TechIntersect

A week ago, my grandpa & I embarked on a journey we will both remember for the rest of our lives; a WWII veterans honor flight to tour the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. Over the next several posts, I will recount some highlights of our trip, and hopefully share some tips for people reading this who might be considering taking the same trip themselves.

We live three hours from the Kansas City airport, so we left the day before and stayed at the Airport Marriott, because we could leave our car there instead of in long-term parking. We later learned the Sleep Inn has the same service. We could have saved a bit if we’d have known that. We arrived Sunday afternoon, flew out Monday morning, took our D.C. tour on Tuesday, then flew home on Wednesday.

This is Grandpa and me just before we left Clifton, KS.

Flying

Grandpa didn’t believe me when I told him about airport security. “Surely they wouldn’t suspect an old man like me,” he quipped. Even I was surprised the level at which they suspected him.

Here’s a travel tip for those traveling with WWII veterans: have them go through security while seated in a wheel chair. My grandpa doesn’t walk too well, but he walked through security. His titanium knees set the metal detector off and the TSA made him stand while waiting unattended for several minutes. In retrospect, he should have just went through in the wheelchair. He couldn’t pass the metal detector anyway, why not have them use the wand on him while seated?

In this photo, the TSA inspector accused Granddad of carrying a pocket knife. “I don’t have a pocket knife,” he said. “Well you have something metal here in your pocket.” After a few moments of this sort of back and forth, it occurred to grandpa what the problem was.

I have a piece of grenade shrapnel in my leg, but I’m not going to take that out for you.

With that explanation, he was allowed to proceed.

Getting through security was a major hassle and probably the worst part of the trip. Elderly vets flying on Southwest Airlines need to arrive at least an hour early and get through security as quickly as possible. Since Southwest has no assigned seating, you want to be sure to be among the first to board. We were not, and had to entreat upon the goodwill of a kind passenger toward the front of the plane to let us sit together. The aisle and window seats were full 20 rows back and only middle seats were available, until a nice lady saw our predicament and let us have her seat. An early arrival and boarding would have spared us a small hassle. The weather was beautiful the whole trip, and our flight went without a hitch.

Food

Bring yourself some snacks! This tip is probably more for the guardians than the veterans, but both can benefit. By the time we arrived at the Baltimore airport and wound our way through the terminal to the hospitality room, I was famished.

We were fed not long after our arrival, but a candy bar or some snack mix or something would have been great while we waited. There are times on the tour bus when a little pick-me-up is in order as well. I brought along extra fruit from breakfast on our actual tour day.

You want to be sure to drink plenty of water and have it always available to drink on the bus as you tour. There was a time or two when we ran out, and I got really thirsty from pushing that wheel chair around all over the place. You do want the elderly veterans to ride the wheel chairs as much as possible. On our trip we had two vets wind up in the emergency room. One became dehydrated because he didn’t drink enough water, and the other fell over and injured herself because she tried to walk back to the hotel after a long day of touring, instead of accepting a ride in a wheel chair. Even very able-bodied vets should take a break and ride on occasion throughout the day.

Udvar-Hazy Center

We toured this branch of the National Air and Space Museum after our arrival in Washington. I knew that grandpa was tired, and this tour was optional, so I asked him if he wanted to see it. He said we didn’t come all of this way to go sit in a hotel, so we went. And were we glad we did. We saw amazing, historic aircraft. I remembered my Navy days with displays of the F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet and A-6 Intruder. I told Grandpa that I’ll never forget the A-6’s nearly blowing my ears out as they flew in and out of Cubi Point in Subic. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a louder aircraft.

The plane Grandpa was most moved by was of course the “Enola Gay” which he says is the plane that saved his life. Regardless of what your thoughts might be on the morality of dropping atomic weapons on Japan, if you were faced with being in the first wave of invasion forces into Japan as was my grand dad, you were happy to see the war brought to a speedy conclusion by whatever means necessary. He is convinced that he would not have survived if the invasion would have happened. Grandpa wrote to his mother in October 1945 regarding the day the war ended,

It was the happiest day of my life.

