Dana's Journal and Miscellaneous Musings

Mooresville elections Tuesday, October 11th!

2011-10-08T06:10:00.000-06:00

Wanted to remind the 3 people who read this blog, of course only one of them might live in the Mooresville area, that next Tuesday is VOTING TIME!

I've gotten to meet both of the candidates for mayor, and frankly think either one of them will do a good job (and their recent mayoral point of comparison is not even a hurdle here).

Miles Atkins (link is to his site, no entry on NC voter guide)

and

Jared Esselman. (link is to the NC voter guide)
His personal site

As for the At-Large commissioners positions, I'm strongly in the tank for the only woman on the ballot, Dawn Huston. (link to NC voter guide). She'll provide some gender diversity on the board, brings some strong business sense and background to the table, and would provide another voice from the West side of Mooresville. She doesn't have a slick website like Miles and Jared, but she does have a Facebook page, you can search for Dawn Huston for Commissioner.

10 and 20 (years of war and service)

2011-10-08T05:48:00.000-06:00

Was privileged to run in a 10k race on September 11th at the North Carolina National Guard Joint Force HQ, and will be running in the Army 10-Miler in Wash DC this Sunday. I'm not in great shape, but glad I can participate in these activities.

Got a couple of reminders today of my brothers and sisters in arms who continue to push on as the services continue to answer the call of our country's leaders.

We're not supposed to call it 'the long war'... but it has now been 10 years.

From a CNN posting:

...In the North Country, as the locals call this part of New York, Afghanistan is as much in people's hearts as it was a decade ago, when the horrific events of September 11 pushed America to war.

Elsewhere, Afghanistan slid down many rungs in the ladder of public interest. Americans are paying far less attention to war now than at earlier stages of the fighting, according to a Pew Research Center study published Wednesday. But not here.

War makes unwanted, life-arresting visits; crashes into homes and entire neighborhoods just as assuredly as a January blizzard....

Afghanistan is now the longest-running war America has fought with an all-volunteer military. But only about one half of 1% of the population has served in uniform, and military and civilian worlds rarely collide anymore....

"I fear they do not know us," Adm. Mike Mullen, the newly retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. "I fear they do not comprehend the full weight of the burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle."

And a post from which I've lifted the image above.

I'm proud to feel that, while what I've done pales in comparison to what so many others have done, I have done my part. 10 years ago when the US was changed by the violence of September 11th, I knew that unless I resigned my commission, I would be involved in one way or another. I'm even more proud of those who have come before me, those to my right and left, and those who continue to step forward. I admire them and marvel at their dedication and stamina.

I hit 20 years of service in Guard and Reserve next week. My body is tired and worn, and some joints have been replaced and others won't ever work the same, but I'm still here, and will keep plugging along with Uncle Sam for a bit longer. When serving an LDS church mission, we often heard the phrase "you love the ones you serve" and the same definitely applies to my service to my country and my teammates in the process.

I keep in touch with my military side through my continued work with the NC Army National Guard and more recently with a group of military veterans internal to Lowe's. Thanks to the focus and energy of a recently commissioned Navy Reserve officer (in Army we call them green to golds), we've been exploring ways to help servicemembers and veterans within the company, helping them understand policies and benefits that are relevant to them at Lowe's, etc.

Lowe's Campus- some great pictures of nature and landscaping

2011-08-27T05:58:00.000-06:00

At Lowe's corporate HQ, or what we call the Customer Support Center (CSC- yes, we're trying to communicate it is ALL about the customer), we have some beautiful scenery.

The Charlotte Observer recently posted a piece about our efforts in that regard titled "Enhancing nature at Lowe's"

If you'd like to see some great photos of the scenery, check out that story's associated slide show.

A week kayaking the OBX

2011-08-27T05:32:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to post a public thank you note to the North Carolina Outward Bound team and the benefactor who is sponsoring Veteran's Groups so that we can go through the program at no cost.

Veterans about to start the trip, plus one of our guides, Trish

I had a great time just unplugging from everything- literally- as we left cell phones and all contact with the outside world behind and kayaked, camped, cooked, etc. There was a bit more fieldcraft and bonding/team building type activities than I had anticipated, but I hadn't really investigated Outward Bound too much in preparation- I just saw an opportunity to do some free kayaking and take a bit of a vacation. I also enjoyed the many quiet moments to just be still and reflect. I appreciated the many times the guides recommended we simplify and think about what really matters.

We ferried from Harker's Island, a couple of nights on Shackleford Banks, a few nights on the Core Banks, and then our final evening at the Outward Bound "Base Camp"- someone's backyard on the mainland close to Harker's Island. A good time.

Sea oats- make for great pictures, and apparently critical to building sand dunes

Sunset on the sound side of the Outer Banks.

View from a kayak. Most days did 4-6 miles.

So in short, a tremendous opportunity to step back from the day to day grind, and in some beautiful (but sometimes buggy) settings.

Thanks again, to NC Outward Bound and to the benefactor who made the trip possible!

Beware the mimes- Funny French Folk and Keeping the Language Pure

2011-04-16T07:20:00.000-06:00

For those who have ever expressed fear or malaise around mimes, or anyone who ever thought it an odd avocation:

http://www.france24.com/en/20101114-paris-nightlife-france-smoking-ban-culture-bars-clubs-mimes

It draws to mind for me a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!"

And other evidence of unintentional comedy in France:

"Just say 'non'!"

http://www.france24.com/en/20100331-govt-urges-youth-say-non-english-words

Think Global and Act Local OR Think Short Term and Invest Accordingly- Iredell and North Carolina Education Funding

2011-04-09T16:36:00.000-06:00

I was escorted out of a county school board meeting by a police officer last year during deliberations about the future of international baccalaureate (IB) program frustrated at the lack of attention to quality and to the input of the large group of citizens attending their meeting- every deliberation seemed to be based on two things- the board’s desire to show the audience they would not be bullied by the voice of the attendees, and their concerns about the expense of a program that they had previously supported, but now wanted to back away from. The police officer had accused me of threatening school board members. He’d gotten the tone of my comments right- I was angry, but I had not threatened anyone- outside of saying that it is an elected group, and elections would be their undoing.

September of last year, got this email from one of our children’s principals:

Unofficial financial rankings for Local Education Agencies (LEAs) in North Carolina were recently posted by the state. It was no surprise to see that Iredell Statesville Schools has moved from 111th to 113th in per pupil funding in NC. That means that only 2 school systems in NC spend less per child than we do. Below is a link to an interesting article entitled "How Much Does It Cost to Educate a High School Graduate in Your County?". The cost in Iredell Statesville Schools is $107,000. The average is $142,000 and the highest is $265,000. The conclusion is that the faculty and staff of the Iredell Statesville Schools are providing an outstanding return on investment to the taxpayers of Iredell County. Here's the link if you would like to read the report. http://www.nccivitas.org/media/publication-archive/policy-reports/how-much-does-it-cost-educate-high-school-graduate-your-cou

If you are happy with the services that are being provided to your child in the public schools of Iredell County, please let your County Commissioners know! We are committed to your children, and are proud of the work we do. We want our local government officials to know how you feel also.

Have a great night,

Boen Nutting

It is true that these are tough economic times, and I’ve tried to be a bit more educated about our funding/spending for our school systems. The fact of the matter is that we don’t pay a lot for our children’s education in North Carolina (46th out of the 50 states) and in Iredell County (Iredell-Statesville Schools rank 106th out of about 114 and close by, Mooresville schools ranking 100 out of about 114 in 2007-2008 per pupil spending excluding nutrition programs.

It begs the question, though, of what is the quality of that education, as both systems tout the quality of the education they provide. There are some great parts of the system that we have benefitted from- two of our children are thriving in a strong elementary school, and another is doing well in that IB program that succeeds despite the lukewarm support of the Iredell County school board. There are other parts that are more of an issue- overcrowding of schools in some areas and open seats in others, and the increasing student to teacher ratios all around. We have one daughter being home schooled, in large part because of the substantial social challenges she has faced with bullying in school. So it is not all roses, either. Of course, quality measures are debated far and wide, I choose to highlight those from EdWeek.org, (I welcome comments about their impartiality or lack thereof- seems to me in my review to be fairly straightforward in advocating for education in general and providing feedback and comparisons). Based on their information, we’re doing adequately considering our spend, but there’s an opportunity to do even better. We scored a “C+”; or 77.8 on their numerical score. That put us above the US average of 76.3, and scores ranged from Maryland’s 87.6, and Nebraska’s 68.6.

Dr. Nutting noted in her email that in her estimation we’re providing a great ROI in terms of spend and what is delivered for that spend. I commend her and others in our local education system for that ROI. My personal feeling, however, is that the state and the county are frankly derelict and shortsighted in their funding for our children’s education. I agree that there isn’t a 1:1 correlation between spend and quality, but I firmly believe if our system can do as well as it does given how little we spend, we could do even better with greater investment. One can also argue that the ROI will decrease with greater expenditures, but all things being equal, greater investment should lead to greater returns, and it appears that our leaders either don’t buy into that rationale, or feel they are representing the voice of the people who don’t want to make these investments.

Our school system and associated parent teacher organizations or other volunteer groups spend far too much time in fundraising mode (or working at the school for free), and I’d rather they focus on education. I’m not going to list all of the fundraising approaches they use, some clever, some less interesting, some almost offensive or demeaning.

Of all of the different ways we’d like our government to invest in our future, from zoning and permits for businesses, to roads and transportation, public services from fire and police to water and waste management, I can’t think of any that is more important from a long range standpoint, than a consistent and strategic investment in education. We, quite frankly, seem to be satisfied with “good enough”. And as my child in the international baccalaureate program knows, there are more English users in India than there are in the United States.

Go ahead, kids- we’re preparing you to compete in a global world, but you know, we’re not gonna spend a lot for this education, so get out there and sell some cookie dough and we’ll cobble something together for you.

In memory- the woman in the arena

2011-01-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

On Christmas eve I got a call from my sister Beth letting me know that Mom had passed. Things haven't slowed down much since for me to do a tremendous amount of processing. Utah, Minneapolis, Virginia, NC, Virginia, Charlotte, NC, Asheville, NC, now in New Jersey.

But there have been quiet times. Some time just sitting and reading with Dad. Writing up what I would say at her service (to be posted in my private family blog), which was held at a Veteran's cemetery in Amelia, Virginia. Dedicating the grave a few days later.

Mom had her challenges, and as one of her 6 children, I know I was one of them. It was unfortunately only with distance from my childhood that I was more fully able to appreciate all of the blood, sweat and tears that she put into raising us. She truly fought the good fight, and her passing now allows her to continue work on the other side. As I thought about how she gave herself to parenting, I thought of one of my favorite quotes, from Teddy Roosevelt:

CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC

"The Man In The Arena"
Speech at the Sorbonne
Paris, France
April 23, 1910

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Mom, you have completed your time in this mortal arena. Thank you for striving valiantly for us. Thank you for letting your children know that you count us as your victories. 6-0. Undefeated.

Love,
Dana

A couple of other postings:
Some family memories and pictures of Mom (thanks, Andrea)
A perspective on the services (thanks, again, Andrea!)

Bastille Day 2010

2010-07-15T17:52:00.000-06:00

Got to enjoy Bastille Day in Carcassonne way back in 1991 during my LDS mission. The fireworks on La Cite were spectacular. I put "do this again with my wife" on the bucket list. Still haven't got it done yet. Good to have those goals still out in front of me. Maybe next year?

3 years ago I also lost 2 friends, contractors who worked at the training center I was directing out in southern Iraq. JJ & Hurstie, RIP.

Sports stuff- Carell makes me laugh

2010-07-15T17:48:00.000-06:00

I actually watched more of this than I did of "The Decision", which I actually didn't watch at all- had some other things going on. But I did watch at least 30 seconds of it on video.

Carell is taking his appetite...

I laughed out loud.

I'm glad LeBron's headed to Miami personally, Wade is a human highlight film, and it only looks to get better down there with them together.

Jerome E. Singer, Professor and Chairman

2010-07-11T07:07:00.000-06:00

A memorial service was held for Dr. Singer on June 16 at USUHS in Bethesda, MD and I was able to make the long drive up to DC. Spent the night before at Bubba Ross's and then a morning session at the DC temple. Psychology students may recognize his name as he is the "Singer" in the Schachter-Singer 2 factor theory of emotion.

The memorial service was nicely done, and lots of folks shared positive experiences and feelings about a wonderful man. I like memorial services and other related events because they tend to bring out the best memories and positive comments. People generally behave themselves better than they otherwise would. I was able to reconnect with various friends and faculty during what was perhaps my first trip back to campus since I completed my work there back in 2002.

I didn't know his family well, but they participated fully in the service and I was able to send them a letter afterwards sharing some of my best memories of Dr. Singer, from his time as one of my instructors, as a member of my dissertation committee, and as the chair for the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at USUHS.

A comment that I've made frequently is that I enjoy spending time and working with smart people and good people. If I have to choose between those two groups, I'll pick the good people, but the best is when I get to work with people who are both good and smart. Jerry, you are one of those and I appreciate the opportunity I had to know you and learn from you. It was an honor.

Road Warriors

2010-05-09T06:25:00.000-06:00

I know there are many people who face long commutes to work on a regular basis. I have been blessed to be able to find work and school settings where I have not had to travel great distances, with the one exception often being my Army Reserve duties, as I've been assigned to units that aren't necessarily very close to the rest of my life. Typically, I was facing about 60-90 minutes to get to my Reserve duty, whether that be in Maryland, Utah, or even Hawaii- small island, but small roads...

So when I planned out my next steps with the move to North Carolina, I also planned to find a unit as close as possible to home. I just don't like commuting much. Found a large HQ unit in Charlotte, NC, about 40 minute drive, but it was chock full 'o Majors, and didn't have space for one more. So I checked in with the National Guard, and they indicated they had a couple of military police major slots at a Brigade HQ in Charlotte. "Perfect!", I thought. And so I started the process of separating from the Reserves and joining the National Guard. An easier task at more junior ranks, but a bit more involved for a "field grade" officer. Eventually, I got through the process and began my role as the plans officer. I don't know if I did it very well, very poorly, or just had the right occupational specialty, but after only 8 months or so, they reassigned me to be rear detachment commander for a military police battalion that has units and detachments scattered all over the western part of the state. Great units, beautiful country, but so long, 40 minute drive!

So I go from having one of my shortest ever military duty commutes to easily my longest (outside of my 8 "one weekend a months" of ILE 6 hour drives to Fort Belvoir, which I'm also doing right now). To some degree it is a part of the process as you become more senior in the guard and reserve systems. You have to go where the positions are, and there are understandably fewer positions.

What also helps me get over myself with the travel is to recognize that I'm not alone. In fact, many of my brothers and sisters in arms have it just as bad in terms of how far they have to go to get to their drill weekend locations. Even many of the full-timers- either AGR or on ADOS or other status- have such a long commute that they just stay at the units during the week and go home only on weekends. So in that sense, I'm not alone.

It does make me feel more and more like this is a young man's game, though. I try to profit from the long drives by using the quiet time to reflect on family, work, church, etc, and also enjoy listening to General Conference sessions on CD.

So, to those of you, my military friends who go the extra mile (or few hundred miles) to get to your duty location, I salute you! Keep your vehicles in working order, get as much rest as possible, and get to your work and home settings safely!

God's Country

2010-05-09T06:00:00.001-06:00

This is representative of the beauty of western North Carolina

Last weekend I was playing Army out in western North Carolina, visiting units in a few locations, stops included Franklin, Hickory, and East Flat Rock.

Spring has arrived in western North Carolina, and it made the drive over the eastern continental divide prior to Asheville, and throughout the area, a spectacular experience. I had to keep my eyes on the road, but when I could look around, it was one beautiful view after another of green mountainsides and valley and blue skies with the perfect mix of bright clouds for contrast.

I had in an earlier visit to a unit in Franklin fussed a bit about the drive and wondered aloud to the local commander why folks would live all the way out there, away from the conveniences and accoutrements of larger population centers. I quickly realized my silliness- not only would I sometimes like to live "in the middle of nowhere" myself, but he had the ready answer, "Sir, why would anyone want to live anywhere else? This is God's country!" His smile let me know he meant it, and it has helped take the edge off of the 4 hour drive each time I head out there. It is beautiful, so I can enjoy both the destination and the journey. I know I can also look forward to the scenery in the fall, as the leaves turn color. Should be great.

Aaaaaarmy Humor!

2010-04-25T07:31:00.000-06:00

CENTCOM Commander General Petraeus, who stopped by my Numaniyah National Police Training Center for a celebratory graduation ceremony a couple of years ago when he was MNF-I commander, recently visited another of my earlier training centers, Brigham Young University.

I remember all the prework we did with his staff to get ready for his visit back in Jan 2008. It was a bit humorous in fact, as they had a list of all of their people and who they'd like to connect with on our end, our security lead, our IT specialist, our food service, etc. As we worked through the list, I would tell them who they could reach out to in preparation- either myself, or my NCO, MSG M. The person I was talking to on the secure line paused after a few names as he realized... "they only have 2 guys down there....".

His staff did a great job preparing for his BYU visit as well. They came up with this:

General Petraeus: Top 10 reasons BYU grads make great soldiers

Very funny, I highly recommend it.

