buzzin'

The Bad Seeds - I'm A King Bee
time is flying by.  finally got some professional help up at our hub.  getting things wired in tight.

got my rings up.  been pulling solid weights.  5x5s have been 305 lbs for squat, 410 deadlift, and 195 for thrusters.  managing to hold my ground on running.  that'll probably be my 2nd half focus.  hopefully the new gym will be up by then, and hopefully i can get around the normal procedures and get some good shit for the gym instead of weak ass machines.

been researching life after the army, and what i'm gonna do.  things look promising.  i'll need to dial it in quite a bit, but i think i'm heading in the right direction.  hopefully i can find a good place for me and my puppy in cali.  and hopefully i can drag out my alaska registration, cause lord knows my truck won't pass california emissions.

i did, however, get stung yesterday, whilst drilling holes for the aforementioned rings on top of a commo tower.  not cool, but that's what i get for being a hippie and trying to live and let live with wasps.  i then went on a killin' rampage.  'cause i'm a king bee, baby.

hater aid

man, it's been a crazy week of hatin'.

first off, keeping with the recent theme of acquigistics, it seems that starbuck has stumbled upon some bloat in the Army's Materiel Command.  Here's the salient point: "AMC also has more contractors and DoD civilians in its ranks than there are US service members in Afghanistan."

seems like there sure are a hell of a lot of suits running around this man's army.  but, hey, they're here to help us do all the fightin' and winnin', right?  so how's that fightin' and winnin' going?  let's ask babatim over at free range international.

looks like he was gonna read the afghan study group report, but there wasn't much left after joshua foust flat out demolished it.  somebody needs to institute the mercy rule here.  i'm sorry justin logan, normally we're on the same team, but you're making me wince.  

but enough about registan, the graveyard of afghanistan policy protagonists.  what's tim have to say about the "granular" stuff.  looks like he's picked up on an article i read with interest in the danger room.  you can read the story, or you could just compare and contrast these pictures:

Captain Christian Balan, who teaches digital forensics at Burlington’s Champlain College in civilian life, heading towards a school just outside the massive Bagram airbase to trade his tech skills fixing the computer lab in hopes of generating good will and cooperation. Photo by Spencer Ackerman of the Danger Room blog.

Caption totally cribbed from FRI, but I fixed your name, Attackerman.

 ...VERSUS...

My son Logan doing the heavy lifting during the initial instal of the Jalalabad Fab Fi network. 

*stolen caption alert*

uh.... Infantry squad + Commo CPT + Interpreter < Grad Students Gone Wild.

now it's been a while since i had discrete dynamical systems, but even if you start with initial condition of 'that dude's dad is legit,' you still have to take into account we're 9 years into this thing and we're venturing outside the wire into the town next door like the Marines from avatar.  (I had to google that, that's how out of the whole movie scene I am.)

ok, so maybe we need to strip out a lot of the bullshit and let your Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines do what they do best, like tim says.  incidentally, i doubt ANYONE has the stomach for what would happen next, but if we're honestly planning on getting a democracy up and running through security and development and keeping the place from becoming a safe haven from aq and the taliban, then that's the only solution i see.  otherrwise all we're doing is biding our time until it's politically feasible to pull out and hoping that the place doesn't go to hell in a handbasket.

but, back to acquigistics, we can't possibly outfit our troops with the finest in military hardware without this hot mess, can we?  well, lo and behold it's a shimmering gleam of light coming from the bowels of the beast.  It's rogue project leader, and he's gonna be FISTing the establishment like nobody's business.  hey, that's FIST as in "fast, inexpensive, simple and tiny" weapons systems.  you're nasty, which i like.

and guess what?  he's even got cartoons!

and i loves me some smarmy cartoons.  now if only i didn't have to go digging through the trash to find his toons.  seriously, do we have to destroy all that is fun?

hmmm...?  what's that?  did somebody just say something about crossfit?   Well, I'm gonna go ahead and take on the CHAMP.  the Consortium for Health and Military Performance, that is.

now, katie, this is a pretty weaksauce article, but i'll forgive you your sins.  you know not your physical training knowledge.  but neither does the damn army.  nothing about army PT is performance-based.  it's almost worse than nothing.  the best thing i can say about army PT is that it gives junior NCOs their first taste of leading Soldiers.  the worst thing i can say is that it CAUSES INJURIES.

case in point, a few days ago one of the guys who was in the gym while i was in there mentioned tight hamstrings.  i suggested a few stretches that have opened up my hips quite a bit, but don't load the spine like a standing hamstring stretch.  a few days later i see him limping pretty bad.  i ask him what happened.  he tells me that he should've warmed up a bit before taking off on a dead sprint.  now, i've done that plenty of times with nary a cramp or pull.  then he tells me it was even more odd because he had just done those stretches.  i say, 'well of course you pulled your hammies, static stretching right before sprinting was probably the worst thing you could've done.'  and that's exactly how the army does it.

