Dispatch 3: 24 Million to One

22-24 January 2010

Hello all from sunny Florida. This week’s title represents the odds of being attacked by an alligator in this state, where the majority of such events in the USA actually occur. As part of our pre-deployment training on the CH47D Chinook Helicopter, the PTBs (powers that be) have put us through a course, which we did in Wilmington, Delaware, last fall. Next is the “Seasoning.” I don’t know how they managed to work a culinary term into our training program, but I have a feeling it was done over a working lunch.

Alligator Safety Tip # 2: Do not feed alligators. As much fun as it seems to toss scraps of steak, chicken, or fish (or your Subway sandwich) at them, don’t. They’ll come to associate humans with food, and that might spell tragedy for someone else down the road.

There are several locations across the USA where our past ground and air crew have been sent to get their training, but I won the lottery by having the 1 AASF Florida Army National Guard. As most Canadians this time of year are fast approaching being sick and tired of the cold and the snow, if they’re not already, being here this time of year is a bonus. Glorious weather aside, the folks we’re training with have so far imparted invaluable knowledge about these machines. This photo shows some of our aircrew who’ve just finished their flight training this past week and they’ll be deploying within weeks (the flyboys get all the photo ops): http://www.floridaguard.army.mil/news/photogallery.aspx?id=1494

About the picture: Major Phillips in the center welcomed us to the facility with all the fun filled cockiness we’ve come to expect from confident pilots. And from what the techs have been saying, he’s their best pilot and so adept on the stick that he can lift loads, get in a hover and land without you knowing the difference unless you look out a window. The older fella in the back right is a Master Warrant Officer (MWO) Flight Engineer (FE) returning to KAF for the second time.

With all the flying our lads were putting their aircraft through, we hit our first week here running as inspections and maintenance events came due. Typically, our hosts are just not used to having so many maintainers on the floor, and as we’re willing and want to get our hands dirty, by the end of the week, the AASF guys finally seemed to relent and allow us to do the jobs rather than watch.

Some of the folks who’ve been directing and training us here at the Guard have seen combat and lost friends. Any people out there who still think the Guard is the US’s poor cousin to the Federal Army Reserve are sadly mistaken. They are professional and well trained as any other professional military. These guys really are civilians in a uniform. One weekend/month they do “Drill,” which doesn’t mean they actually do marching on the parade square, but do some kind of training related to their trade or the military, getting paid by their rank. Those we’re working with are paid by the hour for the work they do when not on Drill, so the aircraft mechanics are getting a commensurate wage for their level of responsibility; therefore, the Private who was training me gets paid decently during the week, but as he said, “Come the weekend, I’ll get paid by my rank, and for me, that sucks.”

Thursdays after work, some of the lads like to gather at Chili’s for a beverage, and we Canucks were invited. Almost none of us made it because none of the five personal and different GPSs we all brought could find it. The way those in uniform, and even we in our distinctly different Canadian Pattern (CADPAT) dress, were treated and thanked by the locals puts Canadians collectively to shame. I know there are many back home who support us, but by and large, not to the degree that they do here in the US. Over a few hours, we must have had at least four rounds bought for us by complete strangers and countless others just come up and thank us. And of course, we cabbed it back to the hotel. The only thing worse than drinking and driving is doing it and running over an alligator.

Alligator Safety Tip # 3: If you see an alligator in the road, don’t gun for it. They are solid muscle, and if running over one doesn’t damage your car it might send your car out of control. That carcass in the road is now a deadly hazard for other vehicles.

But what are a bunch of aerospace technicians to do with their free weekend. Why, go to the Kennedy Space Center of course! And if you go, and you take the bus tour, go to the first stop and look out at the launch pads, DO go to the second stop and visit the Saturn V display and the control room simulation, but DON’T bother with the third International Space Station module assembly stop. With only five more launches remaining before Shuttle retirement to get the last four modules in orbit, it’s a pretty sad building surrounded by gator fencing, which curves out at the top.

Alligator Safety tip # 6: If it’s winter in Florida, you won’t see gators. Winter is the one time of year in Florida that you can safely go around without worrying about alligators. You’ll know it’s winter if you see the locals in jeans and jackets and the tourists in shorts and tee shirts.

Just a couple of days ago, I heard on Sirius 137 CBC that humans orbiting the earth in the ISS finally have Internet access. It’s a freakin’ space station and they just got Internet? Compared with the cost of putting a book in orbit, or using valuable telemetry time, you’d think they’d have thought of this much sooner. The first message sent was a Tweet, which is probably an indication on how busy those few orbitnauts are.

How does the space station only finally get, or allow, internet access for its crew? (Turns out someone finally came up with a software upgrade to let them do it. Contact them @ http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_M10-011_Hawaii221169.html) Well, isn’t the thing almost built? Think of your own home, the fixer-upper you bought, or the house you contracted to build without a finished basement or garage, or maybe you’re even happy with waiting for them to add the siding the next fiscal year. Hell, the driveway doesn’t need paving right away and the sod can wait until you can afford a sidewalk and screen doors. The point is, once you move in, especially in Canada as we bunker down for the winter, as you wait for the improvements that will come when the ground thaws, you make yourself as comfortable as you can. Sure, there’s heat, food, water and sewage, but there’s more to life than that in the cave; so you get cable or satellite, Internet, phone and maybe even you get to cook with gas! Just seems to me they should’ve had it before now.

