Left of Right

Saturday, January 7, 2012

That hit the spot, II

In a few weeks I head back to Afghanistan. Now I'm not saying anyone stole the last nine months from me, I'm just saying a minute ago I had them and now they're gone. I checked under the bed, between the couch cushions and in the fridge. Nada. So if you did take them, just leave them on my welcome mat and ring the doorbell. No questions asked.

If you don't, the man with the mustache will get you.

Ok I exaggerate. I did have some fun, got to do some living, met some new people. Most importantly, since my last post I've collected an additional sister and nephew. I was actually shopping for a great-aunt but some lady pepper-sprayed me in line and took the last one.

Confession: it seems I'm a lot more of a family man than I realized, especially for a single guy. Usually I'm rolling my eyes back to my brain stem as you (agonizingly slowly) flip through 2348923 pictures of your new baby niece. Turns out, it's just your family that's boring. Mine is adorable. So yes, I showed a picture of the newest M to some friends. A picture. One. That's how it's done folks: Isn't he cute? Yes. Thanks, go back to your crossword.

HOWEVER. This blog is a voluntary undertaking. If you're reading this you've chosen to set aside the sodoku/knitting/SVU marathon. So here I'm going to post more than one pic. A lot more than one. You've been warned.

First came the baby. His name is...redacted, like all names in my online paranoia. But his initials are ALM. The original LM was this baby's father's father's father's father, who died at Auschwitz. ALM was born on 22 Dec 2011, 7lb 11 oz, of which 2lb 8oz was hair. See for yourself:

Seriously. Am I just biased or is he the cutest baby ever?

Exhibit B

Uhh...now what.

They'll love him no matter what. If he does drugs, steals purses, drinks expired milk.
Just as long as he doesn't go to Auburn.

Family's first Hanukkah

Mamma

Daddy

Saba (Grandpa)

Family

More family

Brit Milah

Just three days after ALM was born, E and R got married in Israel. I haven't seen all the professional pics yet but I do have some to show you (mostly stolen from NS' FB page - thanks!). First though, a little story.

After the men finish signing/witnessing/haggling over the ketubah, we dance our way into the main hall. E greets his bride and then they go to the chuppah. There, in a last minute decision, R follows an ancient Jewish custom and circles E seven times. I hope one of the photographers captured the moment. E has his eyes closed, head down and looks like he's in the direct presence of G-d. R is slowly walking around him with her head bowed. A musician is playing a mournful Jewish tune on the oboe (even in joy Jews never forget our tragedies) and my mother is bawling. It was the most beautiful moment I've ever witnessed.

Ok enough about that. Here are the pics. I told you my family is adorable. Judge for yourself.

The groom

Anyone know a good chiropractor?

The bride and the moms

No escape for the groom

Under the Chuppah

Unisex dancing. Not as bad as I expected.

Notwithstanding all the celebrations (and preparatory house work) I did also get to do some traveling. I had three main goals: spend more time in Jerusalem, visit Masada (finally), and do some hiking in the north. Went three-for-three.

We started with a trip to the City of David - original, pre-Temple Jerusalem. They are excavating sites there that are nearly 4,000 years old, some of which we got to walk through.

City of David, as it looked a year ago during my R&R

Excavating ancient ruins

Click on the pic and read the inscription. Fascinating.

The view on exiting the ancient aqueduct. What you see here is the Arab neighborhood, an avalanche of litter, and in the top left the 3000 year old Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. Draw your own conclusions.

Outside the Zion Gate.

Then we tooled around Jerusalem for a bit and ran some pre-wedding errands for the groom.

I never did understand fashion...

No really. No left turn.

No really. We're a café.

And people seriously wonder why I was always getting lost in Jerusalem.

The ugly (imho) new bridge in central J'lem

Making it look good.

Converting Shekels/Liter to $/Gallon, I think this comes to just under a grand.

A few days after Jerusalem I finally got to Masada, upon which stands an ancient fortress built by King Herod (who also expanded the Second Temple and built many of the ruins visible at Caesarea as you might remember from my last visit). About a century after King Herod, Jews fleeing the Romans following the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the Second Temple made their final stand at Masada and famously committed mass suicide rather than surrender and become slaves.