I was surprised to see another famous plane in this museum that I immediately recognized. Steve Fossett’s Global Flyer flew the first solo flight around the world, and he did it from none other than Salina, Kansas. Several K-State at Salina students were directly involved in that mission, and our entire campus was saddened to learn of Fossett’s death in 2007. However, it was nice to see the famous aircraft once again.

After an hour or so of touring the Udvar-Hazy museum, we went on to the hotel to get ready for the evening banquet.

Banquet

There were some 170 people at our banquet including veterans and guardians, all from Kansas. I’m told another group of similar size came later in the week. I think it is really great what Central Prairie Honor Flights has done to put this all together. Every veteran flew for free, and for a $500 donation I was able to accompany my grandfather. I doubt that amount fully covered my expenses, so I’m grateful to everyone who is donating to this worthwhile project.

The food at the banquet was wonderful, the Hilton staff gracious, and Dan Curtis’ family is extremely talented, providing us quality entertainment. His wife & daughters have beautiful singing voices, and we all had fun singing the service fight songs. It was a really long day, but we enjoyed it and looked forward to the next day of tours and remembering fallen heroes.

I’m getting excited because tomorrow, Grandpa & I are heading to Kansas City on the first leg of our veterans Honor Flight. It’s been a long wait, we applied to go last summer, but at long last our day has arrived.

I’ve been loading pictures on to my iTouch so we can talk & discuss. I scanned in Grandpa’s WWII photo album a few years ago, but we’ve never really discussed them in much detail. He and I served in the same part of the world, but some 40 years apart. Grandpa served in New Guinea, the southern Philippines, and occupied Japan. I spent a great deal of time in Japan and in the Philippines during my Navy service, and one of the highlights of my time over there was my visit to the Manila American Cemetary. It wasn’t a place I would have thought to visit on my own, but Grandpa wrote to me and told me if I ever got the chance, he would appreciate my visiting the grave of his fallen comrade buried there. Fortunately, I once did have the chance to go, and was honored to bring home photographs of his friend’s marker for him.

The pictures at the top of this post were made when we were both around 20 years old, Grandpa had his portrait made in Japan after the war had ended, and my portrait was made at my recruit training graduation in Great Lakes, IL. I thought it would be interesting to put them together to see how much I resemble my granddad.

We are both really looking forward to this trip. My connection to Grandpa while I was serving in the Pacific made me pay more attention to historic places I saw such as Corregidor and Nagasaki. I have always been proud of him and I know he was proud of me as well. Now we are going to see the WWII memorial together for what will be an unforgettable trip!

My Grandpa Jo just after returning home from the Pacific Theatre

This week I called the Central Prairie Honor Flights office to ask about my Grandpa Jo’s application to visit the Washington D.C. WWII memorial. My 85 yr old Grandpa said he would only go if I would accompany him, so earlier this year I applied to be his guardian on the trip. Hundreds of Kansas veterans have applied for this opportunity, so we have had to wait our turn. It now looks like we will be traveling in September or early October.

Grandpa was a combat medic in New Guinea & the Phillipines. I am a veteran of the USS Missouri, the site of the Japanese WWII Surrender, but my service on that famous ship was during the Gulf War era. The above photo shows us together with our Cold War certificates. Grandpa served at the beginning of the cold war; he was actually an occupation army soldier at Hiroshima, Japan after the bomb was dropped. I was stationed in Japan when the Berlin Wall fell, so we at both ends of the Cold War era.

No WWII veteran has to pay for his or her own flight, it is all supported through sponsor donations. If you know a veteran, perhaps you would consider sponsoring him or her on this amazing journey. If you have a large circle of influence, perhaps you could join me in spreading the word about this worthy cause. The national office can be contacted by visiting this link. If you want to support a specific region, you should contact the appropriate regional office.

This video series was produced by a Wichita, Kansas television station and does a wonderful job of explaining how this program works. Check them out!

Since each video automatically plays, I will give you the remaining three parts as links:

• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

I think this is an awesome way to show appreciation to those who sacrificed some of their youth to support and defend freedom. Please consider supporting a veteran today! And stay tuned to this blog for further updates. I will be sure to share photos & video as this story progresses.

