Words with Which to Begin the New Year

“For we walk by faith, not by sight” 

2 Corinthians 5:7

Andy McCarthy on Free Speech and It's Enemies in the State and in the Culture

"Free speech cannot work if the government it is designed to restrain does not respect it. A lawful American government — one that takes seriously its sworn obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution — would not only enforce the First Amendment; it would refrain from engaging in unconstitutional schemes in the first place."

McCarthy always writes a good article. This is one of his best.

Read more ...

Started a New Book on the Last Day of the Year

My Christmas presents started to arrive yesterday and among the first to be delivered was this one, Dr. Lloyd-Jones's sermons on the twelfth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Romans 12 deals with "Christian men and women living out the new life given to them in Christ in relationship with their fellows in the church, exercising the gifts they have received, wrestling with problems and opposition, but finally triumphing over all difficulties through the faith, hope and love that underlie all truly Christian conduct."

I don't have the full set yet. Still lacking the volumes on chapters 13 and 14, but I will get these in due time. I need to read the volumes I already have. I've read a great deal in them, but I haven't read them all the way through. I need to do that.

True, there are sixteen chapters in Romans, but Dr. Lloyd-Jones passed away before he was able to finish the series. In fact, I believe he only got as far as verse 17 of chapter 14 before being overtaken by illness. These sermons from chapter 12 were preached during the 1960s.

New Books for Christmas

You'd think that with all the books I already have, I wouldn't be purchasing any more. But if you really thought that way it would only prove that you do not yet understand books, or reading, or me. My family and close acquaintances have long since quit getting me anything for my birthdays or for Christmas except for gift cards at bookstores, like Barnes and Noble's. This year they even got me one of those pre-paid Visa cards so I could shop at my favorite online, second-hand bookstore, Abe Books. So I'm anxiously awaiting the mailman's delivery of this year's haul; and, as you can see, I've opted for something besides military history.

Gleanings from Paul, by Arthur Pink.

Commentary on Matthew: The Gospel of the Kingdom, by C. H. Spurgeon.

Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 12 Christian Conduct, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law, by Richard Sibbes.

Facing Grief: Counsel for Mourners, by John Flavel.

Jonathan Edwards on Knowing Christ, by, of course, Jonathan Edwards.

George Muller of Bristol: His Life of Prayer and Faith.

Andrew Bonar: Diary and Life, by Andrew Bonar.

Josiah's Reformation, by Richard Sibbes.

The Glory of Christ, by John Owen.

I'm sure it won't surprise anyone that one of my favorite quotes is from the Reverend Samuel Davies, (1723-1761) ...

"The venerable dead are waiting in my library to entertain me and relieve me from the nonsense of surviving mortals." 

Guess What My New Year's Resolution Is?

It's to read more books!

Spurgeon on Facebook

C. H. Spurgeon

I follow, and greatly enjoy, a couple of sites on Facebook which post quotes from the famous 19th Century London preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The following, from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, is an example.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even, unto the end of the world. Amen. . 

- Matthew 28:20

"The Lord Jesus is in the midst of his church; he walketh among the golden candlesticks; his promise is, "Lo, I am with you alway." He is as surely with us now as he was with the disciples at the lake, when they saw coals of fire, and fish laid thereon and bread. Not carnally, but still in real truth, Jesus is with us. And a blessed truth it is, for where Jesus is, love becomes inflamed. Of all the things in the world that can set the heart burning, there is nothing like the presence of Jesus! A glimpse of him so overcomes us, that we are ready to say, "Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me." Even the smell of the aloes, and the myrrh, and the cassia, which drop from his perfumed garments, causes the sick and the faint to grow strong. Let there be but a moment's leaning of the head upon that gracious bosom, and a reception of his divine love into our poor cold hearts, and we are cold no longer, but glow like seraphs, equal to every labour, and capable of every suffering. If we know that Jesus is with us, every power will be developed, and every grace will be strengthened, and we shall cast ourselves into the Lord's service with heart, and soul, and strength; therefore is the presence of Christ to be desired above all things. His presence will be most realized by those who are most like him. If you desire to see Christ, you must grow in conformity to him. Bring yourself, by the power of the Spirit, into union with Christ's desires, and motives, and plans of action, and you are likely to be favoured with his company. Remember his presence may be had. His promise is as true as ever. He delights to be with us. If he doth not come, it is because we hinder him by our indifference. He will reveal himself to our earnest prayers, and graciously suffer himself to be detained by our entreaties, and by our tears, for these are the golden chains which bind Jesus to his people."

