Crossing Over - Blogged by N8

On May 14th, after months of waiting, hoping, and praying for a position to open up, I enlisted in the Air National Guard after over four and a half years of service in the Navy. This time I was fortunate enough to have some of my family members there and also the staff that I will be working with.



I became interested in the Air National Guard after working with many fine members while deployed to Germany. I quickly grew envious of what they had and wanted to be a part of it.



Last March, a position opened up and I interviewed for it. They called me the next day and said that I was the one that stood out. There were many applicants and we feel very blessed to have been chosen.



The Guard atmosphere is very different from the Navy and is much more family friendly. My deployment schedule looks to be a lot lighter and more spread out. I am honored to still be serving my country in this capacity.



I'm no longer a Petty Officer. I am now a Staff Sergeant.

THE CHAPLAINS CLOSET - Blogged by JME

The following is an article that was written about the Chaplain's Closet that N8 runs. I thought it would be cool to post it so that you could see a little more about what N8 is involved in while in Germany and what the Chaplain's Closet is for.

Also, it might seem like, with all the outings N8 has been on and all of Germany that he is seeing that N8 is on a big vacation courtesy of the Navy. However, that is not the case. Although N8 has had many opportunities to go on these 'Wounded Warrior' trips, his main priority on these outings is to assist the Wounded Warriors. He is constantly carrying crutches, pushing wheelchairs, providing lunch, keeping role, and assisting with other needs that the Wounded Warriors may have. The reason that there are no pictures on this blog of the Wounded Warriors from those trips is because of the patient privacy laws (HIPPA-Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

If there is anybody interested in donating to the Chaplain's closet, please let me know so I can get you the information.

SOLITARY SHOES A TACTILE SYMBOL OF AMPUTEE'S SACRIFICES

By Seth Robbins, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 2009

LANDSTUHL, Germany — Behind Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s closet door No. 3E 105 are two bins labeled "left" and "right."

They are filled with shoes.

Smelling of fresh leather, the shoes vary in style and size: a green and black Reebok high top, size 10; a tangerine-colored Converse, size 8; a women’s white New Balance, size 5; a burgundy and black hand-sewn slipper, no size given.

The bulk of these shoes have no mate because the other is being used by someone who has lost a limb.

"They live in the closet," Army Chaplain (Maj.) Eric R. Meyners said of the shoes, sifting through the bin. "It just doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do to have them displayed."

Meyners doesn’t notice the bins much when he comes to work now. But when he gives tours of the chaplain’s closet — which is really more of a room — a hush falls over visitors when they see the single shoes.

"It gets very real," he said. "It brings home for them the harsher side of what goes on in war."

In the chaplain’s closet, there are dozens of shelves packed with other reminders. Shirts are sliced from collar to waist and fitted with Velcro closures so they can be worn around casts and other cumbersome devices. There are similarly altered boxer shorts, and tear-away pants to be worn over leg braces, and electric razors for soldiers who are unable to use their dominant hand and would cut themselves with a traditional blade.

The shoes may be tucked away in a closet, but medical advances and modern prostheses have brought amputees out into the open more than during any prior war.

Though the total tally of amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan — more than 900 so far — is less than one-fifth the tally from Vietnam, troops with missing limbs remain potent symbols of the conflicts, said retired Col. Charles Scoville, chief of amputee care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“Our guys with limb loss are much more visible. They are returning to normal lives,” Scoville said.

One of them is Joseph Bowser. Now staff assistant to Secretary of the Army John McHugh, Bowser lost his right leg after a 2004 mortar attack in Balad, Iraq.

Then a sergeant first class, Bowser had just finished talking to his children by phone when he walked outside and heard the familiar sound of mortars. He glanced at his watch, thinking that it was about time for the evening’s attacks to start.

Before he put his arm down, a 122 mm Chinese rocket exploded nearby.

“I remember it being hot,” he said, “and I looked up and there was all this smoke and dirt coming down. I’m laying on the ground screaming for help. That’s when the guys picked me up, and I felt my body go limp.”

Bowser was bleeding profusely from the back of his right leg. Doctors at Balad stopped the bleeding, but Bowser’s leg and foot were mangled, his heel bone destroyed. When he reached Walter Reed, Bowser was advised to have his leg amputated.

“The easy part was saying I want to have it amputated,” Bowser said. “The hard part was being pushed out the door and knowing that when you come back you are not going to have a piece of you anymore. There is no way of putting it back on. I was crying like a baby while they pushed me out.”

During his two-year rehabilitation, Bowser learned to walk again with a prosthetic leg attached below the knee. And after mastering that, he laced up a pair of skates and headed onto an ice rink.

