What's Really Important?

So here we are at my sister-in-law's house, eagerly awaiting the midnight hour, so we can drink bubbly, then go home and sleep. In two days, we will head to Indy, do the "send off" (which I think is really more for those sending us than those being sent), and flow south to Georgia. With time being of the essence, my thoughts begin to turn to wondering about what's really important. I told a buddy of mine today, "dude, there are three things I really want to do - drink wine, chase my wife and play online...the things I really can't do in Georgia or Iraq." Aside from that, I've enjoyed the time with family this last week. Family has prayed over me, have taken special time to really express how much they appreciate me and otherwise put up with my dumb ass more than normal. All in all, an enjoyable time. With a "line in the sand" having been drawn, I began a while ago to take more note of those things which are really and truly important. Time with family is important. Not that I would have spent more time with them in the next twelve months if I were to be here at home, but just the thought that we can't get together at a moment's notice changes things.

Anyhow, time with family is important. Thanks to everyone who's made this time valuable.

Tools O' The Trade

One school I did not attend, and intend on doing so, is Information Operations. I was originally slated to do this for the Brigade, and now am not. No hard feelings, and I don't think hooking into the school will be all that tough. For one, it's not "sexy" or about maneuver, so the Infantry, such as it is, is absolutely not interested (save our commander, from whom I've learned a ton about IO). It is, oddly enough categorized as "targeting", which makes it a Field Artillery function. Round peg in a round hole.

Now, why would I mention all this? Easy. It seems friends and family are beginning to receive attention from the Mass Media (thanks to their own talents, not mine), and so I'm offering what little Information Operations wisdom I have to (hopefully) help.

Let's get one thing straight. The difference between Info Ops and Public Affairs is that PA must tell the truth. *grins*

First: Never do a media interview that you don't want to do. If you're not on your game, tell them "no". Or give them a different date. If they really want the interview, they'll come back. Heck, if it's such a slow news day, they'll headline the weather for goodness sake. This leads to Ultimate Rule Numero Uno: YOU are in charge of the interview. Always, always, always.

Second: ALWAYS DO TARGETING. What can this media outlet do for me and my organization? What message do they typically send? What can I tell them that will both help them sell papers/airtime (let's be honest, the media's about selling, not truth) AND get my intended message out? This leads to lemma 2A...
2A: What're the talking points? No matter what, ALWAYS have three to five bullets written down that you want to get out no matter what. These are the talking points. Now, typically we prepare talking points for each Center of Influence we deal with, but that's deeper IO stuff.

Third (and Lastly): Find that comfy middle ground between you and the media. Let's face it, the Army isn't the only organization with skeletons in its closet. It stands to reason, therefore, that we must let some of them out in order to satisfy what passes for a "free press" in this country. The same goes for any organization. Some middle ground exists between what they want to know and what you're authorized to tell them. The answer of "I don't know" works better than "I'm not at liberty to say", the latter of which leads them to think there's more out there (kind of like Scully and Mulder).

Never forget, nothing is EVER off the record.

Enjoy!

Responses and Reactions

Warmest Holiday Greetings!

We're all home on Holiday Exodus, so life is good. I didn't want to go anywhere originally, but the "not more than 125 miles from the armory" rule the military slapped on us makes me want to almost get off my butt and travel to someplace odd...Petaluma, for example. And not tell the Army. Just to do it.

Thank God I'm too comfy and lazy to do that.

First, thanks for all the great input and comments! Liz, not sure my masculinity can handle buying and toting tampons around on the FOB. On the other hand, the armor has plenty of little straps, so I suppose tying them on would be easy, not to mention fashionable. The Army, in it's infinite wisdom, issued each of us a really snazzy med kit - plenty of gauze, bandage, tape, tourniquet, etc. It's far more advanced than the simple traumedic bandage we used to tape onto the suspenders and call good. Add to that, the armor itself is pretty impressive. I'm covered from groin to jawline with shrapnel protecting goodness, including kevlar on top and ballistic eye protection. All in all, not too shabby for a desk jockey. Having looked ahead at the horseblanket for Georgia (it's what I do, I'm the Plans Officer), I notice they have 14 days of combatives planned. How cool is that? After a month of living in a tent with 100 other guys, I'll definitely be ready for the combatives pit: "YOU, the one who snores a lot, into the Octagon!!"

