McCain: U.S. may have to confront Iran militarily

JTA - Breaking News:

A nuclear Iran poses an “unacceptable risk” and may have to be confronted militarily, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said.

Sen. McCain continues to impress me with his clear and concise opinions on the war, and the path to victory,

Technorati Tags: Politics, McCain, Victory, War

I am not interested in "bringing the troops home"

I am only interested in the safety and well being of America. I am only interested in victory.
I am glad to see Sen McCain stand tall.

"In war, my dear friends, there's no such thing as compromise. You either win or you lose."

- Sen. John McCain

Technorati Tags: Victory, Politics, War

Don't Close Your Blinds

SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse: Don't Close Your Blinds:

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and
pretend you see Saddam come out of his house with his wife, he has her
by the hair and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits
her in the face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her
to death. Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are
screaming and crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they
are kids and they are afraid of their father. You see all of this,
son....what do you do?"

Read it all. Read it to your children. This war won't be over on our watch. I want to finish it now, but that is not going to happen. So I do my part and train a new generation.

The Choices for Election 2006

Cox & Forkum: Election 2006:

From Cox & Forkum, of course.

Technorati Tags: Politics

Build/Test is part of software design.

In "What is Software Design?", Jack Reeves asserts

... the only software documentation that actually seems to satisfy the criteria of an engineering design is the source code listings.

I love it and quote it often. He goes on to assert

We in the software business are close to being engineers, but we need a couple of perceptual changes. Programming and the build/test cycle are central to the process of engineering software. We need to manage them as such. We need to manage them as such. The economics of the build/test cycle, plus the fact that a software system can represent practically anything, makes it very unlikely that we will find any general purpose methods for validating a software design.

Put these two together, and the engineering design includes the build code, the test code, and the source code that automates the builds and the tests.
In my experience, if the build and test cycles are too expensive, then developers will try to do the design without including the results of the build and test cycles in their analysis. Every meeting I have ever been in with QA, someone always says "we need to get QA involved early in the process". This can only happen if the cost of building and testing software is cheap.

Here is the point I have been dancing around. If you have to ask someone to "build the product" for QA, and then have to ask QA to run this or that test, developers are going to avoid doing it. If you want QA involved in the Design Process, then building and testing must be automated. Every developer must be able to build the entire system and run any or all of the tests himself.

It doesn't have to be cheap to make the tests, making good test is often harder than writing the code, but it must be inexpensive to actually run the tests or it won't happen as part of the design cycle. Developers will delay paying that cost as long as possible.

Continuos integration tools like cruise control can help, but only if you commit your code often.

This more than just Test First Design. I am encouraging the automation of the entire build and test cycle as much as possible.

Technorati Tags: Software , Software Design, Agile, Testing

Flags of our Father's

It is about the men, not the battle.
"Flags of Our Fathers" (Clint Eastwood)

Makes all of my sacrifices seem small, because small they are. We either buy war bonds, and win the war, or we get fatigued and instead find "peace with honor" or "peace in our time". The kind of peace that brings devestation.

Technorati Tags: USMC

What one word describes Black Belt to you?

The Family Academy of Martial Arts (aka FAMA) held black belt test last Friday. I was there as the Uke or training partner for Gary Price. One of the questions the board asked was

What one word describes Black Belt to you?

DO

That is what black belt means to me. I am still a year or two away from black belt. For me getting there, testing, learning is all about doing. Doing is actually the largest struggle I am facing personally, and that is one of the things I enjoy about working out at FAMA. Doing. Punch, Kick, Throw, Choke. DO.

[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: FAMA, Martial Arts, Roseville, CA

A Prayer for Israel

Psalms 83:

1 O God, do not keep silent;
be not quiet, O God, be not still.
2 See how your enemies are astir,
how your foes rear their heads.

3 With cunning they conspire against your people;
they plot against those you cherish.

4 "Come," they say, "let us destroy them as a nation,
that the name of Israel be remembered no more."

5 With one mind they plot together;
they form an alliance against you-

6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
of Moab and the Hagrites,

7 Gebal, [a] Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia, with the people of Tyre.

8 Even Assyria has joined them
to lend strength to the descendants of Lot.
Selah

9 Do to them as you did to Midian,
as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,

10 who perished at Endor
and became like refuse on the ground.

11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,

12 who said, "Let us take possession
of the pasturelands of God."

13 Make them like tumbleweed, O my God,
like chaff before the wind.

14 As fire consumes the forest
or a flame sets the mountains ablaze,

15 so pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your storm.

16 Cover their faces with shame
so that men will seek your name, O LORD.

17 May they ever be ashamed and dismayed;
may they perish in disgrace.

18 Let them know that you, whose name is the LORD—
that you alone are the Most High over all the earth.

Pres Ahmadinejad invites Pres Bush to Islam

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Thursday that his letter to President George W. Bush did not concern the nuclear dossier, but rather was an invitation to Islam and the prophets culture.

President says his letter to President Bush was invitation to Islam - Irna

This should clear up the purpose of Ahmadinejad letter to Pres Bush and it's relevance.

Home

This post is a little bit late. But I am home at last.

And here is why I am smiling all the time now.

Review: Odysseus in America

Odysseus in America by Jonathan Shay M.D uses the story of Odysseus 10 year trip home fromthe Trojan War as an allegory for Vietnam Veterans return home. It is interesting reading with lots of good “war stories” to keep the pace lively. However the book can be quite academic at times. The allegory is very plain. Odysseus is a soldier having trouble getting home and adjusting. Some Vietnam Veterans had trouble adjusting.

Dr Shay defines Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as persistence of valid adaptations to danger into a time of safety afterward. In other words the Veteran with PTSD that freak’s out in crowds is doing so because “crowds draw mortar fire”. He lists some of the skills that combat veterans learn are:

• Control of fear
• Cunning, the arts of deception, the arts of the "mind f---."
• Control of violence against members of their own group.
• The capacity to respond skillfully and instantly with violent, lethal force.
• Vigilance, perpetual mobilization for danger.
• Regarding fixed rules as possible threats to their own and their comrade’s survival.
• Regarding fixed “rules of war” as possible advantages to be gained over the enemy.
• Suppression of compassion, horror, guilt, tenderness, grief, disgust.
• The capacity to lie fluently and convincingly.
• Physical strength, quickness, endurance, stealth.
• Skill at locating and grabbing needed supplies whether officially provided or not.
• Skill in the use of a variety of lethal weapons.
• Skill in adapting to harsh physical conditions.

With the expectation of physical fitness all of these can cause problems in civilian life.

The book is completely Vietnam biased, which is to be expected, because all of Dr Shay’s patients are Vietnam Veterans. However the book contains a strong bias that he shares from his patients views. In particular there was an overall opinion that officers were incompetent and not to be trusted. It is noteworthy that none of his patients were officers.

The solutions that he recommends are hardly novel. Cohesion, Leadership, and Training. He makes a strong case that the individual rotation method used in Vietnam left a returning veteran alone to deal with his demons without the support. However he does come to a conclusion that I am sure surprised him given what seems to be his natural “anti-war’ tendencies and hopes that war can be abolished. In the end he comes to the conclusion that it is a moral responsibility for Officers to train themselves and their men to the highest level possible, because the quicker the war, the fewer the physical casualties, the fewer the psychological traumas.

Personally I did draw some conclusions from the book. First, survivors are superstitious. Second, reservists should deploy as at unit in company or larger size.

Homecoming Book

I am looking for a book for the Marines of CLR-25 that focuses on the challenges of readjustment and redeployment. Different books may be appropriate for different groups (Officer, SNCO, etc. Odysseus in America by Jonathan Shay, MD with a forward by Senator Max Cleland and Senator John McCain has been suggested.
The reviews of Odysseus in America are good but I worry that it carries to much baggage from Vietnam. Has anyone read it? What did you think? What other books can you recommend on homecoming ?

Best blond joke ever

This is the best blonde joke ever . Read the whole thing.

Looks a Little Like Christmas

It is beginning to look a little like Christmas, even here in Iraq.

Lots of goodies from PowerSchool and Cub Scouts. As soon as I open a box the goodies all disappear.

All the gifts really help moral here.
Last night all the officers got together for a Gift Exchange including gift "stealing". It was a really good time.

Gifts ranged from chocolates, to CD's to the essential toilet seat covers. It was a nice party. Not the same with out my kids, but Marines are always fun to be around. So thank you to everyone who sent gifts. Keep us all in your prayers. Our enemy is still out there looking for his opportunity, but we are ever watchful and ready, even on the day of our Savior’s birth.

JACOT keeps the cargo flowing

CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq (Dec. 1, 2005) -- A flight line is full of activity, and can be compared to the verve of a bee hive. The goings-on involves cargo being picked up from aircraft and dropped off at its needed destination, people coming and going and air-traffic flying in and out of the base. For much of the air traffic in Iraq, Taqaddum and its worker bees is the hive that keeps the country buzzing.The service members that make up the dynamic hive are the Marines and Airmen of the Joint Air Cargo Operations Team, Combat Logistics Regiment 25, 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward), and are relied on to keep up the relentless campaign on the flight line.

Marine Corps News - JACOT keeps cargo moving with bee hive fervor

Nice story about the red patchers of CLR-25 working on the flight line.

Celebrating the Maine Corps Birthday in Iraq.

The 230th birthday of the United States Marine Corps was celebrated today wherever Marines congregated. Last year, General Hagee authorized 2 beers and a ration of rum for each Marine in Iraq. Everybody was 21 that day. This year, here's how one deployed Marine celebrated:

Marine Corps Moms: Happy Birthday Marines!

Read it all. Marines take tradition serious and everybody will get there frikken cake. I got it easy here, compared to 2 hot meals a week for some.

230th Marine Corps Birthday

Today CLR-25 celebrated the 230th birthday of our beloved corps. The regiment gathered to hear the Commandant's birthday message.

In keeping with tradition the oldest Marine had the first piece of cake, and then passed it to the youngest Marine. After the ceremony the regiment enjoyed a special meal.

It was the best steak I have ever had in a war zone. This is my first Marine Corps ball deployed. I am very happy to be where I am, surrounded by Marines living up to their name.

The regiment is making a direct impact on the Global War on Terror and we will continue to do so.

Happy Birthday and Semper Fidelis.

General Lejeune's Marine Corps birthday message

On November 1st, 1921, John A. Lejeune, 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, directed that a reminder of the honorable service of the Corps be published by every command, to all Marines throughout the globe, on the birthday of the Corps. Since that day, Marines have continued to distinguish themselves on many battlefields and foreign shores, in war and peace. On this 230th birthday of the Corps, therefore, in compliance with the will of the 13th Commandant, Article 38, United State Marine Corps Manual, Edition of 1921, is republished as follows:

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of the Continental Congress. Since that date, many thousand men have borne the name Marine. In memory of them, it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the Birthday of our Corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.The record of our Corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of it's existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the nations foes. From the battle of Trenton to the Argonne. Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home. Generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our Corps Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term Marine has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the Corps. With it we also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our Corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.

General Lejeune's Marine Corps birthday message

Project Valour-IT

Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, provides voice-controlled software and laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand and arm injuries or amputations at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the 'Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field without having to press a key or move a mouse. The experience of CPT Charles "Chuck" Ziegenfuss, a partner in the project who suffered hand wounds while serving in Iraq, illustrates how important this voice-controlled software can be to a wounded servicemember's recovery.

Project Valour IT - A Soldiers' Angels Program

My family keeps asking what I want for Christmas, friends and coworkers ask if I need anything. This is what I want for Christmas. Donate.

Hat tip to Smash

Cookies for S-4

Cookies for S-4
Originally uploaded by chalko.

Saturday I got a big box in the mail. To my suprise it was 100 home-made cookies from my friends and coworkers, Bryan and Leslie. The PowerSchool division of Apple is a great place to work. They have been very supportive of me deploying to Iraq. I really look forward to getting back to California and working with such great people again.

The Marines of S-4, CLR-25 say thanks for your support.