Archive for the ‘Military’ Category

April Fools—only not!

April 1st, 2008

The head honcho of the Army (called the Chief of Staff of the Army, or CSA) is coming to visit the place where I work tomorrow. This is a humongous deal. Humongous! The CSA is the highest ranking guy in the Arm. The only way another Army officer could outrank him is if the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was an Army officer. (But currently it’s a NavyAdmiral.)

This is really a huge deal. Oh, I guess I said that already. The CSA is coming to see the organization I work with, not the host command, not the headquarters command. He’s coming to visit this small, little organization that’s a speck on the face of the Army. It’s obviously a real feather in the cap of the guy in charge of the organization, who isn’t even a general.
You should see the commotion. People clamoring for a chance to sit in the meeting with him. Some of them not even Army! (Fortunately, that was squashed.)

I so want to be someplace else tomorrow. But a couple of people in my “chain of command” will be here, so I figure I ought to be present. Of course, these two people (who have dissed me in the past—even though I was right and they were wrong) most likely won’t even give me the time of day. But that’s ok. I don’t really care for them anyway.

I’m so glad I don’t give a shit about the politics of the job. Of course, it’s probably part of the reason I’m not in a higher position (along with my incredibly under-achieving nature), but I don’t think I’d be genuine if I “played the game.”

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Some days are good, some are bad and some are good & bad.

December 10th, 2007

I often have a hard time letting things roll off my back. I’m much, much better than I used to be, but sometimes I still get pulled into that trap. That’s kind of how I’m feeling right now.

One of our senior sergeants, I guy I really like, retired today. Retirement and promotion ceremonies can be a formal or relaxed as you want. This one was pretty formal. Several of the military folks were in their “Class A Uniform” (as apposed to the “Army Combat Uniform,” or ACU, I see them in every day). I was walking down the hall and saw the unit’s senior enlisted man, who was coordinating everything. I commented that I barely recognized him all dressed up. He said “Master Sergeant B’s retirement ceremony is today. I think he’d like it if you were there.” I was planning to go anyway, but this little comment made me smile. When people I admire accept and appreciate me, it makes me feel good.

One of the neat things some of the enlisted folks did was present the flag, very similarly to how the honor guards do it. I always love the folding of the flag, because I have special memories of it. My dad taught me how when I was around 10 or so & in the Girl Scouts. (And when he died, his coffin was draped with the flag, because he was a veteran. As the American Legion fellows were folding it, and the bugle was playing taps, I could see my dad sitting in his comfy chair, leaning forward, instructing me fold by fold.) This folding was very precise and as each fold was made, the emcee spoke of what each fold means. I’d never heard that before and it was quite interesting, if a bit dated.

But this afternoon, all I got was “I need your help” for things that aren’t my responsibility and beyond my control. The crowning moment came when I sent a request to my headquarters asking for some assistance. What came back was a snotty e-mail saying to look it up on Google. The guy then called to say he had Googled it and found the answer in 2 minutes. As I was driving home, I wondered why this irritated me so much and found the answer. If I had been in his shoes and found the information, I would have passed it on.

People often tell me I’m too nice. Maybe I am, but I’m not sure I could live with myself any other way.

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Go Navy!

November 5th, 2007

Pardon me if my typing & proofing leaves more to be desired (that usual). My neck has been hurting like gangbusters the past couple days. So I’ve taken a slew of Motrin and thought that red wine might help, too. So far I’ve had 2 big glasses, and am not anywhere near ready to quit.

Saturday I went to dinner with friends. All but one of the friends are Navy vets. When I got to the restaurant, one was checking out the Navy-Notre Dame football game on the tv in the bar. It was toward the end of the game, and the score was 28-28. Obviously the game would go into overtime, but it was time for dinner. So we went back to our table, enjoyed the meal, then checked back with the bartener. The game was over & Navy had won, but we didn’t know the score. Turns out it was 46-44. We thought, that’s a hell of a lot of points scored in an overtime. Turns out it was three overtimes!

