Three Generations - Four Services

Okay…so many things have happened in the past few months, but I would like to go back to Christmas which was the first Christmas that my family has spent together since my son became a Marine. As you can perhaps maybe tell from the picture above, we have a slew of Military Men in the family -- three generations and four services. Since some of the “elders” could no long fit into their respective uniforms, my brother found some covers (a term I had to correct him about) for them to use. I may have to pay dearly for using the following pictures with the blurbs - sorry guys - but I did have to definitely show what a difference a day (or so) makes.

A History of the Generations

On the far right in the picture above is my dad, Gene (Marine grandpa). He is a retired Army Sergeant First Class. He began his career in October 1950 at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. From there he went to AIT at Ft. Gordon, Georgia to train in pole line construction with the Signal Corps. He then went to the Test & Evaluation Command at Ft. Bliss, Texas. From Texas, he made a big puddle jump and spent a few years in Germany doing pole line construction then back to Ft. Polk, Louisiana. Ft. Rucker, Alabama for aircraft maintenance was the next stop on the Army tour then onto Columbus, Ohio. Dad was back at Ft. Bliss, Texas to attend about 6 months of training at the Radar school after which he was reassigned to the Test & Evaluation Command and promoted to E-6 (yeah Dad!). Another puddle jump over to Korea where he worked on electronics at a radar site. Once again, back to Ft. Bliss (they must’ve really liked him) to Test/Evaluation & Research/Development Command. One more hop over to Germany where he was stationed at Kaiserslautern. There he was Platoon Sergeant for five maintenance teams and worked in Communications/Microwave Radio. It was here that he was promoted to Sergeant First Class (another yeah!). The final stop was at Ft. Knox, Kentucky working in Depot Maintenance. Throughout his career, Dad received many Army commendations. After 20 years, Dad retired, moved to Texas and worked for Texas Instruments until his final retirement. He now spends his time learning how the Marine Corps works and hunting deer for jerky for our care packages.

Next to my dad is my oldest brother, Mike (Marine uncle). He joined the Air Force in June 1985. From September 1985 through June 1989, he was stationed at Langley AFB in Virginia where he was assigned to the 94th Tactical Fighter Squadron and the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron working on the radar and navigation of the F-15. Mike was also crossed-trained in the Communications and Computer Systems career field. He then worked on various computer systems for the 1912th Computer Systems Group; the most notable system of which was the World Wide Military Command and Control System. In January 1992, he was assigned to the 8th Communication Squadron stationed at Kunsan Air Base, Korea where he was NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) of the Base Communications Center and the Small Computer Repair shop. After a year in Korea, Mike headed over to Misawa Air Base, Japan to join the 35th Communications Squadron. In Japan, he was NCIOC of the Base Communications Center and Data Processing Center. After a couple years in the Orient, Mike was off to Brooks AFB, Texas. While at Brooks AFB, he was assigned to the Office for Prevention and Health Services Assessment which is part of the Air Force Surgeon General’s office. He did computer systems support for medical research doctors and was also the technical lead for a DoD wide program called the Health Enrollment Assessment Review. September 1999 found Mike stationed at Royal Air Force Base in Molesworth, England. There, he was the NCOIC of the Theater System Operation Center which basically provided computer support for over 2,000 intelligence analysts throughout Europe. The final leg if his journey was at Buckley AFB, Colorado. At Buckley, he was one of two Test and Configuration Managers for the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS). The SBIRS detects missile launches around the world. On July 1, 2005, Mike officially retired from the Air Force; however, they could not get rid of him that easily. After retiring, he went back to work on the SBIRS as a government employee doing software logistics support.