And of course, BYU does have great Army ROTC and Air Force ROTC programs (full disclosure, my commissioning source was BYU Army ROTC, and later I served my Reserve duty as an Assistant Professor of Military Science at BYU, so a bit biased).

War vets can be thoughtful, and help their fellow veterans out

2010-04-03T07:37:00.000-06:00

Mike Scotti got an opinion piece posted on CNN.

I very much understand his thoughts about finding the return to civilian life a bit disorienting- feeling a bit like an alien that doesn't fit in, and in some ways feeling alone. He mentioned feeling out of place at a wedding.

For me it was hearing emotional discussions about the high price of gas. I kept thinking, "Really? The price of gas is what you're getting excited about? We are at war, people are getting blown up and countries are going through wrenching changes, there are violent extremists who would like to end our way of life, and you're getting exercised about gas prices?"

And I'm not even going to go into the issue of the relationship between gas prices and our involvement in the middle East.

A salute to Mike Scotti for his work, both in the opinion piece, and more broadly for his service since then to help veterans. Well done.

This is a fatwa I can get excited about

2010-04-03T07:24:00.000-06:00

About a month ago, a piece hit the news about an Islamic cleric declaring that terrorists, and most specifically suicide bombers, were not the most faithful and believing of muslims, but rather misguided hell-bound "unbelievers".

Now there can be plenty of debate about exactly how influential Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri really is. Islam is incredibly diverse with no true centralized governance, so he may only be preaching to the choir. There are other issues to worry about and criticize as well, but on the whole, I can only look at this declaration as a positive event.

My experience in the Iraq and thought and study before and after than convinces me that the ultimate end to the extremists' violent and frankly evil behaviors will need to be achieved by Muslims, not those of us who address the problem essentially from the outside. I'm aware that many believe that all of Islam has as a core tenet the desire to eradicate all other belief systems and impose Sharia law universally, but I don't buy it. It is a small fraction of the Muslim population that is causing all the heartache. I think there are, if you will, "moderate" Muslims who don't espouse violence and tyranny as the will of Allah. Declarations such as ul-Qadri's support my assertion. I have seen and heard declarations such as his before and hope to see that drumbeat from within grow louder and more frequent.

I was glad to read the article. Truly good news.

It's Your Ship, D. Michael Abrashoff

2010-04-03T07:04:00.000-06:00

It's Your Ship, D. Michael Abrashoff

This book and related coaching and training were rolled out to Lowe's leadership at our most recent International Sales Meeting.

Not wanting to be too far out of the loop (I'm doing career models, not leadership development right now, but I like to keep up on all things "talent management"), I figured I better read it so I have a sense of what it says, and what implications that might have for what store leadership is thinking and doing. The Lowe's organization is fascinating in how such a message or other themes will quickly permeate and you will hear key phrases of the message used in various communications and become a part of how employees think and work. So we'll see how far "It's Your Store" goes this year.

My reaction in reading it was similar to the Semper Fi book I just commented on. Some good leadership principles with some interesting stories- a bit more specific and quantifiable anecdotes, but still anecdotes and single-N experiences nonetheless, putting it into the same category of "managerial cotton candy." I've spent too much time in social science training where I've built up an appetite for empirically-oriented approaches to problem solving, and the leadership and management books I like the most tend to satiate that appetite much more than these cotton-candy type books do.

There were some other off-putting characteristics of the book, such as Abrashoff's constant self-promotion (it was very clear to me that he'd never been on the enlisted side) and odd denigration of the Navy that provided him the opportunity to have the leadership experience that he has since leveraged into his leadership training consulting business. Much of what he presented as new or innovative ideas that he or his team had had.... well... the idea that leadership has to know and care about the people they lead... not so new. Eating with the troops, asking them for ideas about how you or they can improve work processes... etc. All good, just not exactly innovation. The idea that a military leader can't effectively lead using autocratic styles (here referred, inappropriately in my mind, as command and control)... well, yes, I've never seen great management and leadership outcomes from people who take such an approach- good leadership I've seen in the military doesn't rely on "the stick", and never has.

Broadly speaking, though, good techniques and ideas- when done with the right spirit, a lot of good can be done in using these approaches. So, a quick and easy read, and getting past some of the issues I noted in the last paragraph, it may be a worthy read for you, if you would like to gather insight into management techniques that might be used in both military and business settings.

Semper Fi, by Dan Carrison & Rod Walsh- recent book read

2010-04-03T06:39:00.000-06:00

Semper Fi, Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way

I have a problem with a reading appetite that is a bit out of control, so I end up collecting books that I need to read. Got this one off the shelf recently after reading It's Your Ship, by D. Michael Abrashoff. Wanted to follow the "transfer military leadership to the business world" theme.

To sum up my thoughts on the book, it is of the genre of many business management texts: basic leadership principles interspersed with examples and anecdotes. I think of these types of books as business management cotton candy. Nice, but not likely to change anyone's life. I am proud to count myself as a service member, and see much value in what was said.

There are also principles that I believe probably won't transfer as well for a number of reasons. I think a quote from one of the reviewers is spot on- "Business can seem like war. But war really is war,....." Just as I cringe when people use war and military metaphors to describe sports, there is a part of me that thinks in a similar way, when trying to make business seem like war. Maybe it is like war when you are doing business in a mafia-style environment, or working with drug cartels, but when you are doing home-improvement retail it is a competition, not a war. It is a competition that you could lose, and jobs can be lost, etc. But that is a very different proposition from what it is like to go through war.

In fact, there are some strong arguments to be made for the value of having a strong competitor to help your business outcomes. Coke vs Pepsi, Nike vs Reebok, Lowe's vs Home Depot, Citi vs Bank of America (maybe that last one isn't useful given recent financial issues...). Business rivalries push each participant to deliver to the best of their abilities- in this sense, comparing sports to business may be a better approach than comparing either to war.

In any case, there are many management practices within the military that can be applied in business environments, and many of them are discussed in Carrison and Walsh's book. If you'd like to learn a bit more about the Marine culture in the context of how it might transfer to improving your business management approach, this is a great book for you.

Peter Cappelli on executive compensation

2010-03-21T06:14:00.001-06:00

I did a book review on a Cappelli's "Talent On Demand" that got published last year in an HR journal (thanks, Timmy G. for the opportunity, there!). Ever since starting work on that I've tuned in more to Cappelli's comments and frequent contributions to discourse in the HR world.

Invariably, I find his comments of great interest, even if, in some rare instances I might disagree with him.

One area where my thoughts clearly align with his is the topic of executive compensation (Cappelli comments on executive compensation: HR Executive Online). I've had the opportunity to inspect, with varying degrees of detail, compensation practices in the academic world, in the military, and in corporate environments. Each of them has their interesting points.

I had a discussion with a colleague who has worked quite a bit in the compensation world, and her comments also aligned with some of Cappelli's words. What she noted was that when times get tough, executives she worked with were more than willing to allocate that pain in a fairly self-serving way (observations on a company with which I am unaffiliated). They shed crocodile tears about having to lay off employees and passing their work on to other employees who were already feeling overworked on one side, while accepting increasing bonuses and base pay raises on the other. When she pointed out to them that they could avoid the layoffs by reducing their payouts- not drastically, not putting wealthy lifestyles at risk, but being willing to defer some of their larger gains to preserve those jobs, it fell on deaf ears. Her comments remind me of the satire at Despair.com, perhaps the Achievement poster.

Organization Development Network Brief gets me thinking about the fall of the Berlin Wall

2010-02-21T06:50:00.004-07:00

Peter Norlin, Executive Director of the OD Network wrote a piece back in October 2009 (as you can tell by my flurry of posts, I'm clearing out my "to blog" box with this first weekend of relative calm in quite a while).

While it had a larger focus of the walls that OD practitioners put up, I sidetracked on the introductory piece which I paste here:

*****************************************************************************
OD Network Briefs, October 2009

News from the Organization Development Network

Snarling, stinking, snapping his fore-fangs,

out of the woods, wild waste beyond woods,

comes beast, comes brute, carnivorous, ravenous,

but before him--and oh, we were saved--rose our wall.

Violent, fearsome, with invulnerable helmet and shield,

Comes antagonist, foe, furious, pitiless, lethal,

axe-men behind him chanting their cuneiform curse,

but before him--and oh, saved again--loomed our wall.

So we raised ever more walls, even walls

that might fail: Jericho shucked from its ramparts,

men, women, old, young, all slaughtered.

What did it matter? We believed still in our wall.

Then the inspiration to build walls facing in!

Reservation, concentration camp, ghetto,

finally whole countries walled in, and saved were we

from traitors who'd dare wish to flee our within.

That such walls fail, too, fall, too? No matter.

Only raise more. That all walls, facing out or in,

fail, fall, leaving fossils of lives in numb rubble?

No matter. Raise more. Only raise more.

C.K. Williams, "Wall."

Williams, a Pulitzer Prize-, National Book Award-winning poet, wrote this chilling verse to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, an event whose images and implications reverberated quickly around the world. In Willams's short review of the history of human wall-building, however, it's clear that he doesn't believe that, as a familiar solution to terror, hubris, or xenophobia, we're probably done with walls. Consider, as an example, our own trust in the wall we've been erecting on the U.S./Mexican border, designed to discourage illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

While I have nothing other than my increasingly-unreliable memory of world history as support, the poet's position--that we've obviously never learned any lessons about walls--seems persuasive. Despite a long, comprehensive documentation of their failure, it seems that we somehow believe--no, we know--that our best defense in this difficult situation would clearly be . . . a wall! Such a choice sadly, certainly exposes our inability to think systemically. Clearly, we're drawn to walls intuitively, even though they don't work, because we believe they should work. So what a dramatic symbol of the aspirations and limitations of the human mind walls turn out to be.

**********************************************************************************

I didn't really have any deeper thoughts than those offered by the poet or the executive director. I thought at a more personal level about where I was and what I was doing when the Berlin Wall fell. I was living in France serving as a missionary. I actually didn't even learn about the wall fall until a few weeks after it happened when we caught glimpses of it on the news at someone's house. The work in which I was engaged, and the conditions we imposed on ourselves to increase our effectiveness were walls to my even hearing about the event and its implications. It reminds me a bit now of the pleasant isolation I enjoyed while we were living in Hawaii as I filled a visiting faculty position at BYU-Hawaii. News events did not really have to be very timely in some respect- whether things happening on the mainland happened a week ago or yesterday had little impact in our day to day life- completely disconnected. Walls of focused work, blocking out the outside, or walls of geography, separation by distance.

In any case, a bit of an interesting exercise to think of the walls erected of various kinds, and their implications for us at work, home, etc.

Currahee- a wounded soldier in recovery

2010-02-21T06:28:00.002-07:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5000003n

Buzzword bingo

2010-02-21T06:23:00.000-07:00

Back in the MBA student days, we enjoyed either listening to faculty or students bluster their way through an explanation by resorting to buzz speak. One faculty member even made a game of it in his class, calling it out when he heard the language creeping into a student's comments- gently, though, not harshly. There's amusement to be found in seeing how little one can say while speaking so much

Given those fond memories, I thought I'd leverage this value-added post in order to continue to grow my blog business which I recently monetized by adding Google's ad system, a nimble and robust solution.

Getting emotional about being in the military

2010-02-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

There is an ebb and flow to my participation in the military- some of the high demand periods come from roles that get offered or assigned (such as a recent assignment to command a rear detachment of an MP battalion) or from the occasional officer education assignment (such as a recent and ongoing program that is referred to generically as "Intermediate Level Education", an expected experience prior to promotion to Lieutenant Colonel).

So I've had a good bit of military "in my face" recently, easily the most since my return from the Iraq deployment back in April '08.

But I typically have had a bit of separation between those experiences and the personal or family life- I, like many guys, have the "compartmentalization" thing where when I put the green on, I'm somehow able to focus fairly well on that. Conversely, when I'm not wearing green, it is a challenge to think in the military world beyond discussions with inquisitive non-military types.

I didn't participate in any real public ceremonies from the redeployment, haven't marched in any 4th of July parades, etc. Really, I've only had 2 experiences since I redeployed where my two worlds came together, and one of them was this past week.

The first experience was probably over a year or so ago when I was asked to speak at my son's scout group's court of honor close to either Veteran's Day or Memorial Day. I spoke briefly about their need to recognize that they need to prepare themselves to serve- family, church, community, country. It was good for me to think about it- probably much more meaningful to me than any of the young men who participated in the event.

This past week, I got a call from a church friend, he asked me to participate in a flag dedication ceremony at a local middle school. I was there along with a Marine gunny sergeant and a Navy chief (both in dress uniforms) and a retired Air Force sergeant, and a number of local fire and police officers. I haven't worn a dress uniform in years, and it would be quite the undertaking to try and put one together at this point... figure out what ribbons I have and where they go.... make sure I get the polish right on buckles and leather....

Anway, I was there in my digital camouflage- feeling a bit like a "rag bag", a little self-conscious given that I wasn't in dress uniform as the senior officer in the group (but not self-conscious enough to fix my uniform, apparently...). As the ceremony proceeded, it became apparent that part of the ceremony was to honor the Marine gunny, as he had built a bit of a track record with the middle school providing service and mentorship to the students, as well as participating actively in the community as a member of the police force, including SWAT work, so I'm guessing he's Guard or Reserve. They played a quick powerpoint video with music- the "I'm proud to be an American" folksy type music, showing photos of his couple of tours in Iraq and other law enforcement and military type images and photos.

I almost started crying as I stood there at parade rest. I was proud of him, proud of myself, proud of these kids showing the respect that they did to the flag, their country and their gunny sgt. I was sad as I thought of those we left behind, of the many lives destroyed in horrific ways. Just an overwhelming emotional wave as I stood there and as we listened to the words, the music, as we saluted the flag.

I've had a number of times that emotional reaction has happened to me since the deployment- a tribute to troops at a fireside event at a scout camp, a musician performing on stage at UNC-Charlotte dedicating a song to military personnel, watching a show about the USO supporters at a Maine airport and the dedication they show in greeting redeployed troops and wishing departing troops well. It even happens from time to time as someone sends me an e-mail with a video or even just a few words of reflection and gratitude for military service.

It exhausts me every time it happens. I worry about being too emotional on one side, and on the other, I worry about forgetting or becoming so desensitized that it stops meaning so much to me.

There's a bit of a paradox in trying to put it all behind me, but not wanting to forget the ways it has changed me for good. I still struggle to find the balance.

Lowe's 10% Military Discount now year round....

2010-02-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

And another post with praise to a company supporting the military- my current employer, Lowe's.

Lowe's recently announced expanding their 10% military discount to year round.....

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/02/military_lowes_discount_021010/

That's nice.

H&R Block supporting the military

2010-02-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Worked through the annual tax filing preparation recently, and I have to say it has been getting consistently easier. Even though our finances get more complicated each year, electronic filing has just made things less painful.

I wanted to proclaim a loud THANK YOU! to H&R Block for their continued support of the military. For a number of years, they have offered their software/online tax preparation services (basic level) to Active, Reserve and National Guard members for free. I have enjoyed this benefit over the years, and appreciate it.

Continental Airlines and Houston- The Quick Turn!

2010-01-16T09:19:00.002-07:00

So I had a flight from Charlotte to Sacramento yesterday, connection in Houston. Little tiny Embraer jet on ExpressJet for the first leg- flight attendant confirmed my suspicion that they had height restrictions for them (5'9" in heels) given the low overhead.

That really isn't noteworthy and you're sorry you're even reading this at this point, but that is the glory of a blog that is my journal- more for me than you!

What was interesting to me was the connection in Houston.

Back in the 1st year of the MBA we did a case study on Southwestern Airlines. We studied their different strategic approach- away from spoke and hub system, using cheaper airports, competing for travelers more broadly, including bus and car, versus only air travel by focusing on low cost, and their HR approach, knowing exactly what they were looking for in their employees regarding a fun spirit, customer focus, etc.

Among the different things we covered was some of their operational excellence features, including the ability to turn a plane considerably faster than any other airline. This ties in to the simple economic fact that airlines make money by having butts in seats and flying them. Similar to turning tables in restaurants, the quicker you can get a customer serviced- either transported on a flight or fed at a table, the sooner you can free up that airplane for another flight, or that table for another meal/customer. The plane that is empty and not flying makes no money, just as an empty table at a restaurant brings in no revenue.

So this brings me to my experience at Houston.

I don't recall ever going through this Continental hub before, or if I did, it predated my MBA training and sensitivity to the cues in the environment. What I saw was an amusing interpretation of how an airline can minimize the amount of time their airplanes are on the ground.

What Continental has done, either intentionally or unintentionally, is transfer the sense of urgency from their employees to their passengers. I would estimate between one third to one half of the passengers trying to make connecting flights were actually jogging or running to make sure they didn't miss a connection. My own connection was pretty tight, I think I had about 20 minutes from getting off one plane to the departure time for the next one. Had the flight left on time I might not have made it (even though the information boards showed it as "on time" the doors on the plane did not close by the departure time listed- I've found "on time" stats on airplanes rival attendance stats at sports events for their self-serving accuracy). I did have to go from one end of the airport to the other to get my connection. But I wasn't going to run, I figured if I didn't make it, I'd challenge Continental to fix the problem they created by booking connections too tightly.

