The budget

Apologies my my long absence on the blog. I haven't made it regular part of
my schedule, and thus it has fallen by the wayside.

For those of you without regular contact with gov't or military workers, the
email below testifies to the current state of the budget and the havoc it
wreaks on them. Since we have no budget or continuing resolution, our
leadership has to start controlling money at a higher and higher level,
which gets more and more inefficient.

We are a teaching squadron, have probably 60-70 people working in our
building and here's how we're forced to save money, by scrimping on toner
cartridges. It's a poor plan. (This, of course, is after the last round of
personnel firings.) I'm glad Iraq will finally be wound down before the
super committee deadlocks and the real budget pain begins.

-----Original Message-----
From: X Maj USAF ACC
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 8:50 AM
To: ALL Personnel
Subject: HOT! Toner Use
Importance: High
[All],

We are emergency fuel on printers. The base is out of money to purchase
toner, and we were forced to return two of our four remaining toner
cartridges to the [operations group] to distribute to other squadrons.

Limit all printing to mission essential use only. If you can read it on-line
then don't print it out. Please use the Sharp copy machine in my office to
the max extent possible. It is on a DAPS contract so the toner and MX is
paid for.

When and if, Congress approves a budget we will go back to normal ops. Until
then please help us preserve what little toner we have.

-Maj X

Sullenberger into the Hudson

This has circulated via email already, but thought I'd add it here with a note. It's a computer graphic reconstruction of US Airways flight 1549 / Cactus 1549, ditching in the Hudson River by Capt Sullenberger on 15 Junary 2009. There's a couple things I like about this, like how he goes from
touching the ground to in the water in just over 7 mins, not a lot of time to react and make a decision. Also, it shows how obvious a choice it was to put it in the water vice trying to make one of the airports. Can you
imagine what news coverage wouold be like if one of our crappy 24 hour news channels would show this instead of bringing on every idiot dingaling to give his opinion?

Incidentally, right about this time (2-3 years ago), I had a buddy in Iraq who lost all four engines on a herc at low altitude after takeoff and had to put it on the gound, a fairly similar type of emergency. Saved his whole
crew and 7-10 passengers. Military does a terrible job of PR for itself - why didn't we tell that story?

Veterans

Just read an article by Joe Klein, "The New Greatest Generation," good
stuff.

If you want to know about the good things in the US military, this is a
great place to start.

Some quotes:

'"The toughest part of leadership is telling people they have to do
something that involves pain," says Eric Greitens, a former Navy SEAL...'
'The inevitable military acronym for the five-paragraph memo is SMESC, and
the mnemonic device is "Sergeant major eats sugar cookies." Situation:
What's the problem? Mission: What's our strategy for solving it? Execution:
What tactics are we going to use? Support: What are the logistics; how many
troops and what sort of equipment will we need? Command: What other
organizations (air strikes, aerial reconnaissance, Afghan security forces)
will have to be involved?'

(I just read about this in ACSC; this is the same format used in CONPLANs
and OPLANs, that is to say, formal war planning documents.)

'They feel closer to one another than they do to either political
party...most of my friends feel politically homeless...neither party
reflected the combination of service and get-it-done pragmatism most
veterans value.'

'I once asked Moore whether the skills he learned in the Army had any
influence on his life as a civilian. "Absolutely! On every big decision I
make," he said and began to tell me about his tour as a counterintelligence
officer in a difficult section of eastern Afghanistan. "People have the
wrong impression of the military," he said. "It is extremely
entrepreneurial. I had more freedom to make decisions there than I do at
Citibank. My commander would tell me what needed to be done, and then it was
up to me to figure out how to do it." '

'There is a basic altruism. Gallina intuitively expanded the notion that you
don't leave a fallen comrade in the field to include the veterans of other
wars; from there, it's a short jump to including civilians as members of
their community too. Veterans are trained to believe that everyone in their
unit rises and falls together. "In the military, it's never about you,"
Lewis told me. "It's always about something larger." '

'"I was looking for something to fill the void. It was like losing your
family." Then McNulty invited him to join an Alabama tornado-relief crew. "I
rented a chainsaw, and within 20 minutes it felt like I was back in the
service again. We shared a common language and knew how to organize
ourselves to work efficiently... '

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089337,00.html

Tags: links, leadership, war, history, pers, psychology, politics

Password Strength (xkcd)

"Through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess."

http://xkcd.com/936/

20 Aug 11: Update:

Joel Stein on the difficulty of using safe passwords:  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089349,00.html

And, a link to gauging the difficulty of cracking your password using brute force:
http://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

Libya

So, an old friend of mine recently wrote to catch up and noted there'd been no new entries here since nov'10. I have been very busy with work (in spite of my new years resolution.) I had another friend write to talk about what was going on in Libya and it was an interesting convo. I will post it here when I get home(currently on the road).

