Valentines Day and Retirement

On Valentine's Day my fellow veterans, you might think America loves Veterans and that could never change.  But don't bet your future on it.  I enlisted during the Viet Nam War when soldiers were scum to much of the nation.  Many soldiers I know cheer for the politicians who are taking cutting retirement money for police, for firefights, for teachers and other government workers.  You may have noticed recent news reports that talk about the how military retirement costs almost as much as paying the current force.  Only 20% of soldiers who enlist stay in till retirement.

I am not writing to protect my own retirement.  I can't stay in the Army long enough to retire.  I won't get any retirement.  But I know a lot of soldiers who are staying in just to get their 20 years and retire.

Since the 80s big business has figured out many ways to drop retirees from fixed-benefit pensions.
In the past decade, local and state governments have figured out how to take retirement benefits away.
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, including all retirees are barely one percent of the population of America.  The men and women who deployed to our recent wars three, four, five, ten times or more should be ready for another fight to keep their retirements.

Soldier/NCO of the Year Selection Board

This past drill weekend, 28th Combat Aviation Brigade picked its Soldier of the Year and NCO of the Year.  The NCO of the Year is SGT Jordan Bannister, who is in my company--HHC 28th CAB.  She is also an admin. NCO and is the one who is doing all of the administrative work on my request to stay in the Army for another two years.

Congratulations and Thanks to SGT Bannister!!!

And if you wondered what a Soldier of the Year Board looks like, here is a view of the six first sergeants and command sergeant's majors who made up this year's board.

I sat in front of this panel last year.  They take up to a half hour per candidate asking questions about everything from Aviation Zip Lines.  They are tough.  They are picking the soldier and NCO who will represent the brigade at the state and national competitions later in the year.

Photos from Drill Weekend

No big events this weekend, but some good shots of soldiers training:

Putting safety wire on an air sensor on the main rotor blade of a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.

Soldiers from Bravo Company, 628th ASB prepare an AH-64 Apache helicopter for installation of main rotor blades.

Popular On Line Can Be Strange

This week my YouTube video explaining the difference between Army MRE and C-Ration meals passed 50,000 views.

A photo I took this weekend has had more than 4,000 views.

And here is the most popular post on this blog by far with more than 2,600 views.

http://armynow.blogspot.com/2009/05/home-sweet-trailer-home.html

Is there a lesson?  I guess writing about where soldiers live, talking about what we eat and taking pictures of helicopters reaches a lot of people.

Not like kitty videos or anything, but a lot for me.

More Snow on the Way? Armor Still Looks Good

This weekend began with snow all over Fort Indiantown Gap, including the Armor displayed at the main intersection.  Armor looks good in the snow, as you can see below, but it is not made for snow driving.  The the 53-ton M60A1 tank I drove and commanded would slide easily in two or more inches of snow.  Wide tracks mean low ground pressure--the same ground pressure as a Corvette.

So if someone offers you a ride in a fully-tracked vehicle in the snow, say "No Tanks!" unless you want to slide.

1984: Big Brother Never Showed Up

I am re-reading "1984" for the Cold War class I am taking.  George Orwell's tale is so completely Evil Empire and so completely wrong.  In a bleak, battered London, Winston Smith toils rewriting history at his day job and trying to remember and write down the truth at night.

As a storyteller Orwell is brilliant and chilling.

As a prophet, he is a failure.  The world he imagined is nothing like what actually happened.  Orwell imagined a future with central control of information and nearly all history wiped out.  In this gray, impoverished world everyone is starving.

Closer to the future is Ray Bradbury's 1953 book "Fahrenheit 451."  You and I and everyone who read that book 30 years ago remember it as the book about burning books.  In this terrifying world in which Firemen start fires instead of putting them out.

But when I re-read the book several years ago, the thing that stood out was the video walls and the ear bugs.  The main character's wife had a room with three walls of video and wanted her husband to get promoted in the fire department so they could afford four walls of video.  With four walls, the video became interactive and she could be on game shows.  And everyone got music through bugs they fitted in their ears.  Bigger TVs, TVs that cover walls, music direct to your ears--that sounds like the near present and near future.

The guy who got the future right is Aldous Huxley in his 1931 book "Brave, New World."  Huxley imagines the future in which no one has to burn books because no one reads them.  In the Brave New World people are so glutted with entertainment and information that they are easy to manipulate.

Any prospect of the horrors of 1984 becoming reality died with the Soviet Union.  Communist China is becoming capitalist in a way that will eventually end the communist domination of the government.

But people who no longer read, who are obsessed with music and video, who are lazy and stupid--that world is here.  Prophetic Gold Medal to Huxley, Silver to Bradbury, no medal for Orwell.

Soviet Era Propaganda Reminds Me of East-West Border, And Advertising

Yesterday was the first day of a class I am taking about the Cold War Era in books, film, and images, like the one above.  Today we saw Soviet propaganda films from 1924 to the 1960s and discussed several propaganda posters.  Before class we read a 30-page article about Soviet cartoons and cartoonists.  

Among the cartoonists, Boris Efimov story was chilling.  He lived from the beginning of the 20th century, either 1899 or 1900 until 2008.  He drew cartoons for the entire Soviet era.  

In interviews he said he drew what he was told to draw, Soviets as heroes, westerners as fat and greedy.  In his tale, I remembered both seeing Soviet posters when I was stationed in Germany in the 1970s and at home in newspapers and on TV.  

I worked at an ad agency for 13 years and have worked in marketing communications of various kinds for the past 30 years.  What stands out in the Soviet images is how well they controlled their "brand."  From the 1920s to the end of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the image of the Soviet citizen/worker/soldier was a strong, tall, clean, happy man or woman.  The capitalist enemy was fat, greedy, foolish and deceptive.

If you are going to create and impression through media, this control is very important.  And as the world changes, the brand has to stay consistent.  So with Ford, the brand image is quality, reliability, and performance though the actual product has changed from a Model T to a Ford GT.

The brand image is the coolest car on the road whether it's 1908 or 2015.  And the Soviet's controlled their image just that well--and exploited every weakness in their enemies.

Their propaganda was effective enough to keep me and 250,000 other American soldiers permanently stationed in Germany to defend Western Europe from an attack we thought could come at any time.  Our tanks were fully loaded with cannon ammunition and ready to fight when World War 3 started.  When we went to the border, we saw this on the other side of the fence.

They convinced us!