Anyway, it was funny to me to watch so many people running to catch their flights. God bless Continental. I wonder if they've even noticed what they're doing to their customers on this, and if they have, how the decision making conversation on the tight connections went......

"Hey, you know, we've booked all the connections so tight at Houston that 1/3 of our passengers are having to run from one flight to another."

"Hmmm. Are they missing their flights?"

"No."

"Are they complaining?"

"Well, I guess they probably would complain more, but usually they're expressing breathless relief as they arrive at their departing gate... 'Whew! We made it!'"

"Sounds like a win-win! Can we tighten the schedule a bit more? From what you're telling me, between 50-70% of our passengers have too much time between their flights!"

Military strategies and leadership styles

2009-12-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

Another read a few months back was Blue Ocean Strategy, by Kim and Mauborgne, which I enjoyed as I was brushing off some dust on my strategy-type training from back in my MBA days.

As I read it though, I made a note to myself- I need to comment on folks' misperceptions about military strategy, and then while I'm at it, throw in some bonus comments about people's misperceptions about military leadership styles.

1. Military strategies- there are a great number of texts out there, both classical and more modern- a couple of classical ones that come to mind- anything by Clausewitz, and of course, Sun Tzu, more modern military strategy, which right now for me revolves around counter-insurgency approaches, for example, Galula and Kilcullen. The primary point I want to make here is that I've never seen a military strategy that advocates a full frontal assault without some compelling circumstances. Some may say, why of course they wouldn't do that! But I have read many times where people refer to military strategy in this way- and it is clear they really haven't thought deeply about the subject.

While there are some strategies which use blunt force, and some strategies which treat military personnel as expendable and sacrifice them in large numbers, my experience and observations of great military leaders is that they recognize the substantial variety of approaches to be taken and balance out the many conditions and work very hard to adopt the strategy and tactics that are most appropriate for the situation. At the most basic, they ask questions about what are we looking at in terms of mission, enemy, terrain, troops, and time. They think carefully about the resources at their disposal, just what they are trying to achieve, and the lives of the men and women that they will put in harm's way. I've been amazed at how we've asked our military leaders to conduct our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with an almost zero tolerance policy for casualties. Each death is tragic. I personally mourn the loss of friends in the process. That being said, when one looks at the casualty rates in previous conflicts compared to the current conflicts, we are clearly in a new era.

2. Military leadership styles: One of the "benefits" of my being called up during my last semester of my MBA program a while back was that I got to create 2 or 3 self-designed reading courses as I was not going to be bale to attend that last semester. One of the reading courses I created involved a set of texts on leadership. I chose as one of the texts the Army's field manual on leadership, in military parlance, FM 22-100.

I tire of those who consistently portray military leadership as "autocratic". While there is clearly a hiearchical facet of life in the military, again, the best leaders I've observed demonstrate all of the best of what Lominger likes to refer to as "learning agility", including those aspects most clearly tied to leadership. Lowe's has also invested in Blanchard's situational leadership models, and again, I'd suggest that the "effective" examples of leadership in the military that I have seen take such principles and go much further with them. Quite a while ago, I thoroughly enjoyed getting coached and corrected by a basic training battalion commander who did a better job using the socratic method than any professor I've ever witnessed. I had to stifle a grin and giggle as my third person self would watch my interactions with this lieutenant colonel. It would have been inappropriate to tell him at the time, "Dude- awesome execution of socratic method!". I've seen great military leaders model some of Marshall Goldsmith's feedback, that many times, the best leadership approach is to resist the temptation to "add value" by putting their voice and stamp on some work that their subordinates have created.

In any case, the comments about military leadership are intended to convey my argument that those who characterize military leadership as autocratic, or vice versa, have missed something.

Another book read- some related military thoughts

2009-12-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days read through a book that had been on my shelf for a good while:

The Looming Tower, Al-Qaeda's road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright.

After working through it, I note that the book is a winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. So I'll just add my endorsement to that one. Lawrence Wright continues to cover the topic in his work for the New Yorker.

I've read a large number of books trying to understand some of the culture, background, etc of the situation I was working through during my year in Iraq, but had never carefully studied bin Laden and/or Afghanistan. I'll soon be "covering down" on a rear detachment command for a unit that is deploying to Afghanistan in the near future, one of two battalions within our brigade, so I have wanted to get a better sense of the big picture of what they are moving into- not that the text would give me any insight into what their day to day activities would look like (one engineer battalion, one MP battalion).

In any case, I was impressed with the level of detail in the text, and it felt very consistent with my experiences during my year in Iraq in trying to understand the motivations and cultural practices, expectations, etc of those with whom I worked or those that were trying to kill me and others like me.

I had one thought repeatedly come to me as I read and contemplated our engagements in Afghanistan to date. We really seem to be taking a broad and blunt instrument approach when it appears to me that the most effective approach would be more targeted and surgical. I can't profess to fully understand our mission and strategy right now, so it may be that the approach is completely aligned with the mission and strategy, in which case I'd suggest that we need to do a better job of communicating the mission and strategy to the general public.

In any case, a great book if you'd like to study the "how did it get to this?" question, and get some insight into the backgrounds of bin Laden and Zawahiri. Additionally, some interesting profiles of the U.S. folks that were trying to get in front of them, their ignored warnings and failed attempts to work through the bureaucratic infighting between CIA and FBI.

Lowe's taking care of the troops; Christmas for our military

2009-12-22T08:07:00.001-07:00

I've had to adjust to negotiating my military service with a corporate entity this year, something that I did not have to sweat in my previous world of academia- summers were "free" in that world. From the perspective of the corporate world I can see how it is a challenge to appreciate all the benefits of reservists and guardsmen in your workforce with the interruptions service brings. We try to sell all the other benefits which come from the skill sets and experiences we bring to balance out the absences.

That being said, I'd like to give some public credit to my employer for being ranked in the top 50 (#34 this year!) of military friendly employers and also for another recent grand gesture.

Home for the Holidays

Lowe’s has donated $25,000 to help bring more than 200 soldiers from South Carolina home for the Christmas holiday.

Last week, the Family Readiness Group made a plea to the community asking for help to raise the $35,000 needed to help bring the Army Reservists home before the men and women head to Afghanistan in January. Since then, the group has received $10,000 from local Carolinians and $25,000 from Lowe’s.

The soldiers will arrive on Dec. 23. More than 100 members of the 1222nd South Carolina Army National Guard are scheduled to arrive at Lowe’s 2442 in Ft. Mill, S.C., between 8 and 9 a.m.

Meanwhile, more than 100 members of the 174 MAC (Mobile Augmentation Company) will arrive at Lowe’s 2595 in Spartanburg, S.C.

The Army reservists, from York, Lancaster and Chester counties, are currently in Wisconsin training.

For those Guardsmen, you could not have offered a better gift for their holiday season then to help them return to be with their families prior to their deployment:

For my brothers and sisters in arms during this holiday season, you are in our prayers and are not forgotten, despite the lack of news coverage. It may feel like our country is more concerned about other things, but there is a strong core of people, beyond just family and friends, who won't forget you.

Recent books read

2009-12-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

Recommended: Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever

Not so recommended: Lies About Learning, Larry Israelite

Veteran's Day 2009

2009-11-11T19:09:00.001-07:00

Already Facebooked it, but thanks, Applebee's for the free dinner- I'm not a homeless vet, but I still appreciate saving money. Steak, mashed potatoes and broccoli. Mmmm. Steak.

It was nice to share some Veteran's Day recognition with a few fellow veterans at work. A little bit of a brotherhood there.

And as I think of my friends who have deployed, are deployed and who are preparing to deploy, thanks for your service and stay safe.

Ft. Hood last week- wrong in so many ways, and for those of you who are keeping track, no, I did not know the shooter during my time at USUHS.
Lastly, RIP J.J., Hurstie, and Umran.

Diversity Inc. - don't hurt the feelings of U.S. veterans

2009-11-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, Diversity Inc. posted an entry titled "6 things you should NEVER say to a veteran coworker"

First, as we approach veteran's day, thank you veterans. A bit of a self-serving comment, given my return from the sandbox about 1.5 years ago, but I've gotten to know many more veterans in my time back, including a large and accomplished group of veterans at my new company. They all have served well and faithfully in many varied roles and contexts.

Second, to restate one of my favorite military quotes, “The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” (MacArthur). This one was recently brought back to mind as I reviewed an LDS DVD produced for LDS servicemembers back in 2005 (Let not your heart be troubled) in preparation for a presentation I made to an LDS seminary class. For those who are bearing the wounds and scars of war, whether physical or otherwise, thoughts and prayers for you. Recovery and growth may not be easy, and you may meet with varied levels of support as you seek health services through military, government and other means.

Now, back to the Diversity, Inc. posting, it was interesting to see a post which addressed a military topic in this way- I most often note their messages about their perceptions of the military's failures in diversity, most particularly related to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

I've been accused (rightly, I might add) of being either insensitive or ignorant about people's feelings. So my opinion comes with that caveat. If/when people say those things to me (I've heard all of them except "Are you a lesbian?"), I have the choice to either engage in that discussion or not. Yes, some of the questions can seem insensitive or inappropriate, but most people have no idea about what they are getting into with that veteran, and I don't expect them to be super sensitive about it. They just don't know. Sometimes I'm willing to get into those discussions and correct misperceptions or let them know the impact of their simply asking those questions. Other times I simply let them know those are things I'd rather not get into.

What bothers me about the post, though, is simply the idea that one should NEVER ask the questions, or make the statements. It feels to me like political correctness run amok. To take one of the more innocuous statements as a case in point: "You're too rigid to deal with sudden changes." Now, since I've been back into the corporate life, I've been told that one of my strengths is that adapability to change- which is good, having worked for 4 managers in the past year due to a variety of organizational changes and my recently accepting a new role. That being said, if it was true that I was too rigid to deal with sudden changes, that is useful and important feedback- something I would need to work on. And introspectively, I probably do need to be less rigid in my personal life. It would only be inappropriate if you were to make that statement to a veteran simply because they are a veteran, as opposed to basing the comment on observations about their behaviors in response to changes.

But that applies to pretty much any stereotype and prejudice, veteran status or no. You shouldn't say it if it isn't true.

And of course, just because something is true doesn't mean that it needs to be said. It always helps to pay attention to context- time and place for different things to share or not share. I didn't find it offensive to hear people tell me they support me, but not the war in which I was engaged. It doesn't make sense to me from a logical standpoint, but I don't find it offensive. It would be more offensive if that opinion was pushed on me out of context- someone I don't know, or coming from out of the blue as opposed to within a stream of conversation about the merits of our country's foreign policy and activities.

In sum, yes, some of those things, or even all of them, probably don't need to be said, but I feel like I should give the person saying those things a bit of a break and lighten up on my expectations of them just as I'd hope we can be more understanding of veterans facing challenges. Can't we all get along?

In worst case situations where the person is completely insensitive and offensive- it reflects on them. I can dismiss their ignorance. It is easy enough to simply "break contact" with them or "slip away" to use some military jargon. If they resist and keep coming at me, it is frankly pretty easy to bring them to heel with a few well-aimed comments. That has happened only rarely however, and such people are likely to have never read anything akin to the Diversity, Inc. "careful what you say to veterans" posting.

Going commercial- a sell out- turned to the dark side.

2009-11-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

Signed up for Google Ad Sense to earn a few pennies on ads when a sufficient number of readers click on ads through the page or through the search engine I've built into the page.

Of course, not having posted in so long (and not even having exciting content when I was posting), I don't know that my 3 or 4 readers are going to get me very far....

In any case, click away, baby needs some new shoes!

Links to various stuff sent to me, a few odd thoughts

2009-04-18T11:48:00.003-06:00

These past few months have been in some ways great- for example, I continue to have a job with a stable company, no one is trying to kill me like they were a year ago, and spring has arrived.

But I have been having various challenges and thus the lack of blogging. During that time, I've accumulated various oddities that I thought I should post, but never got around to it.

Here's to a little housecleaning.

A. A million points of light, or rather, lights as representative of world air traffic over a 24 hour period. Cool.

http://gizmodo.com/5055160/24-hour-air-traffic-around-the-world-blows-minds-eyeballs

B. Business versions of April Fools jokes:

http://www.businesspundit.com/the-10-best-april-fool%E2%80%99s-pranks-by-companies/

Flying penguins rock.

C. A different kind of minimalism.

http://www.guzer.com/videos/needle-art.php

D. Things blowing up in space.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/12/us.russia.satellite.crash/index.html

E. Back during the nominations for Obama's cabinet and other positions:

Geithner:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99681725
In different economic times, Geithner's confirmation might have been derailed by the news that he only recently paid more than $48,000 in delinquent taxes and interest for his earnings while working at the IMF. Geithner paid some of the taxes in 2006 after an IRS audit discovered the discrepancy for the years 2003 and 2004.

Secretary of the Treasury.
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/duties/treas/sec-treasury.shtml
"The Secretary of the Treasury is the principal economic advisor to the President and plays a critical role in policy-making by bringing an economic and government financial policy perspective to issues facing the government. The Secretary is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt. The Secretary oversees the activities of the Department in carrying out its major law enforcement responsibilities; in serving as the financial agent for the United States Government; and in manufacturing coins and currency.

Anybody see anything wrong with a Treasury Secretary that either unknowingly or dishonestly doesn't pay his taxes? And then later he actually puts out information that he's going to aggressively go after tax evaders? Ummm....? Do his authorities extend to prosecuting himself?

AP/MSNBC on Tom Daschlehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28940417/
Former Sen. Tom Daschle, picked by President Barack Obama to lead his health reform efforts, recently filed amended tax returns to report $128,203 in unpaid taxes and $11,964 in interest, according to a Senate document obtained by The Associated Press. OK, health and human services- just poor integrity, but not particularly relevant to the post in terms of job skills...and he did drop out after that. Good call.

F. Biggest news event that really didn't even register during the Super Bowl weekend? Iraqi elections. This country is getting it together and we're paying next to no attention. I'm still hoping for my "Welcome Home Warrior Citizen" award- a Reserves recognition program that in my case has not quite panned out. I reach one year back in country later this month. No worry that I will be overindulging in being worshipped as a conquering hero- still trying to get my standard "everyone gets it" award. Even now, with our economy tanking and everything, I feel more worry and concern about the people in Iraq than I feel for most of my fellow citizens- a poor American is much better off than the vast majority of Iraqis. We just don't appreciate (even including myself often) just how great we've got it.

G. Had to switch to the North Carolina National Guard to get a unit that didn't require me to travel extended distances to reach. First drill weekend earlier this month gave me some almost PTSD like symptoms, even though I don't think I had any PTSD-inducing events during my deployment. First, the armory where we met was by the airport- and the frequent air traffic reminded me a lot of Baghdad- when there, my sleeping quarters were right under the flight path to the main U.S. military hospital there in the capital- MEDEVAC flights constantly overhead, punctuated occasionally by the sounds of indirect fire alarms and indirect fire impacts. And we got to go through the Army-wide safety stand-down training for suicide prevention. Not the most upbeat topic on my first drill back. Training quality, well..... perhaps a psychologist and university professor is too critical. Of course, given the topic, not sure one can be too critical when looking at ways to improve the training.

H. An article that I just came across today.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/18/pirates.foiled/index.html

Not quite sure why they'd headline that as pirates foiled and/or captured. Catch and release is not going to stop any attacks. Let's walk through that- the pirates are captured, weapons taken, and then they are released. Given the high payoff to successful attacks, why would they stop?

Insults and cat-like reflexes

2009-01-19T19:22:00.003-07:00

True, this news is a bit dated, but I'm just now getting to throwing my two cents in on the blog that matters only to me.

One of the better entries I came across in reaction to the Iraqi reporter throwing his shoes at our Commander in Chief:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7783325.stm

Classic line was "whereas in other cultures or religions, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of honor and respect..." tongue fully in cheek.

My first thought in reaction to viewing the clip of the "assault" was that our Chief has great reflexes- almost a Keanu Reeves/Matrix-like bending out of the path of the oncoming projectile.

And our Chief couldn't resist commenting something like "I know that he has a great soul (sole?)". You may disagree with his policies and or decisions, but I think in many ways he has a great sense of humor.

I half-expected him to call out with a taunting "missed me!" after the second try. But he exercised his better judgment there.

The article I cite above correctly notes: "... in a previous age, the perpetrator would be facing a summary, and probably agonising, death if he had dared confront Saddam Hussein's regime in such a way."

So some progress anyway. Shoe-throwing, as insulting as it may be in Arabic culture, at least in this case, did not lead to bloodshed.

Media meaningful to me

2008-12-24T04:40:00.003-07:00

I have been tempted in the 8 months I've now been home to have a bit of a pity party about the failure to have any substantial kind of homecoming festivities or recognition- but recognized it was just great to be home and reunite with my family and friends. I also enjoyed getting treated to lunch in reuniting with friends both new and old in a few small, quiet one on ones. I even made a little video so if someone was really interested, I could just show the video, with some narrative, then close the book on it and move on to discussion the present and future.

Still, every once in a while I wonder just when I might get my "Welcome Home Warrior Citizen Award", a nice little welcome home gift that was established by military leadership as a program to show appreciation to Reservists coming home from deployments. The award program is a great idea, but if one goes over 8 months without receiving the award, well, it won't quite have the same impact, having built an expectation and then not delivering on it until it is closer to "Congratulations on Successfully Negotiating Your First year Back in the States Award."