I try to tell all of my female computer students about Grace Hopper, especially those who question the decision to be computer professionals. Too many people do not realize the amazing contributions of women to the field of computing. It is seen as a men-only club, which simply is not true. Some of the best computer people I know are women.

The picture in this post is from 1985, the year that Admiral Grace Hopper and Seaman Recruit Bill Genereux served together in the Navy. I never met her but that was the first year I learned about her.

Yesterday was Ada Lovelace International Day of Blogging. I wrote about another pioneer, Jean Jennings Bartik, who actually worked on the ENIAC and other computer projects before Grace Hopper. Literally hundreds of blog posts were made about women in technology yesterday. Check them out!

If you are a teacher, and you have not already viewed the TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, then STOP! You obviously have time to kill because you’re here. Stop reading my silly blog and watch it now!

Wasn’t that awesome! I first saw this video last fall in my Principles of College Teaching class, although it’s been out for a couple of years; wish I’d seen it sooner. I think it’s brilliant!

I’m currently reading “The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion & Purpose” by Matthew Kelly. He writes:

We don’t produce broadly educated, well-rounded leaders for tomorrow. We teach more and more about less and less. We don’t draw out the individual. We impose upon the individual – systems and structures. We don’t reverence individuality, we don’t treasure it, we stifle it and try to stamp it out. We don’t educate, we formulate. We abandon the individual in his or her own need and uniqueness and “impose” the same upon all…

Truth be told, our modern education systems crush the very spirit they claim to instill.

When I reflect on my own teaching and philosophy, I wonder if I am ever guilty of the indictments of these gentlemen. After all, I am a computer technology teacher, and the field of Computer Science is chock full of specialists. Do I ever “crush the very spirit I hope to instill“?

I believe that often times teacher themselves suffer from the same mentality. Certain ways of teaching are preferred over others. For example, the lecture has taken a beating in recent years in favor of “active learning”. But Ken Robinson gives us a spellbinding 20 minute lecture. The point is, we should encourage the strengths of our students and we should also be teaching with our own personal strengths.

Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

How many of our students leave our classes thinking they are stupid because what we are teaching doesn’t resonate with them? While we should never accept a lack of effort, perhaps we might do well in accepting that some of our students will never excel in our subject. One thing I struggle with when I recognize that I have a “tree climbing fish” in my class is how to be patient and continue to encourage.

Matthew Kelly also writes:

I believe that we are all capable of doing one thing better than any other person alive at this time in history. What is your one thing?

Oh my gosh! I’ve heard this before! And when I heard it, I thought “yeah, whatever“. In the film, City Slickers, Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, is on a cattle drive trying to sort things out and make some sense of his life. The trail boss Curly, played by Jack Palance, says that middle aged men often come out around the same age, trying to understand.

You city folk!  You spend 50 weeks a year getting knots in your rope… then you think two weeks up here will straighten it out.

Here is Matthew Kelly’s idea expressed in Curly’s simple, cowboy way that I’ve heard before but never paid much attention to:

Previously, I posed the question “The quality of my life is determined by the quality of my _____ ?” referring to the Jim Fay statement that “Quality of life is determined by quality of decisions.” Most of the replies I received dealt with some aspect of this idea, whether it was relationships, family, friends, thoughts, or so forth. Ultimately, it all comes down to how we decide to approach these areas of life.

But how do we make good decisions?!?

Kelly suggests that if we know our one thing, the thing that helps us to become the “best version of yourself” then every decision should be centered around whether or not it will help us to do the one thing we were created to do!

I believe if we want to be truly amazing educators, then a number one priority ought to be helping our students discover their “one thing.” And we ought to know our own personal “one thing” and strive to use it each and every day we step into the classroom!

Tags: creativity, individuality, philosophy, purpose

Today as I walked across the campus of Kansas State University, the windows rattled and shook because soldiers at Fort Riley were having artillery practice. As I heard the guns boom and felt the ground shake, I recalled that today was another anniversary of sorts from my days in the US Navy.