The USAF Band Holiday Flash Mob at the National Air and Space Museum 2013

One of my favorite verses ...

“For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”   Romans 5:17

-- From the King James Bible Online.

The Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center at Christmas

The parade of leftist intolerance at this time of year, especially this year, it seems, is astonishing. It would almost be humorous if it weren't so serious. The latest in the continuing saga is brought to us by the good folks that run the Charlie Norwood Veterans Administration Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. They're having such a merry Christmas, they couldn't stand for a group of high school students to sing traditional Christmas hymns to the vets.

Read the story ...

Handel's Messiah in King James English (Thank God!)

Perhaps you've never considered it, but the lyrics of Georg Friedrich Handel's Messiah are taken entirely from the King James Version of the Bible. Also known as the Authorized Version, the KJV dates to AD 1611. Handel composed his Messiah in 1741. Can you imagine what a travesty it would be if someone attempted to re-create this, Handel's masterpiece substituting the words and phraseology of one of the modern versions? Can you imagine the Messiah set to the New International Version?

Neither can I.

Enjoy!

And Merry Christmas!

My Father's House -- Evangelist Dan Meaders

Based on the story of Joseph in Genesis, chapter 43.

The Great Question at Christmas

"... In his gospel Luke tells us who Jesus was .... Was he a man like every other man? Luke's answer is that he was not. Luke tells how the angel Gabriel went to Mary and told her that she was supremely blessed among women; that she was going to bear the Son of the Highest, and that he would be great. He would occupy the throne of his father David and of his kingdom there would be no end. Read it all in the first chapter of Luke's gospel. Mary was perplexed and asked how this could be since she was a virgin.

"Gabriel said: 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' (Luke 1:35).

"That is what Luke tells us and this means that Jesus came into the world. He was not just born like everybody else. He came out of eternity into time; he came from heaven to earth. This is Christianity. Whatever may be your moral and political views, the question confronting you is this: How are you related to the fact that the babe of Bethlehem is the eternal Son of God?"

-- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Authentic Christianity, Vol. 1 

(Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1999), 8-9.

Ohio Democrat Proposes Draconian Homeschooling Legislation

"But the Home School Legal Defense Association has a different take, calling it the “worst-ever home school law” and saying Senate Bill 248 “is breathtakingly onerous in its scope.”

“It requires all parents who home school to undergo a social services investigation which would ultimately determine if homeschooling would be permitted. Social workers would have to interview parents and children separately, conduct background checks and determine whether homeschooling is recommended or not. If it is not recommended, parents would have to submit to an ‘intervention’ before further consideration of their request to home school.”

"That intervention would include individual and/or group behavioral counseling and classes on parenting, decision-making, personal or household finance and homeschooling – plus anything else the agency might decide is needed. Agency social workers would decide whether the intervention was successful, or not – and whether the parents will be permitted to homeschool their children."

Read more ... 

Army Cyber Command to Move to Fort Gordon

"The Army Cyber Command announced today that it will consolidate its network operations into a 179,000-square-foot facility on Fort Gordon and bring 1,500 active-duty military, government civilian and contract personnel jobs to the Augusta area."

Read more ...

Astonishing?

Phil Robertson

The Media Research Center, on their Facebook page, calls the response, over the past 24 hours, to Duck Dynasty's outspoken star, Phil Robertson's firing, "astonishing."

I can understand why they would say something like that. But what should be truly astonishing is the extent to which the bigoted, narrow-minded, holier-than-thou attitude of the religious left, most recently exemplified in the A&E Network's firing of Mr. Robertson, is taken as normal thinking.