But then I remember again, I didn't go for those reasons, and I'm just glad to have my "normal life" back, to be looking at a bright future, reestablish family relationships, and build the next step in my wandering career.

I like watching the news, especially when it goes counter to the "if it bleeds it leads" motto- so I wanted to share the past 3 DVR'd good news stories that meant something to me:

First, a newspiece on a program called the Snowball Express, shown on an NBC nightly news feature late last week. During the Christmas season, I'm so pleased to see these efforts to take care of families dealing with the loss of loved ones who have given their lives in service to their country.

Second, another feature presenting an outpouring of assistance for an older veteran in financial difficulty. Another great story. As with the other, the silver lining of seeing the best in people as they work with others in challenging circumstances.

Lastly, another NBC newspiece, "Afghan girls defy Taliban". Tragic events, a great resilient spirit, and exposes the perpetrators for the cowardly and despicable criminals they are. The U.S. military knows these enemies, and it is understandably hard to bite one's tongue when the military is presented as the oppressor or the bad guy. Yes, military people perpetrate crimes, but in my experience, those are the exceptions. With people like the Taliban respresentatives in this story, it is the rule, not the exception.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

BYU Football post Utah game

2008-12-06T07:14:00.002-07:00

Had a friend send me a link to a funny, yet kinda creepy, fan response to the BYU loss to Utah- I was wondering if it was perhaps a Utah fan reveling in the suffering of BYU fans. Just up front, I don't think Hitler is funny, nor do I wish to minimize the atrocities committed under his direction. The clip does highlight the intensity of feeling that some BYU and UofU fans experience in the rivalry, however. I'm not quite at that level- even have some ambivalence to the whole glorification of sport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CROOR2QN8

In reaction to some of the complaints about BYU football in the vidoe, my personal opinion is that BYU football has had a great year, despite the 2 in-conference losses, and regardless of the outcome of the bowl game. It is a high standard they are now held to, which speaks to the success Bronco Mendenhall has driven. They've had some great finishes to close games, and even with the recent loss to U of U, if I'm not mistaken, BYU had won the last two games between these in-state rivals.

For those who bothered to check the clip, hope you got a laugh out of it, no offense intended to anyone.

First Christmas post

2008-12-06T06:48:00.002-07:00

Got a nice link sent to me from one of my old schools, BYU, which I really enjoyed hearing over headphones- made the music stand out much better than the regular computer speakers-

Some music and photos with a positive Christmas vibe.

H.M.

2008-12-06T06:39:00.002-07:00

A friend sent out a broadcast e-mail with the news- I appreciated it, because I would have otherwise missed news that was more relevant to me in my previous life as a psychology professor....

From the NY Times,
H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82

Oh, I forgot- I'm still a psychology professor- adjunct, anyway. Go, UMUC!

e-mailed cat and dog humor

2008-11-22T17:04:00.002-07:00

EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DIARY

Day number 180
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Day number 181
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

EXCERPTS FROM A CAT'S DIARY

DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded, must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair ... must try this on their bed.

DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was...Hmmm. Not working according to plan.

DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time however it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid. My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room his safety is assured. But I can wait, it is only a matter of time...

Veteran's Day

2008-11-13T19:58:00.003-07:00

This past Tuesday was the first one where I was able to think of being a veteran without the immediate concerns of actually being in theatre. It was good. Regular day at work, except that my picture was on the company's intranet front page- so the 10 people who know me there gave me fist bumps. In the evening was a 3 minute speaker at a Scout Eagle court of honor. Wore my ACUs, chatted with a retired Marine who was presenting a service award, and even got a brief bit of applause at the end of my comments- hopefully not just cheering that they were over.

I'm genuinely proud to count myself among these brothers and sisters in arms.

A friend sent me a link to some very well done photos of Korengal valley in Afghanistan. As I mentioned to him- I see such photos with a completely new set of eyes after the past 2 years.

And a good set of slides from a commercial site.

A French kid telling fairy tales is cute

2008-11-13T17:55:00.004-07:00

I have another friend (I think I'm up to two or three friends now...) who works with computers and internetty kinds of things. He will occasionally forward me various oddities from his surfing.

Today he blessed me with a video clip of a little French girl telling some fanciful home-made fairy tale. We both served missions in France, but I don't recall this little girl from our time there. She's quite the little entertainer.

Tolerance and protesting

2008-11-13T17:51:00.003-07:00

I've addressed the curiosity of violent peace protestors before, and just had someone send me to a link of a press release from a Catholic leader on behalf of the Mormons in California.

Catholic Bishop Decries Religious Bigotry Against Mormons

There's something odd about protesting intolerance in an intolerant way. People can be fascinating self-contradictions sometimes.

Buying appliances

2008-11-10T17:47:00.003-07:00

Apparently Lowe's has been doing a good job selling appliances.

Reminds me of one of the Bryan Regan jokes I've seen where he talks about selling appliances.

He mimics a guy standing next to a refrigerator. "This one keeps your food cold for $400." Then he mimics walking over and leaning on another. "Come on over here. This one will keep your food cold for $600." And then he walks over to another, "And this baby right here? Keeps your food cold for $800." Bryan's such the master of upselling.

And it has been a while since I saluted demotivators.com. All of the demotivators.com stuff just makes me laugh. It is the perfect complement to The Office in terms of spoofing some of the mistakes we make in business environments. Painfully funny.

Blogged

2008-11-10T17:03:00.002-07:00

As Veteran's Day approached, I was contacted by an old friend who initially had gotten to know me while he worked as a reporter and I served my tour in Iraq.

We chatted online a bit about the elections for part of a blog story he did. I'm pretty happy the elections are over primarily because I found all the negative campaigning fatiguing. When I write about the negative campaigning, I'm not talking about one candidate ripping the other, but rather the habit all the candidates have of trying to make the case that they have solutions- to all the incredibly awful problems that we face. Not to belittle any of the many large and important problems we have, but frankly, our lives in America are pretty good.

Free elections, peacefully held, with leadership that at least to a degree yields to the rule of law and steps down when the vote dictates a different direction. That is outstanding.

I would be intrigued by a candidate that had a primarily positive campaign, something like "yeah, we've got some problems, but for the most part, life is great in America- I want to keep all of that greatness, and I've got a few ideas that will help our great country be even greater."

Other ways my life has been particularly blessed recently- some great church meetings yesterday. A fabulous (but cold) bike trip with Nathan's scout group on Friday and Saturday up in Damascus, Virginia- 50 miles of fun riding down the mountains alongside a stream/river. The fall foliage was maybe a month or so past prime viewing time, but it was still quite spectacular. And we even saw gas prices below $2 up there. That was a spectacular view as well.

Marketing

2008-11-09T06:20:00.002-07:00

When I decided on the career shift into corporate America, one of the options I had given my background was marketing. One of the early 1900's extremely successful marketers is well-known to psychologists for his work in behaviorism. J.B. Watson is perhaps most well-known outside of psychology for something that isn't really linked to his name, but was his concept: the coffee break.

Anyway, I decided against marketing for a variety of reasons, but one of them was the feeling that sometimes the messages put out by marketing have very little fact behind them or are at best misleading. And let there be no doubt, it is about influence. Three words: buy our product(s). Sometimes it is a hard sell, sometimes not. But that is the intent.

One of the companies we were exposed to during the MBA program was a master at marketing, Nike. They had one of their marketing leaders spend some time with us sharing some of their more successful efforts, and he reveled in the moment in a golf tournament where their golf ball, putted by Tiger Woods at a critical moment in a high profile match, paused just at the lip of the cup, with the "swoosh" Nike symbol centered almost perfectly for the camera shot, then dropped into the cup, with the usual Tiger flair and celebration following. It was an awesome golf shot, and Nike got to put their swoosh all over it.

Many sports junkies might think it would be a blast to work for a sports gear company (I heard that one of our peers from an earlier class refused all job offers except from one specific golf gear company- which didn't offer, so as far as I know he remains jobless to the day). I believe ESPN has no problem staffing their Bristol offices with eager interns. My wife has always thought I should be a sportscaster, because I say all the inane and clearly evident things just seconds ahead of the sportscasters whenever I watch a sporting event.

I digress, point being, I checked out Nike just a bit, just as I did a bit of homework on almost any company coming through the MBA program for show and tell, and learned more about how they market the brand and work to protect it.

One of the things I learned was that they do think Wal-Mart is bad for their brand image, so the work-around at the time was they sold the same products under a different, acquired brand, Starter, which they divested themselves of, I believe, earlier this year. A "moisture-wicking" shirt is essentially the same whether it sports a swoosh or a starter logo. They didn't want to miss out on the revenue stream, even if it is one at a lower margin- simply wanting to keep as much market share across the price continuum, if you will.

So it was amusing to me to see this headline a bit ago:
Nike hits Wal-Mart with copycat suit.

Marketing: perception and reality. Or at least perception.

Lowe's supports the troops

2008-10-17T18:23:00.003-06:00

That was the subject line of an e-mail I got today from a friend on the left coast. Part of my MBA cohort at BYU, Amazon snatched our fearless class president off of the job market, but he still keeps in touch. That is nice of him to keep the little people in mind even after we leave the confines of our sanctuary in Utah Valley.

Anyway, what apparently prompted the e-mail was a recent shopping experience he had at my one of my company's brick and mortar stores- and thankfully, he wasn't complaining- he'd simply noticed they had an interesting way of showing their support for the troops....

In case you can't read the small print, Allan realized he was shopping at the "Home Improvement War House"

To celebrate the event, I'm going to spend this weekend wearing my Army Combat Uniform as I go to look for a new unit in the Charlotte area. I go, beret in hand, looking for jobs, interviewing with local units with my 3 last Army job evaluations in hand. OK, I was going to do that anyway, but what a happy confluence of events. I feel more confident carrying that beret around, knowing that I speak French. That's got to be worth something to somebody. Probably not in Charlotte, NC, though.

And on the 7th day, He rested. On the 7th day, they created panic.

2008-10-09T16:49:00.002-06:00

On the Seventh Day, They Worked, Amid Finance Crisis (Update1)
By Oshrat Carmiel and Demian McLean
Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Sunday is the new Monday.

Beyond the obvious 'keeping the Sabbath day holy' issue, I wonder if all the weekend wheeling and dealing hasn't to a degree heightened the sense of crisis in this current economic spectacle. What would have been different if 'all the king's men' worked on this just on weekdays, and stopped for a day or two over the weekend?

Given that we're told all of the "fixes" will take time, what is the rush to blow up the weekends? (I have to say I'm with the French and most Europeans on this 'work less' philosophy. Take some time to smell the wine and cut the cheese....wait a second...)

How would things play out if the government and big players in all this limited their big policy moves and decisions to Tues thru Thurs, leaving Fri and Mon to plan and react, and Sat and Sun to let people live their lives outside of work- and for some, worship properly? I can't help but think it might have signaled that there were serious problems, but that the sky wasn't falling. With how things have been going, could one argue that delaying all the Sunday dealing to Monday would have caused things to be much worse?

More on fiscal management- what's a trillion here or there?

2008-10-09T16:38:00.002-06:00

I've been having lots of conversations with family, friends and coworkers about debt. No surprise, given the current economic situation.

Leverage is a term that I've found ridiculously overused at work- I'm in talent management, not finance. It reminds me of the good old days in the MBA program when we'd play buzzword bingo, and sometimes, even the professor would play along. Good times had by all. Good times. My fervent hope is that someday people will decide that the term leverage should only be used in financial-speak to take the edge off the term "debt", or in physics and engineering to talk about physical levers, like in explaining the principles of balance scales, wheelbarrows, and teeter-totters. But alas, I fear my hope will be in vain.

Anyway..... here's another great "leverage" article. I still can't wrap my head around $53,000,000,000,000. I know it is a lot of money, I just can't really figure out how much that is.

Commentary: America's $53 trillion debt problem

Less effective talent management techniques

2008-10-05T07:53:00.003-06:00

Way back, waaaaaay back, when I was training to be a missionary for the church, we would go through examples of "effective" and "less effective" behaviors or discussion techniques.

Some of the 'less effective' examples were painfully funny- written examples, audio clips, etc. You would think sometimes, 'no one would actually say or do this', and then during my mission I came to realize that, well, they wouldn't put those examples in their training if they weren't happening. Sometimes I had to make sure I didn't laugh out loud in the middle of discussions when I saw these things play out.

In any case, I came across an example this week- not in person, but in the media, of 'less effective' talent management, that I thought was also painfully funny, excepting the fact that when it happens in government situations, our taxes are paying for the follies.

From the Washington Post, some great work from the NIH.

Various media links- economics and the bail-out- sales pitches and pork

2008-10-05T07:32:00.004-06:00

I liked this article because it provided a rational explanation for the public's initial (and for some, enduring) dislike for the bail-out package:

Why aren't Americans buying the bail-out?

These next two are a couple of reactions to the pork issues (or as some liked to call them, "sweeteners") related to the bill the Senate passed and pushed back to the House. I'm thinking I should have invested earlier in wooden arrows for children.

And I'd like to have the names of the senators who are responsible for inserting those clearly pork projects into the bill. These types of actions are why military folks bristle when they perceive that political figures are even close to questioning the honor, integrity, or political motivations of military leaders. We complained when we saw this type of behavior in Iraq, but sometimes I feel we are not so different as we think.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2008/10/the-pork-in-the.html

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2008/10/new-bill-you-ha.html

Against political correctness

2008-10-05T07:21:00.005-06:00

During my year in Iraq, I spent a great deal of time with people from a variety of english-speaking countries who were contracted to provide security training to the National Police we were training.

I came to more fully understand some of the cultural differences in the various countries of origination for these various expatriates.

Very quickly along the way I realized that Australians as a whole (not just the tough guys at our Training Center) tend to have a bit of disdain for political correctness. Here's a humorous example linked to Usain Bolt's crushing victories at the recent summer Olympics events in China.

Thanks, Justin M., for sending that my way a bit ago. I came across it again as I sifted through my collection of silly media, and enjoyed it just as much this second time.

Sports Junkie Notes

2008-09-30T20:08:00.002-06:00

Past couple of weeks had some good sports moments-

childhood favorite college football team, Alabama, clobbered Georgia

BYU continues to impress, now up to #8 in the football polls

Jimmie Johnson, Lowe's #48, wins 3rd race in the Sprint "race to the chase", and is now in first place- 7 races to go.

That's about it, but those are some pretty good ones for me, anyway.

Odds n Ends

2008-09-30T19:30:00.004-06:00

It has been an interesting month in my new job and with things happening around us- two big things happening locally being One: Wachovia getting essentially wiped out- technically not a failure, but practically, well, lots of folks in Charlotte are going to be looking for jobs. Two: gas shortage- hard to tell how much of it is just not much gas, and how much of it is the hysteria and people overdoing it on making sure they have gas. Another advantage to being so close to work- I shouldn't need any more fuel until this thing gets sorted out.

Anyway, in the sports columnist world, Bill Simmons continues to entertain me. I especially liked the "pickup game rules" for the NBA All-Star game.

And a couple of postings related to the bailout (in case the other billions of bloggers' postings on this haven't slaked your thirst)....

From Time magazine online:

How We Became the United States of France

And another Time online piece:

Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail

I don't necessarily agree with all the opinions, but I think there are some parts of this whole thing that are a bit odd, for example, the "economists against the bailout" get no play or airtime, rather the opposition is framed as "a populist uprising". Could it be that the American public isn't deluded, and in fact is accurately perceiving this bailout effort as benefitting the financiers to the detriment of the public at large? Is it not also significant that the opposition in the House is "bipartisan"? Sure, one can argue those who are afraid of not getting reelected opposed it and those that are confident of reelection voted for it, but how often do we get "bipartisan" anymore in anything of importance?

I'm a bit callous.

2008-09-26T15:58:00.003-06:00

So today I saw the following headline on a news website:

"$2 ping-pong ball saves tot during surgery"

And my initial reaction?

"Wow- I had no idea ping pong balls were so expensive!!!"

I'm barely human.

Noise complaints and the military

2008-09-06T09:12:00.006-06:00

Someone forwarded me a note recently that reminded me of the uneasy tension that sometimes oddly exists between the military and the population we believe we protect and defend.

I saw something similar in Utah. the National Guard's primary training area, Camp Williams, is near the "point of the mountain" a spot roughly halfway between Salt Lake City and Provo. It is a large expanse of training area, but also is fairly conveniently located given the population bases around it. That being said, for quite a long time, it was relatively isolated from people and other stuff. Which meant no problems for artillery practice, helicopters and other fairly noisy activities that we sometimes engage in. I know I have some fond memories of training with explosives as a combat engineer- when you're just training, blowing things up can be immensely entertaining.

A representative of the "noisemakers"

Well, as the population of the state kept rising, developers starting building closer and closer to Camp Williams, and inevitably I guess, the residents of a development just adjacent to the training area started complaining about the noise, and since then Camp Williams has started setting rules as to when and how much various types of activities can be done, explicitly due to these noise complaints. The obvious sarcastic response- did you not notice the military base next to you when you were looking at purchasing a home just next door? The military vehicles, barbed wire, and artillery not tip you off?

