A Bit of Mixed Emotions

A brief summary of the 111th annual Army Navy Football game:

Ricky Dobbs threw the longest touchdown pass in the 111-year history of the Army-Navy game, Wyatt Middleton had the longest fumble return in Navy history, and the Midshipmen (9-3) extended their winning streak against the Black Knights (6-6) to nine straight with a 31-17 victory Saturday in Philadelphia. Associated Press, December 10, 2010.

Six or seven years back on a Saturday morning, we talked briefly on the phone cross country from Oregon with our son in the Army in northern Virginia and asked, "What are you doing this morning?" "Polishing my boots," he replied. That wasn't out of the ordinary, at the time he was training to be a sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknowns. "I am going to the Army Navy football game today." We thought that was pretty good deal, and felt bad when Army was beaten later on. That our youngest son would be at the Naval Academy a few years later wasn't in any stretch of our imaginations - not on our radar back then. Army was the team to rout for.

But times changed. Our youngest decided he wanted to go to the Naval Academy and was admitted - we switched alliances and bought Navy Football season tickets the four years while he was there. We passed on our option this year, but I caught several of the game on television, and watched the entire event yesterday. It was fun to see the Midshipmen win their ninth game in a row against Army, especially after loosing earlier in the season to Air Force, and giving up the Commander-and-Chief's trophy. But once Navy locked up the game towards the end, and seeing the different Division patches on the Army uniforms, I couldn't help but feel some sadness for the Cadets and the soldiers at the game and those elsewhere routing for them, especially when I caught a glimpse of the 101st Airborne patch. It has been a tough year for the 101st in Afghanistan.

Some friends of ours' son is deployed now - last time in Iraq, this time Afghanistan. No doubt about routing for Army there, regardless of football game outcomes. Go Army!

Two New Movies In Next Two Weeks

The Christmas movie season has arrived, and there are two films on my list - and won't need to check the list it twice. The first is the third installment of the C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series - Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I wrote about this some time back, it is my favorite from the BBC production that appeared on PBS over 20 years ago - even though Prince Caspian and Dawn Treader were bundled together into three one-hour segments. The new preview trailer looks great. The movie opens next weekend, Friday December 10. By the way, I recently read a good interview with Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson who was executive producer of the film.

My second season pick is the sequel to the original computer graphic science fiction film - Tron - and opens a week later. It is released by Disney - Disney dropped the Voyage of the Dawn Treader film after
Prince Caspian made half the revenue of the first Narnia production - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I hope both films do well, but wish the better revenue return for Dawn Treader. I am curious what the Tron sound track will be like - like the computer-generated graphics in the original film are greatly surpassed by today's technology, I wonder how the use of the original Wendy Carlos Moog Synthesizer scores that were innovative at that time will work in the new film now - with Daft Punk as the musicians. Also, will an anthem by the group Journey wrap up the end of the film as well? Tron opens December 17.

The past year has been a bit of a crunch, so I am looking forward to some pure fantasy at the theater, to go along with my anticipated winter diet of Poirot classics. Yes, I know what I want to see this Christmas, and don't need to check my list twice.

Lost to a War, But Not Unknown

An article about Adam Dickmyer's funeral appeared in the Boston Globe newspaper on November 23. In the article the writer, Kevin Cullen, mentioned the connection of Adam to the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy, and how the the Senator's doctor's nephew - an Army Captain, along with Mrs. Kennedy, attended the funeral. I appreciated what Cullen wrote, so sent him an email last night thanking him. He wrote back today. Below is my note, and his reply - followed by the article - Lost to a war unknown. There are always stories behind the stories - these are no exceptions. (1)
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November 29, 2010

Dear Mr. Cullen,

Thank you for your follow-up article to the funeral of SSG Adam Dickmyer at Arlington National Cemetery. Our son served with Adam for three years at the Tomb of the Unknowns - his loss was close to home for us. I appreciate you mentioning the Army connection to the Kennedy's family through the Senator's physician, as well as Mrs. Kennedy's attendance. You may not know, but another attendee of the funeral was SSG Salvatore Giunta, who the day before was presented the Medal of Honor. My understanding is that the Tomb Guards had helped him shape up his uniform for the presentation at the White House, and later the day of the funeral, his induction into the DoD Hall of Honor at the Pentagon - he walked unnoticed with the mourners from the chapel to the Section 60.

