Training or Doctrine, Which is More Important?

LTG Moore, earlier this year,
at West Point
(Wikipedia)

And what would Hal Moore say about that?

Today I discovered this blog: Steven Pressfield Online.  I came across it quite by accident during the course of my routine internet research (and promptly added it to my blog list).  What came up was a post on Mr. Pressfield's blog about an interview he had conducted with retired Army lieutenant general, Harold G. "Hal" Moore, Jr. General Moore, as a young lieutenant colonel, commanded the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Brigade, 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Ia Drang in 1955 during the Vietnam War.  Of course, as an admirer of General Moore (I read the book, "We Were Soldiers Once .... And Young," and watched the move by the same name--twice), I read Mr. Pressfield's post in its entirety.

What prompted me to share this discovery here is the following passage:

Richlands, North Carolina 28574

When I was a boy, I spent part of each summer with my grandparents.  They lived out in the country, we used to  say, in a little one-story white house on an old, two-lane road that connected NC Highway 24 with US Highway 258, in a community known as Haw Branch.  The place was 20 miles or so from Jacksonville, in one direction, and about 30 miles from Kinston, going the other way.  The nearest town was Richlands. At the junction of that two-lane road and US Highway 258, there was a sign with an arrow pointing south, indicating that Richlands lay five miles in that direction.  Back then, all these roads were flanked by tobacco fields, dense forests, the odd house or two, tobacco barns, and more tobacco fields.

Aurora Gene

Rory in hospital pink

Granddaughter number one has entered the world!  Aurora Gene Tappendick was born at 5:05 pm, pacific time, June 27, 2010, at the Madigan Army Medical Center on Fort Lewis, Washington.  "Rory," as she is already being called, weighed in at seven pounds and nine ounces and measured nineteen and three-quarters inches.  Mother and baby are doing fine.  Rory's dad, SPC Gary Tappendick, is currently serving on his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Mr. Sam, the Family Watch Dog

The Road Not Taken

A favorite of mine, and of many, by Robert Frost (1874-1963).

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

LandWarNet 2010, Part I

AFCEA logo

Each year, the Army's chief information officer, known as the CIO/G-6 because he is also a member of the Army staff, partners with the Armed Forces Communications-Electronics Association (AFCEA) to stage a forum concerning LandWarNet, the Army's portion of the military's global information grid.  It is a premier forum of its kind, bringing together key government and industry leaders---and interested parties, like me (I am in industry, but I'm not a leader, at least not according to the leaders)---to openly communicate the latest in commercial best business practices and government implementations of commercial solutions for it communications and information networking requirements.

This year's conference will be in Tampa, Florida.  Its theme will be:  LandWarNet: Providing Global Cyber Dominance to Joint/Combined Commanders.

A Case of Poor Judgment

The recent flap over General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the subject of a hit piece in Rolling Stone magazine has led me to one inescapable conclusion ... that the general did indeed exercise poor judgment --- in 2008 when he voted for Barack Hussein Obama.