Another one of the friends pointed me to an article in the Washington Post about the game. Please go read it. (It’s short.) It made me swell with pride. I think most of you know that I was a Navy officer. I have friends who are still in the Navy who’ve done quite well. And more who retired. The article talked about what makes a military academy different from other colleges. And while I didn’t go to the Naval Academy, I did withstand four months of the type of waking up at 5:30 a.m., getting yelled at by upperclassmen, losing liberty for carrying a book bag improperly, standing watch from 0001-0400 (midnight to 4:00 a.m.) then having to get up at 5:30 a.m. and go through a normal day of fast paced classes, inspections and chores. Everyone who has gone through this process will tell the academics and physical tests are nothing compared to the stress and difficulty of enduring the life of a prospective sailor.

I remember when I first saw “An Officer and a Gentleman.” I was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island (just a gorgeous as you’d expect) and went to see the film with 3 others, 2 of them fellow Navy officers. After the movie, the one “civilian” asked “Is it (OCS) really that difficult?” I think we all laughed and said, “Oh, it’s much tougher.” If you’ve never been through experience, you really can’t understand. As I look back on it, I’m surprised I actually made it; yet it’s one of the things I’m proudest of.

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Remembering ADM Crowe

October 27th, 2007

The flag outside the building where I work was at half-mast this past week, in honor of ADM William Crowe, who’d served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff some years ago. I’d actually looked him up on Wikipedia last week because I thought his term as Chairman coincided with Dick Cheney’s tenure as Secretary of Defense (which is why I figured I had liked Cheney as SecDef). Turns out I was wrong, but it gave me a chance to read up on a man I really admired. He died the following day.

I never worked for ADM Crowe, but I was stationed in Naples, Italy when he served as Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, and I got to see bits and pieces of the type of man he was, and came away with three great “sea” stories.

1. When I first arrived in Naples, I signed up for a scuba diving class. There were a couple of attractive young adults in the class. As we went around and introduced ourselves, they said they were brother & sister, their names were Blake and Bambi, they were in college, but their father had just been stationed in Naples, so they came to spend the summer. I didn’t find out until over a year later, that their last name was Crowe. Not only did they not expect any special treatment as children of the most senior officer in the area, they actually down-played it.

2. The Officers Club (which was just across the parking lot from where I worked—but I’ll save those stories for another time) was nice, but wasn’t quite as lively as it wanted to be, especially when there weren’t any ships in port. So one Friday evening, the club had an event where all the drinks were free until the first person left. Then, that person had to pay for everyone’s drinks up to that point. (This was in the days before drunk driving became an issue; and, besides, this was Italy, where the wine is constantly flowing.) Of course, some of my co-workers & I went to support the club. The bar was packed and ADM Crowe was there. After an hour or so, ADM Crowe left. I didn’t see it, but my co-worker said that a couple of people had tried to leave, but were stopped at the door. One of the club employees let the Admiral know, so that he could be the first to leave and pay the tab. The whole event had been something he had planned with the club to enhance and support the military community.

3. My third story requires a little back-story. The Navy base that supported the U.S military in Naples was laid out along one side of one street. As you drove down the street, the first gate you encountered led to the retail-type stores; the exchange, commissary, bank, the package (aka liquor) store, etc. It was manned by contracted security personnel. The second gate was near the Public Works facilities. It was open only during business hours on weekdays, and it too was manned by the contractors. The third gate, however, protected the “operational” portion of the base, including a couple of fleet commands. This gate was manned by Marines.

After Blake Crowe graduated from college, he entered the Marine Corps and became an officer. (Supposedly, he had met one of the colorful Marine officers on his father’s staff, and was enticed by the mystique the Corps.)

The story goes that ADM Crowe’s official car came with a driver and Italian license plates. He wanted to stop at the exchange one day, but the car was stopped at the gate by the contracted guard. Since the guard was following standard security procedures, the Admiral didn’t mind. He got out of the car, but when he tried to enter on foot, he realized he didn’t have his ID, and once again was denied access. A lesser man of his stature might have raised a fit and expected special treatment, but ADM Crowe knew the guard was simply doing his job.

The incident was discussed at the Admiral’s morning update the following day. The colorful Marine officer then told ADM Crowe, “Sir, you should have just gone to the third gate and told the Marines on duty that you’re 2ndLt Crowe’s father. I’m sure they would have let you in.”

The highest praise I can give him from a personal level is that ADM Crowe was one of only 2 officers I would have followed into harm’s way, even if I disagreed with the order; for I knew that he had weighed all the options, and his decision was the best and right one. Many people of far greater stature than me have said ADM Crowe will be sorely missed. And for me, although I never knew him, the world will be a little less bright.

