Mobile Alabama at sunset.
Texas
New Mexico
Colorado
Friday, September 25, 2009
Home In America: East to West
After nearly a month of leave in Florida with family I took my trip west back to Ft. Carson. I flew home to Florida but bought a vehicle and drove back to Colorado. The following are a few of the "behind the wheel photos" from that trip.
Mobile Alabama at sunset.
Texas
New Mexico
Colorado
Mobile Alabama at sunset.
Texas
New Mexico
Colorado
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Home in America: Leave in Florida
First of a series. I traveled to Gainesville Florida, home of the Florida Gators, for leave and had a wonderful time visiting family and going to the beach in St. Augustine. Next I went back to Colorado by car. I took a lot of "drive-by" photos as I did in Iraq. Soon I'll be off to Florida again before reporting for duty at Ft. Bragg N.C. So I'll be posting shots of my travels during this period as I figure out what to do next with Versa Vice.
Amy Hendrickson and the Prime Directive - excellent up-beat energetic music. Went with friends to a little club off the beat (path and otherwise) called Fraternal Order of Orioles in St. Augustine. The music was a wonderful unplanned suprise.
Ceiling tile art at the F.O.O.
Another of the band. I took several shots, but all unfortunately are of the talented and attractive Amy blurred but in action.
My motel room in S.A.
St. George Street in St Augustine.
My Brother Ben bodyboarding. We got a disposable waterproof camera and took some shots.
Ben, his wife Michele, and my nephew Noah, kayaking at Anastasia State Park.
I enjoyed kayaking so much as an ocean lifeguard, before joining the army in '06, that one of the first things I did was buy my own when I got back.
Florida sunset over the intercoastal on A1A.
My nephew Noah has a natural inclination towards music that continues to grow. He wandered into the kitchen and set his kit up all by himself. I watched him one evening walk in circles around the table on the porch for a half hour, strumming a plastic beach shovel and singing to himself as his own audience, in his own world as only children can be.
Young and old at the beach in St Augustine.
A taste of old Florida - Magic Beach, Vilano Beach, in St. Augustine.
A look south towards Anastasia Island.
The Next two are two different mornings in Vilano Beach. Although I adjusted the saturation, those are the actual hues.
Meanwhile, back in Gainesville, other noteable scenery. A flock of sorority girls. As annoying as they can be in certain situations, they do catch your eye (which often is the important part to them anyway).
Driving through old familiar streets of Gainesville, a place where I lived for 8 years, I looked with nostalgia toward the house of an old girlfriend only to see an equally familiar couch out on the curb. At once it felt like more time had passed than I thought, and less, at the same time. Second Hand Furniture, a song by the Go-Betweens came to mind.
Clinging to my windshield, a Florida wasp, seeming larger than life.
Another insect, barely visible, a butterfly over the flowers, by the hotel pool.
A familiar 13th Street location to locals - Golden Arches, Doughnuts and bikini joggers - only in Gainesville.
Amy Hendrickson and the Prime Directive - excellent up-beat energetic music. Went with friends to a little club off the beat (path and otherwise) called Fraternal Order of Orioles in St. Augustine. The music was a wonderful unplanned suprise.
Ceiling tile art at the F.O.O.
Another of the band. I took several shots, but all unfortunately are of the talented and attractive Amy blurred but in action.
My motel room in S.A.
St. George Street in St Augustine.
My Brother Ben bodyboarding. We got a disposable waterproof camera and took some shots.
Ben, his wife Michele, and my nephew Noah, kayaking at Anastasia State Park.
I enjoyed kayaking so much as an ocean lifeguard, before joining the army in '06, that one of the first things I did was buy my own when I got back.
Florida sunset over the intercoastal on A1A.
My nephew Noah has a natural inclination towards music that continues to grow. He wandered into the kitchen and set his kit up all by himself. I watched him one evening walk in circles around the table on the porch for a half hour, strumming a plastic beach shovel and singing to himself as his own audience, in his own world as only children can be.
Young and old at the beach in St Augustine.
A taste of old Florida - Magic Beach, Vilano Beach, in St. Augustine.
A look south towards Anastasia Island.
