He Spent Twenty Years Doing What?

I don't say this enough, but I'm a lucky guy.

And while I'm not really sure how the planets aligned this way, I've got two brothers-in-law who have spent so much time in the military, they're qualified to use the term "retired" after their names and ranks.

I'm the squishy meatball center of this brother-in-law hoagie, so it boggles my rapidly wilting grey matter that these two dudes didn't wash out of basic training like I probably would have. They didn't put in a tough couple of years or even a decade dodging things that go boom in the night.

Nope. These guys each served twenty. Are you kidding? Sure, I've selflessly sacrificed twenty years of my life to the fashion industry, but the only RPGs I've survived have been Ridiculously Passé Gauchos.

A while back, I talked about my wife's brother Dean, who'd just retired from the United States Air Force. This time, I'd like to relate the story of another man I've had the honor to know, one who spent his career submerged in a steel tube with so many other men, they needed a government contract with the folks at Astroglide Personal Lubricant just to pass each other in the hallway.

To claim that Andy Leal, who retired from the U.S. Navy as a nuclear submarine engineer with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, is a classic American success story, sounds cliché and dramatic—

—and true.

His parents grew up in Lajes, Terceira, a village in the Azores. Just to give you an idea of where the Azores are, here's a little visual aid.

The Azores are considered part of Portugal, but I think they may actually be closer to Gary freaking Indiana. Holy shit, I'm guessing Domino's out there guarantees thirty days or less.

Only four years of public schooling were offered on Andy's parents' island. If further education was desired, the family had to pay to send their children to one of the two towns on the island. Most families, including the Leals', were far too poor to pay for private schooling, so their children ceased their education after fourth grade, the boys moving to the farms and the girls learning virtually every other skill to make a home self-sufficient.

After his parents grew to adulthood and began dating, an opportunity arose for Andy's father to emigrate to America. I'll let Andy explain the rest. My questions are italicized.

How long did your parents live in the United States before you were born?

My father came over a couple of years before they married. He found a job sweeping floors in a lumber mill in southern Washington. He worked his way into the production lines and earned enough to buy a home, return to the Azores and marry my mother. I was born less than a year after they moved to the U.S.

Did they suggest you join the military or was it something you came up with on your own?

It was something I came up with on my own after hearing about how expensive college was and how the G.I Bill could help. My father had just spent a period of time unemployed after the lumber industry collapsed and his mill closed. I figured that our family could not afford college. Loans scared me, as my father was very passionate when it came to debt. He paid off his mortgage in three years!

Why submarines? I don't think I've ever seen a movie about submarines that ended well.

The recruiter and others convinced me that the submarine force was a smaller and more tight-knit community than the surface force. When I had the option to switch to surface at Officer Candidate School, I stuck with submarines. Looking back, it was definitely a great choice. You really feel part of a team when you are with the crew.

I can imagine that with that many crew members, at least one would snap and need restraining. What happened in these instances?

Yes, this happens. I recall one crew member that had to be sent home after just a few days underway because he could not take it. He tried to cope for a while, but was put over the edge when he heard an exercise torpedo go by under the hull.

In Puerto Rico, we offered civilians a tour of the submarine. As with most tours, some people refuse to go down the ladder into the vessel. One woman started down the ladder and about half way down, she completely locked up and would not let go. It took three of us to pry her hands off and carry her out.

What was the longest amount of time you spent submerged?

I think the longest period without a port call was over sixty days.

That's incredible! Okay, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Dean. Did you ever experience an "Oh shit, I'm gonna die!" moment, or something where you were unsure how things would turn out?

Unfortunately, the moments are more frequent than most submariners want to admit.

While cruising around at test depth, the announcement of “flooding!” on the emergency communications circuit simply took my breath away. It was a few seconds of complete fear, then a follow-up announcement stated that it was an awareness drill that was designed not to seem like a drill.

Some of those things are simply part of doing business under the ocean.

I'm glad that's how you looked at it. I would've needed a quart of vodka and some big boy Huggies. 

I know you were stationed on active duty in Connecticut on September 11, 2001. What did that imply for the U.S. submarine fleet and what were your orders?

We were underway and transiting to start a war game. We came to periscope depth in the early afternoon. Because we do not regularly have communications when we are deep, we had no idea what had happened. As soon as we raised the communications mast, we received the news. At first, we thought that our exercise DEFCON messages had started early, but then we realized that this was real.

We stayed at periscope depth and stood by for orders. We were close enough to the coast where we could tune into the AM radio stations from New York City. This gave us the info that we could not get from military radio circuits.

Meanwhile, we planned for war. As a submarine, our only real limit is food, so we determined how much food we had on board and how long we could stay out before needing more. Everything else was about making sure we were ready to shoot when needed. 

A significant challenge immediately after the attack was handling the emotions of crew members. Some had family in New York and Washington D.C. and others knew that their families were visiting these places. Obviously, getting word back to us was slow while dealing with the military implications of the attack.

