We're the Military and Airpower Guys of Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online + a stray we found wandering around looking lost. All original material JHD, BHD, JR, WT, and KA 2003-2010 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:25:03 Z Movable Type 4.12 en Copyright 2012 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 10:06:19 -0600
I've gotten two o-dark-early phone calls since returning from Germany many long years ago.  In both cases, I was up and moving before I'd even answered the phone, and automatically answered with rank and name.  My younger brother was a little startled...

]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81110 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81110 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:05:59 -0600 We had a a  electrical panel being built at the place I work, it had a alarm inside it. The tech triggered it and it sounded just like the NBC alarms from the late 70's, For a moment I was looking for my mask,.
Walking by a diner in town in the am smells just like the messhalls.
Diesel also reminds me of the guns (155's) starting up in the motorpool in the early morning.
This time of the year sometimes I smell ghulwein and it takes me back to Nuremberg.
Dave


]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81102 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81102 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:46:31 -0600
Now, the smell also pulls back memories of Afghanistan; primarily Bagram, where burning diesel seemed to be the entire mission.......]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81040 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81040 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:26:00 -0600 Obvious memory ticklers are: The sickly sweet smell of "blue" water, burning trash, aircraft fuel, human waste, diesel, etc. 
Familiar surroundings transformed by a smell to that foreign place was disconcerting the first few times.

My Grandfather was fishing on South Padre Island in the late eighties, he drifted off and was awakened by Japanese tourists chatting as they made their way down the pier.  When he discovered the knife he carried during the war was missing, he realized the war was long past. 

Thanks for giving me a place to ramble. ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81029 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81029 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:19:07 -0600 Diesel and cold triggers those flashbacks...bacon and eggs on bread fresh from the mermite can....answering nature's call thru multiple layers in a snowy (West) German forest, so cold you could feel the moisture in your nose freezing and crackling..the burning diesel smell is another one, but bad memories there as too reminiscent of other things that smell similar.. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81016 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81016 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:24:28 -0600 ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81014 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81014 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:45:32 -0600

]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81001 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-81001 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:28:26 -0600 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80996 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80996 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:40:33 -0600
Wow!!  Instant flashback.  I hadn't heard or thought about those words together in at least 20 years, and yet, literally, upon reading them, my mind flashed through an image montage of controlled chaos at 2pm, usually on the Monday, AM, after a 3-day weekend, and the ensuing 7-8 hours of loading, moving, sitting, waiting, and etc.   And as I read further, I recalled those few times we were called out on an unexpected day, and how really unnerving _that_ was until we got the word that it was an exercise.

Once we even deployed from the unit marshalling area to the Tennenlohe pre-deployment "get the ammo point" and the ammo teams had to go to the dump and load stuff on trucks and bring it back, and it was only then that we were told it was an exercise, but that we were being tested and would stay out for another day or so having all of our load plans and other stuff looked at....  I recall we did pretty well, considering, but then, we had one of the crazier Tank Bn COs in Germany, LTC Gary Bleidorn, whom I've mentioned here before I think.  He was a 'serious' tanker and our Bn was actually pretty decent, as far as it went, I think.

T'anks for the memories...  man, what a life that was.]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80995 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80995 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:33:33 -0600 ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80993 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80993 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:15:22 -0600
Sometimes I think there are civilians who should receive Purple Hearts, too.

*hugs*
]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80990 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80990 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:44:57 -0600 Odd timing on this entry... Last night, walking back to the house, Debi and I passed by a fire truck and an ambulance on a call-out. As we rounded past them, I stopped and stood there long enough that Deb asked what I was doing. "Nothing really, just traveling back in time. Idling heavy diesels, the mutter of radios, the scent of exhaust, the vibrations of the engines. Bulky figures moving in the darkness...Seems like a lifetime ago that this was normal, not different." Sappers in front, Hunter http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80987 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80987 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:58:35 -0600 Diesel smoke, dirt, and sagebrush. I spent my time training in Yakima with a mechanized brigade, so those smells still remind me. I still go camping out that way, but I don't crush nearly as much sagebrush as I used to. The memory that takes me all the way back to Germany would have to be something like the sound of a dialing a rotary dial phone, forever trying to get a connection through the Rheinau exchange. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80985 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80985 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:18:14 -0600 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80981 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80981 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:21:33 -0600
I have fewer liable to set something off since I've been coming here, though.

Thanks, John. Thanks, kids...
]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80978 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80978 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:11:05 -0600
There are larger versions of pads like this. And although I guess you could say I've seen pretty much everything, nothing has ever grossed me out (for lack of a better expression). I dunno - hard to describe except that it's a person and when you care about people somehow you don't really see it.

But oddly, looking at those pads in a food preparation situation set me off.

Anyway, I had to step outside for a smoke. I stood in the twighlight and looked up at the black, leafless trees against the gray winter sky.

So many guys... just so many guys. They will always be with me.]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80976 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80976 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:58:55 -0600
]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80975 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/its_cold_and_sn.html#comment-80975 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:46:36 -0600