Courage Without Fear

Unexpected help at Home

Below is the text of an email I recently sent to my church Pastor. It pretty much speaks for itself.

For just about a year, Beth, the boys and I have been regular attenders at the Duneland Community Church in Chesteron, Indiana (www.dunelandchurch.org). The church services are very contemporary and we've really enjoyed being part of the church family there.

Last fall, Beth joined a bible study called SisterChicks. Made up mostly of women our age, many with kids of similar ages to our own, the SisterChicks have become a great support group for Beth. This is just one more example of that.

"Pastor Neil, please feel free to share this email with the Church.

As many of you know, Beth and my 2 boys were recently able to come down to Texas and spend 4 days with me before I head overseas. They were accompanied by my Father and Beth's brother.

We were able to spend 4 wonderful days together while staying with my Dad's sister and her husband in Dallas. We went to the Dallas Zoo, did some shopping (mostly getting stuff for the boys as usual) and had a wonderful night out for my birthday.

On the evening of our 4th and final day together, we all piled into my Aunt's SUV and headed back to Fort Hood for another set of Good-Byes. After showing Evan some "Army trucks" and "real Army men", I was dropped off at my barracks where we hugged, laughed and cried.

After saying our good byes, my Dad drove everyone the 2 1/2 hours back to Dallas so they could get ready to fly back today (Saturday). After a nice easy flight home, my family arrived back at out house to find a few things moved in the yard.

When Beth opened the door and turned the lights on, she found that the Sisterchicks has descended upon our home. According to Beth, the Sisterchicks did 10 loads of laundry, cleaned everything in the house and even stocked the freezer with 10 days worth of dinners from Pompalanos.

Never in my life have I felt like I do now. I am so thankful for DCC and especially to the Sisterchicks for all the support they have given to Beth and the boys in my absence. They have helped with everything from checking on our cats while we were gone (which is how the Sisterchicks got into the house this week) to helping out when Beth had to take the boys to the Dr/hospital, to just being there when Beth needed someone to talk with.

In a very short period of time, I'll be leaving Fort Hood for Kuwait. From a base in Kuwait, the roughly 600 soldiers in my unit will be escorting convoys of food, fuel, parts, and equipment north into Iraq. It's great to know that while I'm deployed forward looking out for my troops and keeping them safe, that DCC and the Sisterchicks are looking out for my family back home. You don't know how much that means to me and what kind of weight it helps to lift from my shoulders.

I'll try to email as often as I can. I would have contacted you before now, but the pace of the training here any my hours spent working have limited my opportunities to email many people. As I get overseas and we begin our regular routine, I should be able to email more. Hopefully I 'll also be updating my weblog more often too. You can follow the story of myself and my soldiers here at www.couragewithoutfear.typepad.com

Thank you for everything, Micah"

For any of the Duneland Church reading this; Thank You.

Micah

Bloodletting...Cavalry Style

A few weeks ago I attended a Combat Lifesaver class for my Guard Unit. Combat Lifesaver (CLS) is like the First Responder of the US Army. Taught to do initial patient assessments, stop major bleeding and restart breathing, the CLS s the first first link in the chain if survival for Soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

Unlike civilian First Responders, Combat Lifesavers are taught how to start IVs. This skill is essential to replace blood lost on the battlefield. Hemmorage (bleeding out) is the highest (perentage wise) killer of troops in the field.

As part of the CLS class, students must succeslly start IVs on each other. I learned how to do this in Paramedic school years ago. I was taught to start an IV in the back of a moving ambulance without getting a drop of blood on the floor of the truck. CLS students on the other hand are taught to let it bleed once you get the needle in. Blood running out of the needle is a sure sign, even in the dark, that you stuck the needle far enough into the vein can attach the IV bag to it and successfully administer lifesaving fluids.

This video shows one of my soldiers (and fellow Spur Holders) successfully startin an IV on me, and squirting MY BLOOD all over the place. At lest I was smiling.

C/M,

Micah

Veteran's Day 2007 - Continuing the Road to War

This Veteran's Day I woke up to the sounds of Soldiers doing PT and others shuffling down the hall to find coffee. This Sunday is special, but at the same time it's the same as so many other Sunday's I've had on Drill weekends before.

Sunday means finishing up all the training you did for the weekend, finding those 2 Privates still needing to complete those training tasks from the day before, getting all your training documentation together for the Training NCO, confirming the times and dates for the next drill and cleaning up the Armory so we can go home early enough to catch the end of the football games at home.

But this Sunday is special. It's the 11th Day of the 11th Month, Armistice Day, Veteran's Day. And it's only a couple more months until we Deploy.

This Sunday is special. At the end of the day we're going to send our Troopers home and tell them to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families for most of them won't be home for the next one. We're going to send them home and remind them to bring all of their equipment in next month, so we can pack it away for transport to out mobilization station. We're going to tell them to be careful and enjoy the holidays, but don't do anything stupid, we can't afford anyone to get hurt and not deploy. We're going to ask them who is bringing their spouse/girlfriend to the Christmas Party in December. We're going to ask them to remember about Operational Security and not talk specific details about our upcoming deployment. We're going to tell them to go home and enjoy their families. Me, I'm going to the VFW after drill and having a drink.

Holy @#$%! We're going back to Iraq.

So for those of you who don't know, I'm going back to Iraq, just in case you're wondering.

Since I last posted (sorry it's been since Veteran's Day) my unit has recieved our Mobilization Orders which actually tell us to get to the Mobilization Station and prepare for the desert. In a previous post I told you that the Secretary of Defense signed our Alert ORders (the hey get ready orders) in April.

