#jeff nagy

[bibliomancyoracle]

                        Allow an adjustment to happen

                                    Wordlessly…

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from "CHESHIRE CHATS" by JEFF NAGY

[bibliomancyoracle]

            If the world is still spinning that means you’re still on it

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from "PALISADE" by JEFF NAGY

[operationzeus]

On Moral Injury: Part II

I introduced the concept of moral injury in Part I a few months back as the “gap” that exists in what we believe about reality and what actually happens in reality itself, as it pertains to our combat and military experiences.  We brought packed duffle bags with us when we took the oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America.  The duffle bags were full of a precise packing list and also included all the values, ethics, and beliefs that made us who we were before Basic Training (BCT) and Advanced Individual Training (AIT).  The combat training we received either confirmed or built upon the values we already had within us.  Sure, we may have learned some new values from the Soldier’s and NCO creed and Army Core Values, but I challenge you and say they were already in you and merely sharpened and refined and then validated within a strong social unit comprised of people with the same goals.   

I have been blessed to be able to listen to hundreds of stories from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and our generation of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.   Based on those stories and a few from my own experiences, the events that create serious moral injuries seem to be those involving women and children non-combatants.  One soldier I know shared with me about his haunting memories of being told to drive through streets of civilians and “feeling” bodies (some children) careening off his Humvee (HMMWV); of course he had to do this to avoid being a sitting duck in an ambush.  Following such horrible events involving women and children “innocents” are stories where the death of a fellow service member did not “make sense” as it was not imagined by us as a possibility for a combat casualty.  Personally, of all the casualties and insanity of combat the one event that still grips my heart and brings tears to my eyes is that of a soldier who died from an exploding formation penetrator blast while simply on an admin “mission” involving the accounting of a .50cal barrel for a layout.  It just does not make sense to me and never will, but I am trying.

Imagination of possibilities.  Moral imagination.  Most of us could not have fathomed, when being trained for combat operations, that we may have to run over children playing in the streets or that one of our own would be killed doing something that seems absurd and meaningless in a war zone.  But war is chaos and confounds even the amazing human imagination.  What comforts me is the fact that all of us, from World War I to today have been guided with the same values and creeds and have had our own concepts of right and wrong challenged in ways we could have never imagined from our war experiences.  This is why telling our story to others, writing our experiences down, and serving in government is so important for future generations.   We may have to live with the struggles of survivor guilt and what if’s, but we can help expand the moral imagination of what is possible in combat, the unimaginable, for the next generation of service members…and there will be a next generation, this is America after all!

Please contact us and share your stories and struggles with moral injuries from your combat service.     

…My name is Jeff Nagy and I am a former Combat Medic and veteran in the 2008-09 Battle for Sadr City.  I am completing my PhD in Global Health where I study combat related stress injuries, risk factors and mechanisms of resilience (and we combat vets are the most resilient sons of bitches on the planet).  Like most of our followers, I have been given a diagnosis of PTSD by the VA.  I believe that what we as combat veterans have is not PTSD as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fifth edition (DSM V), but rather a biological injury.  It is my goal to build the biological model of combat stress injuries for what is now termed combat-related PTSD. 

Words by Dr. Jeffery Nagy

[mineral-metal-blog]

Feldspar Mining in Maryland

Pictured above at the long abandoned Tunnel Feldspar Mine in Howard County, are Maryland Park Service Supervisor for Patapsco Valley State Park Michael Burditt and Jeff Nagy. The latter's work continues regarding an updated revision of the 1980 Maryland Geological Survey publication Minerals of the Washtington, D.C. Area. Nagy located the Tunnel Mine by first researching literature written in the 1920's at the Maryland Geological Survey. Later, he reached the site after assuming that what today is a driveway appeared as "Tunnel Road" on a 70 year old map. The 1940 Natural History Society of Maryland publication Minerals of Maryland by Ostrander and Price also mentions the Tunnel Mine.  Noted is  how the adit "cuts into pegmatite rich in white potash feldspar." Located less than a mile into Howard County beyond Marriottsville, it is on land that the State of Maryland leases to active present farming interests. 

The adit leads into a water-filled tunnel about 150 yards to the left as one heads up the driveway. Nagy does not know how far back it leads. Minerals of Maryland reports the occurrence of "white cleavage microcline, microcline crystals, a little mucscovite, biotite, and black tourmaline" at the mine.  In the mica schist close by, were reported kyanite, staurolite, garnets, limonite psueudomorph after pyrite, and quartz crystals." Nagy has also perused literature from the U.S. Geological Survey citing  the Tunnel Mine as a locality for beryl. But today, vegetation has long covered any dumps that may once have been, and the face of the cliffs near and surrounding the adit show little to attract collectors. 