There are many ways that those in the military support one another. Thank you for your support of our troops through good articles such as you wrote about Adam.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Steiner
Annapolis, MD
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November 30, 2010

Thanks.
Dr. Ronan called me when his nephew told him about Adam being KIA.
He asked me to write something to recognize Adam, and I'm glad I did
because it reached a lot of people, and Adam was, like so many of our
people in the military, the best of us.

Cheers
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Lost to a war unknown
By Kevin Cullen
Globe Columnist / November 23, 2010

For six years, Army Staff Sergeant Adam Dickmyer was a “sentinel,’’ one of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

He was one of the elite Old Guard, the select soldiers who, in rotation, bear silent witness every minute of every day, in all kinds of weather, honoring the unknown soldiers who died on foreign battlefields.

It was something he took seriously.
 

Dickmyer spoke to Robert Poole for Poole’s book, “On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery,’’ which was published last year. He explained the Old Guard’s mission with a poignant simplicity.
 

“We want the guys who sacrificed everything to know that they are still remembered, that someone still cares,’’ he said.
 

Sometimes, his duties took him away from Arlington. Dickmyer was lead pallbearer for Senator Ted Kennedy last year. He was with the casket every step of the way, from Hyannis Port to the Kennedy library to the Mission Church. Tens of thousands of people from Massachusetts and beyond would have seen Dickmyer or passed close to him, but they wouldn’t have known who he was.

Hundreds of thousands would have watched him over the years at the Tomb of the Unknowns as he faced the tomb for 21 seconds then marched 21 steps, a ceremony of remembrance practiced over and over again. But none of those tourists would have known his name.
 

Dickmyer was part of one of the most distinguished units in the Army. Less than 20 percent who try out make the Old Guard. Still, he volunteered for combat duty, leaving the Old Guard for the Second Battalion of the 502d Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division. In June, his unit arrived in Afghanistan for a yearlong deployment. On Oct. 28, Dickmyer dismounted from his armored vehicle and was on foot patrol in Kandahar when a hidden bomb exploded, killing him. He was 26.
 

He was just the third sentinel killed in action. Two others, Staff Sergeant William Spates Jr. and Sergeant Marvin Franklin, were killed in Vietnam.
 

Dickmyer was the first of five soldiers out of Fort Campbell in Kentucky to be killed in Afghanistan in five days. The day after he died, Specialist Pedro Maldonado, 20, was killed by grenades and gunfire. A day later, Specialist Brett Land, 24, was killed, like Dickmyer, by an IED.
 

Four days after Dickmyer was killed, a guy on a motorcycle drove up to the Second Brigade’s base. Specialist Jonathan Curtis, 24, a great kid who grew up in Belmont, and Private First Class Andrew Meari, 21, were on guard duty and stopped the motorcycle, preventing it from entering the base. In doing so, they saved many lives, but lost their own when the guy on the motorcycle detonated the explosives he was wearing.
 

The war in Afghanistan is the ultimate war of the unknown soldier. So few Americans have their own flesh and blood in harm’s way. So few think of the war on a daily basis. The war trundles on, unknown to so many.
 

They remembered Jonathan Curtis in Belmont Sunday, and last week they remembered Adam Dickmyer, the face of the unknowns, who had been seen by so many and known by so few, at the cemetery where he stood in silent witness before he went off to war. Dickmyer’s cortège was escorted by Army Captain Mark Boyle, whose uncle, Larry Ronan, was Ted Kennedy’s doctor. Ted Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, was there, too, as Dickmyer’s widow, Melinda, accepted a tightly folded flag.
 

“It is he who commands the respect I protect, his bravery that made us so proud,’’ the sentinel’s creed reads. “Surrounded by well-meaning crowds by day, alone in the thoughtful peace of night, this soldier will in honored glory rest under my eternal vigilance.’’
 

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.
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(1) Rex Looney has posted photographs from the day of the funeral on his Flicker site, as a part of the memorial portfolio to Adam. No doubt there are more stories behind these photographs - beyond the captions that Rex provides. A personal photographic narrative account of the impressions from participating in a funeral procession can be found by clicking here.

Pensacola Birding - Santa Rosa Island

Doing the tourist thing and birding are not necessarily optimally the at the same time. We have had a relaxed pace for looking around the Pensacola area. Tuesday I bought a couple of field guides for Florida birds. I really like the color plates in Florida's Birds by Maehr and Kale, but found that the Birds of Florida by Alsop was more useful. My wife and son were patient to let me do a little dedicated looking on the west end of Santa Rosa Island after we had toured Fort Pickens. A
Mississippi Kite was my first spot when walking out into the bush as seen in the photograph to the left. On the drive out we saw Brown Pelicans, Great Cormorant, Herring Gulls, and Osprey. On the drive out of Gulf Islands National Seashore park on the way back to Pensacola, there was a Green Heron just off the road in the low vegetation. The Gulf barrier islands are pretty cool - parts of Santa Rosa Island are only 300 feet wides and have sparse tufts of beach grass and other plants to hold the sand together, while other parts like in the photograph above have more complex combinations of vegetation. Inland, I spotted Northern Mockingbird, American Crow, European Starling, and Tree Swallow.