Anyway, here's the e-mail:

Luke AFB is west of Phoenix and is rapidly being surrounded by civilization that complains about the noise from the base and its planes, forgetting that it was there long before they were.

An individual who lives somewhere near Luke AFB wrote the local paper complaining about a group of F-16s that disturbed his/her day at the mall. When that individual read the response from a Luke AFB officer, it must have stung quite a bit.

The complaint: 'Question of the day for Luke Air Force Base:

Whom do we thank for the morning air show? Last Wednesday, at precisely 9:11 a.m, a tight formation of four F-16 jets made a low pass over Arrowhead Mall, continuing west over Bell Road at approximately 500 feet.

Imagine our good fortune! Do the Tom Cruise-wannabes feel we need this wake-up call, or were they trying to impress the cashiers at Mervyns ' early bird special? Any response would be appreciated. '

The response:

Regarding a wake-up call from Luke's jets' (Letters, Thursday): On June 15, at precisely 9:12 a.m., a perfectly timed four-ship fly by of F-16s from the 63rd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base flew over the grave of Capt. Jeremy Fresques. Capt. Fresques was an Air Force officer who was previously stationed at Luke Air Force Base and was killed in Iraq on May 30, Memorial Day.

At 9 a.m.on June 15, his family and friends gathered at Sunland Memorial Park in Sun City to mourn the loss of a husband, son and friend. Based on the letter writer's recount of the fly by, and because of the jet noise, I'm sure you didn't hear the 21-gun salute, the playing of taps, or my words to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques as I gave them their son's flag on behalf of the President of the United States and all those veterans and servicemen and women who understand the sacrifices they have endured.

A four-ship fly by is a display of respect the Air Force gives to those who give their lives in defense of freedom. We are professional aviators and take our jobs seriously, and on June 15 what the letter writer witnessed was four officers lining up to pay their ultimate respects. The letter writer asks, 'Whom do we thank for the morning air show? ' The 56th Fighter Wing will make the call for you, and forward your thanks to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques, and thank them for you, for it was in their honor that my pilots flew the most honorable formation of their lives.

.....

Lt. Col. Grant L. Rosensteel, Jr. USAF

As far as the four ship formation, it probably looked something like this:

The missing man formation

An addendum to that post... my sister sent me a link that linked again to a youtube video:

http://videos.komando.com/2008/05/26/remember-me/

I don't know Kim Komando, but I appreciated the Lizzie Palmer video showing appreciation for the sacrifices folks in the military make. I am truly proud of the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of my brothers and sisters in the military who have been serving repeated deployments around the world. Some might criticize this video as overly dramatic, but I'd suggest they haven't "been there" and should tread lightly.

Thanks, Beth.

Not a bad sports weekend

2008-09-04T20:30:00.003-06:00

While the Yankees have flamed out, I wanted to take a moment to share my happiness over last weekend's BYU football victory and #48's dominant NASCAR victory in California.

It may fairly be said that BYU was piling on. Here's photographic evidence.

Road trip summer 08- Third time's a charm, or at least, the last time

2008-08-17T06:02:00.008-06:00

Got back this past week from a couple of days in Williamsburg and then a few more in Kitty Hawk, NC with the family. Not great distances, but long drives given various speed limits and the added challenges of children in cars for hours on end. Nobody peed their pants or threw up in the car, so we'll call it good. The children did ok, too!

Elise and Lucas with appropriate charges in the stockade.

Our Williamsburg trip was primarily for Busch Gardens- we got free tickets to go there a few years ago because of our military background (they call it the "Salute to Heros") which was a great experience. Our children have pined to return frequently since then, and so we took advantage of another window of opportunity and more Salute to Heros free tickets. Woo-hoo!

Escape from Pompeii, with my group in the front row....

It was warm there, not too hot, not too crowded and the children did pretty well, which made the free admission that much more enjoyable. I have to say I'm impressed with the children's amusement park visits this summer.

The big-bellied bird man of Busch Gardens....

We stayed at a time share place for a discount so they could talk about selling us a place- or rather time at a place. I'm still not quite understanding how a time share isn't more like a fancy rental than it is "ownership", but that's another blog. In any case, when my parents own a number of these time shares that are "deedable", we don't need to buy any more.

Which leads us out to Kitty Hawk, for an extended family reunion with the Tucker clan at, u guessed it, a time share! My parents collected and used a number of their time share allocations and got a number of units, which was a good thing as we had up to 30 people together there at our peak time on Saturday.

That's all 30 of us- some of the grandchildren we're not quite team players- the result of taking pictures in the late afternoon when they needed naps.

My youngest brother indicated it was some crazy amount of time since we'd had the "whole" family together (parents, all 6 Tucker children, spouses and grandchildren)- something like 8 or 11 years. So that was nice. We enjoyed a number of activities- days at the beach, some at the pool, just hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's unit, one evening we did a family talent show, another we looked at old photos on somebody's laptop. I think I need to invest in a laptop projector....

The original gang of six, yukking it up at our little beach photo session.

Some of the grandchildren doing the photo op at the beach.

We also hit the Currituck Lighthouse, with views of the sound on the west and the Atlantic on the east...

From the top of the lighthouse.

And the Wright Brothers monument, museum, etc.

My big-headed space children, celebrating the progression of flight since the Wright bro.'s day...

Andrea has done a great job of blogging all this already- she had easier internet access at Kitty Hawk due to their unit's proximity to the admin office of the resort, which provided wireless access. That, and she's just dang good at blogging about family activities in general.

http://tuckertidbits.blogspot.com/2008/08/sties-in-obx.html

http://tuckertidbits.blogspot.com/2008/08/beach-bliss.html

http://tuckertidbits.blogspot.com/2008/08/poop-in-pool.html

In any case, a nice break with family, and now we're back home- I think my family has spent more time vacationing since we got here than we've spent in our house. But we're home again, my accomplishment yesterday being clearing boxes out of the garage enough that we have both cars inside the garage. Woo-hoo!

NC DMV- Driving's a privilege- one worth waiting for!

2008-08-16T05:30:00.005-06:00

If ever anyone accuses the state of North Carolina of a lack of productivity, I have one potential solution- fully staff the DMV centers where driver's permits are issued, renewed, etc. I saw about 100 man hours of labor wasted as folks sat and stood for hours waiting for a process that takes minutes per person. The license plate issue and vehicle registration is contracted out, and is quick and easy. Yesterday, after acquiring the necessary documentation, I made both trips, for an interesting contrast.

You know you're in for it when you have to wait 5 minutes just to get the numbered ticket to wait.

And then I waited for almost 2 hours. During that time, I read through the driver's test booklet (had to take the test, and passed... woo-hoo!).

Most interesting driving rule in North Carolina, one I've never observed in action despite plenty of time in the state: when passing on a two-lane road, after checking that the path is clear from oncoming traffic and signaling with your blinkers, you apparently also notify the slower vehicle to your front of your intentions by "blowing your horn"! As my wife noted with a giggle, you do that around her neighborhood, they pull a gun on you. And in most places we've lived, you use the horn mostly to say "hi" to folks. Now, we'll have to remember it means "hi, we're passing you!" Of course, given how I've never seen this happen, I don't think anyone will have any clue why we're honking.

Anyway, here are a few other observations about my extended visit to the DMV. The wait was pretty much standard- my wife had to do the same thing later in the day while I watched the kids. Some poor folks at the DMV had to wait with their children in tow. Not a great place to entertain infants. The workers had to deal a number of times with the waiting clients- "stand behind the rope, please, this is a testing area"- I think I heard that about once every five minutes- because the waiting area was pretty much full, and so people were spilling out to the outside as well as into the testing area.

One guy was borderline "postal"- he made the mistake of leaving and coming back because one of the employees had estimated a 2 hour wait and he missed his turn (his ticket was called and he was not there- go to the end of the line!!!!). That was fun to watch- that is one of the benefits of my lack of empathy- things like this can be immensely entertaining.

I thought a few times about a phrase that I'll butcher from my organizational behavior training- something to the effect that "an organization is perfectly designed to achieve the results it gets." Here are a few of the design elements that result in this DMV experience:

1. Not enough workers, especially to allow specialization- the same people were having to check people in, answer phones, do the documenting, and testing. When I finally got to the back area I observed employees working very hard- so it is not a question of them sitting on their hands....

2. There's something unsettling about waiting for almost two hours to be seen for something that takes less than 15 minutes total, and getting interrupted while your traffic officer answers the phone over 5 times giving directions to the DMV and answering other related questions. It screams "you are the least important person in the room!" (as well as "this is why it took almost 2 hours to get to you")- always a customer service winner! They need to get one of those incredibly annoying answering systems with the menu...for directions press 1, for required documents for initial permits press 2... etc. They could then get a head start on disturbing clients who make the mistake of calling, and not have to interrupt their work.

3. Physical layouts matter. The waiting room area is adjacent to the area where the officers have their desks, you do your testing, etc. But there's a large wall which obscures the view from one area to the other.

3a. Effects to employees: So on one side, the understaffed group works continuously, but can't see the waiting hopeful drivers to be. But they know we're out there, and to a degree they know we've all been waiting a long time (someone asked one of the officers if they should come back at a better time, to which the officer responded, "Lady, it is always like this...."). This waiting has an understandable effect on our moods, and their eager anticipation to meet us.

3b. Effects to "clients": we can't see them working, we see little progress as only from time to time is someone released from our Dante's ring of waiting in DMV purgatory, while the huddled masses curse our fate. We just sit and stew. This is the perfect storm and if anyone ever goes postal in Mooresville, I expect it to be here (or at one of the NASCAR garages- racing fanaticism knows no bounds here). On the bright side, the long wait gives plenty of time to study that DMV testing book, and the wall leaves privacy- you can study in seclusion with the other 30 people in a waiting area designed for 15!

My wife, much more social than I, took the opportunity to visit her fellows in waiting. She discovered that this is actually one of the better DMV locations- they actually have chairs in the waiting area, and given their pristine reputation, folks travel from afar to come get the customer service that we have the privilege of enjoying here in Mooresville. How 'bout that!? We're so blessed in Mooresville!

HONK! HONK! I'm passing!

First week, first house.

2008-08-02T16:31:00.004-06:00

New experiences, some pleasant, some not so pleasant.

Good neighbors on both sides, with children for ours to play with.

A third of an acre doesn't seem like much- until you try to mow it, in N.C. in early August. I did a lot of sweating. My first mowing of my own lawn. With my first lawnmower. Woo-hoo!

The movers did a pretty good job with our stuff, just a few problems- but we couldn't have them unpack everything because we don't have the drawers, shelves, etc on which to place all the stuff. We've got lots of stuff, but very little furniture beyond beds. But beds are good to have, we'll work on the rest bit by bit.

Given all that stuff, glad we got the bigger house, even though our neighbors are very close.

Fire ants. Ants in pants. Ouch. Thankfully, I'm the only one that has gotten to experience them in a personal way. We seem to have cleared up the issue with a visit by an exterminator. I was frustrated that I paid for a pest inspection, only to hear after we discover the fire ants that the only pests they care about are termites and other wood-destroying types. So the investments in the home continue.....

Everyone addresses us as sir and ma'am. Being a Virginia boy, and a military officer for about 14 years now, I'm accustomed to it. It is a southern thing. But it kinda wigs Christine out. Apparently Californians saying "ma'am" are being sarcastic, so she'll have to adjust to the southern hospitality.

Speaking of southern, as I was at Lowe's buying my mower, the associate helping me was wearing a Lowe's 48 car baseball cap, so we talked about JJ getting the pole this weekend at Pocono. After the Brickyard win last week, he seems to have figured things out. We'll see. NASCAR. It's fan-tastic! (or something like that).

After that discussion and a lot of time working on the yard- no shade, I'm now declaring myself a redneck. Because my neck is red.

Lowe's corporate is huge and getting "huge-er". They've built massively during the two years I was gone- they'll bring in corporate employees that are currently up in Wilkesboro and other locations nearby in Mooresville once the building is complete- but there will still be room for more folks in those massive buildings.

Adjusting to high humidity- any time outside and I get soaking wet with sweat. And we have frequent afternoon thunderstorms. I kinda like the t-storms. Hopefully it will keep our grass happy- the parts of the lawn that aren't just clay, anyway.

Proud accomplishments this week- figuring out how to program the door code and remotes for the garage, fixing the beeping fire alarms, and keeping the family from getting bitten by fire ants. I'm a simple man.

Road Trip Take 2

2008-07-28T08:49:00.002-06:00

Left on Pioneer Day in Utah, 24 July, to get the van out to North Carolina- the move is in process.

This time it was just me and the road. 2,000 miles, 2 days. My ego gets involved and I just have to push as hard as I can. So I go 300 miles at a pop, then stop briefly for fuel, toilet, food at drive-thru and press on. Got to western edge of Missouri on Day One, about 950 miles that day. Learned that the locals call it Missoura. Then did the remainder on Friday.

A few meaningless observations:

a) Nebraska had about 100 miles of interstate at one lane for road work. But no road work was being done. Maybe they were also celebrating Utah's pioneer day. Similarly, everywhere that the interstates went down to one lane for road work, there was no work being done- until I hit North Carolina. That's got to be some kind of record for miles of fake road work.

b) Missouri in my estimation for Friday morning should have been renamed Miserable- just for that day, though. My birth state was being rained on my entire drive. And bless you, Mr. Tractor Trailer Trucker That Stayed in the Passing Lane for 25 Miles in Mid-Missouri Trailing Rain Spray So No One Can See or Pass.

c) On a related note, people still send me crazy political e-mails bashing Obama with all manner of falsehoods. I thought about starting a chain mail reflecting my driving experience:

"Left lane is the passing lane. If you are going slower in the passing lane than people in the right lane, you should pull over. Likewise, if there is someone approaching behind you in the left lane, or has been following you for miles flashing his lights, you should move to the right lane." I'll have it translated into every possible language, then add the disclaimer at the end where you have to forward the e-mail to 20 other people or you'll catch the plague, or at least be stricken by scurvy.

I know this sounds drastic or extreme, but the signs by the side of the road which state "slower traffic stay right" are clearly NOT getting it done. This is exactly what grassroots movements are for, no?

d) Caffeine works.

e) Countryside during the drive was beautiful- everywhere, even though the terrain, flora and fauna varied widely. We live in a great land.

f) Bring large quantities 9 volt batteries for all the fire alarms buzzing "low battery" in your new home, or it will be hard to sleep when you get there, exhausted after your crazy driving.

To Dell and Back Again

2008-07-27T18:47:00.003-06:00

Day One, shiny happy people at the flag pole. Guy on left, troop friend Jordan, is wearing a Yoda backpack. We thrive on eccentricity in scouts, apparently.

2 weeks ago now, I spent the week at Maple Dell Scout Camp in the mountains near Payson Utah with my son and his scout troop. As I told all the scouts of our troop (and one honorary member from a fellow troop), it was the best scout camp I'd been to in 24 years or so.

The astute scouters among them quickly realized it was the only one I'd been to in that period of time, but it was still a true statement.

Of note during the trip:

The weather was outstanding- did get warm during the days, but the evenings were pleasantly cool, and no rain, so it could not have been any better.

I had some proud "Dad" moments watching my boy overcome some challenges, the biggest being the swim test on the first day. He had to come back later in the day and try it again, and it wore him out, but he did it. I had to take the same test later that day, and was proud of myself- I stink at swimming, and I'm in lousy shape, but I got through it, too. There were a few other moments where I got to see Nathan work his way through difficulties and I was glad that I had that opportunity.

Not really a difficulty here- stringing a bow on his way to the Archery Merit Badge.

We laughed, their expense.

Boys unintentionally and repeatedly swamping their own canoes when they're trying to win a race is funny- even when it is your own son that is part of the unfortunate tandem.

Scout boys, while better than your average bears, aren't quite the disciplined "bivouac" types that I've grown accustomed to with some of my military experiences.

But they aren't bad cooks... just messy.

Among the more negative parts of that lack of discipline, watching them throw trash on the ground, leave trash around, and then have the adults have to browbeat them to clean it up- sheesh- just don't throw stuff on the ground in the first place, and save all the trouble.

Among the more amusing parts of that was related to the bovine camp population. Apparently Maple Dell has an agreement with some cattle ranchers in the area permitting their cows to roam and graze freely through the grounds every 3 years or so. This was one of those years. So along with the frequent deer running through camp, we also had cows. It was a funny sight from time to time to see a cow running down a path with wild-eyed scouts chasing behind it hooting and hollering. The adults also were halfway hoping to see a Pamplona-style reversal of fortune, with the cows in pursuit of scouts, but alas, it was not to be.

A skit! A skit! Its time to watch a skit, hey!

I still think I'm too cool for the silly skits, yells, and other nonsense that goes on at these camps. But I did them all at full voice and energy for a few reasons to include: 1. to work to keep the enthusiasm up of the scouts- they didn't need to see apathetic parents at their camp (even if we were)..2. I had nothing else to do, really... and last but not least, 3. I would have been in serious hot water with my sweetie if she heard I went up there and refused to "play the game". ;-)

I have a newfound appreciation for the work that others have done in scouting to include my old scoutmasters and my MBA buddy Cameron. Service. Not a lot of reward.

