Bump. Set. Spike!

Bump.  Set.  Spike.

Winning volleyball in Taji, Iraq; how did it come to this? 
We won our first one early in the season and we won another last night.  With each win I get that glow and satisfaction of a deserved victory.  Our losses are painful and come only as the result of much back and forth bump…set…spike!  Dig…set…SPIKE!  Bump….set….SPIIIIKE!   

I am sure you know the feeling before an athletic contest.  Even at 50 it surprises me but the same emotions come to me as when I competed even at a younger age.  The dry cotton mouth and the adrenaline starts to flow.  The heart rate begins to rise a little and my body warms up a little as game time approaches.  No, I know what you are thinking; isn’t that because you are walking a half mile or more in 100 degree heat?  Nope.  That warm breeze dries me off and the excitement doesn’t start until I can enter the gym and hear the game before ours in action.

After the warm-up the Hecklers start to harangue the referees or the other team.  They always seem to be for the under-dog.  The seating is home made with plywood without gaps three levels high.  When the Hecklers kick the floor and bang and yell the reverberation is almost deafening.  You can tell who is a Heckler and who isn’t because they are wearing T-shirts that say “Heckler” on it.  (Orange for men and pink for the female hecklers.)   Once we had over 50 people in attendance but it sounded like a Championship basketball game with the noise level being so loud and the people were yelling and cheering (best ticket in town that night; premium seating; this would have been a $250.00 dollar ticket if it was stateside and we were a beach volleyball game).

I remember our first victory as sweet as it was.  I smiled and felt great warmth, joy and pleasure in the knowledge that we were winners.  As tough as the competition is here victories come dear.
Some memories of some close losses; SGT Chua leaping for a block.  All the power and strength gathering in her calf and transiting through her legs, propelled to higher heights by her ankles and toes as she leaves the ground rising…rising…rising…her arms and hands outstretched.  I can see it in slow motion the uncoiling of this athlete rising….rising…and a vertical leap of amazing height.  Up, up, up and her hands pass the little squares in the net; past the first ones in a blur and finally slowly as she reaches the apex.  Reaching at the height of her leap the seventh square of the net and demonstrating what athletic heart is all about!  Full extension, reaching out and her feet clear the ground by, easily, (without actually measuring) maybe a good 7 maybe as much as 9 tenths of an inch.  The spike goes right over where her hands would have been if she was taller than 5 feet and could leap more than almost an inch.

SGT Chu isn’t the only female on the team. We also have some players who are pretty good (for women). I am many times the tallest player (of course), all (almost) 5-10” of me towering over the rest of the team.  This isn’t a beer league or a co-ed league.  Nope.  This is real competitive “A” league volleyball.  Some teams have a token female player on the team and they rotate her in when they have the game well in hand.  Not us!  We try to keep three females on the court all the time.  So we are shorter than the others and aren’t quite as powerful but we try to make up for it with heart, cunning and skill.

That might be difficult for many teams but it is pretty clear from a short observation of our warm-up (without even having to actually watch us play in a game) that most of our team played volleyball as a sport in Junior High at least and some maybe even at Basic Training occasionally.  We aren’t rank amateurs but talented Soldiers playing against teams that are often filled with giants of men (where their shortest is taller than our tallest) and officers who played some serious D1 volleyball in their day.  Even the Air Force team looks like they ALL played some competitive athletics in their prime.  That physical and genetic differential make our victories that much more sweet.

Speaking of the Air Force, it is clear they are a much more disciplined force than the Army.  When they were providing the referees for one game not only did they obviously know all the rules but enforced them with vigor.  Then, in the middle of my service there was a buzzer sound.  I couldn’t quite place it…but when I looked around the Air Force referees were already flat on the ground with their hands over their ears in the covered position (like they are supposed to be).  Then you could clearly hear the “Big Voice” over the loud speakers say “Incoming…Incoming”.  The next thing I know the contracted Ugandan guards who we were playing (also known as S.O.C. Guards, company name?) ran out and into the outside shelters for protection.   
Eventually all of my team followed suit and was lying on the ground.  I was left standing there ready to play.
Nobody is faster to the ground than the Air Force.  They are very well trained.  But more importantly they didn’t give us the point!  The ball was in play when the S.O.C. Guards abandoned the field of play for no good reason (no mortars even landed close to us BTW!)  We should have been given that point.  That one play broke our momentum and we eventually lost on what I consider to be a major breach of volleyball etiquette.  I am not whining, I am just saying if you are going to call a point against me because I “attacked” the serve when we all know that as high as my 1/2 inch vertical leap IS…I didn’t clear the ground.  Anyway….

 A second win!  Sure there is some satisfaction.  The big game is with the Charlie company unit that shares our office building (dump) later this month, but the second victory was terrific. Charlie Company have some (2) old guys (so with their two and me there should be 150 years or more on the court at one time) who are athletic for their age.  Not Aviator athletic…just athletic.  Old guy athletic; like if the ball comes close to them and they can see it and they don’t think it will hurt them and it isn’t coming too fast then they will try to hit it athletic.  It should be another victory for us.  Maybe a little more hard fought then the others.

That first win:  I still remember the way it was announced to everybody in an email: From our CPT all he said was :   Our first win...

The email below his thread was this:

Subject: Volleyball standings

Here are the current standings, what I did was added in a win for everyone who didn’t play team 2 already, 1-181 who was dropped as they disbanded from playing, for the ones who did play them your record stay the same.

John Snopes

MWR Technician

I know what you might be thinking (they dropped out?  That was a win?  Maybe they had missions to conduct, troops to transport or bad guys to kill?), but I think it was FEAR!  They were afraid of us!  They knew they would be ripped apart by the primal athleticism of our team and would never be able to live it down.  What else could it be?

Our second win didn’t get the same play, but I was even more excited. With the first win and you aren’t sure how to feel.  Should I be happy?  Giddy, elated?  After you get used to winning you know exactly what to do!  I jumped, cheered and encouraged all the players being a good sport like I am.  “They aren’t coming?  Really?!  They dropped from the league too!  Woo Hoo! Victory number two!”

Bump…set…Spike! That is what I know about volleyball.  Victory is sweet.