Letters Home: "Well, I shot him"

This letter was tucked into a letter sent home by my father. It was from his older brother J who was then deployed to Korea.

February 19, 1952
South Korea


Hi “Short Timer”
Well I am sitting close to the stove and trying to keep warm. We are way down in South K. now but its still sort of cold.
I have been out on an Out Post for about 5 days guarding a Coal mine. They were 9 of us all together and we were about 5 mi from the rest of the Company so you can just about picture what we did. All I did was see that there was a guard list made out and there was plenty of wood cut.
I would have the last man in guard wake me up at 6:00 o’clock so I could go hunting. I never got any thing so far except Crows and Hawks. I have seen Fox and Tracks that I think were Wolf.  Also Deer. There are Wild Boars also. I use a M1 and carbine. I suppose I have shot up about 800 rounds in the last weeks just shooting at different things. I am No.2 on the ration list so I should be on my way home in about two weeks.
I finally made Sgt. at last and I sure hope you can do better than that before you get out of the Army. Well I must close for now and get some sleep.


By for now
Be good

J

P.S. Don’t write me until you get my new address

________________________
I have no clue what the terrain looks like in South Korea but from his description of the types of animals it sounds like southwestern Wisconsin. The area where my dad and his brothers grew up is rich farmland interspersed with densely wooded bluffs known for their spectacular fall colors. Growing up just outside of city limits, they were used to hunting and tracking small game and deer in the bluffs surrounding Richland Center.

Uncle J was the oldest in a family of 8 siblings and in fact, J stands for Jr. because his first name is the same as my grandfather's. A few years ago my brother was visiting him and they were looking over his gun collection which spans a couple three generations. My brother, somewhat of an expert on weaponry, was intrigued by a curious-looking handgun that stood out as a foreign make. Completely unaware of the possible circumstances of his possession, and forgetting that uncle J was a Korean War vet, he asked him about it. According to my brother, their brief conversation went something like this:

Where you get it?

Off a soldier

Was he dead?

Yeah

How’d you know?

[a brief pause ensued]

Well, I shot him.
__________________
My brother told me that at that moment he felt about 2 inches tall, as if he'd bumbled upon an old man's secret.

They say that guys with combat experience rarely talk about it and I have found that to be true.  My backyard neighbor, a marine with two Iraq tours still doesn't talk much about his experience.

It's also not unusual for soldiers to bring back souvenirs from war.  I used to date someone whose father had a Nazi flag that he got in Europe during WW II. But back in '50s it was no doubt easier to bring a gun back than it would be today.

This Is How Families Used To Communicate

Check out the cool stationary my dad was writing on in 1952 during his Basic Training at Fort Knox, KY: This is a letter to my great grandmother, who I do not remember:

The floods he mentions were in the news that year and were bad enough to warrant an Air Force One flyover from President Truman.

Letters Home: "We Crawled 80 yds On Our Back And Belly With Machine Gun Fire Overhead"

February 19, 1952
Fort Knox, KY


Dear Mom, Dad and all,

I got the letter with the $5.00. I got a pkg. from M_ quite a while ago. It had cookies, home made candy and apple and orange in it. It sure was good. [1]
      I saw the same show you saw quite a while ago The Blue Veil. I guess it was about a woman adopting a kid.  I see Jim and Leslie almost everyday. They are O.K.
I don’t see Lowell any more. He must be through Basic.
      You can tell R_ that when he gets the skirt to lay it aside and I will put it on when I get there. [2]  4 more weeks. We get Fri. Sat. Sun off. Monday morning at 5:00 in the morning we leave for bivouac. That will be for 2 weeks. I might not get to write too often but we will get mail call every night. If we have the right kind of weather it will be fun to camp out.
      We sure put in a rough day today. We didn’t get up too early but had a early dinner and went out on the infiltration course. We crawled 80 yds on our back and belly with machine gun fire over head. About every 20 yds was barbwire about 6 inch off the ground. I sure was glad when that was over. We did it three times. Once with no gun fire, once in the daylight, and again at dark. [3]  The last time they used tracer bullets. Nobody got hit, but it about killed some of the fat guys to get through.
      I got this letter from my landlord in Madison so I might answer it someday. She sure will be surprised. Ha!  To find out I’m in the army and that J_ is married. I guess I will have to sign off for now.

Love,
V.

________________________

[1] M_ is his older sister.
[2] I added a "fender skirt" tag to this post due to his ongoing obsession with fender skirts.
[2] Night infiltration. You can get a little bit of a feel for how it looks today here.

The War At Home Through The Eyes Of A Child

This August is the 40th anniversary of the bombing at Sterling Hall in Madison. Sterling Hall houses the Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin (I had a year of physics there as part of my undergrad chemistry curriculum). The street shot linked above shows the stately western facade of the building. Around the back of the main building is an annex which houses laboratories, and until 1970, the Army Math Research Center.

Army Math was targeted by the bombers with a truck-load of fuel oil and fertilizer (the same concoction used 25 years later by the Oklahoma City Bombers). The bombers did over $2 M in structural damage, hurt 5, and killed one: Robert Fassnacht, a postdoctoral fellow working through the night on a physics experiment unrelated to the AMRC.

Some news reports said that the blast was heard up to 50 miles away. I was 10 at the time and we lived about 8 miles directly west in Middleton.  I don't remember the blast (it was the middle of the night) but I sure do remember the next day. I vividly remember the TV news reports that night on CBS and even recall that Walter Cronkite had a substitute that evening (Walt must have been vacationing). Oddly, this event was the first time that I fully realized that my insular little childhood world was part of a greater violent and news-hungry world.

