Newcomer's Welcome Package: Thule Air Base, Greenland [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Newcomer's Welcome Package: Thule Air Base, Greenland [pdf]

download.militaryonesource.mil

132 pointstroydavis59 comments

Interesting, it reads a lot like the USAP participant [0] and field manuals [1]:

[0] https://www.usap.gov/USAPgov/travelAndDeployment/documents/P...

[1] https://www.eol.ucar.edu/system/files/usap-field-manual.pdf

You can also find guides for Summit Station (a US/Greenland research base) https://geo-summit.org/documents; in fact most of these bases have publicly available guides and it's fun comparing what facilities are available compared to what you have at your own base. I remember watching the Australian WIFFA [2] movie this year and thinking that damn, these guys have a brewery? Sadly it turns out that got banned this year [3].

Though somewhat funny that it recommends finding an interesting rock to make a belt buckle or gift, that's an absolute no-no in Antaractica.

[2] https://www.wiffa.aq

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-28/antarctica-alcohol-cr...

I'm surprised to see the winter film festival films posted out in the open - my recollection (from 2014 winter, hi!) was that those weren't supposed to be shared off-Ice. People are shy, unsanctioned stuff goes in to the films, authorities often don't take criticism well...

>While at Thule, it’s recommended that you walk on the left side of the road facing oncoming traffic. Although contrary to stateside standards, this will enable you to watch for vehicles and to get out of the way should they not see you.

I have always found this to make extremely good sense, but I see quite few doing it besides me.

As a German, I learned this as a rule. Outside of towns when there is no sidewalk, always walk on the left side, against oncoming traffic.

From the StVO, the law, the road traffic regulations, §25 section 1, first paragraph (German): https://www.stvo.de/strassenverkehrsordnung/108-25-fussgaeng...

> außerhalb geschlossener Ortschaften muss am linken Fahrbahnrand gegangen werden

"Outside of towns pedestrians have to walk on the left side"

Just an aside, while looking at that website, the banner image at the top looks clearly seems to be of an American road. On a German website about German road laws.

In Portugal there used to be road signs on the right side lane telling pedestrians to cross over to the left so they’d face oncoming traffic. Haven’t seen one in ages but they probably still exist.

I'm pretty sure that's what is recommended here in Québec, Canada when there's no sidewalk.

Seems weird that it wouldn't also be the case in the US.

It is the case in the US (or has been since I was a child in the 80s) so I find the quote weird. You are supposed to walk opposite traffic for the reason described. It is standard guidance every I have lived (a large chunk of the US).

FWIW - growing up in Ontario, Canada I was always told to walk in the direction of traffic. It seemed odd to me to turn my back to danger, but that’s what they taught us.

In Finland it depends, with sidewalk and in populated areas the normal right side traffic is to be followed. At highways it is recommended to use left side specially during dark.

Yeah, in the US I learned walk/run opposing traffic, and ride your bike with traffic.

I learned to walk on the left as a child in the 1960s (from my mom and dad, who learned as children in the 1930s).

It's what I was taught in the US as well, if you're on foot you should be going opposite traffic

I grew up in the states and was always taught to walk against traffic. Not sure where they're teaching people the opposite.

Places where people think being right/having the right of way triumphs being alive.

FWIW, I knew a guy who was riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, technically going the "wrong" direction. He crossed a commercial business park driveway and got hit by a car who didn't see him, and got a lot of hassle from insurance because he was going the "wrong" way for that side of the street.

Looking back, that may have been the insurance company looking to skirt responsibility.

I think they're talking about walking. Riding a bike is different-- for one, it's illegal in a lot of places to ride on the sidewalk in a business district. For another, the transfer of momentum is appreciably less in a same-direction collision between a car/bike compared to head-on.

I was talking about walking - for biking, I was taught to ride with traffic.

The sidewalks on either side are a bad place for cyclists for this reason. They are banned from sidewalks in many places for the safety of the cyclist, not so much the pedestrians.

That's what I was taught in the Boy Scouts, over 40 years ago.

If you are walking, yes, but cycling or running - for sure No! - especially at night. If driver takes right turn. I've seen cases (in Venice (Los Angeles)) where cars would slam into cyclists on the wrong side of the path.

I think maybe the military standard is walking on the right by their wording. I was mostly taught if there wasn't a sidewalk to walk against traffic and to cycle with traffic.

edit: dug a little bit and found [0] which says DoD personnel are supposed to walk against traffic too so no idea.