Robertson's views are much closer to normal, and thankfully much more prevalent, than the views of those freaks at GLAAD. Just saying.

"Silent Night" is Offensive to the Religious Left

Well, I've got to start somewhere. So, there's this ...

School officials at Kings Park high school on the northern Long Island coast in New York have demonstrated their commitment to academic freedom by forcing their religious beliefs on their students. In the view of these hypocrites, the old Christmas hymn, Silent Night is offensive. Consequently, they have disallowed the hymn to be sung as originally written (John F. Young translated Joseph Mohr's "Stille Nacht" into English).

Offensive phrases include: "Holy Infant" and "Christ the Savior."

Kings Park high school has existed since at least 2007, but only now, as its students prepare for their annual Christmas concert, has its pharisaical leaders felt brave enough to declare--A&E Network-like--that the words to Silent Night must be banned.

"Welcome to the Kings Park Central School District," the district's website proclaims. 

"The Kings Park School District will provide an excellent education for all children. Students will be given the opportunity to develop academically, physically, socially, and emotionally, while learning the necessary skills to communicate effectively. This will be accomplished in a stimulating and challenging environment that maximizes every resource available."

Yeah, right. This will actually be accomplished by the school's censoring of historical texts.

In demonstration of the high school's official's higher learning, we are informed that their "intent was to avoid offending non-Christians." So they end up offending practically the whole audience.

No, their intent was to demonstrate to their students, to their students' parents, and to their community how enlightened they are, how superior they are to mere citizens. Their intent was to shove their own religious views down the throats of their aforementioned audience.

The article concludes by telling us that the school's principal later apologized and that officials promise that something like this "won't happen again."

Don't hold your breath.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones Interview (circa 1970)

This interview occurred after Dr. Lloyd-Jones' retirement from pastoring at Westminster Chapel, in London, for nearly 30 years. It is a remarkable interview, the like of which is seldom seen on live television these days. Ms Joan Bakewell, the interviewer, gave the doctor a pretty fair hearing ... and he took great advantage of it!

Post Doctrine 2015 ... Here's Hoping

"There are things that we have learned that make us a more effective force on the battlefield, and I think we want to go ahead with those lessons."  -- Gen. Robert W. Cone, commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, on why the Army should increase focus on Strategic Landpower.

General Robert Cone

Well said. But you won't find much about those words in a Doctrine 2015 publication. Apparently, the guidance is that there isn't enough room to write about them, that we have to cut down on the contents in order to make the doctrine more "accessible." So, no side stories. No snippets from history. No illustrative case studies or vignettes. No quotations from effective leaders. No interviews.

Like other good ideas half-way thought out, Doctrine 2015 will pass. When it is finally realized that all these new-fangled publications--ADPs, ADRPs, ATPs, and FMs with only tactics (not) and procedures (sometimes)--really haven't made all that much of an improvement in terms of actual doctrine, there will be a new campaign with new buzz words. When it finally dawns on the brass that Soldiers are getting most of their doctrinal information from social media--because who wants to click through six, eight, or a dozen publications for something--that old standby, the field manual will make a comeback. 

And maybe, the powers that be will actually be anxious to capture those valuable lessons learned in doctrinal publications once again. It could happen!

Halfway There

After week-8 of a 16-week class -- MATH 125, Math for Liberal Arts Majors -- my grade stands at

92.9% (based upon completion of 39.5% of the material). This is an A-. In a math class!

It's possible that I can still make an A.

It's also still within the realm of possibilities that I bomb the whole thing.

What will happen?

Stay tuned.

---------------------------
June 12, 2014

Forgot to update this after I finished the class. Believe it or not, my final grade was an A-. After sixteen long weeks of frustration, I was very happy to escape with a grade like that.

Now, on to other things.

Think It'll Work?

See if you can find the cheap burglar alarm I installed.

Elections have consequences ... even in North Carolina

North Carolina On Cusp Of Passing Worst Voter Suppression Bill In The Nation

Liberals have a unique vocabulary. For example, they describe common sense voter legislation, such as are presently under serious consideration in the Old North State's capitol as "voter suppression" bills. There is much whining and snivelling going on at ThinkProgress.org and in certain state senators' offices.