Aside: I'm currently reading a novel, The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, that is set in this period. I give it 3.5 stars so far, but it's fascinating to follow the main character as she describes passageways and storerooms that I stood in a only few weeks ago, 2,000 years after she would have lived.

Anyway, Masada continues to play an important role in the modern Jewish concept of self-defense. Here's a good article if you want to read more.

The night before Masada, we camped out at a nearby campground whose name I've forgotten.

Lighting the second candle

My cousin's Judeo-modern art

My cousin

Our camp site

Sunrise over the Dead Sea, from our camp site

The Negev desert. Greenhouses on both sides of the road.

We hiked up the Snake Trail, which is moderately strenuous though Israelis tend to make a much bigger deal out of it than it is.

The Snake Trail

Part-way up. Dead Sea in the distance.

The view from the top. The square near the bottom is the ruins of one of several Roman base camps, from which they laid siege to Masada in 72 CE.

Storerooms

The raised floor used to heat the bath house

Herod's Palace

Ramp used by the Romans to take Masada

Ruins of the main Roman garrison

One of the Roman walls up close

In the distance, IDF CH-53Es conducting exercises. Better them than me.

I believe we did that trip on a Thursday. Sunday was my brother's wedding. On Tuesday morning we returned to Jerusalem with the newlyweds for a truly remarkable tour of the excavated tunnels at the Western Wall. Big thanks to E's father-in-law for making that happen on short notice.

Entering the tunnels

Looking straight down at some deeper excavation

Model of the Second Temple. Only about the nearest third of the Western (left-most) wall is visible (outdoors) today, but the rest still exists...

A new family in an old place

Original Kotel stones on the right. Original dad on the left.

Ancient stone quarrying

These ancient cisterns still trap water that drips from the limestone.
Here's an unexpectedly interesting article I found on this history of Jerusalem plumbing.

Back in daylight in the Old City

Dad at the southwest corner of the Kotel

Man on a mission

Finally, the day before I left we got in a quick hike up north, at a place called...

Prehistoric caves

The new bride has a new pet

Bride and groom praying at sunset

Snow-capped Mt. Hermon

Well that pretty much wraps up the last month or so. In the next few weeks I've got to finish (also start) packing up my whole apartment, which by the way looks like this, for those of you who have never gotten to visit:

Living room

Study / guest room

Not pictured: ~~Thermonuclear test facility~~ Perfectly Clean and Organized Bed Room

Then at the end of the month I'm off, expected return around July/August.

I know you just loved scrolling through a million pics of my family. But as my brother and his wife said:

"Thanks for celebrating with us!"

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Next time, I'll...

As most of you know, my next deployment to Afghanistan is right around the corner - expected departure some time in January. I've been thinking about how this deployment will differ from the last, and for whatever reason I thought you might find these thoughts to be an interesting read. In fact I can think of at least one way that they directly affect you, so press on.

First, the obvious:: I'll be in Lashkar Gah at a British base, vice Camp Leatherneck, a Marine base. I expect the primary differences to be:

Instead of being literally at the flag pole, I'll be far removed from it, allowing me greater freedom and independence as long as I do my job;
I'll have a shift job, expected to be just 8 hours a day; vice the average 14-hour days of last time;
I'll have less overall responsibility but a more direct role in operations in support of ground forces
I'll be eating a lot more curry

Additionally in the realm of the obvious, I expect to be back 6-7 months after I leave, vice a year. This, of course, is a big difference. Big.

All that is self-evident. But there are a few other things I'd like to change.

First, while I PT'd hard for the first half or so, when winter came and March still seemed an eternity away, I pretty much lost my drive and my PT, when it happened, was mostly weak and unproductive. This time I intend to push myself hard the entire time and come back in - objectively - the best shape of my life. That's a pretty bold statement to make, especially in public like this, but I think I can do it.

