INSIDE COMBAT RESCUE and Inside the Life of a Mrs. Lieutenant

Vietnam-era novel MRS. LIEUTENANT is FREE on Kindle on March 6 and 7 (4.6 out of 5 stars on 50 reviews). Download now: viewBook.at/B0019V2HFK

I watched an amazing episode of National Geographic Television's documentary TV series INSIDE COMBAT RESCUE. Elite Air Force pararescuemen fly off into harm's way at a moment's notice to rescue Coalition forces in Afghanistan.

While watching the episode, I found myself comparing the action to battlefield rescue during the Vietnam War. As my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT describes, the American public watched nightly news footage of wounded and dying men on stretchers being rushed to rescue helicopters under attack.

Then the grim task of triage set in. While perhaps with vastly improved battlefield medicine these wrenching decisions are not needed as much today, here is what one character in MRS. LIEUTENANT says about triage during the Vietnam War:

The medical personnel in Vietnam practice triage — giving priority to those who have the best chance for survival. When an evacuation helicopter sets down at a field hospital, the medics run with their litters. A doctor or a nurse or even an orderly has seconds to make these decisions.

(This does not mean the most critically injured are treated first but instead those who have the best chance of survival.)

In the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT, the evacuation scenes from Vietnam writ large are part of the life of a Mrs. Lieutenant in the spring of 1970 right after the Kent State shootings. Four very different women in the novel struggle to cope with their new roles.

And in the episode of INSIDE COMBAT RESCUE, what came through most clearly was the total chaos that rescue helicopters have to fly into, and how incredible are the paramedic life-saving techniques performed in a bouncing helicopter.

The series is airing on Monday nights here in Southern California. Check your local listings for when you can watch these tremendous acts of heroism.

© 2013 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy story CIA FALL GUY.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at viewAuthor.at/PhyllisZimblerMiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

Expiation for Killing: Young Soldiers Are Taught How to Kill But Not Taught That Killing in Combat Is Okay

In my July 27^th post (http://tinyurl.com/55zq2z), National Guardsman Big Tobacco (www.big-tobacco.blogspot.com) currently deployed in Iraq provided his response to my July 20^th post about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel (http://tinyurl.com/6eu789). In that same July 27^th post I put forth an insight from my husband Mitch about biblical public ceremonies of expiation of guilt for killing in battle.

Here’s Big Tobacco’s response to this July 27^th post:

Actually, I would think that some kind of public display like that would be, in the words of an NCO, "pretty f***in' stupid."

I'm not saying that you are stupid. It's just that I can already see the looks on the faces of my men, who just want to go home, being forced into some kind of quasi-Christian ritual when all they want to do is get drunk and laid.

The one thing I hate is acknowledgement of my service. I hate it when I am in uniform and people come up to me and say: "Thank you for protecting us."

"Yeah, dude. Don't worry, you'll get the bill."

That kind of ritual would be tacked onto all of the "thank you for protecting us" press conferences and parades. The fact is that people back in World War II DID have post traumatic stress; they just drank themselves to death or destroyed their families. And people didn't talk about it.

Also don't forget that A LOT more infantrymen died back then, even from simple wounds. By Vietnam, you had fewer casualties and better medical care (i.e., 30-minute medevac) so there were more people left around to be traumatized.

There is a book by a guy named Dave Grossman, who is a former Ranger and officer who studies "killology." He wrote a book called "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Leaning to Kill.” In this book he theorizes that PTSD doesn't come from exposure to danger, it comes from the physical act of killing itself.

Our society teaches that murder is wrong. Yet we take a high-school kid, cram 10 weeks of training down his throat, and call him a "killer." Sure, he might be physically able to kill, but after the target falls, he feels bad about it. Grossman’s website is at http://www.killology.com .

Take a look at World War II. A study was done after the war and it was found that only 20% of combat soldiers ever fired their rifles. Why? Because they fired at bull-eyes and a human looks nothing like a bulls-eye. The soldiers were not just afraid to kill, they weren't conditioned to kill.