The Next two are two different mornings in Vilano Beach. Although I adjusted the saturation, those are the actual hues.
Meanwhile, back in Gainesville, other noteable scenery. A flock of sorority girls. As annoying as they can be in certain situations, they do catch your eye (which often is the important part to them anyway).
Driving through old familiar streets of Gainesville, a place where I lived for 8 years, I looked with nostalgia toward the house of an old girlfriend only to see an equally familiar couch out on the curb. At once it felt like more time had passed than I thought, and less, at the same time. Second Hand Furniture, a song by the Go-Betweens came to mind.
Clinging to my windshield, a Florida wasp, seeming larger than life.
Another insect, barely visible, a butterfly over the flowers, by the hotel pool.
A familiar 13th Street location to locals - Golden Arches, Doughnuts and bikini joggers - only in Gainesville.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Samaurai Mind Modern Soldier
By BONNIE ROCHMAN Bonnie Rochman – Mon Sep 7, 6:20 am ET
Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads for soldiers at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."
Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different - dare we say harder? - than pounding out the push-ups. (See pictures of ninja warriors.)
Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California. In 2005, a Marine attended a class in San Diego and suggested expanding onto military bases. Ernst and her colleagues researched the military mindset, consulting with veterans who had practiced meditation on the battlefield and back home. She also delved into the science behind mind training to analyze how meditation tactics could help treat - and maybe even help prevent - post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rooted in the ancient Samurai code of self-discipline, Warrior Mind Training draws on the image of the mythic Japanese fighter, an elite swordsman who honed his battle skills along with his mental precision. The premise? Razor-sharp attention plus razor-sharp marksmanship equals fearsome warrior. (Read about the samurai film version of King Lear by Akira Kurosawa.)
The Samurai image was selected after careful deliberation; it was certifiably anti-sissy. "We took a long time to decide how we were going to package this," says Ernst, who moved to North Carolina in 2006 and teaches classes at Fort Bragg as well as Camp Lejeune, a Marine base near the coast. "There are a lot of ways you could describe the benefits of doing mind training and meditation. Maybe from a civilian approach we would emphasize cultivating happiness or peace. But that's not generally what a young soldier is interested in. They want to become the best warrior they can be." (Read a story on the health benefits of meditation.)
The benefits of Warrior Mind Training, students have told instructors, are impressive: better aim on the shooting range, higher test scores, enhanced ability to handle combat stress and slip back into life at home. No comprehensive studies have been done, though a poll of 25 participants showed 70% said they felt better able to handle stressful situations and 65% had improved self-control.
The results were intriguing enough that Warrior Mind Training has been selected to participate in a University of Pittsburgh study on sleep disruption and fatigue in service members that will kick off early next year.
For now, success is measured anecdotally.
On patrol in Iraq two years ago, John Way would notice his mind straying. "Maybe I should be watching some guy over there and instead I'm thinking, 'I'm hungry. Where's my next Twinkie?'"
With privacy at a premium, he'd often retreat to a Port-A-Potty to practice the focusing skills he'd learned from Ernst at Fort Bragg. "To have a way to shut all this off is invaluable," says Way.
The importance of the mind-body connection is being acknowledged at the highest levels of the military. The West Point-based Army Center for Enhanced Performance (ACEP), which draws on performance psychology to teach soldiers how to build confidence, set goals and channel their energy, has expanded to nine army bases in the past three years since the Army's chief-of-staff praised the program.
"The Army has always believed if we just train 'em harder, the mental toughness will come," says Lorene Petta, a psychologist at Fort Bragg who works for ACEP. "A lot of times with this population, because they're so rough and tough, they tend to say, 'This is too touchy-feely for me. No thanks.' But we talk about the importance of being a good mental warrior too."
Free to members of the military and their relatives, Warrior Mind Training classes are offered at 11 U.S. military installations and veterans centers across the country; an online option opened up this spring. At Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California, for example, Warrior Mind instructors prep elite Navy SEALS candidates for Hell Week, when potential newbies are vetted in a 5 ½-day sleepless trial of physical and mental endurance. (See pictures of the U.S. troops in Iraq.)