My older brother Wayne (Marne uncle) is the next in line. Wayne was a Navy man – joining in May 1984. He did Recruit Training at Great Lakes, Illinois; then went on to Journalism-A School at Ft. Harrison, Indiana. While at school in October 1984, Wayne was presented the award for Youngest Sailor present at the Indiana Navy Ball. In November 1984, he worked as Shipboard Journalist on board the USS Pensacola (LSD-38) in Norfolk, Virginia. Near the end of 1988, Wayne moved over to Italy. He worked as a journalist for a couple years on the Panorama Newspaper at Naval Security Activity in Naples. The next three years, he was stationed at the Naval Security Group Activity in Winter Harbor, Maine. There he was a Base Journalist and won a Chief of Information Award – Third Place for small station newspapers (way to go Bro). In about October 1993, Wayne went back over to Italy. He worked as a Broadcast Journalist for the American Forces Network in La Maddalena. In December 1995, Wayne left the Navy and moved back to Texas where he completed his Journalism degree at Texas Tech University. He did some work for the university radio station and then worked for a local television station. He now lives and works out in California.

Last but not least, on the far left….my pride, my joy, my son, my Marine (yes…I am a little biased here). He is a 2005 graduate of Lubbock High School. While in high school and a member of the Navy Junior R.O.T.C., he had the opportunity to meet General H. Norman Schwarzkopf who was in Lubbock as keynote speaker at the Ethical Leadership Conference. During his senior year, he was part of the Delayed Entry Program for the U.S. Marine Corps. On July 11, 2005, he headed off to Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, graduating in October 2005. What made his graduation even more special to me was that the day he received his EGA was also my birthday. Who could ask for a better present!?! After boot camp and a little visit home, he returned to complete his MCT (Marine Combat Training). The next destination for this Marine was Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo. for MVOC (Motor Vehicle Operator’s Course) which he completed in December 2005. In January 2006, he completed LVS (Logistics Vehicle System) training at Ft. Leonard Wood. He then came back to lovely Lubbock, Texas and reported to the Marine Corps Reserve Center. By April 2006, he got word that he would be making his first deployment to Iraq. By early July 2006, he and his unit left for Camp Pendleton for training, and by last August 2006 was in Iraq. It was the first Christmas that we had without him, which is why this one was so great. He returned home in March 2007. He is now readying for his second deployment. He wanted to go on this deployment because he has become good friends with many in his unit. I know they are truly ‘brothers’ because they all joke, hassle and give each other the “what for” all the while watching each others' back. He says when he gets home from this deployment, he would like to go Active Duty and I will stand behind him 110%.

Special Recognition

I know, I know….when am I going to stop? However, aside from the U.S. Government having to deal with this bunch so did a very special person. I could not close without giving a special kudos to the woman who has dealt with so many aspects and services of the military…my mom. Being a Military Wife, she had to deal with the rules and regulations of the Military Spouse and raise three children (hooligans at times) alone while my dad was stationed or training elsewhere; and do it all with grace, understanding and the ability to not totally lose all her marbles. As a Military Mom, she had the joy and pride of watching her sons work their way through basic training and become honorable men. Now as a Military Grandma, she has shared with me the joy and pride as my son became a Marine. She has let me “volunteer” her to do projects for the Marine support groups that I am associated with. She, and of course the rest of the family, have been my leaning pole of strength during my son’s deployments. And yet, through the years and through all the changes the world has experienced, she still manages to handle it all with grace, understanding and the ability to not totally lose all her marbles. I am in awe!

I have always been very proud of my family’s accomplishments and service to this country. Men and women like this are the best thing to ever happen to America. I honor and respect each and every one of them…past, present and future.

Marines bring the band to Africa

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Feb 15, 2008 9:25:05 EST

DAMERJOG, Djibouti – Most of the kids couldn’t speak English, but they had no trouble dancing along to the American music that filled their village.

Members of “Thunder Roll,” one of Central Air Force’s two bands, performed for the kids for more than an hour Monday morning, playing everything from The Clash to Smash Mouth.

The village of Damerjog is less than 20 minutes from Camp Lemonier, the primary U.S. military base here, and the Marines who conduct base security often visit Damerjog and the other surrounding villages in an effort to get to know the local residents.

The Marines brought the band, which belongs to the Georgia Air National Guard, to Damerjog for Monday’s performance.

“It’s all about relationships,” said Marine Capt. Christopher Crim, commanding officer of B Battery, 3rd Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion, of Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Crim and his Marines visit four local villages at least once a week. They play soccer with the kids, set up movie nights, hand out school supplies, help repair water reservoirs and simply spend time with the villagers.

