Vignettes

(Source)

I'm not really sure where yesterday's post came from, something in me said, "Write this." So I did.

Maybe it's like Boat Guy said, Armistice Day/Remembrance Day/Veterans Day was last week, perhaps a seed was planted, I really don't know. When it happens it feels good, sometimes it even reads well.

I like to write, I like to tell stories. But yesterday was different, there's something about the so-called "Great War" which haunts me. It led to World War II, it led to the Korean War and Vietnam. Whenever some greedy bastard wants something that ain't his, it's always bad. 

I have a few more ideas floating around inside my head, nothing that would make a full book, but might help me say what's inside of me. The world now looks nothing like it did when I was young, I need to express that. Even if it's indirectly through my writing.

So every now and then I'll write one of those little stories. There's one floating around just beneath my consciousness now, it's not ready to come out, but I think it will soon.

The picture above is representative of what that story might be, I'm not sure yet. It starts something like this ...

The pony was nervous, his ears twitching, his tail in nearly constant motion. The man sensed danger, he had learned to listen to his horse. Something was out there in the great grasslands which stretched all the way to forever.

Something told the young man, that life as he knew it was about to change, and not for the better.

That's all I've got right now. Might be a good story, I don't know. But I do know that it isn't quite ready to come forth. We'll see what tomorrow brings ...

Incident Near Cuney, France - November 1918

Sunday Morning At Cunel
Harvey Thomas Dunn
(Source)

"Sarge, it's still bleeding!" the young soldier screamed again, the pain was intense.

"I told ya kid, ya gotta ..." the older soldier paused as he fired again. The enemy was advancing in short rushes, he was hurting them, but each rush brought them closer and closer. "... take your belt ..." racking his bolt he fired again, "... wrap it tight as you can above the wound and torque it with your bayonet, damn it kid, didn't you pay attention in training?"

The older man started to turn around when a big German suddenly jumped out at him, bayonet poised to skewer him. His mind racing, how did the bastard get this close? He raised his rifle and fired.

The German's head snapped back, he could see that he had shot the man in the head, the hole in the helmet was obvious. Yet the man just bellowed incoherently in rage and drove his bayonet at the older soldier's chest.

In desperation, he brought his rifle up to deflect the bayonet thrust. He was only partially successful, instead of the blade sinking into his chest, it pierced his left arm just under the bicep. Miraculously it missed the bone.

Now it was the older soldier's turn to bellow in rage, his arm felt like it was on fire. He swung his right fist into the German's face. He heard the man grunt as the blow landed. But his opponent simply shook his head and reached for the older soldier's throat.

The older soldier gasped as he tried to knock the German's hands away. Those hands were clamped down on his throat and squeezing hard. Was this it? The older soldier was near panic as he tried desperately to break the German's grip.

Everything seemed muted, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton, there was a roaring in his ears as he thrashed under the German, who suddenly gasped. The German stared down at the older soldier, his face a mix of amazement and shock. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over his intended victim. The German was dead. Shot dead.

"Jesus, buddy, are you alright?"

The older soldier was coughing harshly, he was sure that the German had damaged his windpipe, his throat hurt badly. Shaking his head he sat up looking around in near panic for his rifle.

The soldiers who had come up on the position, counter-attacking and driving back the German assault had a medic with them. That man checked the older soldier and said, "You're gonna be okay buddy, take deep breaths now, if you can."

"My arm ..." he wheezed.

The medic saw the tear in his jacket and bandaged him up as best as he could, they needed to keep moving. "That'll hold you for now, flesh wound."

"Where is ..." coughing again , but slowly getting his wind back, the older soldier looked around the position. The kid was gone, where?

"The guy that was here? With the leg wound? Stretcher bearers took him back to the aid station, tourniquet probably saved his life."

The older soldier coughed again, then reached down for his helmet, which had come off in the struggle with the enemy soldier. He brushed the mud from the interior as best he could, then once again looked for his rifle. A voice spoke.

"Hey pal, we gotta move up. Head back to the aid station when you're ready."

The older solder looked up, it was a sergeant, "Sure Sarge, thanks."

As the others moved off, the old soldier stood up and saw his rifle, it was under the dead German. Sighing he rolled the corpse over and reached for the rifle. Then for the first time, he really noticed the man who had been trying to kill him. The man he had been trying to kill.

He wasn't that old, while there was a lot of blood on the man's face, his bullet had clipped the man's scalp, his youth was obvious. The older soldier knelt next to the body for a few long moments, then he patted the corpse on the shoulder and muttered, "Sorry pal, it was you or me."