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Media, schmedia

June 2nd, 2007

I spent a good deal of time yesterday afternoon reading some of the news articles about the block of recreational web sites that the Department of Defense put in effect a couple weeks ago. In case you haven’t heard about it, DoD has now denied personnel on the DoD network from accessing such sites as YouTube, My Space, Photobucket, Stupid Videos, and a few others that I’d never heard of. I work for the organization that actually put the blocks in place. I know the reasons behind the decision, I know the discussions and concerns that were given before the decision was made.

I am amazed at the amount of misinformation that’s been reported. I’ve held a somewhat jaded view of the press for a while now (and I’m pretty liberal!), but this takes the cake. Oh my goodness, where do I start?

  1. “Blocking these web sites has a very minimal effect on the bandwidth between DoD’s network.” I’ve seen the charts with the data, and they are impressive. These aren’t charts that someone has manipulated to tell the story. This is raw data from the routers that provide the connections to the Internet.
  2. “Soldiers are denied access to loved ones at home. ” Soldiers have other means of communicating back home. The block doesn’t affect personal computers. And there are Internet cafes even is SWA (Southwest Asia, as we DoD folks call it), set up specifically for soldiers’ use. They don’t touch the DoD network, and they aren’t restricted.
  3. “The blocks came without warning. ” This was not a decision made in a vacuum. There was great care and concern for the effect it would have on those in the field. There was months of coordination. If it took the soldiers off-guard, then that’s the fault of leadership. If it took the press and Congress and the Web 2.0 companies off-guard, so what?
  4. But the most heinous misinformation I read was that the real reason DoD put the  blocks  in place was to prevent soldiers in the Middle East from reporting back home to a U.S. public increasingly opposed to the war in Iraq. I don’t even know how to respond to this. Do you mean that it would hurt soldiers’ morale to know what the public is thinking? I don’t think so. I actually think they’d appreciate it that people care enough to want to bring them home. These people aren’t in harm’s way because they want to be. They’re there because they have to be. It’s part of what being a service member is all about.

I had lunch the other day with a couple of Army officers I work with who’d spent time in Iraq (one for 6 months; and the other, a mother who’s child was 6 years old at the time, 12 months). What they told me about the conditions there absolutely astounded me. I knew that the sand is incredibly fine, like talcum powder. It’s everywhere and it gets into everything. It’s so fine, it can even penetrate clothing. I knew the weather was horrendously hot, with temperatures of 115-120 degrees. I simply can’t imagine that kind of heat. One of these officers said that the temperature in the tent she worked in often went up to over 140 degrees. I asked her how she coped with such atrocious conditions. She said, “You just do.”

What I didn’t know was that there’s isn’t a mess tent, like we saw in M*A*S*H. All of the soldiers’ meals are in the form of prefabricated, hermetically sealed foil pouches, called MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). The only “real” food they get is what is sent to them from family & friends back home. And even then, it has to be non-perishable. (Beef jerky is a popular item, if you want to call that real food.)

Worst of all, there is no water for other than drinking (which is bottled). No showers, no baths. No relief from the constant heat and filthy sand. The soldiers “bathe” with baby wipes. For a year, sometimes longer.

So don’t sing me a sad song about soldiers not being able to access YouTube or MySpace from their work computers. There are so many other, more basic necessities that these people do without. I don’t hear Congressmen making a fuss to provide showers. I don’t hear catering companies petitioning DoD to provide hot meals to the troops.

You know what the bottom line behind this hullabaloo is? It isn’t care for the soldiers’ morale, it’s the almighty dollar. So get off your high horse, Congress and Web 2.0 companies, and support these people who are sacrificing far beyond what any of us can imagine, with care packages and letters. Meet them when they return home. Let them know you really care by providing them benefits above and beyond your regular services.

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Spring has sprung (redux… again)

April 21st, 2007

I think spring is finally here. It’s about damn time, too!