“The purpose of this is quite simple: to gain an appreciation of their culture and build relationships,” he said. “The simple things go the farthest, school supplies, flip flops, things that are useful to everyday life.”

Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Larry Winner, one of the band members, got into the mix and danced with the children during the performance.

“At first I was a little apprehensive, but we saw how they were reacting,” Winner said. “When you look into their eyes you could see a connection. The music was just lighting them up.”

Winner said he was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic reception the band received.

“Music truly is the universal language,” he said. “That’s an old cliché but it’s true. Everyone can relate to the beat.”

Multimedia
Audio and photos from the bands performance
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Retired Air Force general brings fight to ALS

By Jill Coley - The (Charleston) Post and CourierPosted : Tuesday Jan 22, 2008 9:57:21 EST

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Four-and-a-half years have passed since Tom Mikolajcik was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Seventy percent of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis die within five years. Time is not on his side.
Now, Mikolajcik must make decisions about how he will face the last stages of the disease before he loses the ability to do so.
The degenerative disease, which is known for killing New York Yankees first baseman Gehrig, strikes about 15 Americans daily, shutting down nerve cells responsible for movement. Limbs weaken and atrophy before paralysis spreads to the trunk of the body. Eventually, speaking, breathing and eating are affected.
Patients must decide if they want to go on a ventilator and feeding tube to hold off the inevitable a little longer.
“Today, my decision is, I will put in a feeding tube even before I need it,” Mikolajcik said. “Today, my feeling is, I want to go on a ventilator as long as I can communicate with family and friends.”
The retired Air Force general and former commander of Charleston Air Force Base is taking charge of these critical decisions by participating in a medical study testing diaphragm-pacing stimulators in ALS patients. Located below the lungs, the diaphragm is the large muscle used for respiration.
The pacing device stimulates the diaphragm with surgically implanted electrodes to maintain muscle mass. The stimulator, already used in people with spinal cord injuries, might delay the need for a ventilator by more than a year.
During the surgery, a feeding tube also will be inserted, although Mikolajcik does not yet need one. “The sooner you have the procedure, the better,” he said.
Dr. Raymond Onders, director of minimally invasive surgery at the Medical University Hospital’s Case Medical Center in Cleveland, pioneered the technology and the procedure. The late actor Christopher Reeve, who suffered from a spinal cord injury, was Onders’ second patient to receive a stimulator.
ALS is a fatal disease, but theoretically, people could live indefinitely with a tracheotomy and ventilator. But most don’t want to do that, Onders said.
Doctors can predict when ALS patients will die based on their rate of decline in respiratory function.
To measure the success of the stimulator, Onders looks for decreases in that rate.
“It’s not a cure,” he said.
Mikolajcik was successfully fitted with a stimulator last week in Cleveland. He is part of a 100-person trial in six U.S. sites. Onders previously completed a safety trial implanting the device in 16 ALS patients whose decline in breathing function slowed, delaying the need for a ventilator by more than a year.
“I want to be able to listen, watch and absorb my children and grandchildren as they grow and change,” Mikolajcik said. The mind and senses remain unaffected by the disease. But as time passes and the body shuts down, the ability to communicate diminishes.
Toward the end of the disease, some people use their eyes, looking right or left to signal “yes” or “no.” In preparation for the time he will become speechless, Mikolajcik recorded himself singing “A Bushel and A Peck” to be played when his grandchildren are placed in his lap.
In August 2003, the retired general went to the doctor with a minor complaint: He was feeling tired and not hitting his golf balls as far, he said. The doctor noticed a slight twitching in Mikolajcik’s chest called fasciculation.
The doctor told him the best-case scenario was a benign tic, and the worst case was ALS. Mikolajcik went home and Googled ALS.
“I almost fell out of my chair,” he said. The muscles in his arms shut down first, then his legs. He can move his left thumb and index finger, and if he concentrates and is well rested, he can move his left wrist and ankles. Little is known about ALS, which was discovered in 1869.
“In 70 years, there’s only one questionable drug that may extend life by three years,” Mikolajcik said. “In 70 years. Give me a break.”
For unknown reasons, veterans have a 60 percent higher chance of developing ALS. That high rate is why Mikolajcik said he feels strongly that the government has a higher responsibility to advance ALS research.
He has visited Congress three times to push for ALS research and testified before a congressional committee in July. Legislation to establish an ALS database that will warehouse information on the disease for scientists and patients has passed the House and is awaiting consideration by the Senate.
“I am blessed that I’m a Type-A personality,” Mikolajcik said. “What about those who take no for an answer?”
Source

