New Year

SSG Charnley, Dorn and me started off the New Year with a 5Km race. That may not seem like a festive way to celebrate the New Year, but it was the best thing to do in light of the paucity of women and the total absence of family, civilian friends, and alcohol.

In spite of the cold, there were quite a few runners in the race. A couple of us who had our watches set to a GPS system synchronized the clock and the race started at exactly midnight. We took off, yelling "Happy New Year!" I sped up, broke away from the crowd, and was passed after about a quarter mile by an Air Force officer. We wished each other a merry New Year, and he left me in the dust. The remaing three miles or so consisted in trying to finish second, which I did although I was far behind the overall winner. The race organizers gave us medals and T-shirts, and took our picture. Not much of an achievement, but I take comfort in the fact that it takes most partying revelers back in Sitka much more than eighteen minutes and fifty seconds just to stagger past one homeward mile of puke-stained sidewalk.

On the third of January I got to go to a MK-19 and M203 range. The M203 (pronounced "em two-o-three") is the standard US army rifle-mounted 40mm grenade launcher, and the MK19 (pronounced "mark nineteen") is the 40mm grenade machine gun. Each one of us got to shoot 176 MK19 TP (Target Practice) grenade rounds, and 50 M203 TP grenade rounds. I was done shooting quickly, and I spent a couple of hours behind the berms looking for scorpions to catch. I only found a few beetles and lizards hiding amid large quantities of empty 35mm cartridges, small arms brass, 7.62mm links, and 5.56mm rounds.

I returned from the range to find that the platoon had been reorganized to accomodate new senior personel and give a chance at leadership to some able lower enlisted. On the upside, Yeager was made a team leader and Charnley is still my squad leader. On the downside, certain assignments seem to be designed with maximum antagonization in mind. I think most of us will simply get over whatever problems appear as a result of the new assignments.

I compiled a somewhat complete yearlist this year. I do not feel like tallying up a total right now, so it follows without numbers. Overall, it has been a rather poor year for birding because I did not do enough bird-related travel. Also, I hardly ever carried binoculars. There are only three "coches dures:" The bobwhite, seen in Mississippi, and the blue rockthrush and the Hoopoe lark, both seen in Kuwait.

Common raven
Glaucous-winged gull
Mallard
Great-blue heron
American wigeon
Greater scaup
Ring-necked duck
Hooded merganser
Oregon Junco
Song Sparrow
Domestic pigeon
Bohemian waxwing
European starling
Long-tailed duck
Pelagic cormorant
Bufflehead
Common merganser
Common loon
Barrow's goldeneye
Harlequin duck
Red-breasted merganser
Surfbird
Common goldeneye
Bald eagle
Black turnstone
Hermit thrush
Winter wren
Black scoter
Canvasback
Herring gull
Thayer's gull
Northwestern crow
Red-necked grebe
Lesser scaup
Greater scaup
Common snipe
American pipit
Belted kingfisher
Common loon
Horned grebe
Varied thrush
Golden-crowned kinglet
Green-winged teal
Rhinoceros auklet
Mew gull
Black oystercatcher
Northern flicker
American robin
Trumpeter swan
Cassin's auklet
Sharp-shinned hawk
Common snipe
Red crossbill
Red-breasted sapsucker
Pine grosbeak
White-crowned sparrow
Gray jay
Black-billed magpie
Rough-legged hawk
Snow bunting
Marsh harrier
White-winged scoter
Pigeon guillemot
Marbled murrelet
Red-necked phalarope
Merlin
Pine siskin
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser yellowlegs
Marbled godwit
Northern shoveler
Pintail
Hairy woodpecker
White-winged scoter
Tundra swan
Brant
Canada goose
Semipalmated plover
Rock sandpiper
Fork-tailed storm-petrel
Horned puffin
Peregrine falcon
Sooty shearwater
Yellow-rumped warbler
Tree swallow
American crow
Ruby-throated hummingbird
Mississippi kite
House sparrow
Eastern kingbird
Carolina chickadee
White-breasted nuthatch
Green heron
Red cardinal
Barn swallow
Red-winged blackbird
Turkey vulture
House finch
Red-bellied woodpecker
Indigo bunting
Pileated woodpecker
Blue jay
Common grackle
Northern oriole
Gray catbird
Brown thrasher
Eastern bluebird
Northern mockingbird
Black-crowned night-heron
Eastern towhee
Killdeer
Mourning dove
White ibis
Wood stork
Northern bobwhite
House sparrow
Chipping sparrow
royal tern
sandhill crane
brown pelican
osprey
Common crow
Kestrel
Laughing dove
Chifchaff
Blue rockthrush
Crested lark
Black redstart
European bee eater
Whitethroat
Hoopoe lark
Bluethroat
European robin
White wagtail
Isabelline shrike
Red kite
Ring-necked parakeet
Sparrowhawk