Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Afghanistan: Bing West Reports–Finishing Firefights Difficult in Afghanistan
Call to Action: Contractors Should Review USA and USMC COIN Lessons Learned Slide Show
Please take the time to review these excellent slide shows about COIN lessons learned in Afghanistan. They are simple to understand, and each slide communicates clearly what principle they are trying to convey. These are all recent lessons learned, and contractors and military can all learn from this.
Especially for contractors, because the companies nor the military is doing anything to teach us about this stuff. In order for there to be a ‘unity of effort’, we all need to be on the same sheet of music out there. Contractors work around the local populations all the time. Your convoy mission, PSD mission, or static security operation all have an impact on the war effort, and how you interact with the local populations can either win the day for us, or damage the fragile efforts of the troops. Plus there are some vital lessons about the operational environment of Afghanistan, and what you have to prepare for to be effective there.
Get on board, take the time to review the slides, and pass it on. I also highly recommend getting the blog I posted below on your RSS reader. I also advise the companies to pass this around to your contractors, and communicate how important this. The purpose is to ensure that we don’t screw up the current war strategy. It is free, it is excellent knowledge, and there is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t pass this around to get the word out. –Matt
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USA and USMC Counterinsurgency Center Blog
Lessons Learned in Pictures
We obtained two great PowerPoint presentations that are just right for the troops: lessons learned matched to photographs. One lesson learned picture tells a thousand stories? One is from the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines titled “COIN in Helmand Province, After the Clear – Thoughts and Tips on Non Kinetic Actions.” See it here. The second is from Afghan National Army, LTG Zazai, the Corps commander for the ANA 205th Corps, titled “The Counterinsurgency Fight in 205th Hero Corps”. Click here to view.
Blog post here.
Military News: Most U.S. Youths Unfit to Serve, Data Shows
Thanks to Doug for passing this one on. This is appalling, yet not too surprising. Maybe Codepink or Al Qaeda should change their strategy, and start Operation Twinky? Operatives could put delicious cream filled Twinkies and Ho Ho’s in everyone’s mail box, and really fatten up America.
To fat to fight?….(shaking my head)
On a serious note, our national security strategy has been severely lacking in preparing this country’s youth for service during a time of national crisis. We should be directly targeting this group of 17-24 year olds, and figuring out ways of getting them off their ass. Because it is this group that will be drafted in a time of emergency, and at the very least they should be of the fitness level required to meet that kind of emergency.
Not to mention the life time of healthcare costs for these individuals. It benefits all of us, and in so many ways, to promote good health and fitness within our nation’s youth. Yet again, that would take leadership to push this through, along with innovation.
I also think the government should do more to support youth groups that promote patriotism, fitness, community service and self sufficiency. Groups like the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and numerous other organizations that focus on today’s youth are exactly the type of organizations that prepare young men and women for the rigors of life and for being citizens of their country.
On that note, I will not sugar coat my thoughts on the real benefit of groups like the Boy Scouts. I have meet numerous contractors and military folks who were Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts lays the foundation for service to country, and they also give you the mental tools necessary for survival. The camping, first aid, tracking, fieldcraft, leadership, navigation, and numerous other skills taught in that organization easily transfer on to service in the military. I know this, because I am a Boy Scout and Eagle Scout, and I know exactly how helpful that experience was to me when I was a Smokejumper, Marine, and now a security contractor.
The founding fathers of the Scouting Movement, Frederick Burnham and Robert Baden-Powell knew this too, and they certainly put together an idea that has benefited our Nation and our Military in a multitude of ways. And if you click on those links to Burnham and Powell, you will also find their histories to be very interesting. These men were legends in their own times, and did some amazing soldiering all over the world. Something to think about if you have children. –Matt
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Most U.S. youths unfit to serve, data show
By William H. McMichael
Nov 4, 2009
U.S. military-age youth are increasingly unfit to serve — mostly because they’re in such lousy shape.
