certain
death and now sets out on a complicated mission to redeem some of his former
sins. Ryan takes coincidence to the n-th level by placing a confrontation with
Russian terrorist in the middle of Iowa. It happens to be the same place his
old friend has taken up residence and his former girlfriend shows up following
another plot line, so a lot of kismet (maybe too much). Ryan does keep the action
flowing and while it’s not always clean the relentless momentum is irresistible.
I’m almost finished with my Noble adventures and am thinking about returning to
re-read some older work by favorite authors.
I recently ran across a blog post from
a friend who I served with as a fellow lieutenant in Panama in the early 1980s.
Anyone who served in the 193rd Infantry Brigade during that time
period will have similar memories. This was my first infantry assignment so I
thought everybody trained as hard as we did. They didn’t but it did produce
really dangerous infantrymen. My friend is an accomplished author nowadays so
he does a much better job describing what it was like:
“The
193rd was an unusual organization. If you ever wondered what happened to the brown
shoe Army of the 1930s, the answer is it changed to black shoes and black and
green boots, but in every other respect packed its bags, moved to, and settled
itself into Panama. The 193rd remains, to me, the beau ideal of what a regular
combat force of Americans could and should be. A few interesting tidbits on the
193rd would include:
1.It
was the farm team and (not really much of a) rest spot for the Ranger
Battalions, to the extent that, when there were two such, at one time both were
commanded by men who had been my former battalion commanders in Panama.
Conversely, in the company I spent most of my lieutenancy in, three of the four
platoon sergeants, something like seven of the nine rifle squad leaders, a bit
over half of the fire team leaders, and a fair sprinkling of the rank and file
came from one or another of the Rangers Batts.
2.The
brigade commander, one K. C. Leuer, had been the first battalion commander of
First Ranger Battalion.
3.Each
of the three infantry battalions, one of which was mechanized, of the 193rd, at
that time, fired more ammunition, 4.2” and below, than the entire 82nd Airborne
Division.
4.It
was, shall we say, an unusually “hands-on leadership” kind of place. I
discovered that the rest of the Army was not like that when, after leaving
Panama and finishing the Advanced Course at Benning, I went on my first run
with a battalion. As usual, the redundant officers ran in the rear. One young
troop started to fall out of the run a couple of miles into it. He wasn’t
dying. He wasn’t injured. He was just lazy and undisciplined. I put my hand in
the middle of his back and just shoved him back into the formation. Not only
was he shocked, the other officers were shocked speechless. They didn’t realize
you could get away with that kind of thing. It would have been perfectly normal
in the 193rd; indeed, it would have been dereliction not to have helped the kid
along, so to speak. Oh, and yes, the boy finished the run with the formation.
5.Safety?
What was that? If somebody got shot on a maneuvering live fire range – and
every rifle company live fired some thirteen times a month, so it did happen
sometimes – we didn’t stop training; we called in a dustoff and FIDOd right on.
6.Discipline,
much of which welled up from the ranks, themselves, was unusually fierce.
Platoon sergeant doesn’t like a troop’s haircut? No problem; he sits the boy
down on a stool and shaves his head. New troop on a miserable waterless
movement to contact over extremely rough and hilly terrain, under a blazing
sun, says he isn’t going a step further? No problem; the other riflemen beat
him half senseless, then add thirty pounds to his load, and then ensure, with
whatever painful coercion is needed, that he does not fall behind.
7.The
Marines like to think that “every Marine is a rifleman.” Post boots, though,
they really don’t do much to maintain with their support types a rifleman’s
mindset and skill set. He can probably still shoot, but actual combat would be
an iffier proposition. In the 193rd of the day, the headquarters companies of
the infantry battalions, at least, conducted live fire training, albeit limited
to the practical defense of their units while stationary or moving.”
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| This young Lady Joins Us Later Next Week! |
This will be last blog entry until
Monday because we’re taking the Panamanians south to Washington, DC for the
weekend. The original plan was Niagara Falls but there’s a very Panamanian like
monsoon pulling into the area for a weekend stay so we shifted plans south
where it’s supposed to be nice. We have some of the best friends in the world
who’re willing to put us up on Saturday night and a sisterly refuge for the Wonder
Pooch.