I will never forget the day that the Battleship Missouri unleashed her 16″ guns against Iraqi forces in Kuwait. February 3, 1991. I was off duty, asleep in my bunk when a tremendous BOOM! shook the ship. The first thing that came to my mind was “Oh no, we’ve struck a mine!” Ships were hitting mines, and we had been involved in destroying mines in the gulf over the previous several days. Then, as I came to my senses, I realized what was happening. The big guns of the USS Missouri were back in combat action for the first time since the Korean war!

Our berthing compartment was directly below Turret #2, so it is a difficult thing to ignore. But believe it or not, there were times that we were so tired we actually slept while fire missions were going on over head.

I was in “F” division, the group responsible for aiming and firing the world’s largest guns. I can remember being frustrated at first because we were divided into two teams and the other fire control team was getting all of the missions. When my team would take over, there seemed to always be a lull in the action. But the frustration was short lived because by the time the 1991 gulf war ended, the Missouri had fired over 800 one ton projectiles.

It is hard to describe the feelings associated with firing Naval Gunfire Support missions. It was something I had trained for over the six years I had been in the Navy. I had been to the gulf region once before on the USS Cochrane shortly after the USS Stark was hit, but we were never called upon to shoot. I can remember feeling disappointed because shortly after leaving the gulf, the USS Hoel, a sister ship to the Cochrane, was called in to destroy an Iranian oil platform. We wanted that job!

But in February of 1991, it was finally our chance to do the job we had trained long and hard to do. I am briefly visible in the YouTube video at 0:21 seconds. A minute later, check out the footage starting at 1:21. The dot you see flying out of the impact crater and arcing across the desert is a truck! These guns were big, they were bad, and the world will never see the likes of them again.

Just imagine firing something the size of a Volkswagen Beetle at a football field in the next town 20 miles away! That is what we did in the 1991 Gulf War. It’s a pity that the battleships were eventually retired, never to be heard from again. But I’m proud to have served on the world’s most famous battleship.

I was up early this morning in the wee hours. Couldn’t sleep. Then I remembered I was also up early on this day eighteen years ago.

On January 17, 1991, I was aboard the USS Missouri, steaming somewhere in the Persian Gulf. The evening before, we were advised to get some sleep because we would have an early start the next day. With Saddam Hussein’s deadline for withdrawal from Kuwait expired, we knew something big was going to happen.

At 23, I was already an old-timer compared to many of my shipmates. When reveille was played early that morning, the captain announced that we would soon be going to General Quarters (battle stations) in preparation for a Tomahawk cruise missile attack on Iraq.

Words cannot really describe that gnawing feeling in your gut that comes when you come to the realization that you are about to participate in causing the deaths of other human beings. I distinctly remember thinking of and praying for the innocent people that would inevitably be killed in our soon to be starting war.

I also remember a certain uneasiness. We had no way of knowing if there would be an immediate retaliation, or if we would simply launch our cruise missles and go about our business. But one thing was certain, we were going to war, and our country had not been at war for nearly twenty years. To all but the most experienced veterans, this was all brand new.

Certainly we were well trained and we knew how to do our jobs, but there is a huge difference between training for combat and actually entering into it. Now it was time to put our countless hours of training to the test. So we hurriedly got dressed and waited for the GQ alarm to sound.

I recall one young sailor who kept saying, “we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die!” I told him to shut up and be a man. If there ever was a good place to be in a war, it is aboard the battleship Missouri. Secretly, inside, I felt his pain and wondered to myself if we would ever make it home again.

My battle station was in the forward main battery plotting room- the control center for the 16″ guns which wouldn’t be needed that day. I remember one of the hardest things to do was to sit in silence, our equipment not even energized, waiting for the inevitable. Soon, we would hear the roar of the tomahawks, and though our particular services weren’t needed just then, as the crew of that famous battleship, we would all have blood on our hands.

When you enlist in the service, you are only vaguely aware of the duties which you may be called upon to perform. As a young person without much life experience, it is difficult to consider the life or death situations you might soon find yourself in. But here I was, nearly six years after joining, about to participate in a war.

We sat in silence as the Tomahawks launched one by one. Somewhere I have a journal I kept, which says exactly how many we fired and at what time, but I wasn’t able to locate it for today’s entry. I’ll keep looking. As the missiles flew, with nothing else for me to do, I just prayed.