we buy hammer strength and life fitness machines, at thousands of bucks a pop, and fill every gym with them 'til there isn't room enough to get around without hurdling the equipment.  then we put out a policy that states everyone on post must work out at the exact same time, despite the fact that the facilities can't handle a tenth of the Soldiers on post.  what's that?  you want to work out on your lunch break?  you'd better not be in your duty uniform.  you gotta change into your PTs, Soldier.  you on the overweight program?  we're gonna make you workout TWICE as much.  you fail a PT test, it's nothing but pushups, situps and running for you.

nevermind no one ever bothers to talk about HOW to run, or HOW to lift, or HOW the human body responds to physical stress.  all that matters is those APFT and WCP stats.

if people are getting hurt doing crossfit, there's a simple explanation:  you don't know what you're doing, add a lot of weight, stir and serve chilled.  it happens, because people can be more enthusiastic than intelligent.  but i will bet those CHUMPs that, per capita, the injury incidence rate is higher with your run-of-the-mill Army PT than crossfit.

until i learned how to run properly, i couldn't manage to include more than sporadic distance training into my workout regimen unless i completely stopped lifting and cut 10-15 pounds.  guess how i learned to run properly?  crossfit endurance.  everything you need to know about crossfit to do it full tilt boogie, and safely, is right there, online and free for the taking, on the main site and the numerous affiliate pages.  i'm healthier, stronger and faster than i've ever been.

whether in fitness, operations, or acquisitions, the military needs to take a step back and honestly assess whether the way it's doing things isn't adding so much cost to the process in an attempt to provide a measure of quality control that it wouldn't be worth it to just scrap the whole damn thing and let the junior Soldiers and leaders figure out a way to innovate, experiment, and maybe find a way to do things cheaper, faster and better.  i promise you, we're up for it.  you just gotta accept some failure along the way.  but i gotta tell you, a lot of what i see today sure looks like failure already.

- blutsbruder - ich hasse dich

like i was saying...

i need a new line of work

manned/unmanned squadron

from defense news:

Next year, the U.S. Army will create an experimental air cavalry squadron composed of 21 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters and eight RQ-7 Shadow UAVs. 

The Army hopes that the new arrangement will allow the service to meet the exponentially increased demand for aerial reconnaissance with fewer forces over larger areas more efficiently. 

"Unmanned aircraft have endurance and range, whereas manned aircraft have the ability to react to contacts and have better situational awareness," said Ellis Golson, director of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence's Capability Development and Integration Directorate. "We know it will work. It's just a matter of how well it will work and how we can make it even better."

cynical take:  we're too incompetent to buy a new scout helicopter.

it's actually a good idea, and worth pursuing, even if we had managed to procure our heads out of our ass.

if we can ever manage to send units outside the wire for more than a quick road trip, the persistent surveillance will certainly be useful, first and foremost to the units on the ground, right where it should be.  so kudos.  hopefully this might reduce our risk aversion somewhat and let units get outside the wire longer than a fortymile hunting trip.*

* disclosure:  of course i'm not one of those guys that's going outside the wire at all.

but that's why i don't think we should be treat all veterans and servicemembers the same.  you were in the infantry in persistent close combat?  you're my hero.  seriously.  i have nothing but love and respect for you guys.  nothing we do as a nation can return that which you have given for us.

you spent your deployments hanging out at green bean, sneaking in a little minesweeper while fixing your powerpoint slides, and you won't shut up about your combat tours when you're in the states?  shut up and color.

get up and dance

once again i'm feeling chipper.  hopefully this monday doesn't end up like last monday did.  but things are steadily improving, albeit slowly.

i got some awesome love from my frisbee folks.  been meaning to catch up with them, and i finally got the nudge to do it.  what a great group of peeps.  chalu painj.

finally forced myself to start the rosetta stone lessons.  doing farsi.  only made it through two lessons, and i think i'm going to have to re-start it and take notes this time.  i was a bit lost at the end there.  that, and apparently there's an issue somewhere in the compulator.  the speech recognition stuff isn't working.  army internet stuff doesn't like firefox, apparently.  or maybe just my computer.  hopefully i'll get it going, but at least i'm doing something.

so i'm in a rather chipper mood.  i probably shouldn't be, but hopefully i can keep it up.  of course, i'm reading a lot of solemn posts and less solemn facebookery from friends on "patriot day."  but my september 11th thoughts have been buoyed by this little discovery.

On the morning of 11th September 2001, the world discovered the unstoppable chain of events both you and al-Qaeda had put in place. Why was this operation carried out? What has the 11th September brought to the world except mass killings, occupations, destruction, hatred of Muslims, humiliation of Islam, and a tighter grip on the lives of ordinary Muslims by the authoritarian regimes that control Arab and Muslim states? I warned you then, in summer 2000, of how your actions would bring US forces into the Middle East and into Afghanistan, leading to mass unrest and loss of life. You believed I was wrong. Time has proved me right. Your actions have harmed millions of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims alike. How is this Islam or jihad? For how much longer will al-Qaeda continue to bring shame on Islam, disrupt ordinary Muslims' lives, and be the cause of global unrest?

damn, son, you got served!  so who wrote that?  how about "Noman Benotman, a former commander in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and a former associate of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri."

