Lots of chatter about the net, so I left this alone, as I have posted my thoughts in comment sections.

However..to add some unbearable lightness to the insane naming situation, Rich Casebolt needs to be credited with these brilliant one liners, found in the comments section at Milblogs, on a post by Bublehead:

I can already hear the commentary about having Ford-class carriers in the fleet …

“You can have it any color, as long as it’s gray …”

“Fix Or Repair Daily …”

“Found On Rocks, Damaged …”

“Have you sailed on a Ford, lately?”

“Ford … a Better Idea?”

Would enlisted men on these carriers, who move up to become officers, now be known as Ford Mustangs?

Would the ships of the Battle Groups formed around these carriers now be referred to as Ford Escorts?

Would the Lefties criticize the building of these carriers by referring to them as Ford LTD’s — Long Term Debts?

And finally, I now see the truck ads, featuring these carriers behind the truck (or launched off its catapults) to show that the trucks are “built Ford tough.”

If you need more “gouge” on the USS FORD, Lex’s post, replete with raging commentary is here, and Bubblehead has the “long form” version here,

Update 12/20/2006: I had some errors in this post as far as the facts presented below. I’m editing it to help show those, and the corrected info as best I can to make sure the truth gets out there.

Earlier this year, a restaurant in Washington, DC, Fran O’Briens, located in the lower level of the DC Hilton, was sent packing, on short notice. They were told their lease would be renewed, but about 60 days before it was time to resign, the Hilton Management pulled the plug, citing a variety of things, one being the lack of ADA capabilities and therefore the possibility of law suits.

The blogger who, as I recall, was the first one to notice this problem was FbL of the blog Fuzzilicious Thinking. By scanning back some, here is a post of hers that has links to many of the posts with all the background on the issue. Here, however, is the first “Saving Fran O’Briens” post.

There is plenty more around the blogsphere, from Andi’s World, Castle Arrgghhh!, Black Five, Mudville Gazette, etc, etc, etc. It got “our” attention, particularly because when the news broke, we were only a few weeks away from the first ever MilBlogging Conference, to be held in DC, mere blocks from Fran O’Briens. On Friday night before the conference, many of the MilBloggers showed up at Fran O’Briens, to meet and show our support to troops and Marty and Hal.

That’s not really important. What is is the legacy of what happened on Friday nights ar Fran O’Briens. Wounded servicemen from the local military hospitals were brought over for a great steak dinner, as a way of saying thanks to this generation’s best and brightest and bravest from the two restaurant partners, Marty O’Brien and Hal Koster, both a Vietnam Vets themselves.

As a result of the rude and unprofessional behavior on the part of the management of Hilton Corporation, there has been a grass roots protest to now grace any of the Hilton facilities with travel/entertainment dollars.

As a way of helping to make this more visible, the website Perish Hilton is now up and operating, complete with a graph to record the dollars not spent with Hilton Corporation. If you have had the opportunity to “divert” your personal or professional resources away from Hilton, the Perish Hilton site will record and display the dollar value.

The point at Perish Hilton is to not make this a site where “Hey, I coulda spent $2M with them, but I didn’t,” but one that is based on fact. You can submit your data, and the staff in the background (all volunteer) will scan it and then submit the amount to the database for graphical display.

Now, the good news is the dinners, while Fran O’Briens DC location shut it’s doors is the dinners went on for the troops, thanks to the Aleethia Organization.

[ed note: The “better news” following this editorial comment was a report in error. More background on the confussion found here, thanks to Andi]The better news is the new Fran O’Briens Steakhouse will be opening in McLean, VA, and the tradition of serving up some hospitality to our servicemen and women, as well as their families, will kick off again.

I know some people have commented around the web on how they have not spent their money with Hilton, some with pretty sizable travel budgets, and now you can make your conviction of supporting the troops known.

If you can help add to the numbers, please get over there. If you have like minded friends, please pass this around.

Questions/comments on this efforts welcomed. Leave them in the comments section or you can email them to me.

And for those of you who might like the chance to show some more support to Fran O’Briens, the 2007 MilBlogging Conference is scheduled to be held in the DC area (specific location not designated) May 5th. [ed note: We can pray this will come to pass, but, who knows?]I’m sure a Firday night join up at Fran’s will be in the plans….mark your calenders now!