“The first thought I had,” Bowser said about the decision to have the amputation, “was I want to play hockey again.”

Maj. Marilyn Rodgers, a physical therapist who has worked with amputees at both Walter Reed and Landstuhl, recalls a litany of accomplishments by past patients, including a below-the-knee amputee attempting to qualify for the Olympics in white-water kayaking and a lieutenant colonel leading his unit back to Iraq after losing part of his foot.

“They are pushing the technology,” Rodgers said. Prosthetic legs with microprocessors assist with walking and standing, a new prosthetic arm interprets nerve muscle impulses to close or open fingers on a mechanical hand, and stronger and lighter prostheses allow amputees not only to run, but to race.

More than 100 amputees have returned to active duty, about 40 returning to Iraq or Afghanistan, something that would have been unthinkable in the Vietnam War.

“We’re an active bunch,” Bowser said. “We don’t want a leg [that’s only good] to get out of the bed and go the bathroom.”

Yet no matter how sophisticated the technology, amputees can’t escape the physical realities of a lost limb. Hence the shoe bin.

The bins were placed in the chaplain’s closet late in 2005, when the hospital had an influx of soldiers injured by roadside bombs in Iraq, said Army Chaplain (Col.) James Griffith, director of pastoral services at Landstuhl.

Griffith recalled two soldiers looking for shoes; one had had his left leg amputated, and the other had lost his right foot. They both happened to wear the same size.

“One took one shoe and the other took the other,” Griffith said

Griffith also remembered a soldier’s mother wading into the sneaker bins for her son, taking care not to break up one of the many new pairs that are also available.

“Every pair of shoes in there is someone’s life dramatically altered. It means new adjustments, new goals, most likely a new direction in what their vocation will be,” he said. “It is also a new beginning. They survived and they get to go home.”

N8's commentary on current events:
Really America? You sure you thought this through? - Blogged by N8

OK, I just want to let you know what my situation is here. I don't get to watch a whole lot of TV here due to my work schedule. Mostly, I watch TV in the Dining Facility when I eat. They always have the news on. Unfortunately, they have mostly Fox News and MSNBC, the furthest right and the furthest left cable news sources in America. I've been able to track a lot of the issues going on back home from both extreme points of view and just wanted to share my conclusion...

When I started elementary school, Ronald Reagan was the President. When I graduated, Bill Clinton was the President. So, I definitely got to experience the whole spectrum of politics as a child. It seemed that almost every year the school would take every grade and put us in the same large room to watch a speech of the President encouraging us to study hard, be good citizens, stay out of trouble, and have fun. Never once did I feel "indoctrinated" by what the President had to say, he was just telling me that hard work and dedication pay off. Common sense really...

Nobody was ever pulled from the group because their parents disagreed with what the President had to say. The school showed the speech and no parents showed up angry that their child was exposed to the "extremist points of view" of the President. So why is that happening now?

I've read the speech given by President Obama and it is the very same speech I was used to hearing as a child. In fact, I felt waves of euphoria hitting me as I read it. Not once did I read anything extremist, liberal, or invasive at any time. If telling kids to work and study hard is wrong I don't want to be right.

What shocked me was watching the parents of school children all across America being interviewed saying that they would pull their kids from school so that they didn't have to watch it. One woman was even crying, almost in hysterics, because she couldn't fathom the idea that the President would be talking to her little girl. A school superintendant in Florida was being scrutinized because he was making it mandatory for the children in his school district to watch it.

So, let me get this right... You don't want your children to hear the President telling them to work hard, study hard, and stay in school, so you TAKE THEM OUT OF SCHOOL??? Are you serious??? Am I just out of the loop or does this just not make sense to everyone else?

The last time I checked we were the UNITED States of America. How has it come to this? Parents, please use your brains and common sense and keep your children in school. I promise that the President is not going to tell them anything they aren't going to hear from you, their teachers, their coaches, and their mentors. Removing them from their source of education does not teach them anything. I know that sounds weird, but it is true.

N8's commentary on current events:
Cougar Attack In Texas!!! -Blogged by N8

This picture was taken after Heisman Trophy Winner Sam Bradford was viciously attacked by a 6-foot-3, 234 pound Cougar at Cowboy's Stadium!



That's right, BYU handed the (then) No. 3 Ranked Oklahoma Sooners their first loss of the season. Utah native, Coleby Clawson sacked the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and put him out of commission, ensuring a beautiful victory for the BYU Cougars. Let's see him do the "Heisman Pose" in that armsling, huh? Congratulations on your first win Cougars, hope the rest of the season goes just as well!!!