My First Marathon

Saturday 12Sep09. A relatively easy day with 2.5 hours in a helicopter, two hours of weightlifting at the gym, and 8 hours in the office. The plan after work was to run 16 miles at a sub nine-minute pace due to the relative coolness of 93 degrees. Previous farthest run was 15 miles.

At 2116 (9:16pm) we began our run, and found exceptionally ideal conditions. We ran a 5-mile loop, a 7-mile loop, and another 5-mile loop. Finishing these at a 8:57 pace, my friend and I were quite happy. Displaying a slightly confused perspective of distance, I said, "Let's just keep running, we're almost at a marathon." My friend disagreed and went back to his CHU to sleep, but I decided it would be worth it to keep going.

I ran another 3.5-mile loop, which covered 1/3 of the remaining distance, and realized just how far there was yet to run. However, since I had told my friend that I was going to run a marathon, I knew I had to finish it.

Becoming more mentally impaired and hitting a wall at around 21 miles, I slowed down considerably and began taking breaks every mile or so for a minute or two. My stomach was churning in pain after I would run for about a mile and forced me to stop for a bit for it to recover. I was now only running a half-mile loop around our living area over and over to make sure that if I did trip or pass out, I wouldn't be too far from home or from people. Without anyone else around, I resorted to praying and talking to myself to pass the time.

Finishing at 0219 (now 91 degrees out), with 4:32 of run-time and 31 minutes of total stop-time, I cheered for myself and then walked over to a colleague's CHU to drop off my Garmin for him to use the next morning. Feeling pretty fine, I went home, told my roommate who was still up watching movies, and then walked to the shower trailer and got ready for bed (noticing in the shower I was still talking to myself, I think that I need to eat more during the next time I run something like that).

Asleep by 0300, I slept in until 1300 for the first time on the deployment. On waking up, I felt fine and went into work. That evening Tom and I ran a 5k in 26:15 (8:13 pace) and are now training to run a marathon in the future a little faster. I figure if I am lucky enough to be in the shape I am without injuries right now, I have to take advantage of it and try as hard as I can to capitalize on the opportunity.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." -Colossians 3:23

Apathy

One of the downfalls of a deployment is definitely the accompanying apathy that so easily befalls a person. Before deployment, it is hard to care about things, especially obligations. I've seen many soldiers (and myself) fall victim to apathy, especially in areas such as:

• Bills
• Homework
• Work
• Friendships
• Personal Hygiene and Fitness
• Military Bearing

When knowing that you are going to leave for such an extended period of time for military duty, it is often hard to care about other things. Other things sometimes feel unimportant, small, or meaningless.

Coming back from deployment oftentimes this apathy becomes even worse, and if not addressed can lead to major problems. It is easy to fall into the trap of feeling that everything in civilian life is so miniscule when compared to the pains of war. Why care about these small bills, or these finals when people are dying?

The fact of the matter, in the end, is that all of these daily things are important. Together they add up to the perceived value of your life, and if you don't put any effort or care into them, then its easy to feel that your life as a whole becomes worthless. Becoming complacent to these things is one of my biggest fears in deploying again.

Pride

This one word helps and hurts so many people, economies, movements, and much more every day. Books have been written, movies made, and lectures given about the the follies and achievements that pride helps produce. 

Pride is something that the military uses as a mantra for nearly all actions in public; yet eliminates for so many things in private. This is true for fraternities, businesses, and other organizations as well. Take for example the idea that every soldier must "wear their uniform with pride," or people should "take pride in their work," and so on. However, at the same time, people must "swallow their pride and take orders," be humble and work with others, show respect for others, and do many other things that require shelving their pride.

Pride was a major factor in numerous tragedies throughout history including Nazism, religious wars, the fall of Rome, and so much more. So why do we value it so much?

Well, pride has also been extraordinarily beneficial in certain situations such as the accomplishments of women's suffrage, minority rights, booming industrial times, technological advances, and more. Pride gives people a reason to strive for greatness. 

