27 May 2007: Twenty years ago today....

As hard as I find it to believe it’s true. Twenty years ago today I graduated from West Point. It was a rainy day and my class was worried we’d have to hold the ceremony indoors. Fortunately the weather cooperated just enough and my classmates and I took our places at Michie Stadium for the time-honored ceremony. There were over 1000 of us. General Wickham was our speaker (a disappointment, as we had hoped for President Reagan). When the ceremony came to a close we rose and took the oath of commissioned office. After four years of cadet rigors we were ready to go out and become the leaders we had trained to be. We would now do so as Second Lieutenants in the Army. It was the culmination we had dreamed of for so long. The world was very different then. If someone had told me that twenty years later I would be in Iraq I would have rolled my eyes in disbelief. It’s amusing to look at how different the world today is from what we faced then.

Twenty years ago…..

- Our enemy was the Soviet Union. The Cold War was still going strong. Our biggest fear was the Commie horde coming across the Fulda Gap in Germany. Today it’s the rise of militant Islam, nuclear proliferation, and the growing military power of China.
- The active Army had 18 divisions and many more independent brigades. Today there are only ten divisions and they are stretched pretty thin.
- Germany’s currency was the Deutschmark, Italy had the Lire, and France used the Franc. Now they’ve all been replaced by the Euro.
- Countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary were part of the Warsaw Pact (and our enemies). Need I say more?
- Iraq and Iran were at war. The Soviets occupied Afghanistan. Libya was the big terror threat. By the way, do any of you know the primary reason Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1989? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you. Kuwait and many of the other Middle East nations had loaned Iraq huge sums of money to wage its war against Iran. When the war ended Iraq started defaulting on loans. Kuwait refused to renegotiate its loan to Iraq (which was considerable). Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait (claiming a territorial dispute). The real reason was that Iraq couldn’t pay back the money. I guess if you can’t pay back the bank just rob it instead.
- A Sony Walkman CD player was state of the art.
- I was branched Armor. Now I’m Transportation.
- My favorite NFL team was the Houston Oilers.
- Cell phones were giant car devices that only rich people could afford.
- You could always tell the military guys from everyone else because they had short hair.
- Al Gore hadn’t yet invented the internet.
- The Milwaukie Brewers were still in the American League.
- MTV still aired music videos.
- Army football was good, regularly won the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, and went to bowl games.

Twenty years gone by and it just doesn’t seem like it. Hell I’m even a lifetime member of Veterans of Foreign Wars. What a difference a little passing of time can make. Happy twentieth anniversary Class of 1987! Our Country We Strengthen. Go Dukes! (“We can’t all be Dukes, sorry!”)