The bombers terrorists dubbed themselves the New Year's Gang and were a small circle of students and local misfits. There is good background info at Wiki, and also here. The same bunch also tried to bomb Badger Ordnance using a stolen Cessna plane which took off from the Middleton airport. That bomb failed to explode and was found with fingerprints that ultimately connected back to the Sterling Hall bombers. Of the four Sterling Hall bombers, three were caught but one of them, Leo F. Burt, still remains at large.

Only much later did I appreciate what Fassnacht must have been doing there that night-I did similar things years later as chemistry researcher. Sometimes you just had to pull those all-nighters to get the data. But unlike me, Fassnacht was married with kids, which must have made it even worse. Science graduate students and families are typically poor, and are banking on the breadwinner landing a real paying job one day. It must have been just devastating for his family. I'm cheered to see that part of the community arose to help that young family back then the next day. But part of the community didn't react that way then and now I'm even wondering whether vestiges of that community still linger on.

Fast forward about ten years. In 1979, as a UW undergrad, I attended a premiere screening of The War At Home, an Oscar-nominated documentary which regales the anti-war movement in Madison. The screening was held at the Union Terrace Theater. The film "starred" ring-leader Karleton Armstrong and a number of Madison political luminaries, some of whom had morphed from local student radicals into a local mayoral administration. Some of them were even in attendance, whom I recognized because I was involved with a now defunct newspaper called the Madison Press Connection.

The film itself was mediocre (of course it had a great sound track-just like the 60's did) and it caught some critical flak right off the bat because the filmmakers had overdubbed the thudding sounds of police billy clubs hitting student bodies into some of the historical protest footage (you, know, so we'd feel their pain better).  At the time I was considerably more neutral politically and even more tolerant than I am now. But what struck me then (and what I'll never forget) is the closing or penultimate scene in the movie when the mug shots of the four perps are shown. The filmmakers had the audacity to interject a blacked-out photo frame instead of Burt's mugshot during this sequence as if to say: "we're covering for you man; we're not gonna give you up man." Worse, many in the audience erupted in cheers and applause at this gesture.

I'm not sure that Madison has ever had full closure with the events of almost 40 years ago, nor whether it is even possible. The same student newspaper that instigated the belief that Army Math was somehow complicit in war crimes still foments trouble. The Sterling Hall bombing is like a festering scab on Madison's history. Not until 2007 was there even a plaque or memorial commemorating the event, though the physical scars have long been evident (I found them as a student and would often contemplate them as I walked between buildings).

I await the events of this coming summer and whether somebody will step forward and claim more responsibility for the insanity of 40 years ago.

I Must Be Bored Today

The fifth element, boron, is essential for healthy plants. I once wrote a research proposal focused on that topic. Challenging the notion that boron's role in plants is structural in nature, I proposed instead that boron plays a dynamic role in plant tissue (cellulose) growth instead. The proposal went nowhere, maybe because I was wrong, but also perhaps because I was way out of my element. I'll never know the difference.

Whether we humans require boron is still in question: rats apparently do-though only in miniscule amounts. But boron is absolutely crucial for our silicon-based life support systems, in particular, for our computer chip-driven way of life. Boron's primary use however is boring and mundane: the bulk of it is used in borosilicate (pyrex) glass, commonly used in chemistry labs and in cookware; pretty much the rest of it is used in laundry detergents.

Now the word boron ends in "on" just like carbon, but this wasn't always so. Boron used to go by names like "bore" and "boracium" among others. The name "boron" didn't stick (in the English-speaking world at least) until early workers recognized its profound chemical similarity to carbon (btw, I found the ultimate authority on chemical name origins, so unless I think of something original to add, I'm just going to link to van der Krogt from now on. Notice that one can scroll up and down by atomic number or alphabetically. It's a totally cool website IMO *jealous*. And it figures that the guy is Dutch too).

Boron sits atop an imaginary line running diagonally down across the periodic chart which divides the metals from the non-metals:

Boron is one of the so-called metalloids, having chemical properties intermediate between metallic and non-metallic, just as the name suggests. What makes some elements metals and other non-metals is pretty well explained by band theory, but a simplistic view is to invoke electronegativity. Electronegativity is like a measure of electron selfishness: some elements cling so selfishly to their own electrons that they're unwilling to share them, not even with their identical neighbors-no conductance! So the diagonal line also demarcates a certain threshold electronegativity, the non-metals being more electronegative, epitomized by fluorine in the upper right (not shown).

Boron's chemistry is dominated by its electron deficiency, a consequence of its possessing fewer valence electrons than it has available electron valence orbitals.  Like carbon, boron builds borocentric molecules, typically with up to 4 other atoms surrounding it. Those four neighbors require that boron contribute four electrons to the magic octet, but boron only has three valence electrons to share (neutral boron actually has five electrons to match the +5 charge of its nucleus, but two of the five electrons are permanently locked away in a helium-like configuration: the filled so-called K-shell in the Kos reference). So when forming tetravalent compounds, boron always comes up one electron short and has to borrow one [LOL-boron builds more house than it can afford!].

Boron is used in the semi-conductor industry to introduce electronic "holes" in the atomic structure of chip material like silicon. When a boron atom assumes a position in a silicon structure normally occupied by a silicon atom, there is a bond missing one electron (or in other words, a hole). These holes facilitate the movement of positive charges or "holes" through materials. Other atoms can be doped into chips to do the opposite, i.e., introduce negative charges (i.e., electrons) and when used in conjunction, truly miraculous things happen which actually allow you to read what you're reading here.

This concludes another boring lesson in the chemical elements.