Interestingly, the available literature (unless we have missed something) shows the Tunnel Mine as Maryland's only feldspar mine.  Less than a mile away, however, about hundred yards upstream from Marriottsville along the Carroll County bank of the Patapsco, is an adit leading into what obviously  was another feldspar mine. The Maryland DNR Trail Guide has even mapped this  adit as a cave. Water has not invaded it. Nagy ventured  inside  in 2010 with Maryland collector Fred Parker and a reporter from NPR  to broadcast a story about the mine's existence. Nagy recalls the opening reaching back approximately 300 navigable feet. 

Based on  personal visits to both localities, as well as input from Jeff Nagy and Fred Parker, the likelihood of finding collectible minerals at either locality is slim at best. Regardless, laws prohibiting collecting  in the Patapsco Valley State Park are rigidly enforced. Breaking them entails  theft of State property.  Access to see the Tunnel Mine would require permission  from the active farmers who rent the land as well as the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.  The adit along the banks of the Patapsco near Marriottsville Road, however, is accessible to the curious, all the more so during seasons when the surrounding vegetation is minimal. 

[mineral-metal-blog]

An Humongous Maryland-Collected Ruby Corundum

Weighing 16 pounds, and measuring 8 1/2 inches x 6 inches x 5 inches and pictured above is the most spectacular and amazing Maryland collected mineral specimen of thousands upon which I have gazed. Shortly after a 2009 visit to the Maryland Geological Survey's Baltimore headquarters on St. Paul St. to view its Maryland minerals on display, my friend Jeff Nagy inquired if I'd seen a gigantic Maryland corundum rumored to be there. Absolutely not: To the best of my knowledge, no Maryland-collected corundum specimens were known to exist. Two and a half years later, Jeff called and invited me to accompany him to the MGS building for a visit with geologist Bob Conkwright, Jr., MGS Program Chief for Coastal and Environmental Geosciences. It turned out that for many years, this amazing specimen had served as a cherished doorstop in Bob's office. Bob collected it circa 1960 at age eleven in the company of his father while collecting at one of the three long abandoned Devries Quarries in Carroll County. Once mined for feldspar, two of the Devries openings sit adjacent to each other along a bluff overlooking the Patapsco River near Hentryton. Bob explained: "Start at the Henryton Tunnel and head downstream. The area was not as wooded back then, and there were just piles of dumps. I saw the weathered end of this thing sticking up and kicked it, hurting my toe. After a little digging, I first suspected it was some kind of hexagonal quartz cross-section." About a week after our visit with Bob, my friend Harold Levey joined me on a short hike heading north up the railroad tracks along the Patapsco from Marriottsville looking across the river for a spot that could be where Bob made his find. Sure enough, about a hundred yards downstream from the Henryton Tunnel, the two openings remained. Although a few pegmatite rocks were visible on the ground, any dumps that may once have existed had long succumbed to fluvial forces and/or been buried with soil as the area has become heavily wooded. Even so, a few pegmatite rocks were visible. Now part of Patapsco State Park, prohibitions against collecting are actively enforced with inordinately costly penalties. Open to question is whether this amazing piece was actually quarried from one of the openings upon whose quite shallow dumps Bob collected it. Could it have been loose in the soil/ saprolite layer, or even a product of blasting for construction of the Henryton Tunnel near the turn of the 20th Century? Bob Conkwright is eminently qualified to tackle these questions and has agreed to commit his thoughts to writing for an upcoming sequel to this post. What is clear, however, is that this unique find from a half century ago makes a strong case that additional corundum is somewhere about. And fortunately, there's no law against checking out the various ever-changing alluvial deposits in and along the Patapsco as it heads downstream.

[mineral-metal-blog]

Largest Native Maryland Faceted Gemstone in Existence

Editor's note: Jeff Nagy very kindly provided the stones that are pictured in this post for me to photograph and followed through by forwarding what is to follow. The narrative begins with a basic bulleted description of a cut stone from smoky quartz that he believes to be the largest faceted gemstone cut from Maryland material. His name for it is the "The Clarksville Sultan, "and here is his story. JWS THE LARGEST FACETED GEMSTONE CUT FROM NATIVE MARYLAND ROUGH

by Jeff Nagy.

"THE CLARKSVILLE SULTAN" SPECIFICATIONS

Faceting – William Nagy (Rockville, Maryland – Member of the GLMSMC)

Gem Material – Smoky Quartz (root beer color, Medium Saturation)

Origin of Rough – Clarksville, Maryland

71 facets + 18 girdle facets for a total of 89 facets

Weight – 72.5 carats

Dimensions – 29.82 mm x 23.36 mm x 18.70 mm.