We had a CNN radio feed piped into the plotting room. It was surreal. Our missiles were on the way to Baghdad, but the reporter on the other end didn’t yet know it. For nearly an hour we waited in near silence, as the missiles lurched ahead toward targets in Iraq some 500 miles away.

Then, all of a sudden pandemonium struck. Explosions began to rock the city as the handiwork of the coalition forces took its toll. We listened for some time, and we waited to respond to any impending counter-attack, but none happened, so we went and ate a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs.

I can identify a little with the survivors of the US Airways crash that happened this week. The feeling that you have somehow cheated death is so euphoric. I remember the breakfast that morning 18 years ago was extra delicious in knowing that we had survived the first act of a very dangerous undertaking.

This is a phase of my life that I do not often spend a great deal of time thinking about, but it is especially hard to forget every time January 17th rolls around. However, I will plan to continue sharing about some of my experiences in the Gulf over the next several weeks

Tags: battleship, gulf war, iraq, USS Missouri

My young cousin Jonny was visiting home recently after finishing his recruit training. His dad, my uncle, is a retired Army colonel. Jonny’s sister Sandra is building a photography business and she made these photographs of Uncle Curt and Cousin Jonny. I find the contrasts between the retiree and the new recruit fascinating.

The colonel inspects the private, but the private has a hard time staying serious about the whole thing.

The uniforms might have changed, but the family pride in our service has not.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the one and only time that Uncle Curt & I were also photographed together in our uniforms.

There are several stories behind these photographs that deserve comment here. One is the fact that my cousin Sandra is able to start a business with a digital media technology (photography) with a minimum investment in a small town of 6,000 people. Another is that three young men from the same family, (my uncle, myself, and my cousin) coming from rural Kansas decided to find a better opportunity through joining the armed forces. The armed services of the United States are full of people faced with limited economic opportunities where they were raised. The military career path provides a great opportunity for “disadvantaged” populations of all sorts, including kids from rural areas and kids from inner cities. This choice worked well for my uncle, and while I didn’t make a career of the service, it certainly helped me in building a career. We are proud that Jonny is serving his country too, hoping that it brings good things for him as well.

I marked this day on my calendar a year ago because I didn’t want to let the occasion pass without pause and reflection. On November 12, 1987 I entered into the realm of King Neptune, in hopes of gaining the title of “Trusty Shellback”. For those unfamiliar, a “Trusty Shellback” is one who has crossed the equator aboard ship and successfully endured the acompanying ritual hazing.

(This cartoon by my friend and shipmate Eric Thibodeau sums up what was going on at the time. Check out his fascinating website if you have some time. His career and personal development are nothing short of amazing!)

Lengths of firehose were cut and fashioned into a “shilleleigh” with which the initiators could beat on “slimy polywogs” or sailors who hadn’t yet crossed the equator. In 1987 on my ship the USS Cochrane, the old-style intiation was still administered with a few concessions such as permitting knee protection to be worn by ‘wogs as they crawled around on the deck on hands and knees, but after it was all over, my backside was sore for days! A few years later, as Thibodeau points out, the captain of the USS Missouri wisely limited the initiation to non-physical abuse.

At the time, I remember feeling cheated because I had endured much more than what we were allowed to administer on my second Equator crossing. Looking back, that was just immaturity and our captain was showing great wisdom and leadership by re-writing the rules of the game.

If you think about what was going on at the time, personal camcorders were coming into widespread use. Although these were expressly forbidden during the initiation on the Missouri, our CO A.L. Kaiss knew that anything that happened under his command could wind up on CNN.

The tradition of the “crossing the line ceremony” is an old one, and at times the hazing certainly has gotten out hand. Participation was voluntary, although it was not without peer pressure and chastizement if you elected to sit out.

Perhaps this new world of information in which we live is forcing us to treat each other better. People who behave badly are often exposed on the Internet for the bullies that they are, although some relish the attention.

Handling the Bullies

I think it is important that we help kids understand how to deal with the world’s bullies. I have learned a lot on the subject from the Love and Logic institute. It has really helped me to teach my own kids how to handle teasing.