Troops unite to save soldier knifed in head

Courtesy of Lt. Col. (Dr.) Richard Teff / Army An X-ray revealed that the knife entered just below Powers' helmet, above his cheekbone. It also penetrated his cavernous sinus, where a bundle of veins supplied blood to his brain's right side.

By Patrick Winn - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Oct 22, 2007 9:13:35 EDT

It felt like a nasty sucker punch. Yet when he strained his eyes to the hard right, there was something that didn’t belong: the pewter-colored contour of a knife handle jutting from his skull.

Sgt. Dan Powers, stabbed in the head by an insurgent on the streets of East Baghdad, triggered a modern miracle of military medicine, logistics, technology and air power.

Multimedia
See Sgt. Powers’ surgery


His survival relied on the Army’s top vascular neurosurgeon guiding Iraq-based U.S. military physicians via laptop, the Air Force’s third nonstop medical evacuation from Central Command to America, and the best physicians Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland could offer.

It required extraordinary hustle from a string of ground medics, air medics, C-17 pilots, jet refuel technicians and more. Not an hour after the attack, Powers, a squad leader with the Army’s 118th Military Police Company, was draped in sheets on a medical gurney bound for Balad Air Force Base, about 30 minutes away by helicopter.

Someone pressed a phone to his left ear so he could promise his wife, in a panic worlds away, that everything would be fine. He would soon drench a surgeon’s hands in blood, narrowly surviving as a medical team opened his skull to extract 4 inches of blade from his brain.

These are the staggering measures that allowed Powers to keep his promise and his life.

The attack
East Baghdad is a crumbling maze. Narrow lanes form stucco canyons that block out sunlight. A grimy film seems to blacken every surface: the facades, cobbled footpaths and street urchins’ faces. Lines of sight end at each bend in the street, and the windows overhead look down like hundreds of eyes.

“It’s just very slummy, with all these twisty alleyways,” said Powers, now 39. “It’s a nightmare to patrol.”

A 12-year Army vet on his second deployment to East Baghdad, Powers spent his days training local police and trying to keep peace in a fortified cityscape. Soldiers in his 13-man squad would cruise the city’s oldest quarter with Iraqi officers conducting street-level investigations and responding to gunfire or explosions.

Nothing was different July 3 — at least not at first.

Powers was dispatched from Forward Operating Base Shield to a stretch of bomb-charred road. Explosive ordnance disposal personnel were already huddled over a blast site near Beirut Square on one of the district’s wider thoroughfares. The explosion seemed minor — no flaming vehicles, at least — so Powers and a team leader, Sgt. Michael Riley, were mostly concerned with warding off pedestrians.

Powers was walking away from the cordoned area when it hit him — a near-knockout blow that felt like a “clothesline tackle,” he said. But Powers stayed on his feet, spun around and slammed his raven-haired assailant to the asphalt, prodding the skinny Iraqi man’s face with his M4 barrel. Riley, his squad mate, pounced and detained the assailant.

“I remember being pretty pissed off,” Powers recalled to Air Force Times. Adrenaline throbbed in his veins and blood soaked his shoulder. A medic, Spc. Ryan Webb with the 118th Military Police, was tugging at his arm, demanding that he “sit down, calm down and leave the knife in.”

The knife? What knife?

“They said, ‘You’re stabbed’ and ... I remember seeing the handle,” Powers said. “There was no pain because the brain has no pain sensory nerves. It was all surface, like someone punched me in the head.”