Letters Home: "So They Got R's Number"

original photo here

February 11, 1952 

Fort Knox, KY

Dear Mom, Dad and all,

I just got in from the tank range and thought I would answer your letter. I was going to call you last night about 9:00 but they said it would take an hour and a half to get it through so I didn’t bother to call. We got up at 4:30 this morning and got back at 3:30 this afternoon.

We go on a night problem from 6:00 till 10:00 tonight so it will be a long day. It isn’t so bad because the weather is dry and warm. It’s a compass reading problem tonight. I suppose a lot of us will get lost. This is our set ups for the week: Monday: shoot 30 cal. machine gun from inside the tank. Tracer bullets. Tuesday: same thing. Wed: 75 m.m. gun from inside tank. Also 50 cal. machine gun with tracer. Thur: same as Wed. Fri 75 m.m. and shoot 50 cal. at balloons.[1]

I got K.P. Wed. so I won’t get any shooting that day. I think its my last time for K.P. Has Billy S. wrote yet as to where he is stationed?  A new bunch is moving in here the 13th and maybe he will be one of them.

So they got R_’s number. [2]  I hope he don’t get into combat, though the training don’t hurt anyone. I got 5 weeks after this one so be looking for me in April. Did R_ ever get my fender skirt taken off and painted? If he hasn’t tell him to do it right away.

Has Dad ever said anything about coming down and getting me?  I know my car would never make it. Tires are bad and I think it needs a new master cylinder.  Have R_ ask what it would cost me for a new master cylinder. I think about $12.00.

Sure has been nice weather here lately. I hope it's that way when we camp out for two weeks. Has R_ got a car yet?

We saw a big Jet Bomber go over today. It sure was up in the air. 2 big trails of vapor was left in the air for about 5 min.[3]

love,

V.

P.S. Send $5.00.  I spent all my money in Nashville.

________________________________________
[1] That .50 cal machine gun was no doubt an infamous Browning M2 (nicknamed "Ma Deuce"). Browning M2's have been in continuous production since the end of WW I.  If you've never seen a .50 caliber round, you should: they're about 5 1/2 wicked inches long.  My grandfather collected ammunition and arranged them according to caliber on a wall-mounted collection. Growing up, we never asked where he got them, but I think I figured it out. He worked at Badger Ordnance during WW II and I suppose that he managed to slip a few things out in his lunchbox, much like that GM plant worker who built himself a Cadillac from pilfered pieces (OT, but that Johnny Cash song is called One Piece at a Time and you can hear it here.  LOL, I just bought that song from iTunes in memory of my dad and grandad). Coincidentally, Johnny Cash was serving in Germany around the same time as my father, though in the Air Force, and he was stationed further south at Landsberg.

[2] R was his younger brother, who just turned 18 and received a draft number from the Selective Service.  At first I thought that my dad might have deployed to Germany and not to Korea because his older brother was already in Korea. Not true. Same family members may be deployed to the same combat zone, however, in the event of the death of one family member, the other(s) is/are given the option of voluntary transfer out.  I believe these rules date back to the Civil War and for good reason: Link.

[3] That jet bomber was probably not a B-52 which was only first tested in April of that year (1952), unless it was an early prototype. B-52's had four jet engines and probably would have left a characteristic vapor trail, although it's possible that the four trails would have been unresolved to the naked eye and would have looked like two. The jet he saw was probably a B-47.

Über eine neue Art von Strahlung

In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

—Louis Pasteur

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923)

Wilhelm Roentgen (Röntgen for the purists & pronounced sort of like runt-ghen, i.e., with a hard "g") rocked the scientific world when he published Über eine neue Art von Strahlung ("On a new Type of Radiation"). The classic 1896 paper described experiments he had conducted the preceding fall. Just five years later in 1901, Roentgen received the very first Nobel Prize in Physics. The citation recited:

"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him." 

Roentgen didn't want "his" rays to be named after him, and so (in the English-speaking world at least) they are called by the term he coined: X-rays, wherein the "X" stood for "unknown". An account of Roentgen's serendipitous discovery of X-rays is well documented in the Wiki bio linked above. I have a copy of that first paper (in German) published as Chapter 11 in a remarkable book called The German Scientific Heritage by Reginald Phelps & Jack Stein (Copyright 1962 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York). Roentgen wrote in that classic "tall-by-the-brook-standing-tree" syntactical style that seems so uniquely German. Yet Roentgen was an impeccable experimentalist and had already discovered many of the interesting properties of X-rays and set them forth in that first publication. Most astonishing, and perhaps convincing, was his inclusion of the first ever Röntgenbild: an X-ray photograph of his wife's hand, complete with ring:

Hält man die Hand zwischen den Entladungsapparat und den Schirm, so sieht man die dunklen Schatten der Handknochen in dem nur wenig dunkleren Schattenbild der Hand.

Holding the hand between the discharge apparatus and the screen, one sees the darker shadow of the hand bones within the lighter shadow of the hand.

I bring all this up for two reasons: First: heavier atoms in molecules and hence materials are easier to see with X-rays than are lighter ones. Bones are mostly made of calcium, phosphorus and oxygen: the former two elements #20 and #15, are twice as heavy as the "heavy" elements that make up soft tissue, viz., carbon (6), nitrogen (7) and oxygen (8). Hydrogen (1) is the hardest atom of all to see with X-rays. This is also why MRI is such a great complimentary technique to X-rays: it mainly locates (visualizes) hydrogen in water and hydrogen attached to carbon in soft tissues; bones are mostly invisible.  Chemists recognize the same complimentarity between X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy.  Metals like gold (79) stand out even more sharply by X-ray.  Roentgen realized all of this in his now classic paper in which he tested the transparency of various materials.