On the lighter side, I know that throughout all those years, you saw some strange things through the periscope. 

Looking out of the periscope can be very boring when you are out in the middle of the ocean. However, there are always interesting things floating out there. 

Like a dead cow. It was bloated and disgusting, while incredibly interesting at the same time. Did it float down a river or was it pushed off a ship? Standing birds are always suspicious. After all, they are standing on something! 

Okay, last question: You received many accolades throughout your career. Did you receive a medal for being married to my sister for two decades?

I should have…

Thanks, Andy. Have a peaceful Veterans Day.

A Veteran's Tale

What were you doing in early 1990? What's that? You weren't born yet? Then go Snap Chat or Tweet or something while I talk to the grown-ups. 

Sorry, you can stay. I'm just envious and longing for those days spent backpacking through Europe with three pairs of socks and a perm that even the French thought was repulsively greasy. I have slides.

But while my new bride and I argued our way from Lucerne to Lyon and all points betwixt, my brother-in-law, Dean Ainardi, began his own journey. He joined the United States Air Force. 

On Friday, Dean formally retired after a twenty-three year career. The ceremony, held at Joint Base Lewis/McChord for family and friends, was emotional and funny, touching, sad and inspirational as hell. Sharply dressed men and women, some in camouflage, others in full dress uniform, packed the room, outnumbering civilians perhaps two to one.

Every fresh-faced airman I came across greeted me as "sir." Although it would have made a lot more sense for me to address them with such deference, such is the underlying theme of service in this setting.

Dean is one of those guys who downplays everything, and I know he would have done the same thing had I not asked him some very specific questions about his stint in the military. I really wanted to know more of his story. As is common with so many veterans, it's the story of a remarkable person who considers himself anything but remarkable. 

My questions are italicized and Dean's answers follow.

You enlisted in the military at age 25, a little older than when most people join. What made you to decide that was the direction you wanted to go?

After my dad died (in 1987), I was kind of drifting from job to job and pretty unhappy with the jobs/my life as a whole. After I met Tammy and I knew that I was going to ask her to marry me, I knew I needed to find a career, not just a job. I tried the college thing (before I met Tammy) and knew that was not going to work for me (Apparently they actually want you to attend the classes, turn in assignments AND take the finals.). I was looking at jobs and everybody wanted school or experience, I had neither and I somehow wandered into a recruiter’s office. “The rest is history.”

How did Tammy react when you said you were thinking of joining?

Well since I have the Ainardi gene, I was an idiot and did not tell or discuss this with Tammy. The night I asked her to marry me, I also informed her that I had joined (not was going to join…had joined) the Air Force and would be leaving in six months. She was “a bit” shocked and overwhelmed but still said yes. In retrospect if I had it to do all over again I mayyyyy have involved her in that decision.

In your first assignment back in 1990, you were sent to the Philippines to work as an apprentice mechanic. You ended up helping to evacuate five thousand people prior to a volcanic eruption. Did you experience any second thoughts (or third or fourth) about having signed up?

No, not really—the actual evacuation part did just the opposite. It was an eye-opener to what the military could actually accomplish. For the first time in my life after Dad died I felt like I was actually accomplishing something. I realized that I was part of something way bigger than just a job. I also realized how much your supervisors relied on you to know your job. 

It taught me that you have to be able to think on your feet and make decisions on the spot. I was very low rank and the decisions I made were very low level but at the time it really opened my eyes to what the military was all about. Of course on a personal level, I was separated from Tammy the first year and a half of my marriage so on that level yes I thought, “WTF did I do,” but what I learned about myself and the confidence I gained in myself far outweighed the separation downside.

During your experience deployed to war zones and dangerous areas, did you ever have an "Oh shit, I’m gonna die!" moment, and if so, where did it take place?

The first one was in the Philippines. My boss and I were in charge of keeping the roads from Clark to Subic Bay Naval Station (where everybody was evacuating to) clear, using a huge vehicle wrecker.  We were staying in an open-bay barracks. I was sleeping on the top bunk when an earthquake hit, which was common during the eruption. We were getting five to ten a day but this one was a big one.

I woke up just in time to see the ceiling cracking and starting to fall in on me. We luckily hauled ass out of there about two minutes before the roof came down on the bed I was sleeping in. Needless to say, we slept in our wrecker the rest of the time we were there.

In Iraq, I had many of them, but if you ask most people that have been in that type of situation, the first is usually the one you remember. For me that is true also. It was my first time over there and I had been there a couple days. This was before anyone had figured out how effective the predator drones were for base security, so the bad guys had basically free rein to shoot mortars over the fences any time they wanted. 

I was walking between our shops when we got attacked. I was stuck in the open with no bunkers close.  The mortars started exploding around me and I was fu@#ed.  I was too far away to run for shelter, there was no good cover, so I hit the ground and covered up best I could.

The mortars all missed, but that was my first real “oh shit” moment in Iraq. Like I said, the first one is the one that freaks you out a bit then after that it just kind of becomes your “new reality” and you just deal with it.  That was probably the most scared I have ever been in my life.    