Nathan learns to shoot a bow and arrow. So he can improve his "bow hunting skillz". Gosh!

What goes around comes around. Our crew of boys had their share of the types of kids just as we were in my group of friends as we went through scouts oh so many years ago. Our gang of six was notoriously difficult given our beliefs that we knew it all. Here was some of the payback, I guess.

Who are you calling surly? We're tough, not surly!

Lastly, it is hard to get much done back home- like closing on a house purchase in North Carolina- when you don't have access to phone, internet technology, etc. But that's ok- I enjoyed lots of quiet time when the boys were off working on merit badges and the like. Great to read without the interruptions of technology.

Sports commentary

2008-07-03T23:55:00.003-06:00

Another shout out to an old mission friend, who keeps up an interesting take on sports from an academician's point of view- he shares some of my ambivalence about the roles sports play for us. Good work, Corry!

Also, a couple of other writers/satirists/sports junkies that amuse me no end: Bill Simmons on ESPN's web site (I put his widget on my I-google!), and Pete McEntegart on CNN/Sports Illustrated's.

My favorite sports posting of today was an article about Gilbert Arenas accepting a less than max contract from the Washington Wizards. He may be crazy, but he understands he's an entertainer, and he understands that there's no practical difference between $110 million and $125 million or so in terms of personal income- it is all ego at that point. Kudos to him. Or as he'd say, "HIBACHI!!!!!"

9 days, 1500 miles- Family Road Trip

2008-07-03T22:28:00.006-06:00

20 miles to the gallon- 5 bucks a gallon- $1 per 4 miles- $.25 a mile! Woo-hoo!

Research supports the maxim that "Money doesn't buy happiness." (at least once one gets over a minimum poverty threshold- one that I've been blessed never to approach). To the contrary, knowing that in our particularly blessed situation that money is a commodity easily made, won, lost, etc- and a willingness to give it up for the (family) team made things a lot easier during these past 10 days.

First stop, Oceanside, California- a few days at the beach with temperatures in the 70s, fairly pleasant. A movie (our then 2 year old called the movie "Poo Panda"- those of you with kids can figure out which Jack Black animation this is), a few trips to chow at The Souplantation.... and the announcement that will be made frequently in this post... military discounts rock! Feed a family of 6 all you can eat for less than $35 at a good restaurant!

Squirrel-festa-palooza at park by beach at Oceanside- easily 100 squirrels burrowed in the hillside. One or more posts sentry, the others will come down and eat from your hands if there are no dogs around to spook them.

Was interesting to see all the Marines everywhere with the nearby Camp Pendleton. Wondered how many of them have been to Iraq or other combat areas, and what missions they completed. Wondered how they are doing inside themselves- they, much more than the Army guys, remind me of the Spartans of "300". Warriors, what is your profession? Grunt, grunt, grunt. Not to say that I haven't met some tremendous warriors among my comrades in army green, but the Marines seem much more stoic about it all to me.

Our 4 yahoos at the aquarium.

A day at the UCSD/Scripps-La Jolla aquarium with an old friend of Christine's and her children (friendship is old, not the friend!) was also decent despite the inevitable moments of our losing children. Before one judges our lousy parenting, I want to point out that our 2 youngest, being comfortable being ignored by distracted parents, have no fear and wander at will- and there's a lot of will at such an interesting place. And we left the place with as many children as we brought, and as a bonus, they were all the same children. Another place with what I thought were reasonable admission fees, by the way, with or without military discount.

Christine and Michelle at aquarium.

Then up for a few days in La Mirada/Los Angeles area- church at Christine's old ward, they all still love her. A day at Knott's Berry Farm- theme/amusement park near her parents' home there in La Mirada, a day relaxing/recovering from theme park day and celebrating Malia's 3rd birthday in laid back style- frosted cupcakes and a song, woo-hoo!, and then back to Provo.

Knott's Berry Farm gave us a military discount of almost 40% off! So instead of $210 admission for the family, it got down to $130. We ended up spending about 200 with parking, $5 snow cones and whatnot, but that is better than spending $300 or more any day. So again, the military discounts rock!

Camp Snoopy entrance at Knott's Berry Farm

Some other great things about the Knott's visit- weather was not too bad- a bit warm, but not oppressive- and there were not large crowds, so lines at rides were for the most part very short. In fact, late in the evening, you could just stay on rides repeatedly, because there were only 5 of you getting on a ride that could seat 30 or so! Lucas was tall enough to get on most of the crazy rides, which delighted him- I think he was trying to kill me on the Ghost Rider- a wooden roller coaster that rattles and rattles until I felt my bones starting to crack. A 5 year old with a sadistic streak. Probably wasn't great for his little brain either. Bad! Bad parenting!

A little insider knowledge here- Christine grew up going to this place, so she knows the "old school" stuff- like this grave on which, if you stand, you can feel the guy's heart still beating- I'm guessing most visitors to the Knott's park here never find or visit this little cemetery area with a couple of tricks like this.

Excepting Malia's usual "I need a nap" tantrums, the children were pretty well-behaved on the Knott's visit- which is good for someone like me. Let me explain. I'm not a big fan of theme parks- spend lots of money to stand in lines, sweat a lot, have kids complain about what they don't get/like out of it, etc. OK, "not a big fan" is an understatement. I don't like crowds and I hate lines in general, and paying for it, well, that doesn't make much sense to me. In my fantasy world, I should get paid for those things, not give money to others for such privileges. I'm still figuring out how to bill my children. Anyway, getting back to being positive, this ranked up there as one of our top 2 amusement park visits.

The other great visit was the free visit to Busch Gardens (BG) a few years back- as part of their "military heros salute" or something like that label. They've scaled it back- we'll hit BG again next month- but only 4 of our six family members will be free with a military promotion- but still- that's great, and I appreciate it. What made our visit there great beyond the price was that again, the children weren't as challenging as they could have been, and lines were reasonable. We did get hit with an evening ending downpour at BG, but everyone kept their spirits up given how well things had gone, so the downpour was, in a way, part of the fun- a water ride without the lines, if you will, and cooled us down as it was pretty hot during that trip.

Now, I'm not complaining, mind you, but wouldn't it be something if gas stations offered military discounts? That would have been pretty awesome.

A slight tangent on the road trip post, somewhere between Mesquite and Jean, our rear left taillight cover decided it wanted out of the whole road trip experience, and just fell off somewhere. It didn't do us the courtesy of letting us know, so we were surprised to discover its absence at a gas stop in Jean. If you can picture a Grand Caravan taillight, this is not a small cover. We didn't even get to say goodbye, after all we'd been through over 64k miles or so. I hereby declare my resolution to never buy another Dodge vehicle. Our 5 year old Grand Caravan gets less grand with every day we move beyond the "bumper to bumper" warranty period- random things fall off or break with seemingly programmed regularity, even without the help of an active and young family of 6.

This one apparently stuck around long enough for its owner to get a photo....

For comparison, my Subaru Legacy, now 18 years old and exposed to much trauma, has put the Caravan to shame in terms of needing maintenance. In fact, I'm guessing we'll be replacing the soccer mom van before I realize my dream of replacing the Legacy with that sweet WRX that I've been coveting for years. My Legacy just won't die!

So how's that for a post from a military veteran? Have I gotten out of the uniform and back into the everyday life of a civilian yet? Let me know how I'm doing, or if you're picking up PTSD symptoms that I need to talk with the VA about.

Some thoughts from my easy and comfortable life

2008-06-17T07:19:00.002-06:00

Read an op-ed piece this morning that reminded me of the guys back in Iraq. I've also been reminded as I watch the news that Afghanistan is not exactly in a perfect state.

The Man in the Room
by Bob Herbert
New York Times
June 17, 2008

I'd give the chest full of medals back in a heartbeat for anyone like Luis to be able to experience a "normal" life such as mine right now. Likewise, I'd love to get JJ, Hurstie and Umran back to their families, but that won't happen.

I hope that we don't let Luis and his family down in his healthcare and benefits, that he can fight through the inevitable challenges strengthened by his knowledge that he was acting honorably in upholding the oath he made when he enlisted. I hope families like JJ's, Hurstie's and Umran's remember them fondly and have the strength to carry on in their absence.

Various activities since I've been home

2008-06-14T15:27:00.010-06:00

Father-son campout.

Nathan and I are bonding wearing our BYU-Hawaii sweatshirt and T-shirt

Family trip to the dinosaur museum- little dinosaur fabricated by an old mission friend and some of his family.
Those are all at a hands-on part of the museum- you create your own water erosion projects, catastrophically destroying the toy dinosaurs, vegetation, etc.

And 3 of our wee beasties on the Cosman creation

The Thanksgiving point farm area- pony rides- woo-hoo!

Climb up to the Y on the mountain behind the Brunner home.

Grandpa wanted a picture of his house- do you see it?

Ok, do you see it now? Its the single family home at the top of the hill-

pretty much centered in the foreground in front of the larger townhomes

Some digging for dinosaurs at the dinosaur museum.

Riding the ponies at the farm

View of Provo from up on the Y

Fiscal conservatism- dead in the water

2008-06-11T08:22:00.003-06:00

While serving in a military that pays obeisance to a civilian leadership and dependent on funding from our legislative branch, I have been in my estimation well-compensated and have no complaints about that. Health care is another issue, however.

Anyway, one thing that I've written about a few times before over the past year is my unhappiness that we've been funding the war with a credit card. Someone has done a better job than I have of articulating this phenomenon:

Billing The Grandkids
By Ruth Marcus
Washington Post
June 11, 2008 Pg. 19

VA Benefits revisited

2008-06-09T21:08:00.001-06:00

Someone else was a bit more critical than myself about how the updated GI Bill is getting treated by our executive branch and the department of defense:

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,169105,00.html?ESRC=reservists.nl

Househunting and a couple of military-related articles/commentary

2008-06-04T20:59:00.003-06:00

First full day of earnest househunting in Mooresville, NC is done. Identified 5 properties we'd be satisfied with, but not overjoyed. Looking forward to another day tomorrow, hopeful that we'll be closer to a "dream home" with viewings then. We'll see. The really good stuff around here is all out of our price range right now. But that's ok. We'll be fine with whatever we decide on. So far, while the process is a lot of work, it hasn't been too painful.

A couple of articles caught my fancy in today's "Early Bird News" digests from the military:

A.
Bipartisan GI Bill Excludes GOP Leadership
(Washington Times)...Sean Lengell
Democratic Sen. Jim Webb outflanked top Republicans by courting veterans groups to create a "21st Century GI Bill," a legislative gambit that has again put GOP lawmakers at odds with President Bush and the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain.

I have to say I'm not too pleased with McCain on this one. Here's a chance to really provide a great benefit to veterans, and in my opinion, he doesn't take advantage of the opportunity, and I'm not impressed with his professed reasons for sponsoring an alternative to the Webb/Hagel bill.

B.
Why We Went To Iraq
(Wall Street Journal)...
Fouad Ajami
Of all that has been written about the play of things in Iraq, nothing that I have seen approximates the truth of what our ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, recently said of this war: "In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came."

I'm still impressed by how little people want to think and talk about Iraq in it's current context- so many want to talk about it as if it is 2003 or even earlier. Let's talk about what's happening now (much good news here), and what is best for the U.S. and for Iraq in the future (much potential for good- let us weigh costs and benefits from this point on- what is in the past is in the past). I thought this article did a nice job.

My two cents, anyway.

Some people don't know what they're talking about.

2008-05-29T15:53:00.004-06:00

Michelle Malkin is one of them.

According to Michelle, Rachel's kaffiyeh "for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.'' And she then criticizes Rachel Ray for the offense of wearing this murderous symbol around her neck.

Of course, there might be another explanation, which is thankfully provided in the story I linked to above:

Amahl Bishara, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who specializes in media matters relating to the Middle East, said "Kaffiyehs are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East - by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm."

I'll have to be careful not to wear any of my three kaffiyehs around Michelle.

I like the "for the clueless" part- cheap insults are always great ways to strengthen such well-reasoned and researched opinions.

Here's my try at a parallel article written by a similarly well-reasoned person in the Arab world:

That ad for "The Hookah Shop" should be pulled! The man in the picture is wearing pants. Pants! For the clueless, pants are a type of clothing worn by murderous Americans for years and have come to symbolize all that is wrong with infidels, but have been adopted by local Arabs due to the influence of corrupt fashion designers and Western-loving liberals after being popularized by such people as Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Unabomber.

First day off of active duty.

2008-05-25T15:15:00.002-06:00

Even though I've spent about a month growing a hideous beard, technically, I've been on active duty, using up my accrued leave. Yesterday was my last day of accrued leave.

Which leaves me a civilian, or at least a "warrior-citizen." I'm back in the ranks of regular Army Reservists- known by many as "weekend warriors" even though lately we've seemed to have picked up the pace a bit. That happens when there's plenty of war and not enough active duty types to cover it all. We're cheap labor, and most of us are uncommonly committed for a variety of reasons.

As noted in a post earlier today, I've spent my first day as a civilian ruminating a bit about three friends that I lost in the past year, with tomorrow being Memorial Day.

It is in some ways hard to conceptualize myself as a veteran, but here I am, joining the ranks of many others who have served honorably, many in more difficult and dangerous circumstances than mine were. I feel kind of sheepish in saying it, but I'm proud to number myself among them.

Books I've read

2008-05-25T14:46:00.005-06:00

A habit I got into during the deployment was listing books I've read and providing some comments on them.

In my month home, I've gotten to work through a couple more, and so to keep the process going, here goes.

The Book of Mormon.

One of the canonical works of the LDS church, I read it as part of a grassroots movement to honor the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley. My goal was to finish it before I redeployed, and I finished it somewhere during the redeployment process, I forget when.

It reads very differently once one has served in the military in a combat environment. So I gained yet more appreciation for the concept of reading the scriptures frequently and repeatedly. I'm different each time I read, so what I get out of the process is different each time as well.

Home buying for Dummies.

Pretty self-explanatory, this dummy is boning up on the whole home-buying process, as this summer our family joins the ranks of homeowners. It is about time, no? We put off the process so long (I'm a shiftless migrant worker, what can I say?), that our "starter home" needs 5 bedrooms to accommodate 7 people!

Pretty exciting anyway, though. It will be nice to have our own place.

Mortgages for Dummies.

The MBA program I just graduated from may have had some good home-buying stuff in it- but I missed the whole second year with military stuff, so I missed it. So I'm learning just how much I have to pay to have someone give me money so I can buy a house. Not exciting stuff, but it goes with the home-buying territory. At least the VA benefits are great for home-buying.

Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-25T14:27:00.003-06:00

A year ago I was still trying to figure out what was going on as I worked through my first month in Iraq. I knew that Memorial Day was a holiday that was changed for me from that date on.

And it is different this year as well. I spent most of the meetings at church today thinking about folks who died in Iraq during my time. Folks who "worked for me." J.J. Hurstie. Umran. As I listened to those around me talk about the stresses inflicted on them by rising gas prices and increases in food costs, I didn't get upset. It is the world they know. They are blessed to be in that world and I'm happy for them. I'm honored to have participated in the services which are intended to provide them the security to operate in that world full of concern about financial pressures.

I wasn't on the convoy that killed JJ and Hurstie. But I think about it often. And I can't even picture Umran's home- a place that should be a sanctuary, but where he was murdered.

These three don't count in the totals I see and hear in the U.S. media- two Australian contractors and an Iraqi local national don't merit the attention. But they merit mine. They worked for the U.S., and I supervised that effort. So they count to me.

And they count to their families. I can't replace the voids left in their families, but I do pray for them. That their families may remember the good of these men. That they may be proud of them. That they will overcome the challenges that face them and they can move on, and flourish, even. That my conduct and that of my family may in some small way honor the sacrifices these three made for us, and for the people of Iraq.

Hurstie, J.J., Umran: thank you.

3...no, it has been 4 weeks home!

2008-05-22T09:42:00.004-06:00

First, on the military front.

Reading on Petraeus hearings in Congress today off of CNN's website:

"The security situation is much improved, with overall attacks, civilian deaths, and ethno-sectarian violence all down substantially," said Petraeus, who oversaw the "surge" strategy that unfolded last year. Petraeus noted that the week ending on May 16 had the lowest level of security incidents in over four years.

Best week in 4 years as far as security incidents! That is awesome. I'm happy for the troops and for the people of Iraq. Of course, this gets little play in the States. Steve and company out there, keep up the good work, and hang in there- you think it is hot now? The summer is still coming! ;-)

I admit I thoroughly enjoyed my few hours hosting the General during his visit to An Numaniyah back on 21 January. He keeps plugging along, and the hearings were for his assignment to command CENTCOM. I'm happily out of the uniform preparing for my civilian job as a talent management consultant with Lowe's.

Second, on the home front.

After 3 weeks, my basketball isn't getting any better and the wear and tear from the deployment seems to be holding me back a bit. I'm moderately enjoying internet home searches and talking mortgages with folks as we prepare for a move to NC to start my Lowe's job. Just got a small feature box in the BYU Marriott School alumni magazine profiling my time in the sandbox, which was nice. As usual, I have a fat face in the photo- which is accurate. I'm still fat. Oh, well.