Another reason to bring this all up is that screening methods at airports have been in the news lately. X-rays are used to screen luggage and people for bombs and contraband. A good primer on their use can be found here.  I'm still looking for a good reference on the techniques used for full body scans, especially since the apparent threat of bosom bombers would appear to challenge the current systems and methods in place. Plastic explosives like PETN can be distinguished from silicone breast implants, but apparently not without effort.

Meanwhile, Frau Roentgen is ready for her close-up now:

Status Quo vs. Change

"...two important aspects of inorganic chemistry (in fact, of chemistry in general) are structure and reactivity.  Someone has said that all of physical science consists of this duality.  In physics we could speak of statics and dynamics, and by analogy in everyday life, the status quo and change."

James E. Huheey Inorganic Chemistry: Principles of Structure and Reactivity 2nd Ed

More Elemental Musings

The single most important piece of scientific literature is, in my opinion, the periodic table.  Those who understand what it means, and what it actually implies, have mastered more science than most professors ever will.  This may sound like an exaggeration, but come with me and I think that I can prove it to you.

         Translator, writing for The Daily Kos

The Dailykos!!  Whoever "Translator" is (and he reminds me of Derek Lowe), he or she put together a wonderful historical synopsis of the periodic table. I highly recommend reading at least the historical section to get a flavor for what went into the development of the periodic table. 

I would add just one thing to Translator's fine discourse, and that is that the modern appearance of the periodic table might lead one to think that there are gaps between elements:

For example, look at the huge gap between H and He, which essentially spans the whole table.  Look in particular at the gap on moving from 4 to 5, ie., beryllium (Be) to boron (B). Why aren't there elements filling those gaps?  The answer (besides the "cute" one that there are no whole numbers between 1 and 2 nor between 4 and 5) is that those gaps are a consequence of the two dimensional presentation of the table which has become standard. While the table doesn't map anything physical in the sense of a photograph of unseen things, it might be useful to think of the gaps in the periodic table in the same way that certain flat maps depict a spherical earth:

In essence, what the periodic table represents cannot be perfectly rendered in two dimensions!
There have been numerous alternative presentations of the periodic table: spirals, pyramids, spheres, etc, none of which ever caught on as the iconic image above did. Several of the alternatives are presented here.

Letters Home: Give Blood

1/31/52  Fort Knox KY

Dear Mom Dad and all.

I haven’t heard from you for a few days so I thought maybe I owed you a letter. I got a letter from J_ two  days ago. He sent some pictures, so I am sending them on to you. [1]  I got some made and am sending them. Today is payday so in a couple of weeks a check will be coming.

It snowed Tue. About a inch and was down to zero. Today it's warm again.[2]

I got a chance to go to Nashville this weekend so I think I will go.

I broke my watch jumping off tanks so I will have to get it fixed soon. I started to write this before mail call and got your letter.

I didn’t send J__ a picture of him with a pack on his back so you can send him one.

Its too bad about Aunt Bertha.

We won’t have any training tomorrow. In order to get out of it you have to give a pint of blood. [3]  Only about 10 out of 200 aren’t giving any. Our Captain said it is best to start a blood bank now, because someday we might need it. I think I can afford a pint.

Did R_ ever get the fender skirt taken off my car?  I might sell my car if I can get enough out of it this spring.

I had two more teeth filled today. I am all done with them now for at least a year.

Its time to sign off for now. I will write the first of the week after I get back from my trip.

Love

V.

________________________________

[1] The photos are long lost I'm afraid.
[2] Flood waters building.
[3] Current Army regulations regarding blood donations: link. I have tried on several occasions to give blood to the Red Cross but have been disqualified because of my residence time in Switzerland and then Germany in the early '90's.  Apparently, I am at risk for developing Mad cow disease (and just from consuming over-priced meat in Switzerland). I've always protested that I could barely afford to eat meat in those days but they never listen. It all seems a little unfair, rather like the Koreans refusing to eat American beef last year for the same reason.
My brain has always soaked up knowledge like a sponge. But my brain is not spongiform like those afflicted with Mad Cow are, as confirmed by a recent MRI.

Beryllium Is A Sweet Precious Gift

Different variations of beryl, including 1. golden beryl crystal, 2. heliodore. 3. emerald, 4. aquamarine, 5. morganite

The root word of beryllium is old and familiar and lurks beneath the surface of the commonly used word brilliant:

brilliant
1680s, from Fr. brilliant "sparkling, shining" prp. of briller "to shine" (16c.), from It. brillare "sparkle, whirl," perhaps from V.L. *berillare "to shine like a beryl," from berillus "beryl, precious stone," from L. beryllus (see beryl). In reference to diamonds (1680s) it means a flat-topped cut invented 17c. by Venetian cutter Vincenzo Peruzzi.

Beryl and emeralds were known to Pliny the Elder nearly 2000 years ago and he first observed a physical similarity between the two. In the Middle Ages, transparent, colorless beryl was used to make optical lenses, whence the German word Brille which today still means eyeglasses. The invention and manufacture of actual glass spectacles developed in Italy in the 13th century and improvements followed closely with the development of optics.

The minerologist R.-J. Haüy also observed the remarkable similarity between beryl and emerald (hardness and density), and he persuaded the pre-eminent chemist/pharmacist of his time (late 18th century) Louis Vauquelin (of Paris) to analyze the stones to see if they were chemically alike. In 1798, Vauquelin showed that both minerals contained not only alumina and silica as had previously been known, but also a new element, beryllium, which he extracted as the oxide from emerald. Fredrich Wöhler first prepared metallic beryllium by reducing BeCl_2, with potassium metal. Thus the new element beryllium was discovered.

One caveat: until around 1948, beryllium (symbol = Be) was also known as Glucinium (symbol Gl), reportedly because of the sweetish taste of its chloride salts.

