According to the front page of the Air Force Cyber Command’s Website:

8/14/2008 - Barksdale AFB, La.  – The Air Force remains committed to providing full-spectrum cyber capabilities to include global command and control, electronic warfare and network defense. The Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force have considered delaying currently planned actions on Air Force Cyber Command to allow ample time for a comprehensive assessment of all AFCYBER requirements and to synchronize the AFCYBER mission with other key Air Force initiatives. The new Air Force leaders continue to make a fresh assessment of all our efforts to provide our Nation and the joint force the full spectrum of air, space, and cyberspace capabilities.

Which makes sooooo much sense considering that the military doesn’t have a cohesive all-around cyber defense policy.  Seriously, cyber security measures can change literally from base to base.  What drives those measures?  You would think it would be a standard set of security practices applied to all and you’d be somewhat correct.  However, what you also have to take into account is that almost every base has a different contract company taking care of their network  security measures.  Those measures may be based on what the contractor is willing and able to do for the price that the military is willing to pay.  On some bases, you may have three to five different companies taking care of the various networks depending on the security level of the network.  Not only is the security level dependent on the classification of the material on the network, but it’s also dependent, again, on the capability of the contractors.

I remember getting a call when I was in NORAD/USSPACE from a flag officer and he needed me to come over and help him with one of his computers.  Since that part of the network wasn’t “owned” by NORAD/USSPACE, I literally was not allowed to help him.  I simply didn’t have permissions for that side of the network.  I  had to file a help desk ticket for him which, according to contract, allowed up to 3 business days before it was addressed.  Since he WAS a flag officer, the contractor did put a rush on it, but still.

I’ve been against the privatizing of the military’s networks since they started.  Okay, so you don’t have to pay contractors retirement benefits and all the other baggage that comes along with a military person’s life, but if you don’t write the contracts correctly, the military can wind up needing a task completed by the contractor that’s not in the contract and you can’t force them to complete that task without amending the contract which would also mean, MORE money.  That’s right, when a new task is added for any reason to a contract network admin or techie’s tasks, they may not HAVE to do it until the contract is reviewed to see if it falls under the contractor’s “scope of support.”  And because only contractors can touch the network on some bases, folks in uniform can’t complete the task either.  And since we’ve slashed the living shit out of the military’s network specialists in favor of contractors, we don’t have them to utilize anyway.

Which, if I’m being cynical, leads me to believe that someone has finally realized that having a cohesive policy across all the networks that the Air Force “controls” means that every single one of those contracts is going to have to be rewritten and I’m betting that some Senior NCO and their team has done the legwork and given General Lord and his bosses the cost analysis for those new contracts and someone with power of the purse-strings has crapped their drawers when the reality of what a workable, cohesive, policy is going to cost.

That’s if I was being cynical.  It could just mean that what we’ve got is working just fine and there’s no need for a cyber command in the first place…and I swear to you I typed that with a straight face…after three tries.

Thanks to He Who Needs No Linkage for the tip.

You want to know the funniesnt thing for me about all this?  I’ve got interviews with two contractors in the next week for jobs supporting the military’s network.  I hope the question, “What’s your opinion about privatization?” doesn’t come up and I hope to hell I’ve got the good sense to lie about it if it does.  I need a job.

After 23 years of active duty, I’m now a civilian.

It’s weird, but I feel even less stress than I did yesterday.

I’m liking this retirement thing.

If I’d have known it felt this good, I would have done it last year.

Baldilocks has a story up this morning about a McGuire AFB loadmaster who was killed shot over the weekend. Seems some guy drove to the 22yr old airman’s home on Wed evening (umm, that would be July 4), and shot him in the chest, then killed himself.

The airman, Jonathan Schrieken, is in critical condition at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

He and his family need your prayers and good thoughts. For that matter, so does the family of the killer shooter.

Authorities have no idea what prompted the shooting admit the killer shooter left 2 suicide notes, but the AP articles doesn’t mention that. Authorities do not know whether the two 22-yr olds even knew each other.

News Article

UPDATE: I should have followed the links in Juliette’s post before I posted this. She got the news from LGF. LGF posted an email from a reader who knew knows the airman, and has lots more details about the killer’s shooter’s motivation, which the AP chose to leave out of their article.

[The airman] had been on leave here in Ohio and got back to his home off base and was unpacking stuff from his car when this 22 year old guy walked up to him and asked him if he lived in the house. When Jon said yes, the guy said “not any more” and shot him point blank in the chest. He tried to shoot him again, but his gun jammed. Jonathan made it into the house. The guy then shot himself. Turns out the guy left a couple of suicide notes stating how much he hated the military and he wanted to go out making a statement, so he chose to make his statement on Independence Day trying to kill a soldier.

UPDATE 2: I should never write posts before coffee. The airman is ALIVE, not dead. So the creep is a creep, not a killer.

Regular reader Robert D. emailed me overnight, letting me know that an ace in two wars, General Robin Olds had died over the weekend.

In my early time in service, General Olds was famous for a defiantly non-reg mustache, and for having flown with Chappie James over Vietnam, forming a duo nicknamed “Blackman and Robin”.

He was a colorful character; these days seeming like a character in a swashbuckling adventure novel, or a movie serial.

More here.