Veterans Day 2010 - Life Long Service

We are waiting for the broadcast of the Wreath Laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. As I grew up, the word Veteran and my mom's brother Gordon were synonymous - even though I lived a long ways from where he lived. He served in the Army Infantry during World War II in Europe (1), and after the war as a guard at Nuremberg. I remember when we visited Wisconsin for a month in 1964, going to his apartment and seeing his collection of patches from uniforms - it seemed impressive to a kid who with his brothers would play Army for hours at a time during the summer - inspired by episodes of the old Combat! television series. Only a fraction of the veterans from World War II are still alive (2) - I am fortunate that my dad, father-in-law, and uncle are still counted among those who remain of the Greatest Generation (3). For my uncle, today is to be a busy day. He is the American Legion Post Commander in the village of Hilbert, Wisconsin - the Veterans Day Parade, and all of the flags that have to be displayed. He notes often when he writes or talks, that he is also busy other days with the steady stream of veteran funerals that he helps with. A retired U.S. Postal Service employee and the long-time Postmaster of Hilbert, his name is a synonym for life-long service as well.
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 (1) Records of Purple Heart recipients are found in a search of the Roll of Honor at the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor in the Town of New Windsor, New York.

(2) Of the approximate 16-million American men and women who served in WWII, an estimated 2,583,000 veterans were still alive in September 2008, but dying at the rate of about 900 per day. This puts the total living population at just over 2 million in November 2009 (Department of Veterans Affairs).

(3) In today's commemoration ceremonies at Arlington Nation Cemetery, Vice President Biden in his Veterans Day remarks described the present generation of men and women who serve as whom could
be described as the next Great Generation. "Over the past decade our militaries have embarked on a longer period of sustained combat than in all of American history." Now counted among the most tested of Americans, the Vice President went on to quote his wife, "only 1% of this nation is fighting these wars, 100% of the nation owes them a thank you." (4)

(4) For information about the challenges some families face with the return of their loved ones who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, watch the testimony given last year to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee subcommittee that oversees Veterans benefits by clicking here.

Another Round of Season Change

The weather outside has definitely gone to the cool side - had no motivation today to go out and plant the daffodil and tulip bulbs. When the season changes like this, my volume of reading goes up, and the desire to get into video series rises as well. This afternoon my wife and I watched the second of three stories in an Agatha Christie Poirot The Movie Collection, Set 5 - Third Girl - it was excellent. We bought the set last month as Sam's Club - whenever a new set shows up, I buy it (1). We have quite the collection of Hercule Poirot videos from PBS Mystery program (2), and later ones that were broadcast on the A&E cable channel. This set is from a more recent PBS Masterpiece Theater series - we didn't catch these when they played this past summer. Looking ahead, there are newer movies that have not yet been shown on television in the United States - if my Web browser was registered in the United Kingdom, I would be able to watch them on-line.
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(1) The DVD sets at Sam's Club are about $10 cheaper than at Amazon.
(2) When the kids were young, we used to watch Poirot on Mystery every Thursday evening.

Newest Addition - Carolina Wren

We put up a suet bird feeder last year, but it didn't seem to get that much attention. I tried again this this autumn - putting in a block that contained insect parts. The owner of the Wild Bird Center shop where we go to here in Annapolis recommended it since the weather was still warm and the suet still stood a chance of melting. I used fruit-based suet cakes before, but didn't seem to get much success - I had hoped
these would attract Baltimore orioles. Earlier in the week, I noticed a downy woodpecker frequenting the feeder a couple of times. Yesterday evening I saw a wren make a quick stop, but couldn't tell which species. This morning, for sure it was a Carolina wren - distinguished by the white eyebrow stripe and the short tail. These markings are different from the Bewick's wren that also has the eyebrow stripe, but a longer tail with white striping. The Bewick's wren is a threatened species - see information here, so is not seen very frequently. The National Geographic bird site gives a nice description of the Carolina wren here. For suet recipes, go to the Website here. Also, I have been noticing a lot of activity by tufted titmouse at the seed feeder this week as well, along with the house finch and sparrows.