WARNING: Beryllium is considered to be highly toxic so do not, repeat do not taste or chew your precious emeralds!

"We heard that we were going to Germany"

January 20, 1952
Fort Knox, KY


Dear Mom, Dad and all,
I got your letter Fri, and the package Sat. I also got a letter from J__ on Sat. and will answer it tomorrow night. We heard that we were going to Germany when we get through basic but you can’t tell, for sure. [1]  I am going to Nashville the first of the month.
We got some more clothes today. 1 pair of socks, 1 cap, 1 jacket, 1 tee shirt, glove liners. I didn’t even dress up this weekend and go anyplace. It thundered and lightening Sat night and it rained quite hard. [2]
We have been having trouble lately with boys going AWOL. [3]  I guess some of them just can’t stand to be away from home. It isn’t so bad yet, but I think it will be a lot worse once we leave the states. We got one boy here from Penn. that never leaves the camp. I guess he was a farmer. I think Jim J__ is going skating next weekend at Louisville. The lights will be going out in about 15 min so will have to sign off for now.
love
V.

P.S. J__ didn’t have much to say. Mostly about cars and what kind he wanted to get. Henry J can’t afford a Merc. [4]

--------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] President Truman believed that the war in Korea might be a ploy to concentrate all American resources in Asia, thus leaving western Europe open to invasion by the Soviet Bloc. The Berlin Airlift had already occurred in 1948, along with the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1948. NATO was created in 1949 because of the perceived Soviet threat towards Western Europe. After the start of the Korean war, the United States deployed 4 divisions to Europe, culminating in the creation of the USAREUR in 1952. By this time, the US role in Germany had officially changed from an occupying force into an allied defender of the newly-formed German Federal Republic (West Germany).

[2] Heavy flooding occurred in Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky that year, perhaps also due in part to heavier than normal snowfall. The flooding was bad enough to prompt a flyover visit from President Truman just a couple weeks later: ref.

[3] According to one source, 84 enlisted men from Fort Knox were disciplined for absences around that time. ref.

[4] I recall that the late '40s and early 50's Mercs were favorites amongst my dad and uncles. I'm not sure which particular year they lusted after, but I'm sure it was one of these: Link.

Can Lithium Help Detroit?

Bolivian Lithium

Back to chemblogging for a bit.  Hmmm, let's see...I left off quite a while ago with lithium, helium, and hydrogen. I'll finish off lithium before moving onto beryllium, the fourth element.

Lithium Pharmacology
Lithium (or more accurately Li⁺) is pharmacologically active and is used to treat bipolar disorder. It's not at all clear to me (nor to Wiki) how this works.  Let's improvise. Here's my armchair analysis:
Observations: (1) In the body, Li⁺ is awash with lots of similar cations, namely, sodium (Na⁺) and potassium (K⁺). Moreover, there's realistically no way that one could swamp the body with so much Li⁺ that it would simply displace Na⁺ and K⁺; moreover, both sodium and potassium are essential and we'd die without them. Better to look for something that Li⁺ does better than Na⁺ and K⁺ do.
(2) Lithium is found in nature as lithium carbonate (in nature, elements tend to be found with other elements for which they have natural affinity). There is also experimental evidence that Li⁺ binds better to carboxylate groups, –CO₂^(-) than do either Na⁺ or K⁺:  ref.  In other words, Li⁺ has a higher affinity for the carboxylate functional group¹ and could displace a greater concentration of Na⁺ and K⁺. The pharmacists already know about this special affinity and Li⁺ is commonly formulated as lithium citrate:

Notice that the citrate has three carboxylate groups. Lithium citrate was once an ingredient in 7-Up, the Uncola, but was removed in 1950. It's important to realize that once in the body, the citrate part is easily chewed up and metabolized, leaving three Li⁺ cations, each in search of a carboxylate. 
(3) Carboxylates are ubiquitous, being the terminal side chain of common amino acids aspartic acid and glutamic acid.
(4) Glutamate is implicated in all kinds of neurochemical functions.

Hypothesis: Li⁺ displaces Na⁺ to such an extent as to affect the role of glutamate. The carboxylate functional groups are intimately involved in how neurotransmissions occur.  Essentially what lithium does is to monkey wrench this somehow. Anyway, it's just food for thought. Prove it wrong. A cursory Google search suggests there is something to this: ref, ref, and ref.

There are other proposed mechanisms of action for lithium and, if interested, check out the Wiki page here.  I love ill-defined chemical mechanisms, especially when an element is involved.  I'll return to this theme when I consider the essential role of boron (element 5, after beryllium) in plants. Meanwhile, I hope a lithium expert finds this blogpost and jumps in to correct me. I will retract the hypothesis.

Lithium Ion Batteries
Lithium ion batteries power lots of everyday electronic gadgets like cellphones, laptops and other electronic gadgets and, hopefully soon, lots of electric cars. Several generations of rechargeable batteries include lead-acid, nickel-cadium, nickel-metal hydride (NMH), lithium, and now lithium ion. By far and away the lithium ion battery is superior--enough to revolutionize the small gadget industry. Why is that?
First, it's very light. Lead-acid (think 12 V car batteries) and NMH batteries (think Prius batteries) are very heavy. Old fashioned carbon-zinc batteries are light but are not rechargable). Weight is very counterproductive deadweight when you're trying to move something around.
Second, lithium has a relatively high redox potential² for conversion of Li⁺ to lithium metal. Early lithium batteries did in fact use lithium metal and lithium ions, however it was quickly realized that the dangers of using lithium metal could not be overcome.  Lithium is a highly electropositive element and would seem well suited for 3 V applications. If you consider that the nominal voltage of common batteries: viz., AA, AAA, C, and D is, 1.5 V you'll realize that a 3.0 V battery would be useful, given that 3 V is commonly acheived by using two 1.5 V batteries in series. (This is why so many devices use two such batteries head to tail).
Lithium’s exceptional light weight is currently wasted in present generation batteries, especially automobile-sized ones: the battery train for the Chevy Volt weighs about 600 lbs. Much of this weight is due to cobalt oxide present. However, next generation breathing batteries intend to do away with the relatively heavy cobalt or iron-based components. I really hope the Volt does well and I suspect it will. Detroit needs a home run like the Toyota Pruis. I think the Volt is especially suited for the urban coastal hipsters. Me? I'll stick with diesel for the time being.