Lately, I've been following Michael Yon's blog, which is just fantastic! Very down to earth. Most recently, he posted two items of note, both written by GEN (Ret) McCaffrey. Basically the general offers a professional AAR of how the war is going to date. Before any of you follow the link and read it, keep in mind, it's not all roses and light, nor is it all doom and gloom. It's fairly balanced and well resourced. When I started reading the list of sources for the AAR, and it included company commanders and battalion executive officers, I figured it was going to be spot on. I mean, how many generals take the time to sit and listen to captains and majors who are out there getting the job done? I was very impressed by the AAR. So, here it is. Just so you all know I'm balanced, McCaffrey posted a piece in the WSJ too. Here's its text. I will warn some of you that it does not paint Rumsfeld in a favorable light. Honestly, I'm OK with that. Not being too fond of politicians in general, I'm not too concerned when another soldier says, "hey, this guy didn't do what he was supposed to do." Maybe it's me, maybe it's the professional culture of the Officer corps. I'd like to think it's both. I have no time or energy for politicians nor their games.

Enough soapbox.

So....next two months we're going to be in Georgia. Considering the alternative (Atterbury), I'm actually looking forward to it. Yes, the living conditions will be less favorable than in Iraq. Honest, in Iraq, I'll have my own room, heated, air conditioned and will be able to sit down to eat any time of the day or night. Georgia will be far warmer than Indiana, will likely be rainy, but at least it'll get us into the right mindset. I know I'm looking forward to it. Most of us, I believe, are ready to move on from all the individual level tasks we're forced to accomplish (set a claymore...I mean let's be honest, NOBODY uses claymore mines in theater) and begin building the collective competencies we'll need to function overseas. The feedback I've read about this training is that the reservists who go through it find Iraq to be far easier than the training they had had. I have no doubts we'll be more than ready to fight alongside our regular Army counterparts when we arrive.

All that said, I don't know how often I'll be able to post. Most likely, I'll email the text to Kim, show her how to log on, cut and paste and let that be that. I do know we'll have very limited email capability, so be patient.

Thank you for your prayers, please continue to pray that I keep my cool.

Enjoy!

Vacationland USA

Greetings from sunny Camp Atterbury! I'd like to say lots of folks swarm here for fun and excitement and the great tourist attractions, but that wouldn't exactly be the truth. We have snow and wind, and some sun, and plenty to keep us busy.

Was thinking about that again today - the days have plenty to fill our time with, between preparing equipment to go forward, preparing ourselves as soldiers with training and such, and just accounting for it all. Right now it just feels like another AT period, being here at Atterbury. In fact, one reason the Big Army gave us for not conducting all the training here over the next few months was that we're so accustomed to this place, we would be challenged to take it seriously. That and Indiana in the winter is absolutely nothing like southwest Asia. I don't see it. I mean, there'll be dunes, wind storms that bite right into one's exposed skin, extreme temperatures...plenty of similarities. Naturally, the fact it's all based on ice and cold instead of sand and heat might have something to do with it. More to the point, my wife texted me that she misses me. I miss her fiercely, but it doesn't hit me as often as I think it does her. Thank God for text messages and Cingular's $29.99 unlimited texting plan. It's nice to be able to just reach out and pop a quick message out when I'm sitting in a meeting I don't need to be in or attending the same class for the third time and know that she's at the other end of that connection. It's a good feeling.

On a personal/professional level, I've been successful in not losing my temper in the last several days. It's a challenge for me, as constant change has rubbed me the wrong way in the past. In my journal this week, I noted that living on this mortal plane implies that we live in a state of constant change. To live is to be in a state of change. To stop changing is to not grow. To not change is, for all intents and purposes, to die. Change can be frustrating. Our rosters change, our operational plans change, we change our minds, our socks and our tires. So when I stated thinking about it earlier this week, there was an eiphany, call it God, Allah, Yahweh, a Higher Power, whatever (flash to Gross Pointe Blank for that one), but it was pretty clear: I have to accept the fact that things change, let my mind be like water, and not take it personally. Been much happier since then.