I drove into DC yesterday. My niece was in town & we had planned to do lunch together. I’m always timid about driving into DC, and I don’t know why. It’s not like driving in Manhattan, or Italy, or even Boston. The streets are fairly well laid out, and the drivers are reasonable, for the most part. The only “hazard” this time of year is the tourists. At one of the stoplights, I looked to my left & there was the Washington Monument. And when I turned to drive up Independence Ave, the Capital loomed in front of me. It really is a terrific feeling.

My niece’s office is on Pennsylvania Ave, near the Navy Memorial. I met Kristen at the restaurant. She’d walked thru the memorial’s plaza and said they were setting up for some sort of ceremony. I figured it was probably a retirement ceremony. After lunch, we strolled into the plaza and sure enough, someone was retiring. The ceremony was just finishing up and she got to see the officer being “piped ashore.” And I was there to explain what was happening and some of the Naval traditions.

I’ve seen the Navy Memorial driving by from the street, but I never stopped to take a closer look. It’s really beautiful, especially on such a lovely, sunny day as yesterday. There are numerous fountains and pools of water, and they absolutely glistened in the sun. Even the animals were enjoying the day—I noticed a lone duck swimming in one of the pools. I have no idea where he came from. He was the only one in sight, so it’s not like there’s a flock (or whatever a group of ducks is called) resident in the area. My only regret is that I didn’t take any pictures. I had my camera with me, and yet I kept it in my purse. So I have no remebrance of the day except my memory. I really need to get back into the shutterbug habit.

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Holiday shopping, part 1

December 2nd, 2006

I just got back from the shopping center. Boy, am I pooped. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have gone out, but the folks at work are sponsoring 5 soldiers (3 men & 2 women) and the gifts have to be sent off next week. I bought a couple of paperback books & several DVDs, including the Supernatural season 1 set. (I can’t believe I paid full price for it, but I don’t know if Amazon would have gotten it here in time.) I figure the Supernatural set is great because it’s gender friendly. For the guys there’s rock music, action, mild gore & scary stuff. For the gals, there’s… Jensen Ackles & Jared Padalecki. It’s a win-win situation. :) And I’m hoping I’ll get at lease one person hooked on the show, so that they’ll want to watch when they come back to the States.

I’d asked some of the guys at work (who’ve been in Iraq & other deployed places) what items would be good. Their first reply was batteries. And the second was… cocktail weenies. I kid you not! Cocktail weenies! Of course, once they said it, I understood why. Batteries to run their music players & such, junk food because it’s hard to come by in a strange land, and DVDs & books to alleviate the boredome. So maybe when I go to the grocery store tomorrow I’ll pick up some non-perishable junk food and some batteries.

Next weekend I’ll be shopping for the kids of the family the work folks adopted. Have I mentioned how great the people I work with are?

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Tripping down memory lane

October 25th, 2006

On my way home from work tonight, I stopped by the grocery store to by some sorely-needed cat litter. (The pet store isn’t on my way.) While there, of course, I had to look around to see what I could possibly buy for dinner that was of absolutely no nutritional value. I was successful.

One of the items I found was a “log” of mozzarella cheese (not the part-skim American stuff, the creamy mozzarella di bufala of Italy) wrapped in prosciutto. I searched & searched for a price, but couldn’t find one. Finally I decided I’d take a chance and buy it anyway, being sure to check the price at the check-out. Turns out it was only $5.00, not a bad price for a little piece of heaven.

As I was slicing the cheese tonight, I though back to my Naval tour of duty in Naples, Italy; and how a loaf of crusty bread, a “ball” of mozzarella di bufala, and a bottle of white wine made for an easy & tasty (if not well-balanced) evening meal. Good times.

The other memory the evening evoked was the Christmas four of us (two of my friends and a helicopter pilot from one of the ships in port) went out in search of something to eat and a good time. The plan was to stop at a road-side chicken stand whereever the afternoon took us. We even had the foresight to bring along a cork screw for the wine. Turns out we didn’t need it. All the wine bottles had screw tops.

A year or two ago, I told this story to my friend Dave. Dave owns part of winery and has learned quite a bit about the business. (Dave also drinks all the profits, I think. heehee ) He told me that “they” (I guess he means the wine industry) are finding that screw caps are just as effective as corks. And indeed, tonight’s wine, 4 Emus shiraz, has a screw top. And it’s pretty darned good.

I just hope I can keep enough around for tomorrow when I get to play my Supernatural drinking game. (Gosh, I love that show!)

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