As he moved back to the aid station he began to wonder, where had the man been from, what was he like? Did he leave a family behind? After he'd walked out of sight of where the struggle had been, the older soldier had another coughing fit and had to sit down.

Then, for what seemed like no reason whatsoever, the tears began to roll down his cheeks. He had killed before, in fact had killed three men just before the struggle with the big German, but never so close as to feel the man's last breath on his face. He had never been so close to dying himself. In that long moment between his own near death and the German's actual death, he had seen something, felt something. A glimpse of eternity perhaps?

Shaking his head, he got up, "God damn this f**king war."

Ex-Smoker

Lindsay Fox Photo
(Source)

So, some ten years ago I quit smoking, you can read about that here, written on the second day of the latest (and so far last) attempt to quit smoking. In ten years I have never had the urge to light up, the smell of cigarette smoke bugs the Hell out of me, the thought of actually smoking again is anathema. Ten years, hard to believe.

I used Chantix to help me quit, apparently the active ingredient in this Pfizer-produced (yup, scares me now) drug can cause suicidal thoughts. I knew a guy back in the day who used it to try and quit. He stopped almost immediately. As he said, "I would've quit, that's for sure, dead people don't smoke."

I had no such thoughts, I just had some very vivid and very violent dreams. Which, truth be told, I kinda missed after completing the regimen. I learned later that Chantix had been discontinued because -

"As part of regular safety monitoring, Pfizer discovered the presence of a nitrosamine in batches of Chantix during production. The amount of the contaminant present was higher than what’s acceptable according to FDA guidelines. Because of this, Pfizer stopped producing the medication." (Source)

 

Apparently those nitrosamines can cause cancer, something I quit smoking to avoid. Ah well, perhaps I got a good batch.

When I was done with Chantix (which was rather expensive) and smoking, I had occasion to talk to the company nurse about my accomplishment. She mentioned that my employer would have paid for that, "They give you a coach and everything."

Uh, I don't do "coaches." Some random individual harping about "How are you doing, have you felt the urge to smoke?" Smoking helped me relieve stress, so yes, adding more stress would really help.

I had to wait for The Missus Herself to travel out to California for a couple of weeks before making the attempt. She would have "helped" as well, I'm sure. While people mean well when they are "helping" in such a way, it doesn't "help" me at all. I need to do certain things on my own.

I'm pig-headed that way.

Oddly enough, I still smoke cigarettes in my dreams. Then I wake up pissed off at myself for picking up that old bad habit again. The brain is a strange place, at least mine is.

So yesterday's post originally was about twice as long as the one you got to read. There was some major league incoherent ranting going on, I can tell you. When I wrote the post I got myself worked into such a state that actually quoted Mencken! Not something I normally do.

I actually woke up at 0200 hours and thought, "Hhmm, some of that stuff is borderline sketchy, just saying such a thing might earn me a visit from certain agencies who would have 'questions' about what I meant." So I deleted it, sedition doesn't look all that great on a résumé, and I don't need that kind of stuff in my life. Not now, not ever.

So I'll leave it at that. Revolutions eat their young, I'm an historian, I know this.

I haven't touched upon the horrible accident which occurred in Dallas over the weekend and I don't plan to. I've seen the video and I've also seen aircraft crashes resulting in fatalities live and in person. Not something I care to think about. I've also lost friends in aviation mishaps (as the Air Force likes to call them, a crash resulting in major damage to an aircraft and/or death is a Class A Mishap. At least it was back in my day.) All I'll say about this is that I pray for those lost and their families. A tragic affair.

I also haven't touched upon the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, I let my Polish correspondent Paweł handle such things. He's closer to the scene and has some interesting thoughts on the subject. To me it's a war of aggression under some pretty shady pretenses. Both sides have assholes in their governments but seriously, what nation does not?

The deaths of two Polish farmers due to an errant missile is a tragedy and my prayers go out to those involved. You think innocent Ukrainians and Russians haven't been killed in this fighting? War sucks, but you knew that.

Anyhoo, enough of that. For now.

As you might notice, I'm not writing fiction this week, at least not historical fiction. I've been out of sorts for "reasons." I anticipate getting over all that with the help of a decent night's sleep. Which is on the calendar for this weekend, a three-day weekend I might add.

I really need to buckle down and get Almost A Lifetime ready for publication, I'm close but am still looking at a few days worth of work to get there. I've incorporated a number of your comments (note that I didn't say "all of them," for various reasons). I'm also putting together The Prequel, which is book number two. Getting it off the blog and into Word for formatting and editing takes a while.