I've really enjoyed much of being home though- various activities with the kids- walks, time in the parks, rock-climbing, restaurants, etc. Visiting with old friends is also a real blessing. I'm even excited about the rain we've had over the past couple of days- the tips of the mountains are again white, and even though I've always found Utah to be rather dry, in hues of brown and grey, relative to the part of Iraq where I worked, Provo is a verdant cornucopia of life.

A Late Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-12T11:15:00.003-06:00

Got to call home this Mother's Day- couldn't do that last year while I "played in the sandbox."

Someone forwarded me this video. I could easily see this being my kids in 10 years. They fight like that already- but lack the sophistication to put it all on video.

Happy Mother's Day, Moms!

One week home

2008-05-01T07:15:00.002-06:00

I've been home a week, and am thoroughly enjoying life without a pistol belt.

It is colder here.
It has snowed twice since I've been home, a contrast to the 100 degree weather of my recent home.

MBA Graduation.
I got to see my wife walk in graduation on my behalf for my MBA. I wasn't expected home in time, and rather than change things up, it was good for her to get some recognition. And we got a nice hand from the crowd when it was announced she was walking for her husband serving in Iraq. And a nice point was that my former Scoutmaster, Chris Lansing, was the keynote speaker for the Marriott school ceremony we attended. I loved my MBA experience, and the only regret that I had about it was that my second year was interrupted by my call to service. I am proud to have served, but regret that I could not enjoy that second year of the MBA as I did my first.

Telling stories.
Folks want to talk about my experiences. I have mixed feelings about this. I write alot about it, which meets my need to express. Further, like church mission experiences, it is easier to share these things with others with similar experiences, and there is no one around me like that. It is alien to them. Additionally, I don't feel like I was in anything particularly newsworthy, I was just doing my job- I wasn't a trigger puller, and didn't have any powerful combat-type experiences, just trying to make a difference with the limited responsibilities I was given.

Life without a job.
We've eaten out a lot. Nathan's celebrated a birthday and becoming a teenager. It has been good to have time to spend with the children. But I'm a bit stir-crazy. I've enjoyed the 3 xs a week early morning basketball. I have much room for improvement in the basketball arena. I enjoy not shaving. I have lots of mail to sort through, and there are other various tasks that have accumulated during my extended absence.

MVP award goes to my wife for all her work during my deployment. My children have greeted me without any of the hesitancy or distancing we'd been warned about by those trying to help us with redeployment.

It is good to be home.

Photos from the past

2008-04-30T11:26:00.003-06:00

Just enjoyed spending a bit of time looking through a digital collection of photos my parents sent me during my absence.

Good stuff.

I used to be skinny.

And my dad used to be in the Army.

He apparently cared as little as I did about keeping his boots clean. Sooo much attitude.

Redeployment process

2008-04-27T21:17:00.001-06:00

After a week of vagabonding around Iraq and Kuwait, we left late on a Saturday nite, and arrived on a Sunday morning to Ft. Riley Kansas via Forbes Army Air Field in Topeka KS. We had one layover in Shannon, Ireland at about 6am that local time. As usual with such travel exercises in the military, we’d get up at insane hours to get ready and wait around, so I was fairly short on sleep for the 3 days or so until we arrived in KS.

I actually slept pretty well on the flights from Kuwait and Shannon, so wasn’t completely out of sorts when we got to Fort Riley.

We had a very brief welcome home ceremony- maybe 10 minutes, including prayer, national anthem, and 2 minute talk. It was kinda funny, really. They only did the ceremony because of some legislative or Army requirement. There were maybe 15 people in the “crowd” that watched our ceremony. But I wouldn’t mind if all military ceremonies were that brief.

We took most of Sunday off, Monday was spent getting our paperwork in order (called the reverse SRP, soldier readiness processing- as opposed to the SRP on our way to Iraq). Tuesday we did a few briefs in the morning, finished SRP, and then did equipment turn in in the afternoon.

The SRP was a bit troubling, because it was not set up to handle the volume of soldiers going through, and also wasn’t equipped to address any special needs- it only really worked for the “ideal” soldier with no problems or additional requirements. For example, my various health problems (shoulder, back, finger, sleep apnea) were noted, but no treatment or diagnosis work was done. ‘Do it on your own time’ was the mantra. We’ll see how that goes. Same for the dentist, etc. We have 180 days to try and get it all in order. Equipment turn-in was also oriented around doing it as quickly as possible, with accuracy taking a back seat to expedience. That piece was nice, because it meant we could hold on to pieces of equipment that we were particularly interested in. And of course, it means I am bringing home a bunch of stuff. I’ve done far too much accumulating during this tour. Much of it has so much sentimental value to it, though, which makes it hard for me to throw things away, no matter how silly the retained objects may seem to others.

And the outprocessing period has been a bit odd also because none of the folks I was close with were going through it with me, so it was another period of being pretty alone in a crowd. No complaints, though, it is just great to be in the United States. Just this morning as we have been doing our final outprocessing, there were some units doing their train-ups for their deployments and they were doing test-fires of their 50 caliber machine guns. That gave a number of us some decent startle responses- not PTSD by any means, but our bodies clearly went into alert status as they would and did when hearing unexpected gunfire back in Iraq.

And now on the bus out to Kansas City International Airport. Get to be with the family tonight. Looking forward to it.

Basra revisited

2008-04-27T21:11:00.003-06:00

About a month after Maliki’s assault on “criminal elements” in Basra, things look much different than they did in that first week and the talking heads’ analyses. The Iraqi Army and police seem to have truly taken control of the city and its critical ports, and both the security forces and the people of the city seem to have taken great confidence in the process as it unrolled. Yes, it was messy, and yes there were desertions. But in the end, it appears the desired outcome has been achieved, and it was largely an Iraqi operation. Such an outcome would have been unthinkable back in the days of the Fallujah offensive when the Iraqi contingents simply refused to engage at all.

But the media doesn’t report the progress with nearly the same intensity as they do the failures. The old “if it bleeds it leads” maxim seems to hold true, but I believe more and more as I observe things in Iraq that many of the large popular media outlets really do fail to provide balanced coverage. They seem to revel in the failures, both on the Iraqi and U.S. side- as if they would be happier to say “I told you so!” than to say, “We were wrong, and the U.S. and Iraq are better off because of what we’ve done there.

Not spectacular, what is happening now- but much more important.

Farewells and awards (12 April 2008).

2008-04-27T21:00:00.003-06:00

When does this thing start? (end of tour, 'what me, worry?' slouch)

Good to see you again, boss! 3rd time's a charm!

Just got “recognized” by folks who don’t recognize me. Spent my whole year at An Numaniyah, but came up to HQ to get my award, which was presented in front of all of the DoIA. It was nice, they said lots of nice things, and I got some pretty ribbons. It was good to be recognized along with two captains that I got to know at Ft. Riley- sharp guys with some brutal cynicism and humor, who I believe probably served with “extreme valor and fidelity” as the awards state. But I knew very few of the people in attendance, and none of them really had any clue as to whether I deserved the awards or not- nobody up here really knows my job down there, or what I did well or poorly. I did plenty of both good and bad during my tour. And before anyone protests “your bosses had to know what you were doing!”, I’ll tell you simply that I somehow either earned their trust, or they were occupied with the veritable plethora of other issues (referred to by others as “helmet fires”, and between those two reasons, I was left almost entirely to my own devices down there.

Some time with the big man- as with my more immediate leader, the third meeting- on the way out- it doesn't get any better than that.

More meaningful than the IZ awards presentation were the truly heartfelt discussions I had with my friends down at An Numaniyah. It was hard to say goodbye to the National Police that were there. And most of them weren’t even there because of the extended hiatus the Training Center is in. Just as we were leaving the Training Center for my last time, General Sabar arrived. He hurriedly had some of his staff wrap up a couple of gifts, and they are all gifts that are quite meaningful to me. I had requested a set of the National Police patches as a souvenir, and they came through. They also gave me a leather bound poster-like “map” of Iraq, with well-known sites engraved in the leather. Lastly, there was also a smaller box, with inlaid stones, a nice map on the top, with a little genie-style lamp within. It was beautiful, and something that I might have bought myself, which is not a common thought of mine when I receive gifts from my brown brothers. I had to go quickly- almost missed the helicopter because it came early- so I didn’t get to ask them about the meaning behind the lamp. I like to think it represented knowledge and education, a symbol that I’m familiar with. They had always rendered honor to me, at least in our discussions, for my educational background.

That is one thing that I noticed more and more throughout my tour. The people of Iraq I worked with were always generous, gracious, hospitable, and concerned with showing respect and honor. They would always offer “chai”, tea, which I would respectfully decline for my personal religious reasons. They would always escort me to my vehicle or otherwise walk with me to an appropriate parting point, rather than the more cursory American style of “you can find the door.” I’ve commented in previous posts about their customs of gift giving. I have found them very generous with what is by our standards meager means. It is hard to reconcile that with other experiences of hostility and danger, mafia-style business dealings, cheating, and the rampant mistrust in this country. But here, like anywhere, it appears we all retain an ability to live lives of incongruence and contradictions apparent to everyone looking on from the outside. A silly parallel from the states would be the person driving an SUV with a “save the environment” bumper sticker. I also hold out the hope that these experiences are with different people- that the ones that are so nice to me are not also the ones participating in all of those other less friendly activities.

I wish the National Police well, and hope the Training Center can someday once again be a major contributor to increasing the personnel strength and skill sets of the National Police. It really has great potential if it can get the proper level of support and can enjoy effective management. Those are contingencies at this point, however.

And Steve and Tim, I pray it goes well for you as you try to clean up the mess I’ve created down there!

The flight from Numaniyah, double entendre intended

2008-04-27T20:31:00.005-06:00

A last photo at the Police Training Center barracks.

The flight came a bit early, which meant we parked, I threw my gear on and gave quick hugs, and got on the bird. It was the first and only helicopter flight I’ve gotten that was resourced through my higher command. Better late than never. The quick hugs were in a way a good thing- no awkward waiting at the landing zone, just go, quickly. Like ripping the band-aid off, I was gone. I really had a good year down there, and I’ll miss the work challenges, the fraternity, etc. I won’t miss the smells, I won’t miss the bugs. I won’t miss the distance from family, the intermittent power and poor communications. I won’t miss convoys just to get food and mail. I won’t miss the knowledge that I was one of the 20 Americans on a base with up to 7,000 Iraqis at a time. I was and am proud to have served there, but never liked the idea of how vulnerable we were- and how my colleagues who remain there are now. But it does make it hard to paint us as occupiers there- it truly is an Iraqi base, Iraqi run, with the U.S. providing some mentoring and advising, but we don’t run the clown show anymore.

General Sabar honors me with a couple of great gifts-

almost missed him as he rolled in just before my departure.

The flight was a time of reflection as I looked out at Iraq below me. This was it. Last helicopter ride. I’ll take an armored bus from the IZ to the airport when the moment arrives for the movement out of country. For the most part we flew over green and irrigated areas around the land of the two rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates keep these parts of Iraq alive. At times, though, we’d be over drier, sandier spots. I was noticing what I first thought were large craters, and guessed they were impacts from bombing. Upon further inspection, these areas revealed themselves to be a bit more orderly, and I would be able to spot HESCO barriers and sand-colored tactical vehicles. The holes were made to yield sand to fill the HESCO barriers, providing protection for the isolated outposts the barriers surrounded.

I thought during the flight about what I was leaving behind- the National Police, my replacement, etc. And consistent with my experiences throughout the tour, I was pleased with the fruits of my labors, knowing regardless that there were other things I could have done better. On the whole I know I made a good effort to do the right thing and try to make improvements throughout. As my Iraqi brothers would say, through interpretation- “you were very serious in your work, and we have learned much from you.” I can hold my head up high as I return home and know that when I was called, I stood up and answered the call. I worked through fear, through health problems, disappointments, danger, and sometimes even a strong sense of loneliness. But I’ve almost made it home now.

Last photo of Numy friends, from the chopper

The goodbye from my friends' perspective- I'm in that bird. Photo credit to Steve.

I live in a tent (12 April 08).

2008-04-27T20:28:00.000-06:00

Since I came up to Baghdad unnecessarily to out-process even though I never really in-processed, I also have been unnecessarily exposed to indirect fire. Thankfully, things have been considerably more peaceful than it has been for the past few weeks, which is good, because I live in a tent. After five years here, we haven’t solved the problem of housing for all the folks we have working here. Most everyone is in trailers- only a select few have hardened shelter. And folks like me, here only temporarily, get put in tents. I am mere feet away from the old palace that serves as the U.S. Embassy (until the late and over-budget Embassy).

If I were smarter, I’d probably do a bit of extra work to find some housing inside the Embassy. My NCO found some when he was here and encouraged me to link up with the same set of helpful Marines. But it has been very quiet, and for right now, I’m fine in my 100 person tent with three people in it. And it has a nice historical feel to it, reminiscent of some great verse in the Book of Mormon, which my children can now repeat with a personal feel to it: 1 Nephi, Chapter 2 verse 15: And my father dwelt in a tent.

Meeting old friends, and fitness interrupted (11,12 April)

2008-04-27T20:11:00.005-06:00

While I always complain about trips to Baghdad (all two of them I made during my whole deployment!), one of the nice parts about it is that I get to reunite with old friends. This past time around, however, a good number of old friends were already gone. Half of the team I deployed with has already gone. But I did get to link up with a few, regardless.

Riley battle buddy John, at the Rhino lot late on a Sunday evening

One of them was my Ft. Riley battle buddy, John. He’s a good guy, police officer on the civilian side, former West Point football player, very calm disposition. He’d battled some health problems but came back to finish his deployment regardless. He also helped me a good bit getting my stuff to the transportation point for my 2am ride out to BIAP on the other type of Rhino- an armored bus kind of thing. John invited me out to yoga class my first night in town. He goes 6 days a week, and I wasn’t quite ready for it, but went anyway. I was sweating profusely through the whole thing, and there were some things that my reconstructed ACLs just wouldn’t allow me to do- I can’t bend my knees that much. But I survived with little more than perhaps a slightly strained right hip. It was fun, and a great workout. And I have no flexibility, but I could see that if I did that 6 days a week I’d get there eventually. Of course, I’m out the door, so that won’t happen in Baghdad.

The good captain, not a close friend, but had the best job title (apologies to dogbert)

Another friend was a Marine, Derek, who I’d just met and worked with during my last trip up to Baghdad. He was kind enough to invite me on my second day in Baghdad to get a bit of a workout at a punching bag at the same fitness center where I did the yoga thing the night before. I was flattered to be invited, and we had a good time with the workout. We chatted a bit as we went through a routine that he’d developed in working with others with some expertise. I hadn’t done much like that since some judo type training way back in 1992 during my job skill training for my enlisted army position back at Ft. Sam Houston, TX.

I almost had to laugh, though, as we got the alert for incoming “indirect fire” (IDF- rockets and/or mortars), and had to take cover. We were out pretty much in the open (the punching bag was hanging outside) away from any building. So we ducked behind a wall while we got our stuff together, then half walked/half ran to the building which wasn’t much better cover, given how much of its walls were nothing more than glass.

First, indirect fire isn’t really a laughing matter- in a recent post I note 2 MNSTC-I folks that were killed just over a week ago. So it is deadly serious in that respect.

Maybe it was just mirth at the sheer folly of my existence- how did I ever end up hanging out hitting a punching bag with a Marine at a fitness center in the International Zone in Baghdad, and then get it interrupted with IDF exploding somewhere around us? (I think it was to the north, but I don’t have a great sense of direction in the IZ) All my psychology and business training was paying off yet again!

The laugh was a bit the amusement of watching a Marine running for cover (tough guy!), but mostly for the odd situation we have where taking indirect fire is just a part of the experience there. We as the U.S. have a tremendous amount of firepower, but given that the folks firing these rockets and mortars are doing it from neighborhoods, often on mobile platforms, we’d often have to destroy far too much innocent civilian property and risk the lives of innocent civilians to make it worth firing back indiscriminately. So for folks like us, with no combat power under our command, we just take it, and scatter like mice as we run to get our helmets, body armor, and try to find hardened shelter.

The IZ I think should have the subtitle “IDF Magnet”. I can still remember the footage from the press back when I was at Ft. Riley last year, sometime between Feb and April- I believe it was the newish secretary general for the UN (Ban Ki-Moon?), at a press conference with Maliki, when some indirect fire hit either the building they were in, or close enough nearby to really rock their building. The secretary ducked down and started looking around for some cues as to what he should be doing. Maliki didn’t even exhibit a startle reflex- just kept on going with the brief, muttering something to the secretary about not worrying about it. What a life.

I am heartened however, when I do get to see reports of times when drones or other air assets can pinpoint tubes or other IDF activity and destroy the weapons and/or their operators. My unit wasn’t a warfighting unit, but thankfully someone else is responding to these hostile acts on our behalf.

Last convoy

2008-04-27T20:08:00.001-06:00

This is a bit dated, but now I've got the internet access I've needed...

I’ve written about the few other convoys I’ve run on my private blog for family to know about just how scared I was. For the rest of you, I was never scared.

The last convoy run I made just last Thursday (10 April 08?)- not a bad way to spend my last full day at An Numaniyah- actually only part of it- half of it was spent at Scania. In a nod to The Office, I was named ‘the Assistant “to the” Assistant Convoy Commander’- 3rd in charge- (kind of like when Pam secretly helped out Dwight!). We made the typical run for mail, stop by finance, and the maintenance shop to get some of the vehicles worked on. We got to see the typical sheep and camels on the side of the road, and thankfully, another uneventful run in terms of enemy activity.