We're about to conduct our third Annual Training period since June. We did 2 weeks in June, 2 weeks in August and are about to do another 2 weeks in October. In between those annual training periods we've done 4 day drills instead of our usual 2 days. For those of you who don't know, that's a ton of training that costs a bunch of money. But when it's time to get out on the dance floor, you don't skimp on your outfit if you know what I mean.

That's one sure sign in the Army. When "they" start increasing your trainng tempo and throwing new gear at you and your unit, it usually means something. But that's actually a good thing. This time around we're doing much more training before the Mob Station and getting a bunch of equipment that we never got on my last deployment. But part of that is because my whole Brigade (about 3500 soldiers) is deploying instead of just a small 150 man company.

Since my last post, a few rather good things have happened to me. First, I was promoted to Captain in June. It was a very proud moment for me to stand infront of our entire Squadron and have LTC Barrett pin those Captain bars on my Stetson with my wife and son by my side. My parents were also there which made it that much better.  Photos of my promotion can be found here on our PicasaWeb page.

The second awesome thing to happen was myself and 34 of my fellow Cavalry Troopers  earning our Spurs during a traditional Cavalry Spur Ride during our August Annual Training. Spurs are a part of Cavalry tradition as much as Stetson's are. But unlike the Stetson, Spur's must be earned during a mental and physical exam called a Spur Ride.

For more on what a Spur Ride is, check out this entry on Wikipedia.

And to top everything off, I just realized that this is makes 100 posts on my blog! Yippee. And since I started this little experiment in Janyary of 2005,  my blog has been viewed 33,521 times for an average of 34.92 times per day. I'd say taht's pretty damn good.

Well, hopefully it won't bee so long until my next post. Since we're getting closer to deployment, I should be posting fairly regular again as to what we're up to, at least as much as I can.

Take care, MB.

Memorial Day

I don't know what it is about Memorial Day. Oh wait, yes I do, it's the beginning of summer. People always seem to remember that and forget the part about remembering our veterans.

While making my semi-regular trip to Dunkin Donuts this morning, I happened to pass 2 fire stations, a police station, two McDonalds, a Speedway gas station, several churches and dozens of private homes. Out of all of them, do you know which one's actually remembered to lower their flags to half-mast to remember the veterans? The two McDonald's restaurants had their flags at half mast.

As I passed my local fire department, a nice big new station that the volunteers are very proud of, their flag was all the way up. I called them on my cell ( I used the speaker phone, its okay) and told them I was kind of disappointed hat there flag wasn't half way down for Memorial Day. They said they'd fix it right away.

When I stopped at the Speedway, the woman gave me a blank stare when I asked her about their flag. I think she'd never heard of it before. She was in her 50s. A voice from the back piped in, "It needs to be lowered today?"

    "Yep, It's Memorial Day. It's been that way for awhile now," I said while trying not to make them feel too bad. "It's nothing new" I thought as I walked out to continue my donut quest.

Next to the Dunkin Donuts is the Portage Indiana City Hall. It also houses one of Portage's 3 full-time fire stations. Their flag was all the way up. As was the Portage Police Department's flag across the street. Again, disappointing. But the McDonald's two doors down had their flag at half mast.

On the way home, I drove past the local fire department again, they corrected their mistake.

At home in Cadillac, I'm sure my Dad went out his morning and lowered the American Flag in our front yard. And dutifully at noon, I'm sure he'll go out and raise it again like he's supposed to.

At least my Dad and McDonalds know what Memorial Day means. I hope you all do too. As for me, I'll be putting on my uniform and taking Evan to the Memorial Day services at my VFW Post at 11 this morning.

Micah

The US Flag Code can be found here on my VFW's website: http://www.vfw2511.org/flag_code.htm

Round 2

I haven't heard the official news, but the unofficial version is that I'm going back to Iraq sometime after January 1, 2008.

This past Friday, the Secretary of Defense signed the Alert Orders for five National Guard brigades alerting them to future deployments to Iraq. (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0522754720070406 ) It looks like my Brigade is one of them. My Guard Unit is one of two that are attached to the 37th Infantry Brigade from Ohio, which has been alerted for future deployment, (http://www.fox28.com/News/index.php?ID=16532).

While we've known for a little while that a deployment was possible, this recent decision from the Pentagon makes it pretty much official.

When I returned from Iraq the last time, we all hoped that I'd never have to return. Even though going back to Iraq isn't exactly at the top of my list of favorite things to do, it is something that I must do. As an Officer, I have a duty to my soldiers to go where they go and face what they face. Even though I could probably get out of the deployment if I really wanted, since I've already gone once, I'm not even going to ask. I've been with this same unit since 1993. If my soldiers are going, I'm going with them.

Things have changed for me since my last tour however. I'm no longer the Executive Officer for one of our companies. I'm now the Plans Officer (Assistant Operations Officer) for our entire 600 man unit. Basically that means I drive a chair. Instead of being in the trenches with the troops, I'm one of the guys giving directions and orders to the entire Cavalry Squadron. I'm also awaiting my promotion to Captain. I could have been promoted almost 2 years ago, but problems with my knee made that impossible until this past October. Now I'm just waiting for someone to sign the paperwork.

On the personnal side, things have changed too. On February 19, my second son was born. Camden Lee bell spilled into my habds at about 11:30 AM that day. Yes, I said "My hands." The Doc leanred I'm and EMT and he let me deliver, with my wife's permission, of course. Photos of Camden and his proud bigger brother Evan can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/micah.beth/CamdenLeeBell

As I learn more, I'll pass along what I can. For my family, look for emails. For everyone else, I'll update the blog as much as I can, whit what ever I can talk about. I plan on keeping this site and posting regularly from now until I return...again.

Micah