Beefing up the brain for combat is one aspect of the training; another is decompression. If one day you're dodging snipers in Iraq and the next you're strolling the aisles at Wal-Mart, Warrior Mind Training techniques can ease the transition.
"It's kind of like a reset button," says Erick Burgos, a military paramedic who takes classes at Coronado. "It's a time-out for you to take a break from the chaos in your life."
If the Army's new mental-toughness initiative, set to kick off in October, is to be successful, it needs buy-in from the people it plans to train. It can be a tough sell. At Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in N.C., Adam Credle, who teaches military, law enforcement and Coast Guard personnel how to drive boats equipped with machine guns really fast, has encouraged his students to try out the meditative techniques. So far, he's been rebuffed, though he continues to try to persuade them to give the discipline's central exercise a chance. The mental focusing technique is called deep listening and it sounds super-simple but - unless you're accustomed to meditation - it requires exquisite concentration.
To help develop this skill, Warrior Mind, relies upon music. The idea is to listen, really listen, to the wail of the guitar or the staccato tap of the drums instead of letting your mind wander. In athletics, this concept is called being in "the zone."
As with anything, practice makes perfect, which is reassuring for rookies - like me - who find it next to impossible to rein in their thoughts at first. During the course of one five-minute song, I thought repeatedly about whether I'd remembered to lock my car and turn my cell phone to vibrate. And, because I'm a reporter, I thought about what everyone else might be thinking about, which, if they were doing it right, should have been nothing at all.
Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads for soldiers at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."
Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different - dare we say harder? - than pounding out the push-ups. (See pictures of ninja warriors.)
Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California. In 2005, a Marine attended a class in San Diego and suggested expanding onto military bases. Ernst and her colleagues researched the military mindset, consulting with veterans who had practiced meditation on the battlefield and back home. She also delved into the science behind mind training to analyze how meditation tactics could help treat - and maybe even help prevent - post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rooted in the ancient Samurai code of self-discipline, Warrior Mind Training draws on the image of the mythic Japanese fighter, an elite swordsman who honed his battle skills along with his mental precision. The premise? Razor-sharp attention plus razor-sharp marksmanship equals fearsome warrior. (Read about the samurai film version of King Lear by Akira Kurosawa.)
The Samurai image was selected after careful deliberation; it was certifiably anti-sissy. "We took a long time to decide how we were going to package this," says Ernst, who moved to North Carolina in 2006 and teaches classes at Fort Bragg as well as Camp Lejeune, a Marine base near the coast. "There are a lot of ways you could describe the benefits of doing mind training and meditation. Maybe from a civilian approach we would emphasize cultivating happiness or peace. But that's not generally what a young soldier is interested in. They want to become the best warrior they can be." (Read a story on the health benefits of meditation.)
The benefits of Warrior Mind Training, students have told instructors, are impressive: better aim on the shooting range, higher test scores, enhanced ability to handle combat stress and slip back into life at home. No comprehensive studies have been done, though a poll of 25 participants showed 70% said they felt better able to handle stressful situations and 65% had improved self-control.
The results were intriguing enough that Warrior Mind Training has been selected to participate in a University of Pittsburgh study on sleep disruption and fatigue in service members that will kick off early next year.
For now, success is measured anecdotally.
On patrol in Iraq two years ago, John Way would notice his mind straying. "Maybe I should be watching some guy over there and instead I'm thinking, 'I'm hungry. Where's my next Twinkie?'"
With privacy at a premium, he'd often retreat to a Port-A-Potty to practice the focusing skills he'd learned from Ernst at Fort Bragg. "To have a way to shut all this off is invaluable," says Way.
The importance of the mind-body connection is being acknowledged at the highest levels of the military. The West Point-based Army Center for Enhanced Performance (ACEP), which draws on performance psychology to teach soldiers how to build confidence, set goals and channel their energy, has expanded to nine army bases in the past three years since the Army's chief-of-staff praised the program.
"The Army has always believed if we just train 'em harder, the mental toughness will come," says Lorene Petta, a psychologist at Fort Bragg who works for ACEP. "A lot of times with this population, because they're so rough and tough, they tend to say, 'This is too touchy-feely for me. No thanks.' But we talk about the importance of being a good mental warrior too."