North Carolina General Assembly
complex in Raleigh, NC

In the North Carolina General Assembly, lawmakers are about to enact legislation requiring voters to prove they are who they say they are. No more same day registration or voting outside of one's district, which plays havoc with the system to the advantage of Democrats. They probably won't even let dead people vote, or convicted felons, or non-citizens.

Man, those Rascally Republicans.

'Bout time!

Military History and Ted Williams

The thought occurred to me that I might want to take a break from military history and read something else. So, at the library, I selected a biography of a famous baseball player, Ted Williams, who played for the Boston Red Sox. Imagine my shock when I opened to the table of contents and found this ...

       Prologue

1     Boston

2     San Diego

3     Minnesota

4     Boston

5     .406

6     World War II

7     Boston 

8     Korea

9     Boston

10   Boston

11   Cooperstown

12   Washington

There it is. Two wars. In a book about the national pastime. I can't get away from it! I'll tell you more about it after I've read the book, but Hall of Famer, Ted Williams took time away from his baseball career twice to serve in the armed forces as a fighter pilot.

I don't think that's the right word

So, I'm at home and my wife is telling me a story about some guy that got caught stealing in a men's clothing store she worked in a long time ago. Not only was the guy taking money, he was giving suits to his buddies as huge unauthorized discounts. 

To this day my wife can't get over the guy's audacity. 

"Yeah," she said, with excitement, "the police came took him out in cuff links!"

"In Your Face"

My early
birthday present

So, Haydin, a rising first grader, sees on the computer screen that we are in the month of April.

"Good," I exclaimed.  "That means next month is ..."  (Sensing a good teaching opportunity, I said to him,) "You know what next month is, right?

"January," he says.

Nope.

"February?"

No.

"March?"

WRONG.

From the next room, someone whispered the correct answer to him.  "May!" he said.

Right, and you know what May is, right?  (He didn't, because his parents, apparently, have neglected one of the most crucial aspects of the young man's education).  May is the month of PaPa's birthday!

This news excited him.

So, I asked him, "Are you going to send PaPa a present?"

"No, I'm here," he said.

What?

"See," he said, as he rushed right up to me, "I'm in your face," he said.  

He meant it one way, but I couldn't help but take it another way.

Preparing for the Next War

General John R. Galvin

"We in the military often are accused falsely of “preparing to fight not the next war but the last.”  That criticism is not well placed: we are not, for the most part, obtuse enough to fight yesterday’s war—but we might be doing something worse still.  When we think about the possibilities of conflict we tend to invent for ourselves a comfortable vision of war, a theater with battlefields we know, conflict that fits our understanding of strategy and tactics, a combat environment that is consistent and predictable, fightable with the resources we have, one that fits our plans, our assumptions, our hopes, and our preconceived ideas.  We arrange in our minds a war we can comprehend in our own terms, usually with an enemy that looks like us and acts likes us.  This comfortable conceptualization becomes the accepted way of seeing things and, as such, ceases to be an object of further investigation unless it comes under serious challenge as a result of some major event—usually a military disaster."[1]

---

[1] General John R. Galvin, U.S. Army, “Uncomfortable Wars: Toward a New Paradigm,” Parameters, Winter, 1986.

 

Guess Who's at My House!

These guys!

Government Contracting References--Short List

Just a short list if because who has time for a long one?

Government Sources

From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:  Key Facts About Contractors

Army Contracting Command
Army Single Face to Industry (ASFI) Acquisisition Business Web Site
CECOM Contracting Center
FAR Table of Contents
FARSearch
FARSite
FEDBIZOPS
GSA Advantage
Mission and Installation Contracting Command
TRADOC G-8


Private Sources

Center for a New American Security
Contracting in Combat Zones: Who Are Our Subcontractors?

Certified Public Accountants
Hoyman Dobson (Sign up for their newsletters)

Proposal Writing
Capture Planning
Deborah Kluge
The 24-Hour Company

Teamwork: Scheduled Maintenance on an Aircraft Carrier

Just thought this was cool, the way they navigate the carrier into the drydocks.  Talk about teamwork!  It is also interesting since, just a few weeks ago, the Navy was telling us this couldn't happen -- the scheduled maintenance and overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln -- because of the sequester.



I wonder if anyone has ever accidently hit the accelerator right at the end instead of the brakes.

In the Interest of Doctrine, and History

Delivering publications in spite of the need ...
for actual doctrine

As one long interested in military history, lately become a student of it, the subject of military doctrine fascinates me.  This happened quite by accident.  In 2007 barely started on a new job as a civilian training specialist, having retired from active duty only a couple years before and working as a contractor since, my former boss called me one day with an offer, should I be inclined, to leave government civil service after just a few months, to become a contractor once again, as a doctrine writer.  To make a short story longer, I accepted the offer and made the move, which took me out of the training side of the TRADOC house—where, counting my service time, I had been working for twenty-five years—and placed me in another world.

Ostensibly, the name of this other world was doctrine development, but I soon discovered that the larger universe which doctrine inhabited at the time was the realm of capability development, every bit as interesting as anything else I had experience in my quarter century’s association with the Army—all of which was in signal, I should add. My first six months in this new world was a struggle just to learn the new vocabulary and a new set of regulations associated with doctrine and capability development and integration.  Not to mention a new way of thinking.  Maybe to say six months is to give the impression that during that phase I mastered all there is to know about these areas.  That certainly was not the case.  Far from it.  Almost six years later I find myself still learning, like I’m starting from scratch sometimes—which is one of the reasons I find doctrine so fascinating.

Wally is the man!

The Squad: Foundation of the Decisive Force

This is absolutely great. It foreshadows significant capability gelling within the force at the squad level. These things are needed and there will be great payoff in terms of near-future operations. But it shows also, I think, that the Army sees itself more and more in an operational environment that dictates a wide area security approach to war as opposed to combined arms maneuver.  This could be a stroke of genious, or it could be problematic in circumstances yet unforeseen.  It's something to watch.

Capabilities are developed to fill needs. Current capability development emphasis on the squad indicates that Army resources of late have been steered to other areas and that, consequently, squad-level capabilities have suffered. That's sort of the nature of the beast. The Army must direct its appropriations to where they are most needed. We can't have everything we want whenever we want it. Finally, the guys at the 'edge' are in the spotlight.

Oh, and one fact is inescapable.  The Army these days sure makes much better promotional and informational-type videos that it used to.

The Army Continues to Transition

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Army of 2020 ...

One of the Army's Lowest Points Ever

From Geoffrey Perret's There's a War To Be Won ...

"The 11,000 men who surrendered on Corregidor were, they soon discovered, not considered prisoners of war by their captors.  Instead, they were treated like a low form of life, on a par with parasites and vermin.  [Japanese Lt. Gen. Masaharu] Homma [commander of the main Japanese invasion force in the Philippines] threatened to murder all of them unless [Army Lt. Gen. Jonathan M.] Wainwright [commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines] ordered subordinate commanders throughout the Philippines to surrender themselves and their men.

"The Japanese put Wainwright in front of a microphone at a Manila radio station.  [Army Chief of Staff, General George C.] Marshall wanted someone who knew Wainwright well to listen in and tell him if the broadcast was genuine or a Japanese hoax.  J. Lawton Collins, recently appointed commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, had served for three years under Wainwright and admired him unreservedly.  Collins listened to the broadcast as Marshall requested.

"There was no doubt about it.  That was Skinny Wainwright, his voice dulled by exhaustion, choking with emotion as he ordered his men to surrender.  That was Skinny Wainwright, with his limp from a bad riding accident, always leaning on a stick when not in the saddle.  That was Skinny Wainwright, humiliated, defeated, heading for captivity and possibly a cruel death.  Collins sat by his radio that balmy evening in Hawaii, his round, boyish face wet with the tears shed for his friend." 

Revised FM 3-24 to Hit the Street Soon

Military to unveil new counterinsurgency field manual

by, Stars and Stripes

The part that has always intrigued me ...

"A large number of experts, including academics and active-duty and retired veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, provided input for the rewrite ..."

That's just totally outside my own frame of reference.  I wish it weren't.

 

Marshall, McNair, and Army doctrine

George C. Marshall became the Army Chief of Staff on 1 September 1939. Incidentally, this was the same day that the Germans overran Poland in a sign of things to come. The United States was not at war yet, but those who could discern the times knew that we soon would be. 

One of the first things General Marshal did—and he did a lot—was to completely, totally, from top to bottom—revamp Army doctrine. That’s right, one of his first concerns was the fundamental principles that would guide the Army in its pending war. He had to raise an Army practically from scratch, equip it, and then train it to fight a world war against a well established enemy. So he set about very early on to remake the Army’s intellectual base. 

He was in a hurry about it, too. 

"He shut down the War College and the Command and General Staff School at Leavenworth,” writes historian Geoffrey Perret. “Marshall wanted their instructors and students to get to work writing more than 150 new field manuals that would incorporate the most modern military doctrine. He hoped to get this task done in three months.” Three months! “'Impossible,’ said the general he asked to supervise it. Marshall retired him next day and turned to the commandant at Leavenworth, Brig. Gen. Leslie J. McNair."[1]

And I would bet my last dollar that Marshall’s fundamental concern was not the accessibility of those manuals, it was their content.


PS:  It took McNair four months instead of three.

---

[1] Geoffrey Perret, There's a War to be Won (New York, Ballentine Books, 1991), 24.

Vince Flynn

“[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.”
― Vince Flynn, American Assassin

From Goodreads.

Contractors and the Army

CONTRACTORS

This is not the guy
who posts this stuff

A-9. Contractors are not members of the Army profession; however, they provide valuable support and augmentation to the capabilities of the Profession of Arms and the Army Civilian Corps, both stateside and overseas. Hired under contractual terms for specific tasks of a specified duration, they provide essential skills and perform technical and administrative tasks that allow Army professionals to focus on their primary missions. Contractors are an important part of any current or future Army effort.[1]

Just in case you were wondering.  And I think I'm going to get myself one of those yellow hard hats, too.

---

[1] ADP 1, The Army (Headquarters, Department of the Army, September 2012), A-4.

Doctrine is About the Future

General Robert Cone, Former Commanding General of
the Army's Training and Doctrine Command

A common myth about Army doctrine is that it is necessarily oriented around current as opposed to future operations. Doctrine, say those who think this way, is about what the Army is doing today, with today’s capabilities, not about what we intend to do tomorrow with capabilities we don’t yet have. The basis for this way of thinking, essentially, is that anything dealing with future operations is conceptual, and "concepts," states the regulation that governs Army doctrine, "are not doctrine." (emphasis mine).

It is unfortunate that TRADOC Regulation 25-36, seems to underpin this way of thinking, that doctrine is about today and concepts are about tomorrow. To add an air of authority to its dogmatic assertion that "concepts are not doctrine," and that "after a concept is validated, it may become a basis for doctrine and force planning” (emphasis mine) the regulation cites a joint staff publication (CJCSI 3010.02), which is the Joint Operations Concepts Development Process, and TRADOC Regulation 71-20, Concept Development, Capabilities Determination, and Capabilities Integration. Interestingly, however, neither of these cited publications say anything about concepts not being doctrine.[1]

Patton on the Presidential Election of 1932

" ... I am completely disgusted with both political parties.  I cannot imagine two more spineless candidates, and at a time when the country needs backbone for more than brains.  I am glad I don’t vote as I certainly would not dishonor myself by casting one for either of the straw men we have to choose from.”[1]

Practically fits 2012 to a 'T.'

---

[1] George S. Patton, quoted in Stanley P. Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 206.

The Latest from Rick Atkinson

The Guns at Last Light, Rick Atkinson's new book covering the last year of the European war, from Normandy to Berlin, will be published in May 2013.  

The Guns Last at Last Light will be the third in Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy.  The first two volumes were ...

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944,

Rick Atkinson

Atkinson is also the author of several other books on military history ...     

     In the Company of Soldiers

     The Long Gray Line

     Crusade

Communications in War

“Logistics and communications,” writes historian, Carlo D’Este, “are the vital supporting cast of waging successful war; to lack for either is to court failure.”  This quote is taken from D’Este’s telling of the story of the Allied forces’ stall at the tail end of the Normandy Campaign in World War II.  Contributing to the sputtering advance of the four Allied armies was General Eisenhower’s (and others’) neglect of his logistics and his communications.[1]

“Eisenhower’s hands were tied by both. His logisticians determined how far his armies could advance, and his signals officers, who controlled the flow of communications into and out of SHAEF, determined how well and how fast he could communicate with his subordinates.”[2]  Pretty straightforward stuff.

When Ike moved his forward headquarters in early September 1944 from “Shellburst,” just inland of the Normandy beaches, to Granville, at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, he was, for a crucial time, cut off from the forces under his command.  “In effect,” explains D’Este, “he was incommunicado, a serious problem for any commander but a potentially fatal flaw for the one exercising supreme command.”[3]

At the end of his story D’Este makes the doctrinal application, “A headquarters that is uninformed and unable to communicate cannot exercise command and control over operations, and is essentially useless.”[4]

This is exactly the kind of historical anecdote that, if applied to, say, an emerging doctrinal publication on signal support to operations, would make it more readable, understandable, and militarily useful.  Some would resist merely on account that the story is from World War II, and is almost 70 years old.  But a fundamental principle is a fundamental principle, is it not? And an illustration of a fundamental principle teaches like nothing else can.

I mean, for what other reason do we write doctrine?

---

[1] Carlo D'Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 592.

[2] Ibid., 593.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Old Age

Dr. Thomas Sowell

“Age gives you an excuse for not being very good at things that you were not very good at when you were young.” 

― Thomas Sowell, The Thomas Sowell Reader

Army Writing

I discovered a handbook once published by the Army's Training and Doctrine Command called the "Action Officer's Guide: Staff Writing." It's actually a very useful little pamphlet. It's purpose was to help action officers avoid bad writing. In it, the author, a gentleman by the name of John Beckno, counsels against what is described in a politically correct manner as "bureaucratic writing." "While some bureaucratic writing is good," he says, "much of it is turgid, passive, and confusing."

He might also have added that it is 'bromidic,' 'inane,' 'boring,' 'dull,' 'stilted,' 'affected,' 'stuffy,' 'ponderous,' 'unclear,' 'leaden,' 'dismal,' 'uninteresting,' tedious,' 'monotonous,' 'dry,' 'unexciting,' 'mind-numbing,' and 'lifeless.' But then, that would have been bad staff writing.

For all we know, Mr. Beckno could have been describing a random doctrine publication; but he was, in fact, addressing all types of writing which may fall within the purview of a typical action officer.

"In spite of efforts to eradicate it," writes the expert, "poor writing still survives."

But how can this be so?

Beckno lists five reasons ...

• "It's embedded in the bureaucracy." Embedded is the right word. It's a deep problem, part of the culture. As new people enter the service they conform to this horrible way of writing just as though they thought it mandatory, like the bad haircuts.

Happy Birthday John -- I Wish

John H. Edinger, Jr., 1940-2010
(Photo: John H. "Jack" Edinger, III)

John would have been seventy-three years old today. I tried to always send him a card. His birthday follows so closely behind Christmas and New Years that it kind of sneaked up on me and I had to rush to find a card. As often as not, if memory serves, my card was late. 

Along with the card I also generally bought him a book. Books were about the only kind of gift from me that he appreciated. It was a challenge to find one that he had not already read or knew about. Memorable are the occasions when I got him one that he really enjoyed. He would tell me all about it, many times over the breakfast table at some greasy spoon, in Mount Airy where he lived or else here in Augusta. Whenever Connie and I visited him and Mom—or whenever the two of them visited us—John and I always went out for breakfast. It seems we did just about all our talking over sausage and eggs, grits on some mornings and hash browns on others, sometimes a little bacon, or a stack of pancakes, and gallons and gallons of coffee.