Some of the most honorable moments occur when people swallow their pride for the betterment of the group. McCain's great speech when he lost the election to Obama was a prime example of a man filled with pride who knew it was time to put that aside and congratulate the winner. He set a great example for everyone to follow in putting away pride and uniting our country. Even in a recent fraternity election, I saw young men who wanted so badly to win certain races fall short, but then step aside and work harder because they wanted to make the house better. 

In my life, I've found that there are good times and bad to have pride. The hard thing is to know what time it is.

Do I Regret Joining?

A question sometimes arises: "Do you regret joining the military?" ...

Wow, what a question. Do I regret doing something that has drastically affected my life for better and for worse over the past six and a half years.

There were times when I was sure that it had been the wrong choice. I vividly remember standing in breakfast chow line during Basic Training back in 2003 after getting nearly no sleep for weeks, with about 12 weeks left of Basic and AIT still ahead of me just thinking that I would never wish that kind of hell on anyone. Knowing that once I got through the chow line the Drill Sergeant would just make me throw the food away without a bite. Having no phone calls, no females, being away from family and friends. Being so certain that it would never end, and that I was destined to forever be trapped in Fort Sill.

But then as the weeks went on, I made more friends. I grew close to people and we found ways to cope and make it through. The environment there didn't seem so intimidating and I grew stronger. I learned not to be sad, not to be lonely. After 16 weeks, I came out a new and better person.

Then I came home and volunteered for deployment. After a month at Fort McCoy, hearing the news reports of the situation in Iraq, and seeing the unorganized desert training we were receiving from underqualified instructors in a bitter cold January in Wisconsin, I fell back into pessimism. Looking ahead to a 12-month deployment (or longer, who knew, our orders were for up to 18 months), I drank heavily to cover the fear.

We left in February for the desert. 

In the desert, a lot of things happened (that's another story for another blog I suppose). During the middle of it all, months since being home but still with no end to the deployment in sight, there were long periods of hopelessness. 

People were dying and nobody could tell who would be next. With so much time ahead of you, it seemed certain you'd never make it home. I was sure that God had me destined to die in the desert, far from the family, girlfriend, and friends that I used to know. And it seemed to make sense that way from the things I'd done.

But eventually the deployment ended, and I made it home alive. The only problem was that I had no idea how to behave in civilian life. Yelling, fighting, and complete disregard for the health and safety of yourself and others were now totally unacceptable. Everyone had jobs or were at school, and nobody even paid attention to the war or seemed to even know where Iraq was.

So to try to fit in, I figured I'd join school too. But that didn't make anything better, and my problems simply escalated.

After a couple years of being back accompanied with counselling and friends, I've adjusted well now to civilian life and can fit in with the best of them. I'm tougher, stronger, and more emotionally stable than I had ever been before. I have drive and ambition like never before, and love waking up every day.

But now they're sending me back. At least this time I've already been through it, so I have that strength to pull on. I just have to make sure that I help out the others that haven't been through it and have to go through this emotional rollercoaster for the first time.

To regret joining would have to include regretting the friends I've made, the experiences I've endured, the skills I've learned, and so much more. No, there's no way that I regret joining. It's made me who I am, and I can't imagine life without it.

Disconnect

An interesting thing that people in some parts of the world every day are fighting and dying. People are dying of sickness, violence, starvation, and so much more. 

Yet I'm sitting here writing in a heated apartment fully furnished and insured to protect my valuables against the small chance that something bad could happen to them.

You're sitting and reading this from somewhere probably equally as nice, as well as safe. 

The biggest worries are whether my projects for this coming week will be done on time, how my test went, whether I will have the cash to pay bills, whether the stock market will come back, and how I will find time to wash my clothes.

Seems so trivial when you think that right at this second there are probably several people being burned to death, several others being shot, and thousands more living in fear that today will be there last.  

These things are happening, maybe in Iraq or maybe elsewhere (several countries are wartorn as this is written, within years this will change and many of those countries may still be at war and many others will go to war or come to peace as well), yet we don't even think about it.