Sal Guinta

This still won't be a full entry, but there is a very timely quote that I heard today.

I saw SSgt Sal Guinta interviewed today, and he said that he didn't really feel the Medal of Honor was appropriate for him, or perhaps that what he had done wasn't necessarily all that exceptional.  When asked why, he said, "It's not about me...in all the times I've been in combat in Afghanistan, I've never been alone, I've never been shot at alone, I've never been left alone, since I've been in the Army."  He went on to note that he was part of team, and that the team accomplishments were more relevant.

In the Air Force, it has been the same for me.  This is the single largest thing that I could critique about the movie the Hurt Locker; so often the characters, or the small team, seems isolated, and alone.  They frequently separate, and almost never talk to the units or the people around them.  This is not the American way of war...you are never alone.  If you are, something is very very wrong.

As well, I deeply admire his honesty and humility.  Another quote that I found after searching his name, this one is even more eloquent: ."I did what I did because in the scheme of painting the picture of that ambush, that was just my brush stroke. That’s not above and beyond. I didn’t take the biggest brush stroke, and it wasn’t the most important brush stroke."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Giunta

http://iloaktree.blogspot.com/2010/06/hurt-locker.html

TBI

Got the following email several months back, finally posting it...and it happens to be timely for Veteran's Day.
~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: Travers, Chelsea [mailto:Ctravers@caremeridian.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 06:59
To: davewitt
Subject: RE: Question/Website

Hi David,

Thank you for getting back to me. I have gone ahead and attached the article to this email, it contains a few reference links. If you do decide to use the article do you think you could do me a favor and send me an email letting me know that the article is up? I would really appreciate it.

Thank you again for your help and support!

Take Care,

Chelsea


-----Original Message-----
From: David Witt
Sent: Wed 4/21/2010 9:10 PM
To: Travers, Chelsea
Subject: RE: Question/Website

Chelsea,

Sure, please send me the article.

d

  _____ 

From: Travers, Chelsea [mailto:Ctravers@caremeridian.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 14:38
To: davewitt
Subject: Question/Website

Hi,

My name is Chelsea.  I am contacting you on behalf of CareMeridian
(caremeridian.com). CareMeridian is a well known subacute and skilled
nursing/rehabilitation facility located throughout the Western United States
for patients suffering from traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, or
medical complexities such as neuromuscular or congenital anomalies.  Brain
injuries are becoming all too commonly associated with modern warfare.  Many
veterans return home with brain injuries without knowing they are suffering
from them. Members of the US Department of Veterans Affairs have even coined
brain injuries as the "signature wound" of the War on Terror. To raise
awareness I was hoping that I could offer you an original article about TBI
as it relates to warfare, that you could post on your website
(iloaktree.blogspot.com).

Please let me know if this is something you'd be interested in.  If you have
any questions please do not hesitate to contact me directly at this email
address.

Best regards,

Chelsea Travers
ctravers@caremeridian.com
~~~

Traumatic Brain Injuries and the Military

Military men and women are continually involved situations where risk of injury is high. One silent war wound that can often go unnoticed is a traumatic brain injury (TBI) . A TBI damages the brain that can often cause life-altering wounds, which can result in changes in personality, behavior, and even the brain functions of the victim. Some of these conditions are not just life-altering, but can be life threatening and are often partnered with rehabilitation from special care facilities like CareMeridian Las Vegas nursing home.

According to the Veterans Health Initiative, active male members of the military were hospitalized due to TBI related injuries at a rate of 231 per 100,000. The rate for female members of the military was 150 per 100,000. Based on these statistics over 4,000 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year for traumatic brain injuries. Some are as mild as a concussion, while others can be severe and have life altering effects.

The best way to prevent TBI is through awareness. Recognizing and responding to the symptoms of a TBI can often aid in the preventing further damage caused by the injury. Dizziness, headaches, changes in personality or sleep patterns, and memory loss are clear signs of TBI. Unfortunately these symptoms can sometimes be ignored or discarded as minor pains during times of conflict and even once the solider returns home. This sets up a dangerous precedent for a war wound that may never heal, so it is vital that serviceman and their families are aware of TBI, so that they can recognize and help treat it if symptoms are present.