There's a temptation to "just keep writing" because it's entertaining, but as I would like to make this writing thing a third career, I need to actually finish something and get it published. I'll probably go the self-publishing route, as many of you have suggested, it seems viable.

Expect more whinging tomorrow, my creativity has flown.

End of an Era

Sarge trying to pay his Verizon bill over the phone.
(Source)

For a number of months now The Missus Herself has been asking, "Why are we paying 50 bucks a month for a landline which we never use?"

While I can think of a few answers which make better sense, my only comeback was that a number of organizations have the number for that landline as a point of contact. So we just kept tossing 50 bucks out the window for no really good reason. Other than "But we've had this phone number for 24 years!"

Then Verizon decided to redo their website, a popular thing these days amongst certain tech companies, my employer did it as well. Thing is, for a period of four days, I would go to that website (which used to work) and get the same message: "That function is not available right now, please try again later." (Words to that effect, I don't recall the actual verbiage.)

On the website there is a chat feature, which is not manned by a human being as they following exchange might indicate -

• I can't log in, it says feature not available.
• Let's reset your password
• No, that's not the problem.
• Is there something else I can help you with?
• You haven't helped me yet.
• Tell me what the problem is
• I just did
• I'm not sure I understand
• Well, that's pretty obvious. I know my user ID, I know my password, your system just won't let me log in.
• Let's reset your password
• Can you read?
• I'm not sure I understand
• AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
• I'm not sure I understand

So I decide to try and get a human on the line. Nope, all I kept getting was a "you can log onto our website or you can pay your bill over the phone for only an extra $3.50." As it was the weekend, I figured I'd wait to Monday, the day the bill was actually due.

Same runaround, so I opt to pay over the phone, managing not to shout expletives as I did so. At that point, I decided that having a landline was not worth the candle. So I called customer service back.

• How can we help you?
• Cancel my service.

There was a click, the sound of an extension ringing and BANG! - I'm connected to a human.

So for the first time in living memory, I do not have a phone hardwired into my house.

It's somewhat liberating.

Not sure what The Missus Herself has planned for that 50 bucks we're going to save. I know I'd just blow it on beer and toys, books maybe ...

A Bit o' History, Part 3

Maréchal Ney à Eylau
Richard Caton Woodville Jr. (PD)

Notwithstanding the occasional minor setback during the 1805 and 1806 campaigns, Napoléon and his Grande Armée were on a streak of success. The old order fell away wherever the Emperor and his army attacked.

Austria had capitulated, the Holy Roman Empire,¹ had ceased to be, replaced by the Confederation of the Rhine, a collection of minor German states allied to the French. Prussia was essentially defeated, but hadn't quit just yet, after all the Russians were advancing into East Prussia to save them. Also, it was winter, certainly the French would go into winter quarters², wouldn't they?

Nope. There were still minor Prussian forces in the field and a Russian army was on the loose, moving to the support of the remaining Prussians. Napoléon resolved to cut the Russians off and finish the War of the Fourth Coalition.

(Source)

Did I mention that it was winter? February to be precise by the time the French caught up to the Russians who had decided to make a stand at the East Prussian town of Preußisch-Eylau.³ Without going into great detail, suffice to say it was a frozen nightmare. The French attacked in the mid-afternoon on the 7th of February. Initially repulsed, the French kept receiving reinforcements, the Russians in the town were a rear guard, fighting for time to let their artillery fall back to the main Russian positions outside of the town.

The fighting was bitter and continued into the night and all of the next day before the Russians finally fell back and left the field to the French. The fighting took place over 14 hours in bitter cold, those wounded on the first day froze to death if they weren't collected. A massive cavalry charge into a snow squall turned the tide for the French. Ten thousand cavalrymen assaulted the Russian lines, counter-charges by Russian horse were to no avail. The fighting was over.

Nearly 30,000 Frenchmen and upwards of 26,000 Russians and Prussians fell. A single corps of the seemingly defeated Prussian army showed up and nearly turned the tide in the Russians' favor, but French troops kept showing up as well.

Both sides called a halt to fighting for the remainder of the winter after this bloodbath.

(Source)

Eylau had been indecisive, though the French held the field of combat, the Russian Army was still in the field and a major threat. So ...