One slight frustration and I'll sign off for the night. I've noticed, the Internet has very few sites where one can find a list of things to bring on deployment. I'm not talking about uniforms, military equipment and the like. I'm talking about a no shit, here are the things that will make life exceedingly more comfortable on the FOB in theater list of things. I am fairly certain we won't be needing toothbrushes and toothpaste (although I know Kim would happily send them to me if I asked). For example, I searched the web for a few hours and finally found someone's blog, who mentioned he had purchased a hot pot for use in his can while on the FOB. Now, as someone who loves coffee, this held out hope for me. I have a camp stove, and am certain I won't be able to find the fuel cells for it (they're surface ship only too, so please don't air ship them). This created a challenge - how to heat my water for coffee in the morning. Knowing that the possibility of getting something like that on the FOB was encouraging. See, it's that sort of thing I think folks need to know. To quote my brother, if I want to know something like this, I know others will too.

That's all for this evening. I need to extricate myself from my perch, kick everyone from the day shift out of here and get to sleep myself.

Enjoy!

Happy Sunday!

This has been a very, very busy week, so my apologies for not posting. Normally, I maintain that "busy" is a state of mind, and somehow I still think that's true. On the other hand, when I'm at the armory until, oh, 1800 a few nights in a row, I tend to categorize that as "busy". Not frenetic or frantic or panicky, just...busy. I'd like to write that I've finally rolled up all the training data we have from the last five months, everything's scanned and on CDs and ready to go. It is not. There is one small binder of rosters I forgot, and have to hit on Monday. No biggie, but it keeps me from brushing my hands off as if we don't have to track anything. Which we do, so it's not as if I'm out of a job.

Spent a lot of time on the phone this week with friends. One dear friend and I spoke, and he asked me how Kim and I are doing and how the process is going. This is a common question. Kim and I are doing better than we expected to be doing at this point. We're trying to keep life here at home pretty much the same as it has been, which is nice. Not knowing what's coming up or what to expect tends to cause some trouble for us, me being focused almost solely on the deployment causes some trouble for us, but otherwise, we're doing well. We've been married sixteen years, and have developed some great coping skills, and we have built up the habit of talking things through. So while we have occasional blow ups (more often now than normally thanks to the mobilization), we're good at talking through things. And the Battalion support group has done an excellent job of giving us information on what to expect relationally while we're going through this, which helps too.

How the deployment process is going...interesting question. Most of it is as smooth as is can be, given that about two to four dozen people are managing it all for the other 3900 of us (this is where Paul rolls his eyes and makes the claim of being able to do it better). The Army has outlined the process in general with a couple of manuals, no surprise there. The folks who are in charge of the process overall are also pretty good at keeping us informed about changes, products they need from us, that sort of thing. All that said, one would think it's a seamless process. I mean, we've done this before, right? It is not completely seamless. It's like playing a card game and the rules tend to change each time someone picks up or lays down a card. The big rules don't change, rather the little ones...like which card is wild, that sort of thing. All in all though, it's not as bad as it sounds. Not surprisingly, open communication is really the key to making it work as smoothly as possible. The mantra of "fluid is too rigid" continues to apply.

Today I have wine to bottle. Was going to do it last week, set everything up and realized I had no corks. Tough to bottle wine without corks. Granted, I could have used 12 ounce longnecks or Grolsch flip top bottles, but wine really needs wine bottles. Now I have corks and can bottle and label. We'll run some other errands today too, that sort of thing.

One quick note about Thanksgiving, since Aunt N was good enough to reply to the post! :) Everything went well. The guests were happy, the bread was great (I did three loaves of french bread) and visiting was mostly good. I did, indeed, overimbibe after the guests left, which I suppose is my right. Had to bite my tongue when someone likened Iraq to Vietnam, which is, in my opinion, completely untrue. The body count alone attests to this, along with the fact that the "insurgents" are mostly Iranian SF and Hezbollah trained Muslims from elsewhere in the Arabic world. Add to that, Iraqis have begun to point out the "insurgents" to coalition forces and I begin to wonder if the Iraqis really want us out of there. True story and all that information is open source...nothing CNN would publish, of course. Anyhow, I kept my peace.

Enjoy!