So we changed the training. We started to fire at man-shaped targets. By Vietnam, we got the weapons-firing ratio up to 90%. This is operant conditioning. Think of Pavlov's dogs. Bell rings, dogs salivate. Target pops up, soldier shoots. Stimulus, response, positive feedback. Stimulus, response, positive feedback. Now we taught them how to kill, and they react and do kill, but they are still afraid to kill.

We never teach these kids that killing is OK. So they gear up, go out, and kill. Then their lives are wrecked afterwards. Here's your 30% PTSD disability, kid. Good luck finding a job.

It's better to deal with the nightmares than go through life like that.

Syndicated from www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com.

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PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, Big Tobacco, World War II, Vietnam, Iraq War, Dave Grossman, killology, Mrs. Lieutenant

U.S. Military Personnel Who Served from 1972-1984 Re-Joins in 2007

Here’s a guest post from Specialist Neil Gussman – he has quite an interesting story to tell about his military service. (When he’s not training with the Army National Guard, he writes about the history of chemistry at Chemical Heritage Foundation, a museum and library of the history of chemistry and early science located in Center City Philadelphia.) And to read more of his writing, check out his blog at armynow.blogspot.com

When I first enlisted in the Air Force in January of 1972, General David Petraeus was a sophomore at West Point. When he threw his hat in the air at graduation in 1974, I was a sergeant recovering from being blinded by shrapnel in a missile testing accident at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.


I got out of the Air Force that year, joined the Army the following year and served as a tank commander in Germany from 1976 to 1979. Our alert area was the Fulda Gap, right where the prophet of all things NATO, Tom Clancy, said World War Three would begin.

World War Three didn't happen on my watch, so I got out and went to college, and served in a reserve tank unit in Reading, Pennsylvania, until 1984. I got out for good then (I thought.) and got a job writing ad copy.

Last August, I re-enlisted after 23 years as a civilian. Writing this post I am 55 years old and have 196 days and a wake-up until my unit deploys to Iraq.

In the past year, a lot of people asked me why I joined. But the more fun question to answer is what is different about serving then and now. I can feel myself smile every time I answer that question.

What's different? I grew up in Boston. The difference is like being a Red Sox fan in the 1970s and being a Red Sox fan now. In fact joining now was the difference between playing for the 1972 Patriots (3-11) and the 2007 team (16-0).

In the mid-1970s, the sergeants who really had their shit together were in their late 20s. They were young, tough, motivated and were not combat veterans. The worst senior NCOs (not all, but a way more than there should have been) had combat patches on their right sleeves and had picked up a serious dope smoking or drinking habit in Vietnam.

I am currently in an Army National Guard aviation brigade. In the 1970s the National Guard was notorious for being badly trained. Today's National Guard is part of the total fighting force. On soldier skills, attitude, and combat readiness, my current Guard unit is better than the tank unit I served in on the East-West German border. The men and women with the combat patches on their sleeves in this army are leaders.

The difference certainly continues outside the gate. In the 70s no one wore their uniform home on leave--at least not those of us who were going home on leave to the Northeastern US. I was proud of my uniform, but the few times I wore that uniform outside the gate, I felt hostility, like I was a foreign soldier in someone else's country.

But today if I stop at Starbucks on the way home from a drill, someone might offer to buy my coffee or the clerk might just give it to me. People walk up to me in restaurants and thank me for my service. I really wish some of the other guys I served with in the 1970s could join up for just a month or two now and get the gratitude they missed out on back when long hair was in style and we were not.

Of course some things are exactly the same:

-- O-Dark-30 is wake up time for everything – even if all we do is stand around.

-- My weapon in 1972, the M-16 rifle. My weapon today, M16A4.

-- All through the 1970s if we went to the field for training, it was crammed in the back of a "Deuce-and a-half" 2 1/2 ton truck. My "ride" at pre-deployment training this year--the M35A2 Deuce-and-a-half truck.

-- The Army has all records on computer. So when I went to Aberdeen, Maryland, for two weeks of training, the e-mail said "Bring 10 copies of your orders." I couldn't believe it. I brought five. When I got there, I needed more. But all of the processing was in one room. Didn't matter. Every processing station needed a copy of my orders so they could collect all my records in one folder at the end of the day.