[0] https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/do... p.13 3.4.a.2

The sly humor really makes this document readable. I love the list of what the base does NOT have, including "spiders or snakes!"

And no 18 hold golf course, just two 9 hole ones!

The land of contrasts is very much a simpsons reference.

The bit about giant worms is a dune reference.

I also like how they have both reliable and undependable communications:

Even though we have reliable telecommunications throughout the base, these services are limited and sometimes undependable due to connections.

"A view of the "Northern Lights" (as we are about 500 miles too far north to see them (and if/when we do see them, they are the "Southern Lights")"

They are so far north than the Northern Lights are to the south! :)

WORMHOLES

No there are not giant arctic worms here at Thule. What happens is the sun melts the top layer of snow and ice during the day, and then freezes during the night. You can’t tell from looking whether there’s snow, water, ground, or just open space underneath it, or how high it is. Sticking to the roadways is your best option.

Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdU2z4cDJdk

Last week I watched an old Nova episode[0] about a harrowing attempt to restore a B-29 that had been abandoned 50 years prior a few hundred miles outside Thule. It turns out that Greenland is a difficult place to do basic things, let alone repair a massive decaying old warbird.

[0] https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-b-29-frozen-in-time/

I've come to love cold, dry, desolate places. (Such as Montana). The downsides aren't nearly what people make them out to be, and the upsides are amazing. Cold really isn't that bad, and winter hobbies are a lot of fun.

I'm sitting here in rural Saskatchewan right now, absolutely loving life. We got this property dirt cheap ($1 for the lot, $300 in gas to move a free mobile home to the lot, ~$4000 to trench water and gas). Until last week, the only downside was the lack of decent Internet for being able to work from out here, but... thank you Starlink! Last week we went from tethering to a distance tower, to 250Mbit downlink measured this morning.

Starlink really makes the difference from even not so remote locations--such as my dad's house on coastal Maine--from being basically somewhere I could not work from to somewhere I could.

Jealous. What tools do you use to find land for $1? Obviously these kinds of properties are specialty and not going to be posted on Zillow or something.

Well, it's a long story but my wife's family farm is two miles from here. Hopefully this doesn't make the jealousy worse, but it's actually 3 large lots; the north-most one has an old United Church on it. Several generations of her family were baptized there, etc. In 1999 the town wanted someone to take it over, and she offered to.

It's all "free as in puppies" though. The church needs a new roof this year (ahem, maybe more like 10 years ago...) and that's going to cost about $25k. It's a beautiful building though, and we have aspirations to modernize it somewhat (more insulation, natural-gas-fired forced air heating, water...).

Starlink honestly will help with all of that effort though. Right now our primary house is about an hour away in a city, and it was a pretty big hassle to come out here to work on things for an evening/weekend. I can generally work remote though, so I can just come out here for a week, put in my work hours and then pick away at things in the mornings/evenings.

Having lived in such places, the winters are often colder, but in my opinion way better than the more temperate coastal winters.

I can remember walking to school in -25C weather, but there was no wind and not a cloud in the sky. Contrast this with the cloudy, icy winters further East and I'd take the Western winters any day.

I have a friend that was stationed there, in the 1970s, or so.

He said that a favorite prank on newcomers, was to completely mess with their circadian rhythm, by waking them up at random times, and telling them it was time to go on duty.

From the pdf, page 3 at the bottom:

"Simply put, Thule exists today in order to support the operation of the solid-state phased-array radar located at the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), Site I. The BMEWS site is located approximately 11 miles northwest of the main base.

It provides early warning detection of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches from the Russian land mass and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launches from the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans against North America. Additionally, BMEWS keeps track of polar orbiting satellites. "

It also serves as a convenient staging point for Operation Boxtop, the resupply of Eureka and Alert.

Alert in particular plays a very important role, and the intelligence it collects is vital.

Thanks! I wasn't aware, and not sure why kept on reading that pdf... I've actually did not know what donning and doffing means (it was about donning and doffing your arctic gear), and with this pandemic I should've known, but found quick video on youtube about it -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCzwH7d4Ags

> The BMEWS site is located approximately 11 miles northwest of the main base.

It’s actually northeast - I hope none of the airmen got lost wandering off in the wrong direction!

When I was in Iceland, I considered a side trip to Greenland, just because no one I knew had ever been there.

I thought better of it when I realized it's a 3-hour flight from Reykjavik, and very, very little tourist infrastructure.

But I'd love to go to Thule. I bet you could give a talk on practically ANY topic, and everyone would show up! What else is there to do?