Style – Modified Rectangular Cushion Cut

Name of Cut – “The Sultans Seat”

li>Designer – John Bailey After a few years of investigative work, culminating in 1988, noted Maryland mineral collector Fred Parker, was able to pinpoint the source of fine euhedral quartz crystals reported in the 1930’s by Ostrander and Price in their book, “Minerals of Maryland.” Within a short time of the re-discovery, however, Fred found the site being prepared for a housing development. Fred observed the progress of grading and patiently waited. His persistence paid off when the bulldozers uncovered the unmistaken outline of a decomposing, kaolinized pegmatite. Fred approached the site foreman and asked for permission to dig. Since the machines were leaving this area for a few weeks to concentrate on another section of the site, he was given permission. The rest is history. For the next few weeks, Fred was able to extract dozens of fine euhedral crystals, some root beer colored, some clear, of varying sizes and clarity. A few were the size of Coke Bottles. They are considered to be some of the finest quartz crystal specimens to have ever been found on the east coast. Fast forward to the summer of 2008, when I purchased a number of Maryland specimens from Fred’s collection, including a few of the coveted quartz crystals from the 1988 Clarksville find. I brought them home and examined each one carefully. As a faceter, I began to consider cutting one of the smaller crystals. I chose one that was promising; a root-beer colored crystal of approximately 400 carats, terminated on one end. It appeared to be almost flawless. The more I looked at it, the more I hesitated. I just couldn’t bring myself to cut it. So for the next three years it sat on a shelf in my shop. By the end of July, 2011, I had finally decided to take the plunge and commit to, what a fellow collector termed, “the act of barbarity.” In that three year interval my father, William Nagy, had become a gemstone faceter, learning the basics from Jim Perkins in Jim’s Ohio studio. So I decided to have dad cut the stone. In mid-August I visited my father, showed him the rough, and specified how I wanted the crystal cut. The center section was to yield the largest stone, a modified cushion cut. The terminated end was to be a round brilliant, executed in whatever variant my father wanted. The other end, where it looked like the crystal had been attached while it was growing, was left to the discretion of my father. By August 31st, dad had finished all three cuts. The results were amazing. The largest of the three, which I have named “The Clarksville Sultan,” is what I believe to be, the largest faceted gemstone in existence cut from native Maryland Material. It is a John Bailey design called “The Sultan’s Seat.” Details directions for cutting this design can be found on John Bailey’s website: http://www.gemstoneartist.com/designs/SltnSeat.pdf. It is a modified rectangular cushion cut, which John describes as “not quite an OMNI, but cuts a bit similarly.” It is comprised of 71 facets plus 18 girdle facets, for a total of 89 facets. There are two versions available; one with a keel pavilion, the other an apex pavilion. I opted for the apex pavilion. It was cut on a Facetron machine. The workmanship and artistry of the cut is outstanding, with meet-points dead on. The final polish was first done with a Raytech Last-Lap and 100K diamond powder in lamp oil, and then finished-off with a blue Ultra-Lap. The polish is exceptionally fine. It measures 29.82 mm x 23.36 mm x 18.70 mm, and weighs 72.5 carats. The stone is of a rich, light root-beer color with medium color saturation. As the crown facets were being cut one small feather was found. However, it is positioned in a section of the stone where it is not readily noticeable and does not detract from the appearance or performance of the stone, which is quite bright and flashy. The second gemstone is a round brilliant, 14.5 carats in weight, measures 16.9 mm, and exhibits the same rich color of its larger brother. The faceting and polish is superb; the final polish accomplished using a blue Ultra-Lap. The third stone, a smaller version of “The Sultan’s Seat,” weighs 3.0 carats. Its color is very light brown, not having the deep, rich color of the two larger stones. It measures 7.9 mm x 10.1 mm. The final polish was done with a blue Ultra-lap. My father, William Nagy, was taught to facet by Master-Faceter Jim Perkins. Dad’s expertise, patience, and artistry are exhibited in this distinctive gemstone. While not exceptionally large as gemstones go, it does however represent the untapped potential of a State that is not known for producing quality pieces such as this. There is more to come.