The engagement at Friedland was a strategic necessity after the Battle of Eylau earlier in 1807 had failed to yield a decisive verdict for either side. The battle began when Bennigsen noticed the seemingly isolated reserve corps of Marshal Lannes at the town of Friedland. Bennigsen, who planned only to secure his march northward to Wehlau and never intended to risk an engagement against Napoleon's numerically-superior forces, thought he had a good chance of destroying these isolated French units before Napoleon could save them, and ordered his entire army over the Alle River. Lannes skillfully held his ground against determined Russian attacks until Napoleon could bring additional forces onto the field. Bennigsen could have recalled the Russian forces, numbering about 50,000–60,000 men on the opposite bank of the river, and retreated across the river before the arrival of Napoleon's entire army but, being in poor health, decided to stay at Friedland and took no measures to protect his exposed and exhausted army. By late afternoon, the French had amassed a force of 80,000 troops close to the battlefield. Relying on superior numbers and the vulnerability of the Russians with their backs to the river, Napoleon concluded that the moment had come and ordered a massive assault against the Russian left flank. The sustained French attack pushed back the Russian army and pressed them against the river behind. Unable to withstand the pressure, the Russians broke and started escaping across the Alle, where an unknown number of them died from drowning. The Russian army suffered horrific casualties at Friedland–losing over 40% of its soldiers on the battlefield. (Source)

The defeat at Friedland convinced the Czar to seek an armistice. The two Emperors met on a raft in the Vistula River to negotiate terms. Though few knew it at the time, Napoléon's star had reached its apogee. There would be more victories, but nothing like those of 1805 and 1806.

It's one thing to forge an empire, quite another to maintain it, and the British were by no means content with the new status quo.

My time is at a premium this week, offerings might be a bit slim. I plan on posting but mostly random musing and maybe a rant, I dunno. Stay tuned. The rest of the Napoleonic Wars overview will be forthcoming, but it gets more and more complicated from this point on.

Think Spain and Russia. If you don't know what I mean, you'll learn. Both were disasters and led to the downfall of the First French Empire and its creator.

¹ Which wasn't Holy, wasn't Roman, and certainly wasn't an Empire - to paraphrase Voltaire.

² Traditionally armies would go into winter quarters as sustaining men in the field was costly and winter was a brutal season to campaign in.

³ Prussian Eylau, which is now the town of Bagrationovsk in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. An area taken from Germany in 1945, East Prussia was essentially split in two, the southern half going to Poland, the northern half going to the Soviet Union. When the USSR fell, the Kaliningrad Oblast was left on its own, a Russian island wedged between Lithuania and Poland. It's eastern border 315 miles from the nearest border with Russia proper.

News and Weather, juvat style.

 Well, Campers, it's been a comparatively busy week here at Rancho Juvat.  Not that anything new is going on, more of the usual routine, albeit with a deadline approaching.

First, on the first order of importance.  LJD continues to show improvement.  Last weigh-in had her at 6 lbs 12.6 ozs.  Virtually all her other measurements are now within expected ranges.  I'm not a Doctor, nor have I played one on TV, but I've been told that with Preemies, the most important and last area of development is Lung Capacity.  Specifically, a couple of measures of Oxygen usage.  

One is FI-O2, this is a measure of the ratio of oxygen supplement to regular air provided in her breathing apparatus.  Since the amount of Oxygen in the air you and I are breathing right now is ~21%, that's the goal they're shooting for her.  While no measure of human being activities is ever a straight line, and her's certainly complies with that theory, she's been trending down for quite a while.  Last measure was 30%.   She's been below 35% for a week or so.  So, good news/progress.

The other measure of Oxygen is the supplemental Oxygen Flow rate.  The goal here is a sustained rate below 3.0 Liters/Minute which will allow her to begin breast/bottle feeding and no longer need a feeding tube.  Again, she's making pretty steady progress.  Visit before last, she was at 4.3, this last one was 3.5 and she's been down to 3.0 a couple of times, so, again, good news/progress.

From my non-medical observation perspective, she's beginning to show a little personality.  E.G. beginning to fuss a bit when she doesn't want to do something.  The Physical Therapist is a prime recipient.  Having been at the kind hands of a few of those in my days, I understand that.  But...things are going well.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  If there are Saints walking on the Earth today, I firmly believe they're wearing NICU Garb.  Thank You Lord!

On a lighter note.

Get it?

Summer appears to be officially over down here in the Lone Star State.  Woke up this morning, got ready for Church, walked out of the house at the usual time and...spent the next 10 minutes or so, scrapping frost off the windows.  