It started getting really clear when I woke at 0452 EDT today for some unknown reason…..

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to jump into a “debate” (in quation marks for when one of the debators anchors a post in concrete labeled “Bush is Menatlly Ill” it is a difficult time indeed to have substantive dicussions), begun by a Milblogger and Army Recruiter, who made a post regarding the defeatist attitude on parade and mentioned a few bloggers by name.

I went to one of the sites and read her response, posted on her blog, and then proceeded to enter into the discussion.

The response, which helped me to understand her thinking more completely began to coagulate last night, but when my eyes popped open, it really became clear how she frames her argument. I’ll most likely speak to that here in the next few days.

It also happens to tie into much of what has been bouncing around in my thoughts the last few weeks, with the election results, the claims of mandates, the total lack of understanding of how you don’t elect congressment to run the nation, the Iraq Study Group report and the players who have come out on both sides (while the ISG really kinda did the normal political thing and mealy mouthed the whole issue of Iraq (yet was very clear about hating Israel)) of the debate; The thoughts of how another “Greatest Generation” is in the crucible right now, and to not lose hope, for these are the leaders of tomorrow; World population statistics; Wolrd history, both ot the Islamic culture/faith and also some of the analysis by Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers” from the late 80’s; Dr. Spock, Timothy Leary, the rise of gangs on our streets, which have now migrated world wide; The War Against Drugs; The “Mob” and the now prolific “Russian Mafia;” Chaos theory and Complexity and a whole lotta other stuff. More ganglia twitching, and how much of it seems to come together, or at least help explain the human condition.

I’ll also be posting at The Wide Awakes, along with ohters who write for that group blog (see blogroll on the sidebar). I’ll begin this afternoon with a few “retreads” of older work, but some of my prior work seems to be puzzle pieces in the “knowldege soup” brewing on this end.

In the meantime, I believe there is a snow globe that needs shaking to show the true beauty of winter….

Sneak preview tickets in hand, I expected to see a good movie, having seen a few commercials. I saw a great movie. Not knowing the details of the real situation, if the movie wasn’t too overly dramatized, it certainly is an inspirational story of an entire community, not just a coach or a team. It is worth your time.

Yesterday I posted how life seems to emulate reality TV. Today I write about how life, in the context of a small West Virginia town should be a model for our nation.

How timely this happens to be, as the theme of the movie: “Yes, we took a loss, but we need to suit up and get back in the game, if we ever expect to win” plays into post III of a few weeks ago, in The Ratchet and the Governor – Tools for Today” series I have been working on. I also commented, just a few days ago, the rough times demand tough men.

The movie is well acted. Be ready to be brought into the emotions of a town who loses all but 4 of their football players, the college athletic staff and several of the key (read big) supporters. The big picture of the movie is it took many from the College and town, as well as a coach, who knew nothing more about the school than they were in need of a coach, and they made things happen.

They set a goal, first by the desire of one of the four players, who had not gone on the trip due to an injury, who thought the honor was not in shutting down (the equivalent response at our national level is the “withdraw and redeploy” concept), but by standing tall, and getting the student body to support a message to the school administration and the board, that they wanted to honor the dead by staying the course until victory. It was not an unruly crowd that gathered to get the point across, but a large one, willing to make their presence know in support of continued effort in the face of disaster.

They couldn’t find a coach in the long list of alumni. It was looking bleak. A coach called and when asked in the interview why he wanted the job, his answer was to look at his three children and his wife, running around the front yard, then tell Marshall’s President it was because of them, and then he paused and said he couldn’t imagine being without them and he figured a whole town was hurting and he thought he might be able to help. What a concept: You do it for your children, and along the way, you do it for everyone else, and their children so to speak.

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Weekly Open Trackbacks. A “safe harbor” to “suggest” to readers they should take a chance on you(r writings). Go for it.

From last week’s Sea Stories, I discussed the ship at sea always being a place of noise, and I indicated I’d tell more of that this week. Here it is.

On my second ship, one of my collateral duties was that of Gunnery Liasion Officer (GLO), which entailed being the person who managed the trageting of the ship’s guns against shore targets, via a spotter, on the ground or in the air, who would identify and fix target positions.

As part of our “shakedown” training (it was a newly commissioned ship), we had to train in this mission area, and we took a trip from San Diego harbor (homeport) to the west to the firing range off San Celmente Island and I proceeded to practice a skill I first learned in the school rooms of the Fleet Training Center.

I stood at the Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT), which, for the purposes of this work, was converted to a plain old chart table. The operation specialists had laid out the grid reference charts for the area, and set up the radio circuits and sound powered telephone headsets. Status boards (large hanging, edge lit plexiglass sheets) were redrawn with the format for the fire missions we would be tasked with and positioned so I could easily read them from where I stood. My tools, up to three stopwatches, a sharpened No. 2 pencil, dividers and the “Commanche Board,” also were out for use.

So, “perched” several decks above, and away from the fore and aft 5″54cal MK 45 gun mounts, I would still be able to hear the gun laoding mechanisms doing their work. Two decks below the guns, the magazine crews would pick the type ammuntion and powder charges from their storage and place them in the hoists. Hydraulics and mechanical systems would rapidly raise the 76 lb projectiles and the powder cases up to the gun mount, where they were automatically loaded into a tray before the ram then shoved them into the waiting breech, to have the breech block slam into place behind them, awaiting patiently for the electrical charge that will begin the “explosives train” on it’s path to sending the sleek bullet hurtling towards it’s assigned target.

I felt the operation as much as I heard it. I felt the forward gun, Mount 51, and heard it fairly clearly, but I mostly felt Mount 52, probably 350 feet aft of me in straight distance measurement, insulating itself from me thru multiple bulkheads and 4 decks of aluminum and steel. The firing of either mount, was clearly unmistakable, as I became practiced on sending high explosives many miles away on the word of a disembodied voice on the radio.

“On Station, Ready for Call for Fire” begins the sequence, alerting the forward observer you are available to pummel the enemy who dares to enter his field of view…..

More later…

Well, at least I’m a fighter and not a C-5A!

See what kind of Military aircraft you are!

H/T: SteelJaw Scribe.

Consensus? You’ve got to be kidding me. Maybe I can give John Gruden a call and offer my services, and those of several of my friends, who think his record this season sucks, so we can have a commission to tell him how to do it “in a different direction.”

Oh, yeah, I was tall and skinny. I never played football, but I did swim, play baseball and basketball. Much like the Baker Commission, I complee people to look upon me as qualified to discuss detailed NFL lavel football.

And, like a snowball’s chances in hell, I’m sure I’ll get a call back from my buddy John…..

I have come to pretty much emlininate profanity from my discussions, but this entire set of current events has me toying with dusting off the mental bookshelf that holds some more of the more choice sayings I learned in many years as a sailor….

Pardon me, but times like these demand those people, who are so unpolished in polite company during peacetime that they are excluded, passed over and shuffled off to assignments far from where they can embarass the “chosen ones,” who will one day be admirals and generals. I had a few friends like this during my service time. Brutally effective as leaders in the simulated combat conditions we could muster, and constantly considering the options/scenarios for war at sea. They stayed near the waterfront when not on sea duty, in jobs to helpp the fleet get better, and turned their noses up at Pentagon assignments. They knew the profession, on it’s worst day, would require every bit of sea going and combat/damage control/engineering experience they could immerse themselves in, and that’s what they did, to the detriment of their careers.

One man, a mentor to me, who could tell you when you screwed up and make sure you understood the newest tactics, had played many sports, including football and baseball, and it was always with a go for broke, victory if the goal attitude. He carried that attitude into everything he did. He made O-4. He was shuttled off to the side. He retired and, having been noticed by a reservist who drilled with them, was sought after for that very spirit, and now he does in the business world what his senior officers thought was too much out of the question.

Look at the changes of command at the outset of WWII? Those who had grown up and comfortable in the extended peacetime were tossed out to the curb and the agressive, loud, we’re here to kill the enemy and break things crowd was installed. Yep, you need those guys when the light is dim and the casualties are high, caused by the lack of understanding of those who got you there in the first place. But then, after the conflict, the war fighters are, once more, pushed aside and the politicians rise again.

One man I worked for was the most brilliant tactician, in both exercise, and also in a real world multi-month operation, but his “interpersonal skills” left just about everything to be desired. I’d go to war with him in a heartbeat, but count me out if he need administrative support. It’s men like this that carry the day in the times of challenge, not those who refuse to get their hands dirty in understanding our enemy, much less history.

Take your stinking “consensus” and stuff it. Get me a hard nosed, hard driven, focused person, who will lead and make the hard decisions, knowing full well the gravity of the situation. Side Note: Dr. Gates sure isn’t striking me as one of these guys, no matter how many Aggies had has run with and talked to. Being a friend is one skill set, being a leader is another altogether. You can be both, but the leader aspects need to be exercised first.

We don’t need smooth and polished, with the right color tie, and a manicured metrosexual type running the show right now. We most certainly don’t need unelected people to demand the President take orders from them.

We need Bucks and Bills to be put in place, with orders to “retake the Falklands” type direction from the Commander-in-Chief. Along the way, the rules of armed conflict and rules of engagement will be followed, because those seemingly troglodytes are the consumate professionals. But if they need an ROE changed, they’ll be stating their case.

Better yet, men like Bill and Buck would come home victorious, with a simple request: “What next?”

Update 12/11/2006: Looks like Rick Santorum and I are of one mind…

FbL sent out a link to Valour-IT, Milblogs Give Hundreds of Laptops to
Wounded Soldiers at the PBS Mediashift website, highlighting Valour-IT.

Mark Glaser opens his post with this:

As I sit here and type this blog post, I pause for a moment to consider how important my fingers and hands are to me as a blogger and writer. If I should be injured or lose the use of my hands in some awful accident, what would I do?

That hypothetical situation is very real for some American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, where body armor helps protect them from getting killed from the blasts of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) � but injuries to extremities are common. In the summer of 2005, when Army Captain Charles �Chuck� Ziegenfuss, a military blogger, was severely injured by such an IED, he asked his blog audience to help him get voice-to-text software, Dragon Naturally Speaking, for his laptop.

Take a few moments to read and consider the story, which I now know began in August, 2005, the “brain child” of two people, who connected via the Internet, several thousand miles apart physically, yet of one mind, and each had the puzzle pieces to get the Valour-IT program started.

Here we are, 15 months later, at least $350K in the books and 650+ units in place, headed towards 850 in place by Christmas this year, and funding for more as a result of this year’s fund drive. Here’s some insight from Mark’s article:

Neither FbL or Ziegenfuss make any money themselves from the project, which has zero overhead and is completely volunteer-run � just like Soldier�s Angels, which offers all sorts of services for wounded soldiers. FbL, who prefers to keep her real name out of the spotlight and off her blogs, told me how amazed she was by the power of the blogosphere to organize for a cause and come together virtually.

Throughout the year and in particular when there are big disasters, the common comment is “I want 100% of MY MONEY to go to the cause!” Well, guess what…Valour-IT is that charity.

Also: Based on info in this article, it seems the checks are still being counted and the over the top number I reported about a week ago of $204K is not it. It’s headed to $230K for the drive. That will be $50K more thatn the goal. What a testament to the compassion of the people who came in contact with this program.

FbL hasn’t settled on just laptops for our troops. The PBS article mentions her idea for Personal Digital Assistants for those suffering from traumatic brian injury (TBI):

Beyond that, FbL imagines another program that would offer personal digital assistants (PDAs) for soldiers suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBI). TBI is a common problem for soldiers in Iraq who have suffered brain damage from IED blasts. One of the common problems is short-term memory loss, and the PDAs could help injured soldiers remember their appointments, to-do lists and other minutiae lost in the haze during recovery.

And if you ever thought one person, or two, couldn’t change things, I’d invite you to study the history of this 15 month old program, that has come from a twinkle in someone’s eye, to affecting the lives of hundreds and on it’s way to helping thousands, and, I’d suggest, a model for collaboration efforts via the power of the Internet. Not only did it bring many military associated people together, but it also saw others from all walks of life and political backgrounds join in to do something special:

Valour-IT is another result of average folks banding together online to make a difference, getting beyond petty politics and government bureacracy to get something done and do it right. It�s one of those classic holiday stories of people giving of their time, their money and even the bully-pulpit space of their blogs to help others in need.

Like the proverbial snowball in the cartoon, rolling downhill and gathering girth and speed, Valour-IT is such a project, headed towards avalanche status.

If you can pitch in, your help is welcomed.

A special plea is for any knowledge of how FbL might be able to take this program to the next level and make it an endowment supported entitiy, rather than being supported through our online drives. Does anyone know how to do that?

Meanwhile, FbL is looking for full-time work at a military non-profit in Southern California and is hoping that Valour-IT can become a fully funded endowment, so that online fundraising campaigns won�t be necessary. She says they are close to getting a large donation that could make that happen, and might make a deal with a computer hardware company that would donate refurbished computers or lower the cost below the $600 they usually pay per laptop.

Thanks for the support and please pass this info around!

Trackbacked at:
Woman, Honor Theyself

I read “Strategy for Defeat” many years ago, back in the days in Newport, RI, while studying such issues, and not promted by any reading list.

The book, written from the viewpoint of the admiral who was CINCPAC (Commander-in-Chief, Pacific), so he was well breifed in as to the “goings on” of the time.

I am working from recall, but Adm Sharp’s premise is the “doves” were the ones who caused the prolonging of the war and therefore the bloodshed, on all sides, and the “hawks” would have had the war come to a much faster conclusion. As a result, his contention was the hawks were actually the ones who would have saved lives.

His thesis was supported, in one chapter, by the story of a major sea port, aerial mines and “peace” talks…..

He said in 1968, he had forwarded a battle plan to mine Haiphong Harbor. The plan was rejected, because Washington felt Soviet ships (that were delivering war materials to the North Vietnamese) might become victims of the functional blockade and therefore a major international incident would be caused.

When the plan was finally executed in 1972, the North Vietnamese were at the Paris Peace Talks and actually talking, as their logistical “tail” had been strangled. This is more important in the light of the conflict between China and Russia as to who was “more senior” in the Communist world, and China was denying the Soviets the use of Chinese railways to send material to Vietnam. Being forced to get their major resupply by sea, and the major seport, with the capacity to offload the items, was cut off. The North Vietnamese quickly become more argeeable in figuring out how to back away from the conflict.

This is a lesson in strategy (recall who were the presidents in the two years listed above), and a show of force (or not when the capability existed), which managed to clearly and consisely communicate to our enemy we meant business. If you think about the metod used, there didn’t even have to be casualties, as the mines become “guards” on the sea ways, and would kill and maim the enemy only when the beligerent chose to cross the area.

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Lots of distracting things today, to include the upcoming anniversary tomorrow….

But, despite my lack of focus, please feel free to post your links as trackbacks to your work.

There are two subtle things you notice in a life at sea that become so subconscious, you can’t really put your finger on what’s different, unless you think about it for a while.

The first one is the open sea, far from the shore, where the water is deep and blue, smells unlike anything you ever experience on a walk along the beach, let alone in any port facility. It’s a freshness of its own, hence “a fresh sea breeze” being a well used saying. It’s an alluring scent and one worth standing on the “weather decks” and taking deep breaths to get the full effect.

The second thing is there is always noise on the ship. At the very least, even when the ship is “cold iron” (when the ship has the main engineering plant for propulsion and electrical services shut down), the ventilation fans are running. When the ship is up and running, the hull propogates the various noises to travel througout the hull and, with time and exposure, you can detect major and unusual events at the far end of the ship. As Engineer Officer, I became very attuned to the many subtle and not so subtle indications of changes in the plant status. I recall one night, waking and realizing the watch, several decks below had started one engine and were in the process of securing the other in the forward engine room. I, of course, reached for the sound powered phone and clicked the “E-Call” buzzer to get the Enigineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) to let me know what was up. The standard procedure was to notify me in the event of having to make equipment changes. As it turned out, it wasn’t anything major that had happened.

Two more striking times when the Ship’s noises communicated something very important was 00:32 9/18/1986. I was the Officer of the Deck and we were steaming in the South Pacific. We were running at top speed for one (of 4) engine on line when there was a *BANG* and the rapid decrease in the pitch of the turbine’s whine, as it spooled down to 0. Before the engine had had much of an opportunity to lose much speed, I had already reached for the talk switch on the 21MC box and asked the EOOW what had happened. Of course, he was up to his eyeballs in taking care of getting the initial reports in, but he said “1B is offline, starting 1A GTM.”

So, even in a ship of 563 feet and 7900 tons, the entire structure tells a story…..

The other striking time the Ship’s frame “spoke” to me will be forthcoming next Wednesday in the next schedule Ropeyarn Sunday “Sea Stories” installment.