game changer?  probably not.  but it's exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen.  islam (speaking VERY broadly) is in a crisis of faith.  moderate islam has yet to assert itself and repudiate the, shall we say, unsavory parts of the koran.  it has yet to define what it is about the faith that offers something better in life.  Of course, it is a cultural adhesive in regions steeped in history, but eventually religion has to offer a better life, not just a better afterlife.  God would see through Pascal's wager.

of course, i don't believe in god.  i'm just saying, God, if he existed, and were, you know... GOD, would be able to detect insincerity.  i would also think he would look beyond faith itself and into your soul to know if you were, at heart, a decent human being.*

the koran, from what i've read, is a much less, erm, inspiring manuscript, than the other two judeo-christian texts (and i thought being a lutheran was rough!).  but they all have their faults.  faults which must either result in severe cognitive dissonance in believers, or severe ignorance.  sure, religions have done a good job co-opting cultural traditions to provide deeper meaning behind such odd behaviors as hanging figurines on a pine tree near the winter solstice and hiding colored eggs.  but in order to really thrive, religion has to offer something more, a reason for people to believe, a promise for the future.  islam doesn't seem to me to offer much; over the past 9 years things have pretty much gone down the shitter.

but there are signs of hope.  mr. benotman's words have really cheered me up.  i hate to believe that it's true, but we won't walk away from afghanistan with anything to be proud of unless we win the narrative, and we don't control the narrative.  we're outsiders, imposers.  no matter how genuine we are and no matter who marginally competent we manage to be, we can not afford to stay in iraq or afghanistan forever.  we will not have the luxury of even attempting to impose our will.

what follows in our wake will be determined by the collective will of the people.  some areas will always be hostile to us, to our values, and they will continue to live in the shadows.  whether they stay in the shadows, or whether they, or those they inspire, have the wherewithal to wantonly kill innocent, free people abroad, will be determined by those just outside of the shadows, those poor, struggling people of southwest and central asia who have been mired in poverty for far too long by wars and corrupt governments.

what will they do?  will they turn to a faith that offers them more than the cold calculus of revenge and the sanctity of blood?  will they turn to a faith that binds them to a code of decency and to a love of life and community?  the future of islam will only be determined by its adherents.  many blessings upon your house, mr. benotman.  may many more like you come forward to reclaim your faith, for the sake of us all.

method of destruction - get up and dance

* in fact: i do think that.  that's why i'm not sweating the wager.  if i'm wrong, and god does exist, then he will surely judge me on the merits.  if he judges me on whether i was sufficiently supplicant, then he's no god worth supplicating to.

dominos fall

i don't have much to say this week. i figured sunday would be a good day to have some meta time and post up in the paint of cyberspace, where all the dirty work gets done.

but no such luck. i'm not a very meta person. never have been. it seems the more i think ABOUT a problem, the more it bothers me and the more perplexing it seems. if i just attack it as a pragmatic concern i tend to handle things pretty well.

and lately, despite a lot of setbacks and hurdles to clear, it seems as if i'm finally starting to be able to handle my shit. thanks are due to a lot of people. this job isn't the sort where you can succeed on your own merits. you've gotta beg and borrow and venture a bit on the dark side to get shit done.

had an amusing conversation with my dad today. it wasn't amusing by itself. it was mainly amusing because it was more of a real conversation than most i have with my dad, with a lot of back and forth. it was amusing because it was about construction. there have been many days in the army when i've just wished that i had never bothered with college and worked for my dad instead. now look at what i'm up to....

 

of course i'm not really doing much in terms of laborin' or supervisin'.  i do have to help out more than you'd expect.  i don't know why, but they don't seem to ever have the right tools.  it's pretty funny.  kinda like i was as a high school kid trying to do a project and not having any of the right tools or realizing how much work would go into preparation.  hopefully it turns out alright, but i have to stifle a laugh most times when i go check up on their work.

they're all really friendly, which is surprising considering that it's ramadan, and they can't drink all day.  they get started very early and take off early, so that helps.  their boss speaks a little bit of english, and he likes to talk.  he likes to talk about family, so i get to talk about my dad and the farm.  it's rather pleasant.

from what the main man tells me, i gather that my predecessors split up payments and all kinds of chicanery to get things done.  i'm not known for complying with, let alone enforcing, stupid rules and regulations, but fraud isn't something i would like to get involved in.  it's been pretty painful learning how things operate around here and trying to get stuff done.  it's especially painful since i'm starting almost tabula rasa.  it hasn't been fun.

but i'm starting to get my shit together, and it feels good.  i'm going to be busy, that's for sure, but not overwhelmingly so.  if i get things down, i'll be able to really attack a few things i really want to do.  hint, hint: operation phoenix.

but there's quite a bit that's still up in the air.  i still have no idea if i'm staying with my unit when i get back home or if they're gonna cut me loose.  if i go, i have no idea what i'd be doing.  i've pretty much given up trying to figure that out.  no matter what happens, it won't be anything i ever wanted to do, that much i know.  so i'm just gonna let the dominos fall.

all for tonite.  it's too late, and i have to go shooting early tomorrow morning.  and it's gonna be a BUSY one tomorrow.

- rancid - dominos fall