Powers stayed conscious as soldiers carried him to a Humvee, sped to Forward Operating Base Shield and, after medics bandaged his head in clumps of cottony gauze, shuttled the sergeant to Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Stabbings of American military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan are extremely rare, outnumbered by drownings, strokes, cancer, drug overdoses and electrocutions. According to Defense Department casualty reports, Powers is only the second service member stabbed while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The hospital
They spoke through the roaring chukka-chukka of rotating chopper blades.

Moments before medics slid Powers into a helicopter en route to Balad, his wife, Trudy, was patched through on a cell phone. A soldier held it to Powers’ face as his gurney rolled across the Green Zone helipad.

“I was adamant they put him on the phone to prove he was alive,” Trudy Powers said. “He sounded like his regular old self. ‘I’ll be all right, hon. I’ll be all right.’”

Powers soon arrived at the Balad hospital, a cutting-edge facility rivaling many American treatment centers. One of Iraq’s few military neurosurgeons, Army Lt. Col. (Dr.) Richard Teff, remembers Powers lying supine on a gurney, wide awake and speaking. Medical personnel crowded his stretcher, asking questions and filming his answers.

“His head was wrapped up with big, bulky bandages,” Teff said, “like the people transporting him were afraid the knife would get bumped or dislodge.”

It was less than two hours since the attack.

Balad’s head and neck team was accustomed to gory head wounds, skulls split by bullets and IED-borne shrapnel. But Powers’ injury “had to be the most amazing thing anyone in the room had ever seen,” Teff said. An X-ray revealed that the knife entered just below Powers’ helmet, above his cheekbone, “skating right along the base of the cavity we call the temporal fossa, where the temporal lobe of your brain lives,” Teff said. It also penetrated his cavernous sinus, where a bundle of veins supply blood to the brain’s right side.

After Powers was shaved and anesthetized, Teff and fellow neurosurgeon Army Maj. (Dr.) John Martin peeled back Powers’ scalp, skull and meninges — a pinkish layer coating the brain’s surface. Steel barbs resembling fish hooks held back walls of tissue the color of raw pork.

Teff and Martin hit a crossroads. They could riskily retract the brain to isolate and clamp the artery in his cavernous sinus. Or Teff could cross his fingers and pull.

“Any time you have a penetrating stab to the head,” he said, “the biggest concern is what’s going to happen when you pull [the knife] out.”

Teff pulled.

“He started bleeding like crazy, enough to make everyone in the room worry he might die,” Teff said.

The doctors scrambled to find the nicked carotid artery. Plastic air hoses sucked out pint after pint of hot blood. Finally, they clamped the artery and relief washed over the medical team as the bleeding stopped. Though Powers had lost about 2 liters of blood — roughly two-fifths of his body’s total volume — the most dangerous part of the operation was over.

Through personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Teff relayed details and photos of Powers’ surgery to Lt. Col. Rocco Armonda, one the Army’s most skilled vascular neurosurgeons. There was no precedent for Powers’ condition in Iraq, and the head and neck team needed guidance.

Contacted in his vehicle, Armonda pulled over in Washington traffic, reviewed the images on his laptop and shot back a response: Close the guy up and get him to Bethesda. Now.

Evacuation
Capt. Corbett Bufton, an aircraft commander with the Charleston-based “Red 7” aircrew, was incredulous at first. Awaiting takeoff from Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, his airmen had expected to carry two Stryker anti-tank missile carriers to another airfield within Central Command — a job typical of their intratheater transportation role.

But the operations center was telling him to change planes, directing him toward a different C-17 Globemaster, one with a plus-sized fuel tank. Red 7, the center said, would be picking up a severely injured soldier from Balad to fly him nonstop to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., just outside Washington.

“Our initial reaction was, ‘I don’t believe you,’” Bufton said. “Nobody goes to Andrews Air Force Base from Balad.”

Once the disbelief faded, Bufton sent a few guys to the barracks to scoop up extra clothes.

“It looked like we’d be gone for a couple days,” he said.

After landing at Balad, the loadmaster, Staff Sgt. Matthew Nemeth, began readying the aircraft for a medical evacuation. They briefed him on the details: one guy with a knife in his head, another soldier with a gunshot wound to the neck added at the last minute. A seven-person medical crew expected to board soon. Keep down the turbulence and restrict the cabin pressure to 4,000 feet.