The projected completion date of the ISS is interesting. Apparently it is the year I’ll be back from my tour, and the parallels I make of both missions seemed obvious, such as:

No long term plan

The ISS, although a grand idea, was an after thought without what to do with it after. Just like the Shuttle itself, which became too expensive to launch payloads, was relegating to doing silly zero-G science experiments with ants, will have little use after completion. There are already plans afoot to de-orbit it in 6 years: NASA to De-Orbit International Space Station In 2016.

There never was a real tangible plan for eventual colonization at any of the Lagrange points, and using the ISS as a jump off point.

Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, commendable as it has been, like the ISS also has a de-orbiting date of its own. NATO members are still allowed to only partially participate while the US, UK, Australia and Canada do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to combat. As it has come to change, and the focus on reconstruction becomes primary, collectively between all the Western participants, there is no long term plan.

Mission First

When our troops first officially got to Kabul 1 February 2002, it was all about getting the job done. But as anyone who’s been in the field knows, whatever little hoochie, tent or shipping container you get to call your home, bit by bit, you make it as comfortable as possible when you have time. Eventually, it’s always nice to have Internet; just like they finally did for the ISS.

Via World Focus

“I have always depended upon the kindness of Strangers”

Unlike Tennessee Williams’ line, Afghanistan’s mission depends on its NATO Allies, no matter how strange they may be. Much like the ISS, most of the burden has been shouldered by the US, but couldn’t have happened without international participation.

A vision for a brighter future through human endeavour

That could’ve been the mission statement for the ISS, and the closest thing NASA has is its own motto, “For the benefit of all.” In ways, the ISS, like our mission in Afghanistan, is a vision with many hopes.

The centuries of tribalism fueled by a medieval cult which flourishes in Afghanistan’s geographically elevated remote region is not set to change, nor is there even a strategy which addresses it. In the words of Raja Anwar, “Their enmities and bitter struggles spring from the tribal, sub-tribal and regional differences which characterize this most backward of societies – differences which escape definition in terms of modern political theory.”

When I hear too oft used “hearts and minds” approach and why we fight the good fight, I often wonder if those who say it have a clue how the Quran’s suras and Mo’s hadiths have been put to use; that the Taliban are not one united front, but are as diverse in their reasons, sometimes suffer from their own internecine engagements, and draw from all the major ethnic groups – the Pashtun, Farsiwan, Almaq,  Turkoman, Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara and Baluch as well as foreign fighters looking for a scrap with the infidels; that the bad guys will always be one step ahead of NATO because they have one thing in common with the locals that we will never have: ISLAM.

Therefore, unless there is some long term plan to reform the religion being practiced in Afghanistan, the feudalism demanded in practicing a 7^th century ideology will forever have the West scratching its head over why things just don’t seem to improve to a point where it can eventually pull out without it all collapsing in on itself.

The similarities end

I could go on and even equate the importance of moving the smelly sewage treatment poo-pond called Emerald Lake, found in the middle of the camp (KAF) to a location outside the sector with living quarters, with the development of improvements in zero gravity waste management, but the planet bound plan is more likely to occur first. Completely missing in all of these comparisons is the fact that there are no Muslims in space, nor does the ISS provide anything beneficial to Dar al-Islam, whereas our mission does.

Why have the rich emirates, the winners of the 12 trillion dollar geological lottery, or the very neighbours, the Pakistani, not taken an interest in helping their impoverished Muslim brothers in Afghanistan? The 56 members of the OIC sit idly by as the West wastes it lives, time, money and resources in Afghanistan because it suits their purpose. The OIC knows Afghanistan is part of Dar al-Islam and will never leave the fold. As the West weakens itself in this futility, their hope is that it will make it easier for the soft jihad from within to eventually defeat Dar al-Harb – such as human rights inspired nuisance lawsuits of which Ezra Levant must go through AGAIN through the kindness of one strange diction challenged Khurrum Awan.

The MSMs were all over the ISS’ Internet story (627 hits for news stories on Google) but not so much for the very assault on free speech by covering Geert Wilders’ trial (348 hits in the same news stories Google search). Betcha the next shuttle launch gets even more coverage, and as man’s ability to punch a big hole in the atmosphere at a huge expense in hydrocarbons, where will the warm-mongers be to protest about that? If the protesters did materialize, and if they did manage to get through the security, they’d have to say hello to some of the naturally occurring inhabitants of the Space Center: Gators! There are approximately over 5000, but as the tour bus operator said, “…every time they send someone out to count them, they don’t come back.”

Alligator Safety Tip # 1: You should never, under any circumstances, approach an alligator. You’re no Steve Irwin and you could not only endanger your life, but that of the Alligator. Every year dozens of alligators have to be put down because they have attacked people and pets.

Alligator safety tips via: How to Deal With a Wild Alligator in Florida

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Afghanistan mission compared to ISS mission, aligator safety tips, counting alligators, International Space Station, ISS, NASA, please don't feed the gators