According to the latest Pentagon figures, a full 35 percent, or more than one-third, of the roughly 31.2 million Americans aged 17 to 24 are unqualified for military service because of physical and medical issues. And, said Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accessions, “the major component of this is obesity. We have an obesity crisis in the country. There’s no question about it.”
The Pentagon draws its data from the Centers for Disease Control, which regularly tracks obesity. The steadily rising trend is not good news for military recruiters, despite their recent successes, nor for the overall health of the U.S. population.
In 1987, according to the CDC, a mere 6 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds, or about 1 out of 20, were obese. In 2008, 22 years later, 23 percent of that age group — almost 1 out of 4 — was considered to be obese.
The CDC measures obesity by body mass index, a figure calculated from height and weight that is considered a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people. According to the CDC, the body mass index for a man standing 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighing 170 pounds is 21.8; the normal range lies between 18.5 and 24.9. Below that range is considered underweight; a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight. A person with a body mass index of 30 or greater is considered to be obese.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Veteran News: Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay
Hey gang, this was sent to me by Chris and I think this could impact quite a few guys and gals in this industry. If you were part of the stop loss crew, here is the information you need. Just follow the link to the Veterans Today website, and they have listed all the services that have websites that will help you file for your retroactive stop loss pay. –Matt
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From Veterans Today
The 2009 War Supplemental Appropriation Act set aside $534.4 million for the Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay compensation authority. Soldiers, veterans and survivors of those whose service was involuntarily extended under Stop Loss between September 11, 2001 and September 30, 2008 can apply to receive $500 for every month, or portion of a month, they served under Stop Loss. The 2009 War Supplemental Appropriations Act established and largely funded the payment for all military services, but dictated that each service process and pay their own applicants.
Go here to learn more.
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Story at Marine Corps Times here.
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Story at Army Times here.
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Story at Stars and Strips here.
Medical: Resiliency As Positive Deviance–Rethinking Counseling and the Military, by Angela Benedict
This is a treat. Angela has been an active reader of FJ and of PMH, and definitely has done a lot of work on PTSD issues at her Military Healing Center. She is one of the few out there in her industry that actually care about the mental health of not only soldiers in the war, but of contractors as well. So it is a pleasure to showcase some of her work as a guest author on FJ.
You can see the theme with today’s posts, and we really need to be thinking about the mental health aspects of this industry. In order to continue doing this kind of work, you need to arm yourself with the mental tools for longevity. Angela is a great person to talk to, if you want to assemble that mental tool kit. –Matt
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RESILIENCY AS POSITIVE DEVIANCE: Rethinking Counseling and the Military
By Angela Benedict
We live in a world that functions in a myriad of negative deviances. Child abuse and sexual trafficking, domestic violence and condoned incest, corruption and extortion, rewarded dishonesty and extreme poverty, torture of war criminals and sexual partners, embedded violence and jealousy, materialism and isolation. We live in fear of our neighbours, foreigners, family members and ourselves. We are on guard, awaiting the next attack from our boss, our co-worker, our spouse, to be projected at us by the news, the internet. We often see power misused. Most of us feel powerless.
It is not surprising that over the last 30 years there has been a steep incline in the cases of mental illness. Depression is ranked highest followed by spikes in schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and other psychotic illness. Stress is cited as the cause.
Out of this incline another trend has appeared, that of the trauma counselor. Trauma has begun to define us. We are not our accomplishments as much as we are a society identified by our ailments. We are a depressed society living in disastrous times where our expectations are that things will only get worse. This is a tough perception.
Currently, the field of trauma counseling is receiving harsh criticism from within the ranks of psychology where it is being viewed as a reinforcement to not only illness, but to negative deviant behaviours. Given the high stakes of the epidemic status of post traumatic stress, a solution must be found soon. Resiliency training can become the counter to the negative and be used to reinforce positive deviance.