Lithium in Synthetic Organic Chemistry

The wonderful and unique properties of lithium just go on and on. A single inorganic compound, LiAlH₄ or LAH in the parlance, enabled the synthesis of entirely new classes of compounds, including pharmaceuticals. Organolithiums are a class of compounds wherein lithium replaces a hydrogen atom.  They are useful because they allow carbon in a hydrocarbon to behave as a negatively charged anion-a carbanion. Carbon normally engages in chemical reactions as an electrophile, i.e., having a tendency to attract negatively charged coupling partners. An obvious example of this is peptide synthesis in which donor nitrogen meets acceptor carbon.
Alkali metals, Li, Na, potassium, etc. dissolve in liquid ammonia to give intense blue solutions. Liquid ammonia itself is colorless, and so are solutions of Li⁺.  The blue color comes from solvated electrons:
              Na   --------> Na⁺ [e^–]
                        NH₃
The compound is called sodium electride.  You can watch it form here

Worries About Lithium Supplies
Worries about Bolivia becoming the Saudi Arabia of lithium are overblown. First of all, the photos (see above) are deceptive: those miles and miles of white salt flats are not heaps of lithium salt: it’s mainly just dried up sodium chloride. The salts are enriched in lithium carbonates. Unlike fossil fuels, the lithium inside batteries is not destructively consumed. Lithium is not a source of energy: remember that the energy has to put back inside the batteries. We have ample domestic sources for the time being from the brines of Searles Lake, CA and in Nevada.

Last but not least, don't forget the dilithium crystals!
______________________________
¹Functional Group defined
² Redox Potential is term of art and usually refers to chemical element's potential to gain or lose an electron. In lithium, there is a high propensity for the metal to lose one electron and thus obtain the noble gas electronic configuration of helium.

Guns and Newspapers

January 13, 1952

Fort Knox KY


Dear Mom, Dad and all,


If that check don’t come soon I will have to see the Capt. to see why it hasn’t been sent out. [1] Did you find any use for that apron like bag I sent?
It was my turn for K.P. I didn’t get out because I was late. One of the other boys folks sent the Dem.[2]  I see that show was on today in Center. Can you send the picture out of the Capital Times?[3]
According to my figures I owe J__ $290.00 that’s what you had figured too.
We won’t be driving tanks this week. We will be shooting .30 cal. machine guns and M1 rifles.[4] We have classes tomorrow and shooting 4 days. Next week we will be shooting 75 mm tank guns for 2 weeks. Our last 2 weeks will be out in the woods. We will have our full field packs that weigh about 50 lbs. I think we go out 28 miles and then each day come back so many miles till we are back.
Tell R__ as far as I am concerned he can use the pickup. Its kind of cold with one window gone and no heater. It needs 2 brake rods. Ask R___ if he knows how to take that fender skirt off that is bent. I might have him take it down to Wilson’s and have it ground it out and painted moonstone grey. You won’t have to put it back in till I get there. Loosen the two back bolts. Take out the middle one and slide that arm one way or the other. Think you can do it?

love
V.

---------------------------------------------------

[1] Many servicemen sent part or most of their monthly earnings to designated bank accounts back home. Here he seems to be complaining about the slowness of his allotment account being set up. For a while it must have seemed that his money was disappearing into black hole. He must have thought it was a real SNAFU.

[2] The Richland Democrat, now defunct, was one of two newspapers serving the local Richland Center newspaper market. 

[3] The Capital Times was a Madison daily founded in 1917. The paper only ceased daily publication in April, 2008 and becoming an internet-based news entity. My dad worked for the Cap Times in the '60's and '70s, begining as a printer and then moving into graphic arts as a paste-up artist, assembling the pages, e.g. cutting the columns, getting all the news and ads to fit and flow correctly on deadline.  He actually worked for Madison Newpaper Inc., a jointly-owned entity which printed both the Wisconsin State Journal (the morning daily) and The Capital Times (the afternoon daily). When I was a kid, both newspapers were located in the same building just off the Capitol Square on 113 S. Carroll Street. I have fond memories of visiting the "composing room" which seemed one of those very busy, very grown-up places.

[4] The .30 cal machine gun was no doubt a Browning M1919, then the infantry standard; the M1 semi-automatic rifle was the standard infantry weapon of WW II and Korea. M16's replaced M1's during Vietnam and became the standard issue carbine.

Browning M1919 .30 caliber Machine Gun

Next to the bomb, the machine gun is perhaps the most wicked device ever invented.  Leonardo da Vinci, that celebrated renaissance man, gets the credit.

Familial Ties That Bind

A letter received from home prompted my father to send a second letter back home within a week.  Here he responds to news about the birth of a nephew (my cousin).  He avoids the topic at first, but then reacts with a mixture of mild derision and scolding:

January 9, 1952
Fort Knox, KY


Dear Mom, Dad and all,
I got your letter yesterday and couldn’t answer it that night because we was out on the tank range from 8:00 tue. morning till 8:00 that night. It takes about an hour to drive out. We went on a hike today and will be going out to drive again in about two hours. We won’t be back until midnight.
I am sending the income tax statement they gave us today. I suppose you will have to add it into my ’51 earnings. I hope I don’t have to pay any extra money. I shouldn’t have to.  It’s going to be a bad night because it’s raining now. I got all kinds of clothes so we don’t get to wet.