Yeah, I think a lot of people assume that the Air Force is a “behind the lines” military branch, where you work on distant bases out of harm’s way, and obviously that’s not true at all.

Over two plus decades of service, you are retiring with the rank of Senior Master Sergeant, a title comprising only two percent of all enlisted personnel. You’ve supervised and trained thousands of mechanics, a lot of them fresh out of high school. What's the biggest blunder you've seen someone make around one of your vehicles?

Well, when you get young airmen arriving at a base, they are scared to death. They always do stupid shit, so I could go on for days with this. But one of the funniest AF blunders happened at Aviano Air Force Base in Italy.We got a new kid right out of tech school and when I told him to pull a vehicle in for some type of repair, he said he did not know how to drive. 

The guy was from New York, had ridden subways and buses all his life and had never driven. Sure as hell, we figured out that he came into basic where you march or are bussed everywhere so no need to drive.

We researched the qualifications for our job, and nowhere does it say you have to have a driver’s license. We ended up having to do what we could to teach him in Italy, but we had to send the guy back to the US to go to a driving school and get a driver’s license.  

We've all heard of “Desert Shield” and "Desert Storm," which you served in. But you also participated in "Operation Desert Fox." What was that all about? Sounds kind of Vegas.

Honestly Tim, I could not tell you. Every thing we do is some type of campaign. Each one has a different name with a specific set of objectives.  Once that campaign objective is completed it is closed, and in theory, we go home because it’s done.  In reality, they create another campaign with another name and we stay there and keep doing the same thing. More than likely, as with everything in the military, it has more to do with funding than anything else.    

Last question. Somehow you've managed to maintain a highly positive family situation throughout all the moves and absences. Your kids, now 17 and 21, have lived in Delaware, Italy and Tacoma, Washington twice and Louisiana, and they’ve grown into such great people. How did you and Tammy make it work?

We drink a lot. All kidding aside, I have no idea why we are/were successful and why many military families aren’t. We (military) are no different than mainstream society. We deal with all the same issue as the “outside,” and I don’t think our divorce rates (as with most social issues) are much different than the mainstream society.

Honestly, this is more of a question for Tammy. One thing that most people don’t realize is the pressures put on the spouses and family members. I move from place to place and go from my job at one base and I go to the next base and do the exact same job. The spouses and family members do not get those luxuries. They have to “reinvent” their lives every time we move with new schools, new jobs, new friends…

But to try to answer this;  Tammy and I have really enjoyed the military.We bitch and complain all the time about the bad stuff but we also know that we got some great stuff from the military. All military families suffer and give up a lot as far as “normal” American families but we also get a lot in return. How many normal families get to move from place to place and experience different life experiences and cultures? How many normal families get to spend over 11 years in Europe and travel all over the place and get paid to do it? Not many that we know of. 

We have understood this from the beginning of our marriage, and we made sure the kids understood that, yes, this is tough, but look at all the good things we get being in the military. We don’t dwell on the bad. 

Thanks, Dean. We're glad you're home.

Gays in the military: what are you afraid of?

I'm feeling a bit ticked off today.

I realize my blog is usually chock full of sarcastic musings about life's everyday issues, and I really try to keep things airy and light. I also attempt to not post every day, as no one really cares to hear my views on a daily basis.

But over the past couple of days, an issue has really struck a chord with me. It all started after I began following the latest developments in the debate over repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. With all due respect to our southern states, I posted on my Facebook status the following:

"It's still illegal to be gay in the military. When did our Congress decide they're still living in 1955 Alabama?"

Naturally, I expected this statement to ignite some reaction among my Facebook friends, but I rather enjoy stimulating some actual thought, rather than telling someone what kind of Starbucks cookie I'm planning to eat at 3:00. I wasn't disappointed.

I received a few "So-and-so likes this" posts and comments of support from my fellow progressives. Then, I was notified of a comment made by an acquaintance of mine who had spent a lengthy stint as an Army officer. Here's what he said:

"Wow. Spend a few years in the military and then tell me your opinion." He followed it up with, "Honestly, only those who have been there, whether homosexual or heterosexual, can discuss this intelligently."

Now my dander was up. He was telling me I can't express a valid opinion on this subject without having worn the uniform. I may have never served in the military, but has he ever been gay? Maybe he'd also like to segregate the troops by race, and put those soldiers in the most dangerous situations, like the Tuskegee Airmen and Japanese-American units faced during World War II. Surely, no civilian, liberal blowhard like myself is qualified to speak out against institutionalized bigotry.

I harbor nothing but absolute respect and appreciation for those who serve our country and have sacrificed so much. And I hold those gay members of our armed forces in even higher esteem, because they risk even more, with the ever-present threat of being "outed" and thereby discharged.

He ended his post by stating that his "problem is with anyone who hasn't served, but who is trying to impose their personal belief on an organization of which they know far too little about."

So, I guess my question to him is this:

What are you really afraid of?