It was unusually cool for July in the southwest corner of Kansas as I awoke to clouds and a chilly wind. As it was Wednesday morning, I brushed aside the mental cobwebs and polished up the rough draft for the Friday column I had thrown together the previous evening, and fired it off.
That taken care of, I have breakfast at the nearby coffee shop. I head for Hugoton, and continue west on U.S. 56 to Elkhart, the farming town that bills itself as "Corner Stone of Kansas." Then it's across the state line to the Oklahoma Panhandle that consists of three counties, Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron. The entire Panhandle is flat, consisting of range land, wheat, and irrigated corn. I gas up at Boise City, county seat of Cimarron County on the western end of the Panhandle.
Although it would be a bit shorter to head south to U.S. 54, for no reason other than that I haven't been there for awhile, I continue west across the line to Clayton, New Mexico, regional center of New Mexico's northeastern high range country. I stop at the historic Eklund Hotel, intending to catch some of their green chile stew for a late lunch. But I'm too late; they stopped serving lunch 10 minutes ago. So I head south on the lonely 60 mile stretch of N.M. 402, through range land dotted with grazing beef cattle.
At Nara Visa, it's west on U.S. 54 to Tucumcari. I grab a snack at the Pow Wow Inn, and hit the 60-mile stretch on I-40 to Santa Rosa. Then it's south on U.S. 54 to Vaughn and a heavy thunderstorm and limited vision. Once through Vaughn, the weather clears and it's clear sailing. Although that part of the Southwest is still considered to be in drought, the range country actually has a tint of green to it, much improved over the last time I had been through there.
Upon reaching old Mesilla, I'm surprised that there is actually water running in the irrigation ditches. But I'm told that this is the last release for the summer from the Elephant Butte Reservoir of the Rio Grande.
In addition to checking on my adobe and visiting friends and former colleagues from my 11 years at NMSU, I now have an additional reason for these New Mexico junkets. Daughter Kara is an Army Nurse Corps Major. She is in her third year of obtaining her doctorate for the psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner curriculum at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), Bethesda, Md. For the third year of the program, the Army sends students to various points across the U.S. Kara has chosen Fort Bliss, Texas, a mere 50 miles south of old Mesilla.
When I call Kara to find out when she is available for dinner, she tells me that on Friday evening she and colleagues have the honor of being included to watch the premier of the movie, "Keosung Valley," about an Army Battalion that was stationed in a remote valley in Afghanistan for 15 months. A soldier who was in that unit would be available to answer questions from the audience. Would I like to join her for that? Of course I would.
Late Friday afternoon I travel south on I-10, and east across the Transmountain Road on the north side of El Paso to Fort Bliss. I am to meet Kara at the Starbucks coffee joint.
Military bases of today bear no resemblance to the stark, no-frills appearance that readers know from a half century ago. The shopping mall at Fort Bliss, named "Freedom Crossing," dwarfs most civilian malls. Every departmental chain and fast food enterprise known to man seems to be represented there.
I pass Starbucks where Kara guides me to a parking place. We are just in time for the movie that she and student colleagues, along with social workers, psychologists, and other professionals, are to watch.
The full-length feature documents the dangers and stress of a company of an Army battalion stationed in a remote Afghan Valley, vulnerable to constant enemy attack. Individual soldiers were filmed and interviewed by a camera crew that shared the dangers and hardships of the soldiers for 15 months - at times sheer boredom, but interspersed with periods of hair-raising danger and death.
Fifteen months??? Even the hard-nosed Marine Corps limits those stints to 12 months. And putting those soldiers in that remote valley where they were sitting ducks? My Marine Corps bias aside, I have to assume that someone higher up in Army ranks had some grand objective in mind, and that higher-ups knew what they were doing. But forgive my skepticism.
After the movie, a soldier from another company of the same battalion that was stuck in that valley answered questions from the audience.
The physical and mental fallout from those multiple deployments of over a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan is beyond measure. Daughter Kara will be fully employed dealing with some of it.
After the movie, we had dinner with one of Kara's colleagues. We then walked through the warm desert night to my GMC - that dry desert air, though warm, is very pleasant during summer evenings.
Instead of the Transmountain Road, I head for nearby I-10, back through El Paso along the Rio Grande, with the lights of Juarez across the river to the south. I had traveled this route many times during my tenure at NMSU.
El Paso, the historic city at the Paso Del Norte where, centuries ago, the conquistadores from Mexico hit the Valley of the Rio Grande and El Camino Real, "The Royal Highway," and headed north for additional conquests of native Americans in their eternal, if futile, search for more gold.