Sure was surprised to hear A__ had her baby.  J__’s tied down now. Ha! Ha! I don’t care for the name either.[1]  

I got my fatigues so now you can patch those ones in my trunk. I am going to use them instead of new ones they gave us. We have to turn them in at the end of training. That way I can bring a good pair home. I already got them put away. Send them next week if you can.  We have to turn in a lot of our clothes and get new ones. Wish I had an old field jacket so I could do the same thing.

11:00 Tues night


We just got back and I am going to get ready to go to bed. The mud out there was about 2 ft. deep.  We have been using 150 gallons of gas a day and about 5 gallons of oil. Part of the time we had to drive without lights. I will sign off for now. 

love,
V.


P.S. It didn’t rain but it is getting colder.

----------------------------------------

[1] "A" is his sister-in law and the wife of his older brother "J" who was then serving in combat in Korea. I think he's expressing his version of disapproval because J and A had been married just 3 months when their first child was born.  Premarital sex was still highly taboo in the 1950's, even more so if a child resulted. I mean, the innocence of Beach Boy's "Wouldn't It Be Nice" was still in place 15 years later.  I don't know the detailed circumstances of my aunt and uncle's marriage, i.e., whether it was delayed to so close to the birth of their first child because of his active deployment to Korea. But I do know that they eventually had 3 more children and that they both remain alive, well, and happily married 58 years later!

Carnot Knowledge: Rudolf Diesel's Awesome Idea

Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913)

Ordinary gasoline engines are powered by the sparked ignition of gasoline vapor compressed with air. The heat of combustion and increased exhaust gas pressure drives pistons, doing useful work derived from the chemical energy stored in the fossil fuel. Gasoline engines behave according to the Otto Cycle and the ideas originally date from the mid-19th century.

Rudolf Diesel, a German engineer, understood the engines of his day and had the radical idea of compressing air inside the piston until it became so hot that fuel would spontaneously ignite when it contacted the hot pressurized air, thus not requiring a spark plug. In essence, Diesel reengineered the existing Otto cycle and invented engines that behaved according to the Diesel Cycle.

Diesel based his ideas on his understanding of the thermodynamics of heat engines, a young science begun by the French engineer Sadi Carnot and who later became known as the father of thermodynamics.

US Patent No. 542,846: "Method of and Apparatus for Converting Heat into Work (Link) was awarded to Diesel and has a clear and concise explanation of how and why diesel motors work. In Diesel's own words (or more likely those of his patent attorney):

The gases in the cylinder are now permitted to expand with gradual introduction of fuel and expansion is so regulated that the decrease in temperature by expansion counterbalances the heat produced by the combustion of the fresh particles of fuel. The effect of combustion will therefore not be increase in temperature or pressure, but increase in actual energy exerted.

Diesel also solved another important problem that still limits the efficiency of gasoline engines, viz., the tendency for gasoline motors to knock or ping due to "predetonation." Autoignition is precisely what diesel motors are supposed to do, albeit in a controlled way.  In a diesel motor, the air and fuel are pressurized separately and then mixed. Because diesel motors burn at hotter temperatures than gasoline engines do, they have a tendency to "burn air," forming nitrogen oxides from the normally inert N₂ and O₂ that make up the air we breathe. Precious metal catalysts are used to convert the nitrogen oxides back into oxygen and nitrogen.

Today, diesel motors find widespread use in nearly all commercial transportation applications: trucks, trains, ships, submarines, and, as I learned from Theo Boehm, even in aviation (BTW, did you know that aviation gasoline still has lead? Link--fine particles of lead oxide (or actually lead chloride or bromide) rain down on us everyday. Europeans use diesel motors far more commonly than we do for personal transportation.

I'm sold on diesels. I own a 2003 VW Golf Diesel (TDI) and I love it. It gets around 43 MPH on the highway and not much less in city because it's a stick. Another advantage to owning a diesel in CA is that they are exempt from smog-testing.

Letters Home: "I can pick up a lot of hillbilly and western that comes in from Nashville"

The Army used to have four heavy armor divisions, viz., the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Armored Divisions (ADs).  Of these, only the 1st AD remains active.  The 3rd AD was established during WW II and saw a lot action in the European Theatre. More info here.  After WW II, the 3rd Armored Division (The "Third Herd") was reestablished at Fort Knox KY, which had been a fortified encampment since the Civil War. My father was in the 3rd AD during the Cold War between the years 1951 to 1953. In this letter home he describes additional training as well as off-duty diversions. Footnotes are mine:

January 6th, 1952

Dear Mom, Dad and all,

Today is Sunday and I haven’t got anything to do so I thought I would drop you a line. I am listening to a program from Chicago.[1]  That’s the nearest home radio station. I can pick up a lot of hillbilly and western that comes in from Nashville.[2]

We had to go out Sat. morning and clear some land. They are making a new training course. It will be too muddy this winter for us to use it. We might have to in the spring if the weather dries up. Did you get that box? I got the socks and pants Sat.

It snowed about a hour here this morning, but it all melted off in 2 hrs. I think it will clear up for Monday. I went to the show last night. The Sell Out was the name of it.  Has that show about tanks come to R.C. yet? [3]

We start our 6th week training tomorrow. I guess we have to make up the two weeks during leave, in the spring. I heard we would be through training March 27, but I don’t know how true it is. Anyway it won’t be so cold here that time of year.