Last summer at Wakonse, in a room full of 200 people, I cracked up the room when I quipped a quote I picked up at a Love and Logic conference. The audience had just witnessed a tense role-playing exercise involving a stressful faculty interaction including tenure, race relations, and a big bad bully. I suggested that you can disarm a bully by answering crazy talk with crazy talk. Look them straight in the eye and say:

No thanks, I just had a banana!

The room erupted because it is a silly response to a silly situation. Sally Ogden has a great video about teaching kids how to handle the bullies in this way. If only I had known this one-liner, maybe I could’ve talked my way out of the initiation twenty years ago…. Naw, probably not

I was intrigued by the “Troops to Teachers” discussion in the days preceding the US presidential election, because I am both a teacher and a veteran of the US armed forces. Thinking about the role my six years in the US Navy played in my current career, I most certainly would not be who I am today in the classroom without that experience. Since the election is over, I won’t comment on the validity of the idea, but I thought I would share some things I’ve been thinking about with my own experience.

USS Cochrane

The first 20 seconds of the following video gives a glimpse of the very first computer system I worked on as a computing professional.

It shows the plotting room of the digital Mk68 naval gunfire control system on the USS Cochrane (DDG-21). The AN/UYK 20 computer is the breadbox sized machine that contained the brains of the whole fire control system. The large, impressive, control panel with lots of lights and buttons where I am sitting is the computer set control that provided the human interface with the fire control system.The machine with the three circular windows is the control station of the SPG/53F fire control radar. You may even get a chuckle that I worked on a system with a magnetic tape loader, with which we loaded the operational program.

USS Missouri

This video shows my second ship, the USS Missouri. It does not feature the Mk38 fire control system I worked on, but you can see the big guns that we fired from where I worked. The computer system was an analog system instead of a digital system, but it still did the job of solving the fire control problem. This scene shows us departing from Long Beach, CA and heading for war in the Persian Gulf in 1991. If there was ever a life-changing event in my life, it’s certainly that time.

How did the experience in the US armed forces impact my teaching?

I don’t think veterans are any more inclined to teach than the general populace. However, the experience certainly serves me well. Here are some things I learned in the Navy in no particular order.

1. Appreciate diversity. The young men and women serving in the armed forces are a diverse group. I came from white-bread America both literally and figuratively. (Kansas grows wheat & has lot’s of white people.) I learned to get along with everyone, regardless of their ethnicity or cultural background.
2. Understand the physical world. As a Navy gunfire controlman, I received an education in physics unlike any other. My eyes lit up when taking my first college Physical Science course and Chad Davies started talking about battleship guns. Now that was a subject I could relate to! Now I can use that physics knowledge in simulations and games. Check out this flash simulation of a naval gun. It’s rough, but you get the idea.
3. Leadership. Real leaders are willing to do anything they ask their people to do. Real leaders will encourage creative solutions to problem solving, not bark orders and expect people to blindly follow. Real leaders will let the person most able and closest to the problem solve it, then give them the credit they deserve for solving it! My approach to leadership is exemplified in It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy .
4. Life is fragile and precious. There’s nothing like a war to wake you up and put your priorities into perspective. I’m glad I served aboard a ship, rather than have to face terrible things that a foot soldier sees. But it was challenging and sometimes scary. When those tomahawks launched and we knew that in a few minutes someone at the receiving end would die, we knew it was no longer a game anymore, it was the real deal. We wondered what could happen to us in retaliation. We wondered if we would live to see our families again.
   
5. Work hard and play hard. You get the most out of life when you face and overcome a serious challenge that drains you physically, mentally, emotionally, the whole gamut. When we were up for 30 hours straight, doing what we were trained to do, it was as though nothing else mattered in the world except that we do our job and do it well. When it was all over, we felt like we were on top of the world!
   

I think the whole experience of being in the Navy and being in the war taught me to appreciate things more, and to not take myself so seriously. Whenever things seem to be getting difficult, I can always look back on those most difficult of days and question if my current situation is that much of a challenge. So far, it never has been. Hopefully, my attitude of gratitude and humility finds it’s way into my classroom where it can serve as an example to my students. You don’t need to be veteran to appreciate what you have, but it certainly helps.

Happy Veterans Day, and thank you to all who have served to protect and defend freedom around the world!