Fort Bliss, El Paso, Juarez - they are all part of interesting history, and they remain interesting today.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
That taken care of, I have breakfast at the nearby coffee shop. I head for Hugoton, and continue west on U.S. 56 to Elkhart, the farming town that bills itself as "Corner Stone of Kansas." Then it's across the state line to the Oklahoma Panhandle that consists of three counties, Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron. The entire Panhandle is flat, consisting of range land, wheat, and irrigated corn. I gas up at Boise City, county seat of Cimarron County on the western end of the Panhandle.
Although it would be a bit shorter to head south to U.S. 54, for no reason other than that I haven't been there for awhile, I continue west across the line to Clayton, New Mexico, regional center of New Mexico's northeastern high range country. I stop at the historic Eklund Hotel, intending to catch some of their green chile stew for a late lunch. But I'm too late; they stopped serving lunch 10 minutes ago. So I head south on the lonely 60 mile stretch of N.M. 402, through range land dotted with grazing beef cattle.
At Nara Visa, it's west on U.S. 54 to Tucumcari. I grab a snack at the Pow Wow Inn, and hit the 60-mile stretch on I-40 to Santa Rosa. Then it's south on U.S. 54 to Vaughn and a heavy thunderstorm and limited vision. Once through Vaughn, the weather clears and it's clear sailing. Although that part of the Southwest is still considered to be in drought, the range country actually has a tint of green to it, much improved over the last time I had been through there.
Upon reaching old Mesilla, I'm surprised that there is actually water running in the irrigation ditches. But I'm told that this is the last release for the summer from the Elephant Butte Reservoir of the Rio Grande.
In addition to checking on my adobe and visiting friends and former colleagues from my 11 years at NMSU, I now have an additional reason for these New Mexico junkets. Daughter Kara is an Army Nurse Corps Major. She is in her third year of obtaining her doctorate for the psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner curriculum at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), Bethesda, Md. For the third year of the program, the Army sends students to various points across the U.S. Kara has chosen Fort Bliss, Texas, a mere 50 miles south of old Mesilla.
When I call Kara to find out when she is available for dinner, she tells me that on Friday evening she and colleagues have the honor of being included to watch the premier of the movie, "Keosung Valley," about an Army Battalion that was stationed in a remote valley in Afghanistan for 15 months. A soldier who was in that unit would be available to answer questions from the audience. Would I like to join her for that? Of course I would.
Late Friday afternoon I travel south on I-10, and east across the Transmountain Road on the north side of El Paso to Fort Bliss. I am to meet Kara at the Starbucks coffee joint.
Military bases of today bear no resemblance to the stark, no-frills appearance that readers know from a half century ago. The shopping mall at Fort Bliss, named "Freedom Crossing," dwarfs most civilian malls. Every departmental chain and fast food enterprise known to man seems to be represented there.
I pass Starbucks where Kara guides me to a parking place. We are just in time for the movie that she and student colleagues, along with social workers, psychologists, and other professionals, are to watch.
The full-length feature documents the dangers and stress of a company of an Army battalion stationed in a remote Afghan Valley, vulnerable to constant enemy attack. Individual soldiers were filmed and interviewed by a camera crew that shared the dangers and hardships of the soldiers for 15 months - at times sheer boredom, but interspersed with periods of hair-raising danger and death.
Fifteen months??? Even the hard-nosed Marine Corps limits those stints to 12 months. And putting those soldiers in that remote valley where they were sitting ducks? My Marine Corps bias aside, I have to assume that someone higher up in Army ranks had some grand objective in mind, and that higher-ups knew what they were doing. But forgive my skepticism.
After the movie, a soldier from another company of the same battalion that was stuck in that valley answered questions from the audience.
The physical and mental fallout from those multiple deployments of over a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan is beyond measure. Daughter Kara will be fully employed dealing with some of it.
After the movie, we had dinner with one of Kara's colleagues. We then walked through the warm desert night to my GMC - that dry desert air, though warm, is very pleasant during summer evenings.
Instead of the Transmountain Road, I head for nearby I-10, back through El Paso along the Rio Grande, with the lights of Juarez across the river to the south. I had traveled this route many times during my tenure at NMSU.
El Paso, the historic city at the Paso Del Norte where, centuries ago, the conquistadores from Mexico hit the Valley of the Rio Grande and El Camino Real, "The Royal Highway," and headed north for additional conquests of native Americans in their eternal, if futile, search for more gold.
Fort Bliss, El Paso, Juarez - they are all part of interesting history, and they remain interesting today.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