The disconnect occurs somehow that these things never even seem to phase us. When I was in Iraq, it was like the war was the biggest event in the world. Yet when I talked to people from home via letters, email, or other, they seemed like they had no clue what was going on in the war.

When I came home, I became one of those people. Waking up everyday to fight the little battles that we do, not caring at all or realizing the extent to the atrocities happening across the world. 

This disconnect is some form of human failure, maybe as a coping mechanism. We as a people need to change this and find more ways to help those in need. Not just with money, bullets, or time; but with ideas, efforts, and ideologies that have the power to raise a people up and help them to stand on their own.

I don't know what the next steps are for these people, and I am not sure what the best ways to help them would be. I do know that the first step for us to is to realize that there is a problem.

Military as a Giant Cushion/Safety Net

The idea that the military is really a giant safety net really hit me while at the dentist today. 

I was talking to the hygienist about going to college, and she mentioned, "yeah, you really put a lot more effort into college then into high school because you have to pay for it." 

Number 1: Paying for College

The math:

University of MN semester tuition and fees: $5,403 (http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/costsaid/tuition.html) (quite a bit more for CSOM)

divide that by full time student at 13 credits, and it comes to $415/credit

Each credit has about an hour of lecture/week for 15 weeks.

So each lecture hour costs $27, therefore a 2 hour lecture will cost you $54, more than many concerts. So many people put a lot more effort into school, realizing the price they are paying.

The Military:

Covers all tuition, fees, living expenses, and then still gives you cash on top of that. Therefore, you get paid to go to school (if you deployed already, are still in the military, are going to a state school, got a good contract when you enlisted, don't have any AWOL's, etc). So you don't have any of that weight on you to put your all into it. Though you still may be motivated by looking for a job or graduate school after college. This definitely did not help as a freshman or sophomore that wasn't close enough to graduation to care, and didn't have to worry about any bills or whether their money was going to good use.

Number 2: Going into the Real World

When I mention to people that I will be graduating in December, they all talk about how scared they were (or will be) when they graduated. The risks of looking for a job, applying to graduate school, etc., they talk about for a while, and then ask how my job-search is going.

To which, there is a simple reply, "I'm getting deployed, so I don't really have to look for a job just yet." Job security for sure for probably at least 15 months.

Definitely prolonging the maturity process that is required to find and hold a full-time job. I'm quite certain that this may come as a challenge post-deployment, as going to college was a challenge immediately following my last deployment (much for the reasons given in Number 1)

Thank you

I just wanted to thank everyone who has read the blogs so far and either commented, emailed, talked to me, or just enjoyed the posts. 

With that said, if you (whether you're friend, family, or other) have any ideas for things you think would be interesting for to write about, feel free to post them in the comments, via email, or talking to me. Also, feel free to post comments about your own thoughts, blogs, news, quotes, or anything else as well, as I'd like to make this as interactive and fun as possible.

On my end, I promise to update the blog at least weekly. Other times it may be up to daily, so please check back often, or subscribe via rss (http://rosshedlund.blogspot.com/rss), via email (just write me an email at ross.hedlund@gmail.com with the subject subscribe to blog), or by following on blogspot. 

Thanks again, and have a great week everyone!

Morbid Math

Looking at going back to Iraq, many people feel as though you might be fearful for your life. Sometimes I am. This doesn't seem to me to be a rational thought, however, when I look deeper into the numbers behind OIF deaths:

[assuming that every job in country is equally dangerous, which obviously is not true. However, due to the high degree of indirect fires (rockets, mortars, etc) a lot of it is just luck of the draw.]

Assumptions

• There have been 4,185 American troop deaths in iraq (http://www.icasualties.org/oif/USDeathByMonth.aspx) at the time I write this
  
• There are 144,000 American troops in Iraq currently (it has been about this for most of the time) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_force_in_Iraq)
  
• Let's assume average troop is deployed to Iraq for one year (I could not find exact number for this, but a wide majority of soldiers in Iraq are Army, which generally have 1-1.5 year tours, while Marines, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard generally serve shorter tours)

Average Death Rate

Average deaths/year = total deaths/years

= 4,185 / 5.5

= 760

This is somewhat skewed, as the deaths show sharp increases (Apr04: 135, Nov04: 137, Jan 05: 107, Oct06: 106, Dec06:112, Apr-Jun07: 331) and decreases (Several months below 40, including all months since Sep07 with the exception of Apr 08 with 52) (http://www.icasualties.org/oif/USDeathByMonth.aspx)

Another problem with this math is the skewed proportions based on region, area, and job. However, I don't have precise enough data to account for these yet.