(although on pp. 18-21, I see that maybe everyone would be way too busy with all those activities.)

Just hear about the big crater nearby!

https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-crater-under...

All that info and not a single word about hydrogen bombs ?

Probably need a higher clearance to be reminded of that embarrassing little story.

But I admit, I was looking for it as well:)

Based on the uniforms mentioned, this was written between 2008-2011. There's some other clues as well, CD players, PS3, etc.

Although, I wouldn't doubt that it's "current".

A rare opportunity to indulge a question I've harboured for some time: how do the servicemembers assigned to Thule Air Base pronounce it?

I was educated by Anthroposophists so when I read that noun my inner voice pronounces it, er, Bavarian. I've never had a chance to ask someone who would know how USAF says it, but I'd guess it isn't that.

"Too-lee" (https://www.peterson.spaceforce.mil/Thule-AB-Greenland/).

A family member that was in the USAF talks about this base* and pronounces it /'tuli/ (like "duly" in "duly noted".)

*Also that getting posted there was idiomatic for pissing off the wrong person. As in, "Don't piss them off or you'll end up in Thule Greenland". It wasn't considered a desirable posting, at least not by many. Enough so that it provided what these days is called "assignment incentive pay".

>pronounces it /'tuli/

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50967/20-towns-named-oth...

> Also that getting posted there was idiomatic for pissing off the wrong person.

When I was a kid the usual way to refer to this was "He'll be pushing a broom in Thule"

I roll BJJ with a man formerly stationed there - when speaking of it he goes with the “obvious” American way where the “th” sounds like the “th” in “the” with the “ule” a bit like the German “öl” as pronounced by an American, rather than the suggested Swedish-style pronunciation suggestion by other HNers.

I’m not finding it off-hand, but if you’ve ever seen the Hellboy movie I believe it sounds as the professor pronounces the “Thule Occult Society.”

Perhaps I need to finally learn the IPA for this comment...

Last two sentences: <<Thule is the only Air Force base with no aircraft and A tug boat. The library offers two videos, ―Operation Blue Jay" and ―Camp Century," that better explain how the base was built and the events that have taken place in this region.>>

Are these publicly available? YouTube?

I found these:

Operation Blue Jay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWUBGY6mYOM

Camp Century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG5tWbTCocA

On the topic of Greenland, this episode of Fall of Civilizations is worth a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmbY-GrM8pI

> The Thule Chapel provides a wide range of Catholic and Protestant programs for the base community through resident Air Force chaplains. Representatives from other faith groups are provided on an ―as needed‖ basis. Worship services and a variety of Bible studies and adult education forums are offered weekly. Laity-led advisory councils help design, develop, and carry out the many activities provided. Ecumenical and interfaith services emphasize our unity at Thule.

Yet another example of what a bang-up job our government does at keeping church and state separate.

In the US, the idea of "separation of church and state" is very imprecise. The actual law is the First Amendement to the US Constitution, and the various Supreme Court decisions that have interpreted and applied it.

Go read the text of the First Amendment, and tell me where you got the idea that the military can't provide chaplains or religious services, on an egalitarian basis, to people in the armed forces.

Religion is a critical part of the lives of huge numbers of human beings. While it's not for everyone, emotionally healthy, mature atheists and non-believers generally understand and accept that religious beliefs and practices have for our neighbors.

I'm an atheist. I'm also truly glad that the Air Force is providing space for worship, employing chaplains, and encouraging it's people to participate in their religious activities. Given the hardship and isolation of serving at Thule, I think the least we can do is to help them meet their religious needs.

How so? They tried to provide the people stationed there with a place to worship. If they didn’t, wouldn’t that be persecuting them, since they may not have a choice in where they are stationed.

Even an atheist commanding officer will tell you: meeting the religious needs of servicemembers is very important to the U.S. military. It's a morale thing and morale is critical for a high-functioning force. There is an entire military occupational speciality (i.e. job title) for both chaplains (officers) and chaplains assistants (enlisted). Chaplains from a wide variety of faiths can be found in the U.S military but even a chaplain of a different faith than your own is available for counseling. In a forward-deployed situation, the chaplain can even function like a therapist for servicemembers who need and seek help. They also assist the commander with non-religious activities relating to morale and welfare. If, for example, you had a hurt servicemember in the hospital, a commander might send the chaplain to go and check on them.

In this chap’s defence (defense?), the USAF did find itself in hot water over a culture of enforced theism at the Air Force Academy so some sensitivity to the issue might be reasonable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Academ...

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