Free to members of the military and their relatives, Warrior Mind Training classes are offered at 11 U.S. military installations and veterans centers across the country; an online option opened up this spring. At Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California, for example, Warrior Mind instructors prep elite Navy SEALS candidates for Hell Week, when potential newbies are vetted in a 5 ½-day sleepless trial of physical and mental endurance. (See pictures of the U.S. troops in Iraq.)
Beefing up the brain for combat is one aspect of the training; another is decompression. If one day you're dodging snipers in Iraq and the next you're strolling the aisles at Wal-Mart, Warrior Mind Training techniques can ease the transition.
"It's kind of like a reset button," says Erick Burgos, a military paramedic who takes classes at Coronado. "It's a time-out for you to take a break from the chaos in your life."
If the Army's new mental-toughness initiative, set to kick off in October, is to be successful, it needs buy-in from the people it plans to train. It can be a tough sell. At Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in N.C., Adam Credle, who teaches military, law enforcement and Coast Guard personnel how to drive boats equipped with machine guns really fast, has encouraged his students to try out the meditative techniques. So far, he's been rebuffed, though he continues to try to persuade them to give the discipline's central exercise a chance. The mental focusing technique is called deep listening and it sounds super-simple but - unless you're accustomed to meditation - it requires exquisite concentration.
To help develop this skill, Warrior Mind, relies upon music. The idea is to listen, really listen, to the wail of the guitar or the staccato tap of the drums instead of letting your mind wander. In athletics, this concept is called being in "the zone."
As with anything, practice makes perfect, which is reassuring for rookies - like me - who find it next to impossible to rein in their thoughts at first. During the course of one five-minute song, I thought repeatedly about whether I'd remembered to lock my car and turn my cell phone to vibrate. And, because I'm a reporter, I thought about what everyone else might be thinking about, which, if they were doing it right, should have been nothing at all.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Redeployment to America
Redeployment is the army word used when a unit returns from a deployment. It can be confusing because it sounds like deployment-again, which it is, only back to a stateside duty station. This happened for us 4th thru 13th of August, so these picures are a little dated and in reverse order, beginning with our escort to Ft. Carson from the Colorado Springs airport, on back to Kuwait Baghdad, and Camp Echo.
Checking in...to being home, and weapons turn-in.
First early AM view of Colorado from the plane.
Soldiers on our chartered commercial jet home which took us across Europe and Canada.
Over Kuwait, and good bye to the Arab wonderland.
Soldiers will be soldiers, notice the face of the air steward.
Kuwait International Airport
Watertowers in Kuwait.
We couldn't leave for good without one last dust storm. Crunch, crunch, yummy.
Waiting for a flight and sleeping in 115F heat, in Kuwait, outside a Pizza Hut...in a hut.
Earlier that morning, before the ordeal of passing an army unit through navy customs, like a square peg through a tiny hole, we wait for our buses to take us from Camp Virginia to the airport.
We lived in tents for a few days at Camp Virginia.
Loading a C-17 to leave Baghdad.
Waiting, periods between the bus-tent-bus-plane-bus-tent movements are spent outside in the heat waiting for connections et cetera.
Checking in...to being home, and weapons turn-in.
First early AM view of Colorado from the plane.
Soldiers on our chartered commercial jet home which took us across Europe and Canada.
Over Kuwait, and good bye to the Arab wonderland.
Soldiers will be soldiers, notice the face of the air steward.
Kuwait International Airport
Watertowers in Kuwait.
We couldn't leave for good without one last dust storm. Crunch, crunch, yummy.
Waiting for a flight and sleeping in 115F heat, in Kuwait, outside a Pizza Hut...in a hut.
Earlier that morning, before the ordeal of passing an army unit through navy customs, like a square peg through a tiny hole, we wait for our buses to take us from Camp Virginia to the airport.
We lived in tents for a few days at Camp Virginia.
Loading a C-17 to leave Baghdad.
Waiting, periods between the bus-tent-bus-plane-bus-tent movements are spent outside in the heat waiting for connections et cetera.
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