Have you heard that new song out Shrimp Boats is a Coming? [4] I think it’s a old song revised.

Did F____ make it back to camp alright? Some of the boys around here are still AWOL. Absent without leave.

I had two teeth filled Sat. afternoon. It was a couple that E___ was supposed to fix but I never got around to getting a appointment. I have to go again the 15th. I don’t think I need anymore fillings. I suppose he is going to clean them. As long as it don’t cost me anything, I am going to let them fix um up.[5] Some of the guys need work in their teeth worse than I do but we are going ABC and so on down the line. I wrote J__ a letter last week so should be hearing from him next week or the week after. [6] We have been having nice weather except yesterday it rained. Its getting along towards chow time so will sign off for now.

love, 

V.

___________________________
[1] WLS (890 AM), I presume. WLS has been around forever and had the strongest signal out of Chicago.
[2] In the early 1950's, "Hillbilly and Western" was synonymous with "Country and Western". The term "Country" later replaced "Hillbilly" because the latter term was considered degrading Link.  Nashville, home base for the Grand Ole Opry, was slowly being challenged by Memphis, which was then birthing the musical fusion only later called Rock n Roll.
[3] "Show" is short for "picture show" which was then a common term in rural Wisconsin. The show he's referring to coming to Richland Center is "The Tanks Are Coming".
[4] The song is actually called "Shrimp Boats" and was recorded by Jo Stafford.
[5] This is the healthcare public option in a nutshell: I want healthcare, but I want it to be free. :)
[6] J__ was his older brother, and was then stationed in Korea.

"I am listening to some Kentucky hillbilly music now"

This is the fourth post in a series.  Previous posts are here, here, and here. Or just click on the tag "Letters Home".
Having spent Christmas back home in Richland Center, my father hopped a train back to Fort Knox from Madison via Chicago and Louisville.  Here he tells of his brief layover at Chicago's Union Station and admits to his parents that he listens to "Kentucky hillbilly music."  Can you guess whose photo that is?

December 29, 1951

Dear Mom, Dad and all,

I got to camp at 9:00 this morning. It sure was a tiresome ride from Chicago. We was supposed to be in Chicago at 1:00 fri. afternoon and I didn’t get there till 3:00 so I had to wait till 11:00 that night to catch the next train. I walked up to State St. Sure is a lot bigger than the one in Madison. I saw a helicopter land on a big building.

I forgot and brought my car keys so I am sending them and some other things home the first of the week. R’s $5 will be in it to. Did you get the check yet? It should be coming. I got paid as soon as I got here.

I had to open the big casing bag again because my train ticket was in it. Ha! Ha! It didn’t tear out too much. I will either sew it or get the shoe cobbler to sew it next Sat.  I am going to take a hot shower and go to bed tonight. I forgot and left my other necktie. You can send it sometime. Among some of the mail that was waiting for me was a Christmas card from Mr. and Mrs. H__ D__.

I am listening to some Kentucky hillbilly music now. My radio works good. It rained here Christmas but that was all the bad weather they had here for the last week. It looks cloudy out now and like rain.

There sure was a lot of snow in Chicago. Some of the streets were blocked off. When we left Chicago I had 85¢. It cost 75¢ by Greyhound from Louisville to Knox, 32 miles and 10¢ from the main post to my barracks so I just broke even. It’s a good thing we got paid today. I still got some of the hard candy I got over to grandma’s. [1]

I didn’t get to buy the kids much but I will bring something home in the spring. There is a lot of things at the PX I could get if I had the money that D__ and B__ would like. I might be able to save a little besides the $50 I send home a month.

I didn’t know I had seen the loop [2] till I got back to camp and was telling a boy some of the places I saw on State and Madison Str’s.

I got K.P. tomorrow so I doubt if I will get to go to church tomorrow. I won’t mail this till Mon.

I carried that light plug all the way down here. I washed out 2 pair of socks tonight. I didn’t get much sleep on the train last night so am going to bed about 8:00 tonight. I will have to get up early for K.P. 6:30 I think on Sunday.

Sun night.

I had to get up at 6:45 this morning and I was through at 7:00 tonight. It wasn’t too bad this time. L__ was over a while. This coming week won’t be too bad, because some of the boys are home for New Years. The weather has been hot lately. I hope it can stay that way for a while.

love, 

V.

-------------------------------------
[1] "I got over to grandma's" is pure Wisconsin dialect wherein "over to" substitutes for "at". I recall my father saying "over to" such and such a place meaning "at" such and such a place. Interestingly, German has a similar construction: cf. zu Hause which literally recites "to home" but means "at home".

[2] The loop: Link

With the Power Trio of Soul, Anything was Possible

From the same New Years show 1969-70:



I've always loved the structure of this song--it's a real composition. I used to know the entire drum part by heart. IMO Mitch Mitchell was a better drummer for Jimi overall, but Buddy Miles did a great job at these shows, except when he tried to upstage Hendrix's singing.
And Billy Cox was a way better bassist than the racist Noel Redding. Just sayin'. I mean, just listen to that groovy bassline supporting Jimi's wailing minute-long solo beginning at the 0.21 min mark.

[note added]: Hendrix and Cox were stationed together at Fort Campbell KY about 10 years after my father was there.

[Another note added: the original video I linked here no longer works so I swapped it out. The first one was actual footage from the New Years Eve show. If I find it again I'll put it up here again.]

Happy New Year First Of All!

Since I've already had all the kids I want, let me just say that I'd give my left nut to go back in time to the Fillmore East the night of New Year's Eve 1969/70. I was but a wee lad of 10 when Hendrix died, but I still remember hearing the news and talking about it with another 5th grader: