| Class |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|03:06 pm] |
This jub isn't my idea of a great use of my time, but it does brighten the day when I see course critiques that rate the classes I give highly and have positive things to say about the course as a whole. About half the course critiques can be thrown out unread--one can tell if the student is simply filling out the paper because it is a requirement, or actually providing feedback.
Mail is taking just a bit over a week to get to us, at least based on the stuff I've gotten so far.
Other than that, NSTR.[1]
[1]Nothing Significant To Report |
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| Well, I read it. |
[Jul. 20th, 2008|05:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
Sunday, and it's slow.
It's slow a lot around here. I'm taking some guys to the lane tomorrow. It's all pretty basic stuff, put the IEDs out, travel the lane, look for IEDs.
I'm looking forward to seeing the new Batman movie since everyone is raving about it. That doesn't mean I'll like it, but it sounds like it.
Reading a lot lately. Finished one book by the Author Who Googles For His Own Name Lots and has the thinnest skin of any "civil affairs" guy I've ever heard off. Good thing he never actually had to deploy as a Civil Affairs weenie (oh, Convenient Heart Trouble!), I don't imagine his breed of assholery would go over well in a career field that spends more time trying to win hearts and minds than it does wet-dreaming about taking all one's political opponents and torturing them to death. He'd fit in well among what we refer to as Former Regime Elements, but I'm not sure he'd be any good for trying to get people to stop supporting said FRE. Suffice it to say that if that sort of drivel is not your idea of entertainment, you won't enjoy the book. I really like how, just to carefully avoid any accusations of anti-Semetism, he made his hero an SS man who converted to Judaism, married a Jew, and moved to Israel to train IDF fighters. Yeah, that's so believable. I'm reminded of the miniature wargamers with entire SS divisions lovingly painted in perfect detail who go on and on about how the Waffen SS were "just Soldiers" who built nice tanks.
Sorry buddy, even the Whermacht wasn't 'just soldiers' any more than the Red Army was, and for much the same reason. You may not be anti-Semetic (or at least you go out of your way to 'prove' you aren't), but you've got some sort of insecurity issues, an inexplicable love for vermin, a penchant for soem amazingly amoral rationalization (quote from the book: "Everyone killed prisioners in that war!"), and you manage to write the scenes between the Jews and SSs in such a way that leave the reader no doubt where your sympathies lie--the Jew needs to just get over it because now the SS is fighting on his side. . .
Oh, and did I mention almost anyone in this book who's NOT a Nazi is weak, stupid, an outright communist, or a "green" who is a traitor to the entire human race and deserves to be strangled to death.
Oh, gag. It doesn't really help that the express purpose of writing this book, according to the author's notes at the end, is to piss people off and to make the thinly veiled argument that in the West's war wiith Islam, we should use the most horrific means possible, including methods that the Nazis would approve of--such as murder of hostages and indescriminate bombardment of populated areas--to exterminate all the untermensch. I'm pretty sure that I'm now completely insulted that any one of my readers ever thought I would have anything in common with this sort of outright shit.
Russian history is more edifying than this. Also more cheerful.
Which reminds me, I'm rather enjoying the book I'm currently reading, which (based on the stamps on the side) appears to be a used Russian History college textbook. It's entitled A History of Russia Since 1800 by Evtuhov and Stites. For someone who's a nonspecialist in that part of the world, it's both informative and as entertaining as it could be while still having this much information. |
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| Tsar-Martyr |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|10:15 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Between intermittent internet failures and electrical Issues I haven't been able to do as much as I liked. The past couple days have been entertaining, at least, in that we've had a really good class in. And we're teaching what I consider the fun course.
Yesterday was the anniversay of the martyrdom of the Tsar and his family. There's the text to a memorial here. I suppose as an American I shouldn't be quite so fond of an autocratic emperor, but especially when one considers what came after Nicholas, it makes even the worst Romanovs look good by comparison. And Nicholas was far from the worst Romanov. Everything I read about him seems to be a man doing his level best to do the right thing in an impossible situation. It is most dangerous to attempt to reform a government without revolution. You must reduce repression and security in order to reform, and you cannot reform fast enough to satisfy everyone. Then you have conservatives fighting the reform, radicals saying you are not reforming fast enough, and moderates trying to placate both sides. Adding in a disasterously costly war that Russia was incapable of winning guaranteed disaster. Ultimately, though, all Russia--indeed, all the world--ended up paying a horrendous cost for the failure of reform.
One wonders if any step on the path to the train wreck that is 20th century Russian history was avoidable. The only one I can see that would have made anything better would to have avoided backing Serbia after their foolish and incompetent dabbling in state-sponsored terrorism gave the Austrians an excuse to step on them. No war in 1914, no failure in war to disillusion the mass of the populace, no mass of mutinious soldiers to provide firepower for the revolutionaries. Unfortunately, that would have required a foresight greatly lacking among every so-called Great Power in Europe. Every last one of them lusted after another war. And we are still paying for their stupidity. Communism, Fascism, even the current shape of the Middle East, all are a result of European stupidity before, during, and after WWI. |
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| The internet is really, really great. |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|09:38 am] |
For some things.
The internet in the office is pretty slow and won't let me chat, much less use a webcam.
In my search house, I can pick up a wireless network that will cost me $64 a month for access, but I only pick up a strong enough signal while sitting on the front porch. I'd be limited by battery life, and the fact that I just don't want to sit on the porch to surf the internet.
I'd like to acquire an antenna I can mount out front and run a cable back to my computer so I can access wireless from the air conditioned comfort of my abode. I'm sure I'm not the first person to have a desire to own such a piece of equipment.
Having a multitude of electronics geeks on my flist, I ask two questions: Is such a thing available commercially, and what do I call it when searching for it on a search engine? |
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| Happy Dance! |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|08:36 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pleasantly surprised | ] |
If I am going to bitch about what goes wrong, I have to give credit when it goes right.
All glory unto SSG F, our ops guy in Baghdad who found the triwall with our bags in them, secured it, put an RFID tag on it, and put it on the bird last night. Credit is also due SFC D who scheduled the ASR from our end and picked the box up at the terminal.
I have my bags now. Happy dance! |
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| Random Updatiness |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|02:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bored | ] |
We are supposed to get our bags tonight. Presuming all goes well and the stars align and the weather forecast is correct. I am not holding my breath.
We're teaching a class, but that's not the kind of optempo I'm used to on a deployment and it is leaving me with more than a little bit of free time. I've got books in my bag. I've got DVDs in my bag.
What I have here a couple books I'm done with already, and one set of DVDs of the Fullmetal Alchemist. I actually like Fullmetal Alchemist. I mean, seriously, I'm not a big fan of anime, but this is fun. I'm not quite through the first half of the first season (for those playing the home game, 2 seasons, 51 episodes total, I own 'em all).
I've got a NIPR connection at the office that, as long as I turn off proxy server settings, is pretty much unlimited (obviously, or I wouldn't be posting here). But it's slow, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.
And I'm dinking around with Exalted. I'm considering running a game of Exalted when I get back from Iraq. I'm not going to use the 'default' game setting. I'm considering setting it during the collapse of the Shogunate (for those of you for whom this means something). So I'm half-heartedly playing around with that, although I'm not in a massive hurry.
I'm considering building a homebrew setting from the ground up, but the way Exalted's magic works is so tied into the cosmology which is tied into the history of Creation that tinkering makes it very, very, very difficult to adjust big things without doing it all from scratch. On the other hand, you can fit nearly anything into a corner of Creation, but it has to work the way Creation works unless you're willing to shove a bunch of stuff behind the curtain. It's enough to keep me busy. |
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| Al Asad |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|11:14 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
Well, I'm here. Al Asad.
Minus my bags.
We flew in last night on an Osprey, which was an interesting experience. Interesting in the sense that I passionate hate flying, but I can do it. I prefer helicopters because I don't feel quite so claustrophobic. I managed to go to sleep, but not before turning green, having an attack of claustrophobia, and arranging myself so that if I puked, I wouldn't do it on the guys from my team, but on the Marines in the bird with us.
I hate flying.
Anyway, the tri-wall (box) with our baggage didn't make it on the plane. CPT 'Johnnie' and I were joking that the Army Reservist at the cargo loading point seemed like he was stoned, but seriously, I think he was. They couldn't find our damn box at all. Fortunately I packed shower kit, towel, and two sets of clean underwear/socks/tshirts in my carry-on bag. In the ideal world, our Ops guy in Baghdad could find the box and put it on a flight tonight and we could go get it today. In the ideal world. I'm seriously pissed, but what can you do?
I have an address, but I didn't write it down. Going into the office this afternoon so I should be able to email it around to folks later. |
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| Toast of the Day |
[Jul. 4th, 2008|06:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  optimistic | ] |
"Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!" |
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| Day Off |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|10:04 am] |
Yesterday, we finished training. No nifty certificate or anything official, because our POI is not something approved by a bureaucratic host of doctrine-writers and senior officers who have perhaps been to Iraq once, years ago, but something constantly evolving. In order to keep it up to date, it must be "unofficial". This is, in my opinion, a weakness of the US Army's training and doctrine system--while excellent for overseeing training in peacetime, it is too unresponsive to adapt to the reality on the ground during a shooting war.