[mineral-metal-blog]

A Maryland Native Gold Classic

Simply try to imagine pulling from the ground ---in Maryland---the likes of what is pictured above. It was collected prior to 1940 at the Maryland Gold Mine near Great Falls in Montgromery County, Maryland, and measures 97.51 mm. x 39.1 mm. x 16.26mm. Once part of the Edgar T. Ingalls collection, it has been all but lost lost for 40 years. Mr. Ingalls, who died in 1974, was the the Maryland Gold Mine's gold-fevered foreman in the years before it closed in 1940 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt froze the gold price at $40 during the Great Depression. First opened in 1868, the Maryland Mine was the oldest and by nearly all accounts the richest of numerous gold mines and prospects in its immediate vicinity. When it closed, Mr. Ingalls went to work with the Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant on MacArthur Boulevard. He and his the family continued to live in the same Potomac farmhouse on Oaklyn Road During that period, Edgar T. Ingalls maintained the collection, which also included paintings of mining life by his wife Marie. He kept it at their Potomac farmhouse. a part of which became a mini-museum that was open to the public on weekends. Upon moving to North Carolina in 1971, he sold the entire collection to the U.S. National Park Service with the understanding that it be displayed for the the public to enjoy. This never happened; instead, all the material ended up packed away in boxes, first in the basement of the Great Falls Tavern, later in a facility at Antietam, after that in Springfield, Virginia. For years, the family shared concerns over what had happened to the collection, and ultimately became vociferous. Their pleadings prompted the National Park Service, at the direction of C&O Canal Historian Ahna Wilson, to locate the collection and transport it to the Park Service's Museum Resource Center in Landover, Maryland. That news, which the Washington Post reported in late April, reached Jeff Nagy, who is actively compiling and authoring an updated revision of the 1980 Maryland Geological Survey Publication Minerals of the Washington D.C. Area by Lawrence Bernstein. On July 12, 2011, I accompanied Jeff and the noted Maryland collector Fred Parker, who is helping research the book, to the Landover facility, where Ms. Wilson and a friendly National Park Staff had laid out the collection for us to examine and photograph. It included an array of gold ore samples, nuggets, amalgams, gold dust, tools, Marie's paintings, and even an ore cart. While it all proved to be of great interest, not to mention historical and educational merit, the content of this post's title picture amazed us most. Having long believed the Maryland gold specimen on display at the Smithsonian (pictured at right) to be the finest example of Maryland gold in existence, my opinion quickly changed. In a recent conversation, Edgar Ingalls' grandson Byron Ricketts, emphasized that his family feels very strongly that this collection deserves to be on display where the public can see it. So do Jeff Nagy, Fred Parker, and Yours Truly. That such material is part of our state's natural bounty is sure to fascinate plenty of Marylanders. Ahna Wilson agrees with us, and Jeff is already making inquiries.

[mineral-metal-blog]

Jeff Nagy Visits John White

Jeffrey W. Nagy, whose work continues with putting together an updated revision of Lawrence R. Bernstein's 1980 publication Minerals of the Washington D.C. Area, is a resident of Damascus, Maryland. John S. White, who among other things, founded Mineralogical Record and served as Curator in Charge of the Smithsonian's Division of Mineralogy from 1984 to 1991, had a hand in the earlier Bernstein original publication. He lives in Stewartstown, PA. Being in touch with both of them and situated midway between in Baltimore, it was recently my privilege to bring Jeff and John together at John's house just a few miles north of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line. Needless to say they had plenty to chat about as they observed the various suites of minerals in John's collection. I've always been quite amazed at how John's L shaped mineral room, except for the quartz cabinet pictured at left, appears almost devoid of minerals on display. Instead, most of his collection is arranged in suites in cabinets where the minerals, including numerous "floater" crystals as well as cabs and cut stones, rest neatly in wooden cases and pull-out drawers. John fashioned most of these himself in a section of his and Merle's garage, which doubles as a woodworking shop. A limited amount of dealer "inventory" in about a dozen cardboard flats fits neatly inside one of several enclosed cabinets lining the east wall. More visible are scores of books relating to mineralogy that fill bookshelves lining much of the wall space. To say the least, it's an impressive setting, the feng shui of which I had limited confidence that my camera could capture. As John and Jeff shot the breeze and looked at minerals, I was busy positioning and photographing a few selected specimens from a suite that included minerals collected in the Washington, D.C. area. One piece in particular of which I ended up with an amazing and beautiful shot was a dark green prehnite specimen adorned with a few epidote crystals. It was collected at the Fairfax Quarry in Centreville, Virginia, presumably sometime in the late 1970's, by the late and legendary George Brewer. Jeff requested that I refrain from publishing this photograph as well as other pertinent images in favor of having them debut upon release of the new Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area. Although Jeff has finished drafting most of the content, he is still in the midst of exploring a handful of localities that were lost in time when the original work was published. As much an historian as a mineral person, Jeff has found evidence in old land records of several likely mining operations in Montgomery County dating to pre-Revolutionary times in locations that might still prove to be accessible. He expects to have completed his research and drafting together with accompanying illustrations, maps, and photographs by the end of 2011.