“I’ve never seen it that low before,” Bufton said. “That restricted our flight ops to about 26,000 feet, which unfortunately keeps us down in the weather.” At the time, thunderstorms blanketed the skies of eastern Europe along the flight path.

Bufton, with augmenting air refueling pilot Lt. Col. Jesse Strickland and pilots Capt. Justin Herbst and Capt. Scot Frechette, kept the C-17’s engine idling as the Air Force medical crew rolled Powers, the other wounded soldier and 7,000 pounds of lifesaving equipment up the ramp.

On the ground, a diplomatic clearance shop was frantically clearing their flight through roughly a dozen countries: Iraq, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, England and others.

Once airborne, Red 7’s pilots steered the hulking C-17 around turbulent rain clouds as medical personnel tended to Powers in the naked, metallic cabin. Tubes and wiring snaked the floor. Near the British Isles, a KC-135 Stratotanker leaving RAF Mildenhall joined Red 7’s jet for a mid-Atlantic refueling.

Over the Atlantic, it was Independence Day.

And as the C-17 rushed westward ahead of the rising sun, Nemeth helped the medical crew tack American flags on the walls and catwalk.

The C-17 touched down lightly at Andrews after a 13-hour flight. Powers and the other soldier were hurried to Bethesda. And members of Red 7, suffering in Iraq’s convection oven heat when they began their shift, stepped off the C-17 into D.C.’s balmy summer. The next morning, they flew into Dover Air Force Base, Del., picked up 17 pallets of cargo and headed back to Qatar.

“I’ve probably done two or three dozen medevacs in my career,” Nemeth said. “This one is probably the most significant, the most profound.”

More surgery
At Bethesda, a neurosurgical team guided by Armonda coiled Powers’ carotid artery and performed a cranioplasty on his dented skull. Trudy Powers met frequently with the surgeons, insisting each time on the raw truth.

“Don’t think I can’t handle it,” she told them.

Initially, they feared Powers, still in critical condition, could wake up with severe paralysis, brain damage and lost eyesight. But when the soldier surfaced after four comatose days, a battery of tests proved the stabbing had not robbed his intelligence or memory. Only his balance was badly skewed.

“It was like a dream because of all the stuff they had me on,” Powers said. “A face came in and said, ‘Do you know where you are?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It was the best place I could possibly be. The president goes there, all the chiefs and Congress.”

Powers was released from Bethesda just a month later and allowed to return to his house roughly 30 miles from Fort Bragg, N.C. After months of physical therapy, physicians now believe his coordination is largely restored. Pending the success of a follow-up skull repair in January, Powers hopes to rejoin his unit as a squad leader before May.

“Certainly there have been bigger injuries, uglier, more devastating injuries,” Teff said. “What makes this unique is how huge the knife was, how well neurologically he’s doing and the drama involved in getting him back.”

Back at Fort Bragg
The package’s return address read “BALAD AIR BASE, IRAQ.” Trudy Powers, standing with her husband in their home, was tearful, trembling and mortified by the contents she expected to find inside.

Out plopped a hunk of stainless steel resembling a flea market dagger.

“I didn’t need to see that,” she said.

Army judge advocate general prosecutors later asked if they could have it. Powers didn’t mind. Iraqi prosecutors wanted to present the 9-inch blade as evidence during his attacker’s trial in Baghdad, which admitted Powers’ testimony via teleconference. He’s unsure of the man’s fate, though he was told the Iraqis planned to “lengthen his neck a little bit.”

Powers acknowledges that his survival tale, circulating within the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, is “the stuff they make movies out of.” But the soldier in him bristles at the notoriety — or the suggestion that he’s some kind of hero.

In his version of the story, the Army, Navy and Air Force moved the world to save one man’s life.

And he’s just some guy who got stabbed in the brain.

Related reading:
Another survivor’s story: “No way I’m going to let this guy die”
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Happy Birthday U.S. Air Force - Sept. 18, 1947

USAF Mission:

"To Deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests - to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace"

Happy birthday USAF and thank you!