It doesn't help that the insurgents learn and adapt and change in irregular spurts and in different ways in different parts of the country. SGC operate differently from AQI who operate differently from the Tier 1 local criminal gangs, etc. One Big Happy Doctrinal Solution is NOT going to be possible, but there should be something better than, "get with the guys you are replacing once you're in country".
There's a couple different courses we will be teaching, although the one I'm most comfortable mentioning is Counter-IED, since that's in my job title, my NIPR email address, and my mailing address. And no, I still don't have the five digit FPO zip code. Yeah, FPO. We get our mail through MNF-W, Multinational Force West, which is headed by a Marine HQ. Usually a MarDiv or a MEF, but right now I believe it's a MAW. Whatever. It works. I have gotten a little mail, including a package postmarked the 26th from Colorado (Alligator jerky frickin' rocks), but not the letter that I know my parents sent before I got a chance to All Stop the mail flow.
So today is a day off. Tomorrow is basically a day to pack/coordinate flight stuff, and do research. We're expected to keep up to date with what's going on in sector. It's pretty easy for those of us in the West, since it's really quiet.
I'm getting chance to read good stuff like this, and this. |
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| Questions |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|09:57 am] |
From someone else's locked journal entry:
Anyone know a good source in Virginia's firearm laws?
Anyone have a recommendation for a handgun/ammunition combination for a person living in an apartment bounded on three sides by occupied apartments?
Intent of the user is primary for target shooting, secondarily home defense (low-crime neighborhood). No concealed carry is intended. |
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| Administrivia |
[Jun. 30th, 2008|07:08 pm] |
I have a blood chit. Isn't that cool?
I finally got my NCOER signed and sent to Human Resources Command. It's due today. It would be late, except for the fact that we're a few hours ahead of HRC. So it counts. I involved nearly a dozen people in both the S-1 and the Commo fields in this process. I hate digital forms.
I will be heading out to the place where I'm heading sooner than I thought I would head there. I guarantee a mailing address by the end of the week. At that time I will be able to talk about what I'm going to do when I get there, since my job title and organization is part of the address. I certainly won't be going into any detail, since I'm not stupid. But I can lay out the basics of what I'll be doing.
To quell any random speculation, no, this does not involve troop leadership (except for one kid) or going out of the wire on a regular basis, although the team OIC is planning to try to hook up with EOD assets we'll be co-located with to see if we can go play with them. It does, however, involve having a room to myself. And an NTV that I might share with one other person.
My life rocks.
Also, my wife is moving without me. Again. Closing out the Killeen house and splitting the stuff into storage stuff and what is going to Austin.
Again, my wife rocks my socks. I honestly believe there is almost nothing she cannot achieve. I don't know why she loves me, but I never doubt that she does.
I need to end this before I get too mopey. |
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| Do NOT Send Me Mail! |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|04:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
I found out today I will be leaving here for another place.
If you already mailed something it should get to me before I go. But don't send me any more mail. Will let people know how to mail me when I get the new address.
If you're wondering, this is a Good Thing for me. |
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| Camp Vic |
[Jun. 20th, 2008|10:52 am] |
Well, we're here. In a giant fobbitty dump overrun with field grade officers. I'm going nuts already.
I have an address. I have emailed it to my parents and my wife. It's not going up on livejournal. If you want it, email me or her. |
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| Lovely Weather |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|04:53 am] |
Sandstorms. Hooray.
We're filling time with some classes now, but otherwise mostly just sitting around hoping the AC doesn't go out in the tent.
The New and Improved word is that we'll either go North tomorrow, or next week, or in two weeks, or by the 26th or when the weather improves.
Some things never really change.
Something I forgot off my Care Package list was hand sanitizer. Go through that stuff like there's no tomorrow. |
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| Reading List |
[Jun. 14th, 2008|01:05 pm] |
On the plus side, I have gotten some reading done lately.
Savage Wars of Peace: OK, I'm cheating. I read this during BNCOC. I really recommend it for context on US history. All sorts of crazy expeditions and punitive raids and "low intensity conflicts" that I had no idea happened. For instance, did you know the US invaded Korea twice in the 19th century? Or that we had troops operating in China for nearly 100 years continuously? And for those I had heard of, this volume put a lot of context and explanations of techniques that lead to the inescapable conclusion that although the United States doesn't LIKE counterinsurgency, we have an amazing history of doing it and doing it reasonably well. Kinda makes you wonder why we lost the ability somehow along the way--although I blame WWII. It's historical context for Iraq and Afghanistan and a lot of other things that Americans are ill-equipped to understand with a concept of war largely derived from WWII movies.
Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: By LTC Nagl, this is honestly not a book for the layman. It will appeal to people who geek out to military history or organizational theory or political science. It is less a history of the Malaysian Emergency and Vietnam than it is a study of how the organizations of the British Army and the United States Army responded to the organizational challenges thereof. It's an excellent study as far as it goes, although like many books adressing the Vietnam War it is pretty damn lopsided in addressing the nature of the Vietnam War.
LTC Nagl's analysis is excellent as far as it goes. However, he misses half of the point of the Vietnam War. While it is tempting to say that the insurgency sapped the political will of the United States and led to our withdrawal and that therefor the United States Army should have focused all energy and effort on counter-insurgency, that is misleading to a great extent. I mean, insurgency was a significant aspect of the war,and their political impact was all out of proportion to their actual effects. But the simple fact of the matter is that the primary threat to the survival of the Republic of Vietnam was the existence within RVN of PAVN units in brigade and divisional size who were NOT going to be rooted out by combined action platoons and provincial reconstruction teams. The NLF was not going to overrun Saigon, and in the final analysis the pajama-clad guerilla even of the Main Force battalions were shown in 1968, 1972, and 1975 to be mere adjuncts to the conventional forces of the PAVN. Conventional forces composed of jungle-fighters using infiltration tactics, but no more "guerillas" than Merrill's Marauders were. While I agree that the ARVN was overly mechanized and overly focused on large-unit operations, there is no possible argument that dispersing the ARVN in a counter-insurgency mode of deployment would have helped them survive in 1975.
Absolutely the RF/PF and police forces should have been emphasized. The counterinsurgency fight got not one percent of the attention it needed until relatively late in the war. The COIN programs that were initiated were fatally flawed--most notably the Strategic Hamlet program which failed because the GVN official placed in charge of it was an NLF agent who eventually ended up in the bush with COSVN. I agree with this end of the analysis. Certainly conventional operations should not have been the primary sweep, especially ill-focused brigade and division scale "search and destroy" operations. However, had the Army spent all effort in working in company and platoon-sized elements, then they would have been eaten piecemeal by the brigade-sized elements the PAVN had operating in country in 1964. Remember Ia Drang, where 1/7 Cav initiated contact with some 200 troopers against an entire brigade's worth of PAVN? Yeah, imagine a Combined Action Platoon reinforcing some RF/PFs in THAT situation. Bullshit.
Note: This does NOT invalidate the basic premise of the book, which is that the United States Army failed to apply any of the fundamental precepts of counter-insurgency, and due to organizational structure was incapable of learning from its mistakes. That is more or less unarguable. It is somewhat incomplete in that it does not recognize that the Vietnamese communists (SRV/NLF alike) were no more wedded to insurgency than they were to any other tactic. Insurgency is essentially a holding action, what is clasically referred to as economy of force. it works by wearing down the enemy to the point that the insurgents can gain strength to convert to a conventional conflict. Without the United States Army committing conventional combat units and fighting the PAVN in head-on fights like Ia Drang, all the counter-insurgency in the world would have been meaningless in the face of a Korea-style conventional attack, which was alway possible and which was in fact tried three times during the Vietnam War, the final time being completely successful, not least because the ARVN had been dispersed in a counter-insurgency pose and could only fight in a conventional fight with US air support which was withdrawn by Congress.
Reading these two books not quite back to back gives additional perspective on them both, I highly recommend the experience.
I also read Cally's War by Julie Cochrane and John Ringo. Spooks and assassins and creepy aliens galore. Good fun, really. When reading collaborative works I generally refrain from speculating which author wrote which sections unless it is flamingly obvious (Weber's contribution to the March Upcountry series obviously includes the space battle scenes, as he's a little. . . distinctive stylistically. To the point of being stereotyped). But I do have to say that it is obvious in the sex scenes that John Ringo was at least. . . influenced by his co-author. Because frankly, when he writes his own, I tend to skip the sex because it's, well. . . boring. It isn't the most intellectual thing I've ever read, but I'm going to track down Sister TIme. And while the cover, frankly, sucks, in defense of the artist, Cally did at least wear that outfit once, in a two-page scene. In which she was posing as a hooker. She did not, however, have an M-16 with a giant bulbous projection on the muzzle hanging over her shoulder--in fact, she hardly ever used a firearm in this book. |
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| Kuwait, Still |
[Jun. 14th, 2008|06:41 am] |
So I've been semi-reliably informed that we'll either go North on Monday, or Tuesday, or two weeks from now.