But even if I have to make 20 copies of my orders and hand them to a guy who has a PDF of my orders on a computer right in front of him, I am happy to be
back.

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National Guard, Mrs. Lieutenant, Iraq War, Vietnam, Neil Gussman, armynow.blogspot.com

July 4, 1970: A World Away From Today

July 4, 1970 – In MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL July 4th turns out to be a momentous day for Sharon, Kim, Donna and Wendy in ways they could never have imagined. What historical events are happening on that same day?

The following are some July 4, 1970, events as recorded in “Day by Day: The Seventies,” Volume 1, 1970-1975, by Thomas Leonard, Cynthia Crippen and Marc Aronson:

• Thousands march in Washington, D.C. for Honor America Day, a nonpartisan Independence Day Celebration to demonstrate support for U.S. unity and institutions.

• For the first time since 1950, a U.S. diplomat meets with the Pope, when Henry Cabot Lodge confers with Pope Paul VI in Rome.

• Sixty-one Americans are killed in Vietnam in the week that began June 28, the lowest weekly toll in more than three-and-a-half years.

What motivated me today to check out this date in 1970? I got an email from a book blogger interested in reviewing MRS. LIEUTENANT. She wrote: “I would love the chance to review it for you, especially because I was born in 1969 and there’s not much ‘historical fiction’ from that time period.”

She also wrote in a follow-up email: “I keep trying to clue people into the fact that the 70s were a world away. I’m hoping your book sparks some memories.”

I couldn’t agree more with this book blogger – I hope MRS. LIEUTENANT does spark some memories.

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Day by Day: The Seventies, Henry Cabot Lodge, Honor America Day, Mrs. Lieutenant, Pope Paul VI, Vietnam

First Female Four-Star General Nominated by President Bush

The June 24th Wall Street Journal carried this blurb in the front-page What’s News column: A woman has been chosen for promotion to the rank of four-star general for the first time in American history.

For someone whose novel features the wives of four new army officers in the spring of 1970 and who was there at the beginning of the women’s movement, this was a rather exciting headline.

The Journal article itself described that President Bush had nominated Lt. General Ann E. Dunwoody to head the Army Materiel Command, of which she is currently deputy commander. I have to admit that, as a feminist, I was somewhat disappointed in General Dunwoody’s area of operation -- which equips, outfits and arms the soldiers of the U.S. Army.

Then this article paragraph really rankled: Women haven’t reached four-star rank because by law they are excluded from serving in combat roles, which historically have been the path to the highest-ranking positions. That exclusion still applies, but with Gen. Dunwood, the Army has chosen to cast aside its customary limitations on promotion.

Yes, army promotions based on combat roles have always been important. In MRS. LIEUTENANT in the spring of 1970 Sharon Gold learns this when she has just arrived at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, with her husband. Sharon’s next-door neighbor Anne takes Sharon to meet Elizabeth, another young officer’s wife in the same offbase apartment complex:

A large wall-hung wedding portrait in a gilt frame overpowers the small living room. Elizabeth in a Scarlett O'Hara gown and her husband in his army uniform stand together under crossed swords.

Elizabeth follows Sharon's eyes. "Mama said I had to bring it. Wouldn't be a proper home without it. I also brought my silver. An officer's lady has to be ready to assume her duties."

Anne laughs. "Can you tell she's a Southerner? Even if she didn’t have an accent. These Southerners are in love with the 'noble duty' of the army – that's why so many officers are Southern – even if it means going to Vietnam."

There, someone has said the word -- Vietnam.

Elizabeth smiles. "How can a man get ahead in the army if he hasn't had at least one combat command? If my husband decides to go regular army – make the army a career, he has to get ahead."

Sharon mentally runs through any number of responses to this statement. No words leave her mouth. She has promised Robert.

Today, in my opinion, it might be better for both men and women not to need combat roles in order to be considered for promotion to the highest-ranking positions. This then might allow the Army to give out assignments not based on who needs combat experience but instead give out assignments based on the best person for the position.

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Ann E. Dunwoody, four-star general, Mrs. Lieutenant, President Bush, U.S. Army, Vietnam, Wall Street Journal, WSJ