Feral Jundi

Friday, March 13, 2020

Podcasts: Feral Jundi On The Conversations In Close Protection Show!

This was a fun show to do and I had a great time talking with Chris Story of Conversations in Close Protection podcast. The time period we did this, was just when things kicked off with Iran. So we were not able to discuss the COVID 19 outbreak, or any current stuff right now. But we were able to cover my history, to include serving in the Marines and working as a Smokejumper, and also go over my post about contracting over the last ten years. 

Check it out, and if you are interested in close protection/EP stuff, or just security contracting in general, this is an awesome podcast to check out. –Matt

Conversations In Close Protection is a podcast about the Executive/Close Protection industry. We use the podcast to enhance discussions about the industry and promote values, information and education within the Close Protection Community and try to have fun doing it!

Link to podcasts here.

Link to episode with Feral Jundi here.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Building Snowmobiles: Manoeuvre Warfare, By Captain Daniel Grazier

This is a fantastic video that I have watched several times and highly recommend. It is a Building Snowmobiles post because it is pure John Boyd and William Lind. I also wish this was available when I was a young Marine back in the day.

Captain Daniel Grazier is a Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and just recently joined up with POGO’s military reform project. I will let the video speak for itself, and he does a fantastic job of explaining manoeuvre (not maneuver) warfare and drawing heavily upon the concepts of Boyd’s Pattern’s of Conflict. Enjoy and Semper Fidelis. –Matt

 

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Funny Stuff: Duffel Blog–Marine Veterans Launch Kickstarter Project To Retake Fallujah!

Filed under: Al Qaeda,Funny Stuff,Iraq — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 3:43 PM

This is a hilarious satirical post on crowdfunding warfare that the Duffel Blog put together. With Al Qaeda actually retaking Fallujah recently, there has been much discussion on places like Facebook by veterans about all of this.

What is really interesting is that if you read through the response in the comments section of this post, which is mostly folks who are using their Facebook accounts to comment, there is actually a response of folks who would contribute to such a campaign. Or even go back over to retake the city with the Iraqis.

With that said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone actually start a campaign on a crowdfunding site that would actually allow it.  What site that would be is the question? So will someone actually start a campaign to fight the third battle of Fallujah? “Operation ______ ______”? –Matt

 

Marine Veterans Launch Kickstarter Project To Retake Fallujah
By G-Had
January 7, 2014
A pair of former Marines have launched a Kickstarter project to raise enough money for them to travel back to Iraq and retake the city of Fallujah in time for the ten-year anniversary of the battle.
“Hi, I’m Austin Jenkins and this is Joe Wood. We’re Marines, and this is our Kickstarter fund to send us back to Iraq to go fuck some shit up,” begins the now-famous video pitch featuring the two Iraq War veterans. They are seeking $1300 to fly them one-way from the U.S. to Jordan, where they intend to cross the Iraqi border in order to “make it rain.”
When asked how they plan to fight Al Qaeda militants, Jenkins said, “Yeah, where are we gonna find any weapons in Iraq?” Then they both started laughing.
Jenkins, a former Sergeant in 3rd Battalion 1st Marines, took part in the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. Wood, also a former Sergeant but with 1st Battalion 5th Marines took part in the earlier battle in April of that year. After each completed several combat deployments to Iraq, both were eventually forced out of the Marine Corps due to incomplete swim qualifications.

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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Military News: Marine Corps Birthday, 2012

Filed under: Military News — Tags: , , — Matt @ 10:41 PM

The Commandant and Sgt Maj of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos and Sgt. Maj. Micheal P. Barrett, present the 2012 Marine Corps Birthday Message. Footage includes historical b-roll and images from Guadalcanal as well as interviews with WWII veterans, subject matter experts, active duty Marines and Marine spouses.

Happy birthday Marines and Semper Fi! This is one of the great military traditions that I have seen carry on throughout the war zones over the years. Contractors that are Marines and current Marines would all get together to celebrate the birthday on the various FOBs  and outposts throughout Iraq or Afghanistan and eat some cake. Or folks all over the US and throughout the world, would get together and celebrate this. The message below is part of that tradition and it talks about where the Marines have been, and where they are going. –Matt

 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Leadership: General Mattis On ‘Command And Feedback’, And The Use Of ‘Eyes Officers’

From his lead position, Mattis stayed close to the regiments involved in the fiercest fighting and got a good sense for events on the battlefield. The general refused to believe that images on a computer screen in the quiet hum of a command post could tell him what he needed to know about how the battle was progressing and what his subordinates required. Mattis could be ruthless; he would relieve the commander of one of his regiments in the middle of a campaign. In the marines, only performance counts. Mattis picked several officers to act as what he called his “eyes only” representatives. They had no authority but, he said, like “Frederick the Great’s focused telescope or Wellington’s lieutenants in the Peninsula Campaign,” they had the duty of wandering the battlefield to keep him informed of things they thought he needed to know: troops or officers who were exhausted by combat, supplies that were not reaching the front line, and the other human factors that can be crucial in combat. -page 116 and 117 of The Iraq War: A Military History, By Williamson Murray, Robert Scales

The Slate put this out last year, but I just recently stumbled upon it and wanted to share. General Mattis is a Marine’s Marine and he is very much respected. With that said, when I found out that he was implementing some concepts that are familiar here in Jundism and some of my leadership posts, I perked up.

Specifically, the mystery shopper concept or having folks on the inside of your organization to give you some honest feedback about the true health of your company or military unit. With this data, you can actually make adjustments to policy that will better serve the mission or contract.

I also liked the focus on innovation and gaining feedback. Or, command and feedback, which is a play on the phrase command and control. This also led to the best quote in the article below about where that feedback or innovation could come from.

If you are always on the hunt for complacency, argues Mattis, you will reward risk-takers, and people who thrive in uncertainty. “Take the mavericks in your service,” he tells new officers, “the ones that wear rumpled uniforms and look like a bag of mud but whose ideas are so offsetting that they actually upset the people in the bureaucracy. One of your primary jobs is to take the risk and protect these people, because if they are not nurtured in your service, the enemy will bring their contrary ideas to you.”

That is awesome and all companies and military units should learn from this. Leaders should dare to listen and seek feedback from all quarters of their organization, and soldiers/contractors should dare to come forward and disagree, or present the better idea. Any policies and actions within an organization that supports this command and feedback process should be looked at and attempted.

We should constantly be supporting and pushing innovation within the ranks, and constantly seeking feedback and using these innovations in order to continuously improve the organization/mission/contract/war fighting/strategy. Awesome stuff. –Matt

 

 

Gen. James Mattis, USMC The general who is fighting a constant battle to keep the military innovating.
By John Dickerson
Aug. 9, 2011
When speaking to rising officers, Marine Gen. James Mattis likes to tell the story of the British Navy. At the turn of the 19th century, it had no rival in the world, but 100 years later it had grown complacent in dominance. Officers amassed rules, ribbons, and rituals that had little to do with the changing nature of war. “They no longer had captains of wars,” he tells them, “but captains of ships.”
As commander of the U.S. Central Command, Mattis oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but his career mission has been against complacency. In modern warfare the reliance on better technology and superior firepower deadens the talent for innovation, he argues. This blinds some officers to emerging threats and slows their ability to react to them. The U.S. military, he argues “must avoid becoming dominant and irrelevant.”

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