I’m new to this site and to forum posting in general. It is good to find a group of “Olde Phartz.” I am a retired US Marine currently in Iraq as a contractor teaching senior Iraqi members of the Ministry of Interior how to do strategic planning.
I am a combat veteran of Vietnam (US Army Air Cavalry attack helicopter pilot), Beirut (USMC Cobra Pilot), Desert Storm and East Timor. I am 57 years old and have been lifting weights since I was 14. Weight training and accompanying diet have been my primary “off-duty” activity.
I’ve had to do it in rather challenging locations and situations. Probably the most difficult was in Vietnam 1971-1972. There was no culture of physical training so options were quite limited–but limited to the imagination. Suffice it to say, it is not always necessary to lift barbells and dumbells.
Beirut, and previous deployments on amphibious ships as a Marine were a little bit better. There WAS, and IS a very focused physical training culture in the Marine Corps–even on duty. So we did have some stuff to work with, ranging from a delapidate universal machine in after-vehicle stowage (on the old helicopter carries, that was at the back of the hanger deck). The distracting part of that–they also stowed bags of trash for dumping overboard–trash that included food scraps. Sometimes it got pretty ripe back there, but we pressed on.
In the newer helicopter carriers there was an acclimatization room in the forward part of the ship. This was designed to allow the environment of where ever we were to be landed to be replicated so we could acclimatize. We used it as a very large weightroom though.
At that time, while physical culture was quite big in the USMC, it wasn’t in the Navy so any kind of facility support depended upon the individual ships’ captains. One of the things we used to do was bring our own weights and designate one of the pilot’s state rooms (usually anywhere from 3 to 8 man rooms–tight but much nicer than the berthing compartments the troops had) as the gym.
Now days, though, fitness has been institutionalized in the Navy as well as the USMC. The last ship I was on, 1999, had a world class gym that was open 24 hours.
When I was Commander US Support Group East Timor, one of the first things I did for my troops (Army, Navy, Air Force as well as Marines) was to build and equip a gym. Doing so was rather challenging, both getting the authorization and the funds, then ordering and having the equipment delivered. Once that happened though, thanks to the superb work of Navy Sea Bees, we had our own very functional gym.
Now, on this Forward Operating Base in East Baghdad, we have a superb gym, opened 24 hours a day. It is housed in a building that used to be used by Saddam’s sons for their huge collection of cars. This is primarily and Iron Gym–free weights–but is well organized, set up, professionally run 24 hours a day–and it is airconditioned!!! We’ve come a long way.
I hope I didn’t bore anyone with the history lesson. I intend to post some of the training I’ve done, and its practical–life related results in the future. But, as a tickler, I have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The triggering event was a helicopter crash I was in after retiring from the USMC (in Australia, where I was employed by their version of the FAA, with one of my Flying Operations Inspectors) in which the other guy was killed and I was banged up. That combined with having been shot down twice in Vietnam and a subsequent career of high risk work and many very close calls put me in a black hole for several years.
The only thing that kept me going was weight training–the discipline, focus and goal orientation developed over 40 years of effort. I dare say, if it hadn’t been for that and for the pure escape in a good Iron Gym, I probably wouldn’t be here now.
As a postscript to this volume, I have had to grow a moustache here in Iraq–because it is the only gray I have. Iraqis respect age and the appearance of age. They can’t adjust to the optimistic outlook and the muscles and believe they are contained by an “Olde Phart.”
Pardon my long-windedness–future posts will be much more focused and to the point. Thank you.
IronMike 775