Yes, Sarge, I know you Rhodies go sunbathing and skinny dipping at this temperature.  Down here, we refer to this as  "COLD!".  Fortunately, however, another weather event that occurred this week had dissipated.

I believe the technical term for this WX phenomenon is "Rain".  It's been so long since I've used the term without a negative in front of it, I've forgotten.  It is interesting how fast the brown grass started showing some shades of green. 

I decided that, given the circumstances, even the Wicked Witch would go out in it, so I wandered out to look at the rain gauge.  Just under 1.5" at that point, got a total of 2 for the day.  So...we got that going for us.

On a lighter note, one must enjoy humor where it presents itself.  Even if that happens in the parking garage for a major hospital.

I've seen it a few times there, so either it's someone visiting a long term patient, or a health care professional.  If the latter, I think that person and I could get along quite well.  

If I weren't his patient.

Since it was so cold today, Mrs. J decided to give me an early Thanksgiving (No, Beans, not early, early, early Christmas) present.  I got a chuckle out of it.  Course, it's also completely true.

Gift construction is progressing at an acceptable pace.  A couple of them are in the final finishing coats process, so apply then dry, is taking time.  Once those are done, and all the flippin' sanding dust is cleaned up, the big one will commence.  Might be up all night Christmas Eve, but hey, if Santa can pull it off, so can I.

Headed over to College Station this afternoon, to visit MBD, SIL and MG.  No real reason, just haven't seen them face to face in a while.  Video phones are better than what we had when we were stationed overseas, but they still haven't figured out a way to give your grandkids a hug via one.   So...comment responses might be a bit brief/late.

Peace Out, y'All!  Don't let the Bastiges get you down!  

Thinking

The South Gate of Hougoumont
(Source)

I've stood on that ground, in front of that building in the opening photograph, and wondered, what was it like for the men fighting for that key terrain feature on the 18th of June 1815?

No doubt they were scared, when they weren't busy doing their jobs. Load, fire, move, load, fire, move again, watch your buddies die. Move, load, fire again, maybe see an enemy fall as the result of your fire. Remembering that always makes me think.

I wore a uniform for twenty-four years and got nowhere near combat. My son had been in uniform for perhaps a year when he found himself on a destroyer in the Red Sea, firing Tomahawk missiles in anger.

I have studied war my entire life, I find it fascinating. Yet I know that people die in horrible ways and suffer unbelievable agony in war. War is a destroyer. As the old saying goes, "War is not healthy for children and other living things."

Quite true, you can buy a poster from Amazon for $6.99 which says just that. But I'm here to tell you my friends, it ain't that simple.

There are people out there who hunger for that which does not belong to them. There are people out there who hunger for raw power, the power to force other people to do their bidding. These people often resort to war to achieve those ends.

When attacked it is righteous to fight back, to resist, even to kill those who seek to take that which is not theirs. But once again, it ain't that simple.

The common man (or woman these days) is often at the mercy of powers they cannot control. Being drafted into the military is one of those things.

Say you're a simple Russian kid, hanging out in some big city or some small town out in the Russian boondocks. One day your draft notice shows up. It's not something you can ignore, governments have power. The power to throw you in prison, the power to make sure you don't have a job, Hell, they can do that to your whole family.

So you go, next thing you know you're riding in a BMP¹ somewhere in Ukraine with angry Ukrainians trying to kill you and your buddies. But why? What did you ever do to them? Well, nothing, but your government did. They decided to invade Ukraine for whatever reasons they felt required armed conflict.

Change the name of the country, you're a British kid in 1776, you're a German kid in 1940, or an American kid in 1965. Government says, "you're in the army," what can you do? You go, you try to stay alive, you kill those trying to kill you. Or you die.

War sucks but as long as there is evil and greed in this world, it will persist ...

Veterans Day was Friday. We had a nice ceremony at work honoring veterans. Yeah, yeah, thank me for my service, I do appreciate it. But for me, November 11th will always be Remembrance Day, Armistice Day.

As I stood there, holding the Air Force flag I might add, I couldn't help but remember those who went before, and didn't come back. I did shed a wee tear as taps was played.

So I didn't want the weekend to pass without mentioning a few names:

• Lex
• Kurt
• Taj
• Nate
• Uncle Robert
• Stefan
• Albert

Thanks guys, I remember you. I will say your names until my breath fails me. You are not forgotten ...

It's all we can do² ...

¹ Boevaya Mashina Pehoty (Боевая Машина Пехоты) literally "infantry combat vehicle."

² If you want peace, prepare for war.