Chance of Dying during Deployment

So at 760 deaths/year, and an average deployment lasting one year with 144,000 troops:

Chance of death (if randomized) = deaths/troops

= 0.528%, or 1 in 189

So rationally speaking, this is a pretty low chance of death. This of course in no way helps to console the friends and families of the 4,185 US soldiers who have died, the 445 Contractors who've died, the tens of thousands (or more) Iraqis who've died, and of course other coalition forces, journalists, or others who have also died.

Leadership and Management - Military and School

An interesting thing about school (specifically management classes) is that we are often told to develop ourselves as leaders. We are taught how to manage, but how to lead is often left to our own doing.

To get the terms straight before discussing further:

Seth Godin describes these in the book "Tribes" as:

1. Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done.

2. Leadership is about creating change that you believe in.

Others say management is doing things right, while leadership is doing the right thing. 

Either way, it can be noted that these terms are not interchangeable, and must be developed by disntinctly different methods.

School: No Leadership Required

• Concentration is on management. 
  
• We learn to manage by getting due dates, project requirements, teams, tests, assignments, incremental tasks to be done
  
• Even in group work, can often rely on others to take leadership roles
• Extra-curriculars such as greek orgs, sports, student groups often used as leadership experience, but no leadership is required to be a follower in any and all of these organizations

TAKEAWAY: Learning leadership at school is a choice. Nobody will make you lead, you must take the initiative.

Military: A Culture of Leadership

• Leadership starts at the lowest levels, in word and spirit
• People in positions of power often require the weakest of their subordinates to teach classes on activities, forcing them to develop as leaders or further falter
• Judged on how you perform individually in areas such as physical fitness, rifle marksmanship, personal growth (schooling, military schooling, correspondence courses, etc). These force leaders to lead by example
• Initiative and creativity often encouraged to solve abstract tasks such as developing training, completing missions using limited resources, adapting to new conditions. No specific resource, action, outcome style of management as seen and developed through school coursework
• Army Values are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage. "LDRSHIP"
• Entire manual dedicated to leadership and taught at specific schooling for leadership ("Army Leadership: Competent, Confident, Agile" http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm6-22.pdf)

TAKEAWAY: Management is under-stressed, while leadership culture flourishes

Some questions arise:

•  How can we incorporate a leadership culture into our schools and workplaces? 

Instilling a culture of leadership requires forcing people to take full responsibility for actions and assessing them as such. For this to be incorporated in schools, heavier weights must be put on group members' assessments of classmates. Opportunities must be given to challenge the status quo. Assignments must be given that force people to mobilize their classmates in an effort to create something that they believe in while working under unknown circumstances. 

Less emphasis needs to be put on incremental non-meaningful changes, and more needs to be put on allowing people to work on what they believe in. Examples I"ve seen are a business plan class that allows your group to work on creating a real business plan (Alan Fine), and an Entre class that forces you to start a small business (Steve Spruth). This could be done in any number of classes. Maybe a journalism class that requires you try to get something published, or a chemistry class that forces you to try to find a way to make something new, etc (note that I have little knowledge of these courses, so I'm sure people in those fields can think of even better ways)

• Do we need to write new books on leadership and how they affect each industry that we work in? 

Obviously not, they've already been written. We just need to apply the concepts that work.

•  Is it really necessary to build an entire culture of leadership from the line worker on up? 
  

That is the only way it will work. Otherwise tomorrow's leaders won't know how to lead, and today's leaders will be gone. If you don't force those that are not strong leaders to do leadership tasks and better themselves, you will lose some of the best leadership potential in your organization.