Second, as some of you know I've been working on a book, on and off, for more years than I care to admit. Again, these aren't the kinds of things I usually say in public but my aim is to finish this thing. Probably it will be terrible. That's OK. My problem has been that I've gone over and over the same ground in my writing - refining, reworking, perfecting, whittling it to the bone, and while that's yielded some quality (IMHO), it's come at the price of quantity. It's time to write out the rest of the story and then go back and improve it.

Third - and this is the one that affects you - I want my friends and family back home to be more involved in my deployment. I believe that all Americans need to be personally invested in wars fought on their behalf, yet when you asked me, as so many of you did, what you could do or send, I fell into the trap of saying "don't worry about it, we've got everything we need here" because that was easier than thinking about what you really can do for us over there.

It's true that we have everything we need over there. A person needs very little. But there is plenty that we would like - would love - to have and we shouldn't be afraid to share that with those who want to support us. So here: I give you a list of things you can send us or do for us - a list based on a little more experience than I had last time, and one that you can feel free to share with others.

Write. This is definitely number one. Whether it's a two-page letter or a two-line e-mail, we want to hear from you. Even if it's been a year or 3 or 10 since we last spoke, this is the perfect time to renew acquaintances. Any contact with home puts a smile on our faces and helps us sleep better that night.
Give of your time and/or money to an organization that supports the troops (then write us to let us know you've done it). Here are a few of my personal favorites, but there are many to choose from:

Semper Fi Fund - Provides support and assistance to wounded Marines and Sailors and their families
Wounded Warrior Project
United Service Organization (USO)
Project MOT

Make a CD or DVD. My dad sent me one a week for almost my entire deployment, with news and sports round-ups, videos of old concerts and movies, pictures of the neighborhood (the White Mountain National Forest and environs) and a "from the producer" segment each week. I know he's planning to do that again, but you can make me other DVDs - recent episodes of shows like House, The Office, Family Guy, Tosh.0, SNL etc. etc., or "mix tapes" of whatever the kids are listening to these days (not much radio in Afg).
Magazines and books - but not in the mail. Yes, several of you sent me these last time and believe me, it was great to get them and I devoured them all. But it seems lots easier and cheaper to send e-books and e-mags, which you can do easily here. You don't even have to buy the book - as a reading fanatic what I value most is just getting book recommendations from friends.
Care packages. As I've written before, what you put in them matters much less than just knowing that you took the time to put it together and send it. Let's face it - care packages are a pain in the ass to put together. But here are some ideas of things to put in them, in addition to all of the above:

Home made treats
Beef jerky
Crystal Lite (any flavor but especially fruit punch)
Mixed nuts
Nerf guns - really anything nerf
Sugar-free gum
Crosswords and other puzzle books
Blank cards/stationary (so we can write back!)
Crisp hundred-dollar bills (crinkled ones may be returned)

lists

Get on Skype, g-chat, etc., so when we have unexpected Internet access we can talk!

So there are some ideas. If I think of more I'll add them to this post. Meanwhile, you're probably wondering when I'm gonna get around to posting my address. Well unfortunately since I'll be off on an ASLT (Air Support Liaison Team), sending mail to the main address of my unit - at Camp Leatherneck - isn't the most efficient way to go. Once I get in country and figure out the nearest Marine unit - probably one also based at Lashkar Gah - I'll post my address on this blog and send it out by e-mail.

Lastly, you should know that when it comes to care packages, the cheapest option is to use the USPS flat rate box for APO/FPO, which you should be able to get at any post office.

OK it's been a busy day here at LeftofRight...time for bed!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Happy Veteran's Day

Last week I got back from a month in the desert around Yuma, AZ. Things I did during that month:

Sweat
Sleep in a tent
Sweat while sleeping in a tent
Subsist on MREs (snacks only), Date Shakes and sand
Displace five times
Participate in three convoys
Attend an unknown number of late-night briefs
Experience some of the best the MST has to offer
Set my personal (albeit humble) record at 10 days in a row without a shower

Naturally, I had a great time. Why? Well...

If you noticed the guys on the hilltop controlling aircraft (from about the 2 minute mark on), that was at a position called OP (Observation Point) Feets, and it's where I was working for the first week of the exercise. Here are a few of my own pics and vids from there: