Hi everyone. We are now in week three of Fort Drum after PCSing from Fort Sill (aka we moved on the army's dime to a new assignment). And we are LOVING it.
First off, Tamara had a tough year in Oklahoma this last year. I won't get into details but she had been living there for 15 years and the shine was off. She was really unsure about this move as I had never been to Fort Drum and there were plenty of horror stories about this place usually involving weather and the area being serious banjo music land.
The weather stories are probably true. It has been nice much of the time, but it has been cold (really cold) several times and it snowed yesterday. It has all melted, but still getting snow in late April was a bit off-putting. But when its nice, its NICE. No harsh wind, no nasty sticky heat (yet), just pleasant cool weather, perfect for a sweatshirt.
As for the area around here. This place beats Lawton hands down. The nearest major town is Watertown, population about 25 to 30K. It gets bigger if you include the rather large number of small towns surrounding Fort Drum and on the lake (Lake Ontario) and the St Lawrence Seaway just an hour north. Lawton was 100000 and had maybe a quarter of the things that this place offers. Much more outdoors stuff that is family friendly (Fort Sill had some stuff but it was OUTDOORS outdoors, no kids or wives stuff). River cruises, Lake Cruises, lots of nice shops and places to eat. Hunting up the ying yang. Easy gun laws (unless its a pistol then brace yourself), all sorts of guns shops and outdoor places (they even have a firearms section in the PX, how cool is that?). The Mall is easily as good as any in OKC, and there is a much bigger one in Syracuse an hour south. Lots of GOOD chain resturants (unlike Lawton). TWO Drive In Theaters (we went to one last weekend, first time for Tamara and she loved it). And the people go out of their way to show that they are NOT like people in NYC. I have had two people apologize to me about NYC and how it must have "ruined" my expectations of what "real" NY is like.
Reminds me about how everyone in Nebraska keeps saying don't judge us by Omaha.
The only issues I have here is that housing is a pain. We are on the wait list for a house on Fort Drum and there isn't a whole lot of rentals. What is here is too small, too old or not easily leasable for less than a year.
On the whole, this is looking like a great move. I highly encourage my friends and relatives to visit us while we are here, this is a great place. But wait until after July so we can get a house first.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
On the Road Again
Hi everyone. I am typing this from Hammond, Indiana where we (Baby Girl, Wife and me) are staying for a few days to visit her parents and brother. We are in route to Fort Drum, New York for my new assignment in the 10th Mountain Division.
Fun times to say the least. The actual packing was simply insane. Tamara had to watch the baby and I had to supervise everything, so it was not 2 people moving it was 1 person moving two people. And it worked out that way, we had a bunch of stuff packed accidently when I had to step out for a few minutes to get the car weighed. So I have to show up early to get some gear.
But overall it has been a good trip so far. Baby girl has been enjoying it (the windmill farm in Iowa had her attention and then some), and even Tamara is relaxing some.
Army-wise Fort Sill was pretty good to me. I had a tough job but enjoyed it. I had two very good battalion commanders and I did some good work while there. I was able to get a couple VERY good schools before I left which will help a lot in the new gig. I got a wife and a baby girl, so even better. I also got Branch Qualified and then some with my tour as Bn XO (you need a minimum of 1 year in one of three different slots, and I got 2 years and 2 months), and a GREAT OER. I am pretty pleased with my last two years+ at Sill.
Fort Drum is going to be a whole new thing though. I am trying for base housing, and I have a job in Division Staff. A pretty high up one artillery-wise too. I have never worked higher than BDE, so this will be interesting.
The last thing is what is coming up in the fall. Some of you may not have heard yet, but I am heading to Afghanistan this fall. I will be working at Division Staff and I am working in RC South area. Yes, the area where most of the action is going on. But my job is a staff pouge so I shouldn't be doing anything too dangerous (of course, I said that the last time and look what happened).
Fun times to say the least. The actual packing was simply insane. Tamara had to watch the baby and I had to supervise everything, so it was not 2 people moving it was 1 person moving two people. And it worked out that way, we had a bunch of stuff packed accidently when I had to step out for a few minutes to get the car weighed. So I have to show up early to get some gear.
But overall it has been a good trip so far. Baby girl has been enjoying it (the windmill farm in Iowa had her attention and then some), and even Tamara is relaxing some.
Army-wise Fort Sill was pretty good to me. I had a tough job but enjoyed it. I had two very good battalion commanders and I did some good work while there. I was able to get a couple VERY good schools before I left which will help a lot in the new gig. I got a wife and a baby girl, so even better. I also got Branch Qualified and then some with my tour as Bn XO (you need a minimum of 1 year in one of three different slots, and I got 2 years and 2 months), and a GREAT OER. I am pretty pleased with my last two years+ at Sill.
Fort Drum is going to be a whole new thing though. I am trying for base housing, and I have a job in Division Staff. A pretty high up one artillery-wise too. I have never worked higher than BDE, so this will be interesting.
The last thing is what is coming up in the fall. Some of you may not have heard yet, but I am heading to Afghanistan this fall. I will be working at Division Staff and I am working in RC South area. Yes, the area where most of the action is going on. But my job is a staff pouge so I shouldn't be doing anything too dangerous (of course, I said that the last time and look what happened).
Monday, March 15, 2010
Purple
Yes, Purple. That is the topic today. It is a color and in the military it stands for JOINT. Not the smoking kind, but the very cool world of Joint Operations.
Joint Operations are simply operations involving all the services (Army, Navy, AF and USMC), some of them, other Government agencies (say DOD, DOS, ATF, DEA, CIA, or FBI or any combination there of), and other countries (the Superfriends: Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, or others such as South Korea, Japan and other NATO types). While this may not sound like a major thing (hey that is how we always do things right?) it is actually a fairly new development.
Sort of.
We (the US military) have been working as a team for quite a while. Earliest examples are the Mexican War and several impressive operations in the US Civil War (see Grant's Western Campaigns along the Mississippi). But these were not doctrine, they were usually ad hoc and much depended on how well the CO's got along or what the orders from Washington said. But in the late 1980's Congress passed a neat law known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act. This act forced the services to actually work as a team by law.
For example: instead of having a fleet, an air force, and a army in an area of the world working through their branches in the rear, you had a defined theater in which their was one boss. You could have an Army General commanding Navy and AF units, or Navy commanding the same or AF (even a Marine in theory). This commander reported directly back to the SECDEF and not through the parent services. This mean you had truly one team. And to make sure everyone worked together the DOD put out Joint Doctrine to get everyone "speaking" the same language.
All of this may sound "duh", but it is a unique development in the world of warfighting. The US (and the Superfriends) are really the only countries that do this. And it shows, the US has been running Joint Operations since Panama and has had pretty much major successes in just about every one. Panama, Desert Storm, OIF all successes (yes OIF is pretty much a done deal and we have won, someone tell MSNBC). Somalia not so much, but that could be argued as a break in method (Clinton set up two task forces, not one unified command). OEF is ongoing so we will see.
Purple is the color code of all Joint Doctrine and I have been attending JOFEC (Joint Operations Fires Effects Coordinator) these last two weeks and we talk nothing but Joint. It is extremely interesting, and also a major challenge. Getting everyone synched is huge challenge and it is a complex process. We are still working the kinks out of it. But kinks or not, this makes for a incredibly successful military as well as other elements. Please note we include civilian agencies in this so we usually get a full up team effort or this with everyone more or less pulling together. It also makes the movies about the army running off and doing craziness on its own rather funny for anyone who knows about this (if you have to work together for everything how do you do things without someone else finding out and diming you out?).
As military history goes this is an exciting time to be in the military.
Joint Operations are simply operations involving all the services (Army, Navy, AF and USMC), some of them, other Government agencies (say DOD, DOS, ATF, DEA, CIA, or FBI or any combination there of), and other countries (the Superfriends: Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, or others such as South Korea, Japan and other NATO types). While this may not sound like a major thing (hey that is how we always do things right?) it is actually a fairly new development.
Sort of.
We (the US military) have been working as a team for quite a while. Earliest examples are the Mexican War and several impressive operations in the US Civil War (see Grant's Western Campaigns along the Mississippi). But these were not doctrine, they were usually ad hoc and much depended on how well the CO's got along or what the orders from Washington said. But in the late 1980's Congress passed a neat law known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act. This act forced the services to actually work as a team by law.
For example: instead of having a fleet, an air force, and a army in an area of the world working through their branches in the rear, you had a defined theater in which their was one boss. You could have an Army General commanding Navy and AF units, or Navy commanding the same or AF (even a Marine in theory). This commander reported directly back to the SECDEF and not through the parent services. This mean you had truly one team. And to make sure everyone worked together the DOD put out Joint Doctrine to get everyone "speaking" the same language.
All of this may sound "duh", but it is a unique development in the world of warfighting. The US (and the Superfriends) are really the only countries that do this. And it shows, the US has been running Joint Operations since Panama and has had pretty much major successes in just about every one. Panama, Desert Storm, OIF all successes (yes OIF is pretty much a done deal and we have won, someone tell MSNBC). Somalia not so much, but that could be argued as a break in method (Clinton set up two task forces, not one unified command). OEF is ongoing so we will see.
Purple is the color code of all Joint Doctrine and I have been attending JOFEC (Joint Operations Fires Effects Coordinator) these last two weeks and we talk nothing but Joint. It is extremely interesting, and also a major challenge. Getting everyone synched is huge challenge and it is a complex process. We are still working the kinks out of it. But kinks or not, this makes for a incredibly successful military as well as other elements. Please note we include civilian agencies in this so we usually get a full up team effort or this with everyone more or less pulling together. It also makes the movies about the army running off and doing craziness on its own rather funny for anyone who knows about this (if you have to work together for everything how do you do things without someone else finding out and diming you out?).
As military history goes this is an exciting time to be in the military.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
War On The Western Front
Book review time. I finished this yesterday, due to paternity leave and the snow storm I had enough time to polish it off along with the book "Afghanistan". I want to review this one first as it was much more interesting.
The War On The Western Front by Dr. Gary Sheffield was focused on the soldiers and tactics used on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 in WWI. It was very interesting and kept my attention the whole time. The first half of the book discussed a "typical" example of a French, German, British and American Soldier. Why they joined (or if they were drafted), basic training, how the training changed over time, equipment used, and so on. Food, medical treatment, life in the trenches and so on where hit on in good detail.
The second half detailed the equipment and tactics and how they evolved over time. This to me was the really fascinating part. I have become convinced that WWI is one of the most poorly understood wars of all time. I think it has suffered from "Vietnam" syndrome, which I mean that it was so politically charged for so long that you really had to have most of the people involved die off before you could have some real discussions about it. And when it came time to start having them, other things were in the way. 20 years after you had WWII, which kept everyone focused. Then 40 years after you had Vietnam, and no one wanted to look back that far. Now everyone involved is dead, so we have no more first hand accounts. There are lots of books out there on WWI, but most are pretty rare.
The part about this book that is very fascinating is the discussion on tactics. WWI is commonly viewed as a mindless bloodbath in which everyone was blundering around until one side finally caved in due to exhaustion. This is only part of the truth. WWI is a great example of technological impact on people and how difficult it can be to understand, especially if you are trying to get huge organizations and bureaucracies to work FAST. Modern staffs and organization like we have now did not exist back then, and you had commanders who thought the telephone was suspect for field use and had earned their spurs charging Arabs in the Sudan (Germans and British). People who couldn't figure out how best to use a machine gun. WWI was an example of a world (literally) trying best to figure out dozens of new ideas, concepts and machines in the worst possible conditions. Results were of course messy and very misunderstood. This book brought it out and showed that contrary to popular belief, change was constant and progress was made. And that for every new change, more work was then needed to figure out step two.
A very good book, I highly recommend it.
The War On The Western Front by Dr. Gary Sheffield was focused on the soldiers and tactics used on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 in WWI. It was very interesting and kept my attention the whole time. The first half of the book discussed a "typical" example of a French, German, British and American Soldier. Why they joined (or if they were drafted), basic training, how the training changed over time, equipment used, and so on. Food, medical treatment, life in the trenches and so on where hit on in good detail.
The second half detailed the equipment and tactics and how they evolved over time. This to me was the really fascinating part. I have become convinced that WWI is one of the most poorly understood wars of all time. I think it has suffered from "Vietnam" syndrome, which I mean that it was so politically charged for so long that you really had to have most of the people involved die off before you could have some real discussions about it. And when it came time to start having them, other things were in the way. 20 years after you had WWII, which kept everyone focused. Then 40 years after you had Vietnam, and no one wanted to look back that far. Now everyone involved is dead, so we have no more first hand accounts. There are lots of books out there on WWI, but most are pretty rare.
The part about this book that is very fascinating is the discussion on tactics. WWI is commonly viewed as a mindless bloodbath in which everyone was blundering around until one side finally caved in due to exhaustion. This is only part of the truth. WWI is a great example of technological impact on people and how difficult it can be to understand, especially if you are trying to get huge organizations and bureaucracies to work FAST. Modern staffs and organization like we have now did not exist back then, and you had commanders who thought the telephone was suspect for field use and had earned their spurs charging Arabs in the Sudan (Germans and British). People who couldn't figure out how best to use a machine gun. WWI was an example of a world (literally) trying best to figure out dozens of new ideas, concepts and machines in the worst possible conditions. Results were of course messy and very misunderstood. This book brought it out and showed that contrary to popular belief, change was constant and progress was made. And that for every new change, more work was then needed to figure out step two.
A very good book, I highly recommend it.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Victoria Maria Eason
Here is my baby girl, born 31 January 2010 at 1949 hours. She weighs in a 7 pounds and 10 ounces, had her mother's eyes (brown), 21 inches long, and according to everyone asked she has her father's toes (I have no idea how that topic came up, but there you are).
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Day 3
As punishment for posting an AAR the power died at 2200 Thursday and has not come back on yet. So we have been on generator power ever since. Yesterday I had to go to Lawton for gas and the drive was scary. Every tree in the area has been coated in ice and most have broken in half. The temperatures have not gone above freezing yet so no ice has melted except on the roads. All the power and phone lines are sagging nearly to the ground.
But we are ok. My 4400 watt generator is running like a clock. It produces 3500 watts regular with surge capacity of 4400. After reading the guide and some experimentation we have figured out our setup.
One tank of gas (4 gals) gives us ten hours. We can power one space heater, two floor lamps, tv and dvd. We can use our G Foreman grill/hotplate with either the heater or lamp. So we had noodles and vension stew and borscht for supper. We use the garage as the fridge. We also discovered that our hot water heater is well insulated and we have hot water (well warm this morning) so we have able to take short showers too.
I have I'd'd a couple of changes I think I will put in. One, I need to have some items with easier access for plugging in (aka the fridge). Two, I should get the fuzebox modified so I can plug directly into the house instead of running cords. I also need the switch to prevent returning power from blowing up the fuzebox (you turn the house from grid to generator and back). Three, a bigger generator may be in order. 4400/3500 watts does ok, but I can barely use 2 space heaters on this one. A 5500 watt would be able to handle a bigger load so we could use more of the house (more heaters).
The generator is use is a PowerMax 4400. Its made in China originally for RV power and its pretty good. It cost me 450 dollars through Amazon. It was one of their top ten recommended choices and it was a good buy. It was several hundred dollars cheaper than compable models. It is a pull start but it has started on the first pull each time. You can get these models with an electric start and I may do that for my wife's sake next time. PowerMax also makes 5500 models and that will be my next step up.
But we are ok. My 4400 watt generator is running like a clock. It produces 3500 watts regular with surge capacity of 4400. After reading the guide and some experimentation we have figured out our setup.
One tank of gas (4 gals) gives us ten hours. We can power one space heater, two floor lamps, tv and dvd. We can use our G Foreman grill/hotplate with either the heater or lamp. So we had noodles and vension stew and borscht for supper. We use the garage as the fridge. We also discovered that our hot water heater is well insulated and we have hot water (well warm this morning) so we have able to take short showers too.
I have I'd'd a couple of changes I think I will put in. One, I need to have some items with easier access for plugging in (aka the fridge). Two, I should get the fuzebox modified so I can plug directly into the house instead of running cords. I also need the switch to prevent returning power from blowing up the fuzebox (you turn the house from grid to generator and back). Three, a bigger generator may be in order. 4400/3500 watts does ok, but I can barely use 2 space heaters on this one. A 5500 watt would be able to handle a bigger load so we could use more of the house (more heaters).
The generator is use is a PowerMax 4400. Its made in China originally for RV power and its pretty good. It cost me 450 dollars through Amazon. It was one of their top ten recommended choices and it was a good buy. It was several hundred dollars cheaper than compable models. It is a pull start but it has started on the first pull each time. You can get these models with an electric start and I may do that for my wife's sake next time. PowerMax also makes 5500 models and that will be my next step up.
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