It now makes me giggle to hear information like this, which says that I'm either losing it mentally or I'm really used to the Army--which often seems to be the same thing. Frankly, I'm here and without my Beloved, and going north to do a job that does not sound either interesting or really up my alley. So whether I'm in Kuwait or Baghdad or on the far side of the moon really makes little difference to me.
So I did the logical thing and bought a Watanyia (sp?) card that allows me a week of wireless internet access. Haha.
For those of you who wonder, no, I still do not have an APO mailing address. This sucks. I really want both my cell phone charger and my stick, and my Beloved can hardly address it to "SSG John Atkinson, Somewhere in Iraq, Probably"
So, a number of folks have asked about Things to Send, so here's my list.
Point the First: Almost anything I want is at least theoretically available in the PXs at the larger bases, of which I will be staying at one of the largest. However, not having to waste time going to the PX and standing in line and not being at the mercy of the vagaries of restocking is a fairly significant bonus. So here's the list:
Batteries: Lithium, AA, AAA, but not rpt not D. I don't own anything that runs of D cells. The AAAs are for
the silly little headlamp, AAs go in almost everything else, and the lithiums are for the Surefires.
Beef jerky: NOT teriyaki flavored or peppered or "hickory" smoked. Favorite brand is KC Cattle Company, but I like Oberto and its easier to find. Even more do I like smaller brands and stuff like turkey, buffalo, deer, etc. These latter are impossible to find here and so doubly wonderful.
Coffee: Not sure what I'm going to get set up when I get north in the coffee department. If I have an office I'll probably buy a coffee maker for it, and I plan to get a French Press for living quarters as well. Which means I'll need coffee ground for French Press and coffee ground for drip. I do not drink decaf under any circumstances. Seriously, that's like non-alcoholic beer.
Tuna: Packets of tuna, not cans. The flavored ones are great. I like tuna because it's a reasonable substitute for a meal when I'm not hungry enough to go to chow. Tuna goes well with Ritz crackers, which I can buy or which can be included in the package.
Plastic forks. To eat the tuna.
Sunflower Seeds: The bigger the bag, the better.
Granola Bars: I eat these night and day. The type that don't have icing or anything on them are best until it turns cold.
Reading Material: SF, Fantasy, historical, theological. . . I'm fairly eclectic. I'm going through my to-read pile pretty quickly and the selection here is pretty craptastic.
Other Junk Food: Anything that is line with the Bottom Line is fine with me.
Personal Hygiene Products: Please, for the love of all that is holy, no toothbrushes. Seriously. I use Irish Spring soap. I use disposable razors, but not the craptastic single-blade cheapies.
Bottom Line: For the next four months, all items must be able to survive being dropped by idiot mail handlers, customs forms must not include anything appealing enough to justify rifling the package, and you must assume that the mail will be left in a conex that will heat to about 150 degrees. After that you can figure on the heat not getting quite so bad, but the rest still applies.
But seriously, what I want more than anything is letters with ordinary everyday stuff in them. |
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| Kuwait |
[Jun. 13th, 2008|03:40 pm] |
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It's Camp Beuhring. Again. Deja vu much? We have tents. MWR internet is down, but the USO has it up. Other than that, it's hot and there's blowing sand and, well, Kuwait hasn't changed much. |
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[Jun. 12th, 2008|03:24 pm] |
I'm in Leipzig, Germany. Stopped in Bangor, Maine for an hour or so and now here. KCIA is next.
Alive, well, and having slept a lot over the ocean. |
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[Jun. 3rd, 2008|05:56 am] |
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The President of the United States of America, authorized by act of Congress, March 3rd, 1863, has awarded in the name of Congress the Medal of Honor to Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an M2 .50-caliber Machine Gunner, 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, in connection with combat operations against an armed enemy in Adhamiyah, Northeast Baghdad, Iraq, on 4 December 2006. That afternoon his platoon was conducting combat control operations in an effort to reduce and control sectarian violence in the area. While Private McGinnis was manning the M2 .50-caliber Machine Gun, a fragmentation grenade thrown by an insurgent fell through the gunner's hatch into the vehicle. Reacting quickly, he yelled "grenade," allowing all four members of his crew to prepare for the grenade's blast. Then, rather than leaping from the gunner's hatch to safety, Private McGinnis made the courageous decision to protect his crew. In a selfless act of bravery, in which he was mortally wounded, Private McGinnis covered the live grenade, pinning it between his body and the vehicle and absorbing most of the explosion. Private McGinnis' gallant action directly saved four men from certain serious injury or death. Private First Class McGinnis' extraordinary heroism and selflessness at the cost of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/06/20080602-1.html
http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/mcginnis/citation/index.html |
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