The only two remarkable pieces to this convoy were that 1) we had one of the new team in the lead, rather someone from the old crew, and 2) we had a couple of “Iraqi Army (IA) gun trucks” (nothing more than pickups with gun stands in the back) in the convoy as well. They had come along to get “Rhinos” mounted on the fronts of their trucks (the Rhino is a deceptively simple device to defeat IEDS- what normal people call “bombs”).

Why were Iraqi Army trucks getting Rhinos? Well, because the 3rd ITB team wanted to keep their guys alive. Primarily for their food runs, especially bread. The Iraqi Army guys have to make convoys just like we do for stuff, and given that much exposure on the road, it was one more way to keep them alive and keep the samoon coming. Got to keep the soldiers fed. The IA vehicles are much more vulnerable to IEDs than our vehicles are.

Towards intelligent debate about our involvement in Iraq....

2008-04-27T18:22:00.002-06:00

This one was particularly sharp, I thought. I prefer these to the hard right or left howling editorials.

How We'll Know When We've Won
A definition of success in Iraq.
by Frederick W. Kagan

Weekly Standard
05/05/2008, Volume 013, Issue 32

This week as I reintegrate into the wonderful world of America, I had one person ask me (at least she apologized as she asked it)..."what is the difference between Shi'ia and Sunni?".

I just don't know who to be frustrated about with questions like that. Our notoriously Americentric public in general? Our government's leadership that has been discussing and debating our involvement in Iraq in a way that has failed to educate our public in any meaningful way about what's going on in that country?

What's up?

2008-04-22T17:40:00.002-06:00

I've had limited internet access for quite a bit of time now, so I have a number of entries stacking up on my laptop, waiting to be exposed to the world.

I got to Kansas on Sunday, have been going through outprocessing since then. Should be reunited with family in just over 24 hours.

It is good to be back in the United States.

While I still suffer the indignities of "open bay" billeting accomodations, it is a small inconvenience at this point. I continue to pray for the well-being of others facing much more challenging conditions.

Another good decision point for Iraqi leadership

2008-04-14T23:47:00.002-06:00

Here's a chance for the country's government to send a message that they are not ruled by the religious leaders.

That Sadr calls for reinstatement of folks who refused to fight, or worse, went to the other side, sounds completely ridiculous from our western perspective- but I can understand it a bit more after a year here.

Regardless, to reinstate these guys would not strengthen the movement towards a national identity, and as I implied in an earlier post, weakens any sense of accountability.

Let us watch (I am now at this point a non-participant) as the country of Iraq tries to figure this one out. I wish the best to my brothers and sisters in arms still making the effort to lead Iraq towards peace and prosperity.

Go, JJ!

2008-04-14T12:52:00.002-06:00

Yes, I know this isn't a Phoenix photo....

I saw in the sports news recently that Jimmie got his first win of the year, and is up to 4th in the points standing for NASCAR.

Go, Jimmie!

Iraqi Government Dismisses 1,300 Soldiers

2008-04-14T12:44:00.003-06:00

NEWS: AP -
Iraqi Government Dismisses 1,300 Soldiers,Policemen After Basra Fiasco

13 APR 08, 1600,

EXSUM: Operations in Basra have cause challenges forIraq's military and police force. Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 421 Iraqi police and 500 Iraqi soldiers were fired from their positions in Basra. The members failed to return to duty in Basra and will be tried in military courts. General Khalaf said those that can prove they were prevented from returning will be reinstated. In addition 400 local police were fired in Kut for refusing orders to combat. Unidentified Iraqi government officials reportedly have said that about 1,000 members of the security forces - including an entire infantry battalion -mutinied and in some cases handed over vehicles and weapons to the militias.Iraqi government dismisses 1,300 soldiers and policemen after BasraFiasco,

By Bushra Juhi, AP Writer

My two cents- yes, folks deserting is a bad thing, but the numbers beat the pants (not to be mistaken with the "Status of Pants" posting) off the Fallujah experience a few years ago when you look at the overall numbers of folks the Iraqis put into the fight- so progress there. And now the AWOLs and mutiny types are being held accountable (kind of)- extraordinary- I'm very impressed by this accountability process given what I've seen over this past year.

The flight from Baghdad

2008-04-14T12:41:00.002-06:00

Caught a C-130- Japanese military- remarkable.

I didn't understand a word they said.

But they seemed very nice.

A Tribute to "My Chaplain"

2008-04-14T11:50:00.003-06:00

From: Terpstra, Gordon LTC MNSTC-I CHAPLAIN
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:06:43 PM
To: DL MNSTC-I All Hands
Subject: Chaplain's Word of the Day

WHEN GOD POURS US OUT

An ancient Arab proverb says, "All sun makes a desert."

God knows that, too. He doesn't let us have all sunshine, for it could easily produce overwhelming barrenness in our lives.

When grapes were harvested in Scriptural times, they were crushed on a platform and the juice was collected in large vats. However, it had to be poured from one vat to another as the heavier particles of waste settled on the bottom. If it was not poured out regularly, it would become bitter and ruined.

People are like that, too. God speaks in the Scriptures of pouring out people to purify them. From time to time I've been poured out, too. I don't like those times because it's painful to be poured out. But it's very productive, and it's purifying.

I have been poured out in this deployment to Iraq. So have many of you. But the pouring out has changed us. Something deep and permanent has been formed within us...a growth in our soul, in our inner spirit, in the kind of person we are. And it's also very comforting to know that when the events of life cause us to be poured out, the cause is not some force or fate, but the loving hand of a Heavenly Father Who is seeking our growth and purification.

Being poured out does not mean God has abandoned you. It means that God is seeking your growth.

Thank you, Chaplain Terpstra for your service to our command over this past year. This post was yet another of his fine efforts- on the same day that he led a service for two more of our fallen soldiers.

Iraqi haircuts and international haircuts

2008-04-14T11:15:00.000-06:00

(12 April 2008)

Before the collapse and fall of the BLP empire at An Numaniyah, we would get our haircuts done from time to time by the Iraqi barber. Pretty nice- he worked in the classroom building helping the students most of the time, but he’d occasionally be brought up to the headquarters building to work for the expatriates to make our lives that much easier.

I was usually leery of having an Iraqi with a straight razor anywhere near my jugular, but one of the visits, I decided to use him rather than my NCO or one of the other expats- I had used “Needles” and “Sunny” before. Given I went with the Iraqi, I went ahead and got the full treatment. He did the traditional short military haircut, and worked on my unruly eyebrows and ear hair (men never go bald, the hair just starts growing out of different places as we get older, and yes, I’m an old 38). Then he pulled out some string, and made my life painful. He takes the string across a few fingers so he can double it up, and in a twisting fashion the two strands would grab and then pull out hairs on my face- the little peach fuzz hair on upper cheeks and forehead- not the regular beard and mustache hair. Brutal. But an interesting experience, anyway. One I’ve not repeated since then.

I took inventory as I reflected on this. Being on active duty since last January, I’ve had to keep my hair fairly short, which has meant lots of haircuts. And so I’ve had lots of folks running their hands through my hair with scissors, clippers and razors: Iraqis, U.S. military and civilians, Indians, Pakistanis, etc. My hair has lots of international experience. Which will help it land a great job in a company that has an international focus. The rest of me however is planning on going to Lowe’s- at least until my next deployment.

News Links

2008-04-03T02:43:00.002-06:00

A couple of articles sent by our public affairs officer-

First, a blog entry taking a cynical (but not entirely unrealistic in my opinion) perspective on the state of the loyalties and allegiances of various Iraqi factions and forces. This is informed by last week's events in Baghdad and Basra, as well as information about hiring practices for security forces.

Motivation, Mutiny and Militias
by Fester
2 April 08

Pretty brutal.

Second, a glowing review of Odierno's work (and to a degree Petraeus'), which I think is perhaps a bit too optimistic about the results achieved. It does acknowledge there is still much work to do and that we continue to face many challenges.

The Patton of Counterinsurgency
With a sequence of brilliant offensives, Raymond Odierno adapted the Petraeus doctrine into a successful operational art.
by Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan
03/10/2008,
Weekly Standard Volume 013, Issue 25

Things to think about

2008-04-02T06:42:00.002-06:00

It is painful to read about the performances of some of the National Police over this past week. I didn't work directly with either of the brigades specifically mentioned, but it hurts regardless. And I'm sure it is troubling to the leaders who aren't corrupt- as they try to clean house, they see their work torn asunder by folks with questionable (or clearly JAM) loyalties.

Iraqi, Al-Sadr Showdown A Test Of Loyalties
Hundreds of sympathetic security forces defied orders to fight Shiite militiamen
By Charles Levinson, USA Today
USA Today
April 2, 2008
Pg. 6

An interesting perspective from an NPR reporter about last week's events and their implications.

LTC Nagl with another good letter in the NY Times. Discussing this with a special forces LTC, he has a beef with the assertion that we don't have the doctrine for these advisory teams- he believes it has existed for years within the special forces community and within other parts of the military- it is just not in the mainstream "big army." The title of the article reminded me of Bob on the Fob's "Good idea fairy."

And a good commentary from yesterday about the financial piece of the whole military effort.

Watches

2008-04-02T04:54:00.008-06:00

Things have quieted down considerably since last week's excitement, which is good. Not that it ever gets really crazy or even do we face much violence where we are- mostly just threats and intrigue, with the occasional killing.

Which means that as we provide overwatch for our dormant training center, we can do plenty of our own dorming. Dormir- french verb- to sleep.

And we can catch up on blogs, and in some of my surfing yesterday I found the ultimate blog for my awful infatuation for the man jewelry known as the watch.

Steinhausen- one of my self-purchased Christmas toys last year

Watchismo. This blog rocks. If you have a thing for watches, anyway.

Sea-pathfinder. Another of my man jewelry items. Complicated enough I can't figure out half of the functions.

If you think looking at odd and unique watches is cool, this is the site for you. If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars of truly disposable income, you can get the actual watches, too.

My old stand-by- the Seiko Monster Diver- I've missed this one during my tour. Didn't want to mess it up.

And another recent acquisition- I'm a silly, materially-oriented person. But it is so cool how it works in the dark with the tritium dials!

The complexities of the Iraqi political scene.

2008-03-31T08:20:00.002-06:00

Once again glad I'm not in a position where I have to keep track of all the interrelationships. Folks seemingly make and break alliances around here like they're contestants on Survivor. Pun intended, they really are working on the whole survival thing.

Iranian general played key role in brokering Iraq cease-fire
By Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom over the weekend to win the support of the commander of Iran's Qods brigades in persuading Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop military operations, members of the Iraqi parliament said.
Sadr ordered the halt on Sunday, and his Mahdi Army militia heeded the order in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government announced it would lift a 24-hour curfew starting early Monday in most parts of the capital.

A bit of commentary on this article...

Maliki And The Iranians
By Kevin Drum
Mar 31, 2008

Another earlier analysis, before things apparently started quieting down....

RPT-ANALYSIS-Maliki's Basra crackdown poses risk for U.S.
Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:57am EDT

I found the questioning of Maliki's political intentions with this action particularly interesting. Truth at this point is I have no clue what motivations were in play. I have enough trouble figuring out intentions of folks I work with.

On the bright side, the Iraqi leadership was acting on its own- sovereignty, even if we didn't necessarily agree with how they exercised it. Makes things a bit difficult for the U.S. leadership which likes to be more prepared than they were on this Basra event, and it will take some time to figure out the implications of what has happened there and in Baghdad, and how it impacts future events here.

And where is all the breathless reporting of things calming down a bit after a week of trumpeting instability?

All Hail Davidson!

2008-03-31T01:43:00.005-06:00

Davidson's Stephen Curry, center, tries a shot against Kansas' Sasha Kaun (24) during the first half of the NCAA Midwest Regional basketball final Sunday, March 30, 2008, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Those who know me well know that I'm a basketball junkie. I play as much as I can, even though I play poorly after 3 ACL reconstructions and I spend far too much time with my face stuffed into bags of Doritos, the consequent weight gain limiting my 1 inch vertical. That's what the set shot from way downtown is for, I figure.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are watching ACC and NCAA basketball tournaments. One of the folks I enjoyed watching was Dell Curry, a lights out shooter from Va Tech who went on to a successful pro career as well. And now his son playing for Davidson College has been torching some very highly ranked opponents like Georgetown and Wisconsin. Davidson has previously been a pretty good basketball school, especially for a small liberal arts college, but it has been a while since they were making the news. I'd known them mostly for the fact that "Lefty" Driesell was their coach prior to moving on to Maryland and my dear ACC hoops world.

It was neat to read about this for a couple of other reasons beyond the link to my past. It is always fun to follow the underdog, and Davidson did well yesterday even in defeat. Additionally, Davidson is situated just a few miles south of Lowe's corporate headquarters, where I'll start working in a few months after this deployment. During the internship we did back in the summer of 2006, we actually went down there to enjoy the fourth of July fireworks demonstration. Bugs aside, it was fabulous. We didn't lose any children, and the fireworks were pretty good, too.

Davidson is situated in a beautiful area not much unlike the woodsy area where I grew up in Virginia, except this part of NC also has Lake Norman, an added bonus for water-related recreation activities.

Go, Davidson!

The Numy Water Model of Dysfunction (n-WMD)

2008-03-30T11:08:00.004-06:00

In efforts to disprove the notion that there were no WMD in Iraq, I report on something that I'd been meaning to get to for the past 11 months. One of the first things I noticed was that our Training Center was having problems with the water we were getting from the larger base on which it was a tenant unit.

So I tried to pin down the problem and fix it. But unfortunately, everytime we talked with someone related to the water supply, it was a different problem that needed fixing. If you are familiar with the song about 'the hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza', then you can appreciate the experience.

I at one point created a 3-dimensional model of this, and had intended to blog it way back when. But I'm only getting around to doing it now. And I haven't been practicing my powerpoint skills enough to have been able to get it into a 3-d model.

I went through and tried to catalogue all the places things have gone wrong, and could go wrong, and here is only a partial list:

Intake pipes at Tigris
Pumps at Tigris River- including filters
Pipelines to ANMTB
Holding tanks and treatment areas at ANMTB water station
Pumps at ANMTB water station
Pipelines and valves to pods
Generators for pumps
Fuel for generators
Contracted and IA operators
Saboteurs along the pipeline
Thieves of fuel

And then I tried to understand the rules of the game, to more fully understand how the system worked. They go a little something like this:

•Rules of the game
–Never provide more than 1/3 of a day of water pumping
–Failures must be present at one or more points within the entire system at all times
–If everything is working fine, people MUST intervene to ensure failures, ie just forget to turn on generators and pumps, even if there is enough fuel and everything works
–All failures are to be blamed on CPATT and the National Police

Now, as I look at the end of my tour, I can look back with admiration that the base has continued to function with absolutely no real improvement in the water situation. CPATT and the NPs have decided to pay a nominal fee to keep this marvelous system working for the forseeable future, just as it is. Why pay for real service when inadequate service will do?

That sick feeling in my stomach

2008-03-29T14:07:00.006-06:00

I've been feeling ill for a couple of hours. I'm not sure if it is any of the following, or a combination:

1. something I ate for dinner

2. the stench in our building (the source of which none of us has been able to identify for eradication, but is sickening regardless)

3. watching guys in digi-blues flip to the Mahdi army- even if it is only 40 of maybe 25,000 or so, and we've known they're even more infiltrated than that. For heaven's sake, at least take off the uniform.

"An Iraqi police commando receives a Quran and an olive branch after deserting Saturday in Baghdad's Sadr City."

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces bombed Basra on Saturday as about 40 Iraqi police commandos based in Baghdad deserted to join the Mehdi Army.

So regardless of whether it is one or a combination of the closely linked factors, gustation, olfaction, or digestion, it all stinks.

If I want to look at the negative side, I wonder if the training we were giving our boys in digi-blue had any beneficial effect.

When I'm thinking more positively, I hope that perhaps our training has greatly reduced the rates of defections, or what we'd call in our army not just desertion but traitorous actions. It is hard to say.

Milan, Surface, or whatever it is- maybe it will run faster than my laptop

2008-03-28T06:50:00.003-06:00

I get to keep in touch with my Org Behavior/Human Resource MBA program buddies by conference calls held occasionally, hosted by companies at which each of us works. The last few (including the one this morning at 4am Iraqi time) have been hosted by one of my friends at Microsoft.

I receive care packages of all kinds (but just a few of them really- just lots of variety in them), and in one of them, I got a Popular Mechanics issue from July '07 which presented a piece on the "Milan" platform from Microsoft- a "new" computer.

I was intrigued because it just seemed plain interesting to me as I thought about ways it could be used. But I was also a bit dubious about the claims of where it was in terms of being useful and practical, given how much trouble I've had with my Zune, an incredibly simple computer by comparison. The devil for me in this case seems to be in the software. But I digress.

Milan is apparently now going by the moniker "Surface." Looks like it could be really cool, anyway.

There's my plug, my Microsoftie friends! I now expect to see some blog entries from all of you in the future about some cool tools you were able to buy at Lowe's.