In late August 1984, I arrived in Mountain Home, Idaho, my first permanent station with the Air Force. As a single airman, I was destined to live on-base in a dormitory. The Headquarters Squadron had two dorms - one of them housing the Dorm Manager’s office.

The Dorm Manager, a senior NCO named Vince (I’ve forgotten his last name, because we all just called him Vince), was either a Technical Sergeant (E-6 for our non-USAF readers) or a Master Sergeant (E-7 ). Swarthy-skinned, short and powerful, he was a former aircraft mechanic who’d been re-trained due to health issues.

Vince met me, talked to me, and assigned me to room with another airman who was close to my age. He thought we’d make a good match. I spent months convinced he was wrong, and then one day something clicked and my roommate and I became good friends.

Vince was smart like that. He was smart in other ways, too. There was nothing he couldn’t fix, from a broken faucet to a wounded heart. The guys would talk to him about “guy stuff,” whatever that is. But the girls could talk to him, too. He listened, and he cared.

Dorm Managers are part of the background in an Air Force dormitory. Like the building superintendent in an apartment building. Or like your parents after you’ve moved out on your own. You know they’re there, but unless there’s a problem, they’re not really in the fore-front of your consciousness. But they’re there, a steady force in the background, one more stable piece in an often unstable world, one more part of your life that won’t change.

Vince wasn’t going anywhere. This would be his job, and his base, until he retired. He had a business in town - I don’t remember if he ran an apartment building or if it was a trailer community, but there were rental units involved. I never dealt with that side of his life, and at that point in my life I was much too shy to just sit and visit with him, as if we were just regular folks. He was an NCO (or senior NCO - wish I could remember his rank), and I was an Airman. In my mind, there was a huge chasm between us, and it was enough that I was allowed to call him Vince, instead of Sgt Whoever.

As dormitory residents, we were not only responsible for keeping our rooms clean, we also shared the responsibility for keeping the dorms clean. Every so often your name would come up on the rotation list, and you would spend a week as “Bay Orderly,” or as we called it, “Bay Hoser.” For that week you belonged to Vince, doing whatever tasks he assigned. Cleaning the day rooms (TV lounges, basically), vacuuming the hallways, dusting, etc. I seem to recall that we even moved furniture, on occasion. Menial work, but necessary to the comfort and well-being of all those living in the dorms. And it was for Vince, and with Vince, so it was ok.

I was at Mountain Home for about 3 1/2 years, and Vince was part of my life for most of that time. Until one summer, and I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t even remember which summer it was, but I think it was late summer, 1986. I was spending a week in town, house-sitting for my first sergeant while he was on vacation, when the phone rang. Part of my job as house-sitter was to take all his messages, so I answered the call.

I could barely understand the voice on the other end, then I recognized our Assistant Dorm Manager. He was trying not to cry as he asked for the First Sergeant. It seems that on this unseasonably hot Idaho day, Vince had been mowing the yard at his rental community, and his heart gave out. That magnificent, caring heart, that made him such a good dorm manager for two buildings of young adults who were mostly on their own for the first time in their lives, wasn’t up to the strain of heavy yard work on a blisteringly hot summer day.

We had a Service on the base. Three or four dorm residents were asked to speak - I was Dorm Council President, so I was one of them. I don’t remember anything I said that day. I remember very little of what anyone else said that day, other than one of the other airmen saying Vince was a father-figure. I hadn’t thought of it until she said it, but she was right, for all the reasons I listed above. I blocked most of it out, willing myself to not hear, to hold it together until the end.

The service ended, the Honor Guard marched out, I shook the widow’s hand and murmured something appropriate, then ducked and ran for the nearest latrine, where I locked myself in a stall and released the tears I’d been fighting since the other airman compared him to a father.

The stability that Vince had represented disappeared with his death. We got a new Dorm Manager, and later that year, a new First Sergeant. I moved out of the dorms the next spring, and shared a small house with a co-worker until I moved on to my next duty station that December. The dorms weren’t the same without Vince.

Vince was an amazing man, who always had a smile and a kind word. I’d not thought of him in years, until I read Timmer’s post about his red-eyed airman grieving for her friend lost in Iraq. I’m glad I remembered him, even though the memory brings tears. He’s worth remembering.

As I was outprocessing today I learned that one of my former Airman’s good friends was killed in Iraq this weekend.

There are just no words.

The Airman was only 19. Yeah, 18’s an adult. That’s easy to say when you’re 18. When you’re over 40…not so much.
So before I left I spent a few moments “sexually harassing” (hugging) a very red-eyed Airman that is very special to me. Practically a second daughter. I felt bad that I couldn’t stay longer and talk like we used to, but shit happened as it does when you’re trying to outprocess and I was already three hours behind schedule. I’ve never felt quite THAT crappy about leaving anyone in my life.

I still think we were right to go in given the circumstances at the time.

I can’t tell you when it happened, but at some point I began to lose confidence in our leadership. When it hit me that “I’m” leadership, I knew it was time to go.

Do me a favor?  Pray if you got that goin’ on in your life.

Now that Beautiful Wife, Gorgeous Daughter and Boyo are off on the road to our new home and the cleaning lady is working on the house, I have a few minutes to sit with Maximum Dawg and let you know about my retirement ceremony on Friday.

First of all, Gorgeous Daughter came to town and that was very cool.  My Mom and Sister couldn’t have cared less…until AFTER the ceremony of course when I called my Mom to let her know it went well and THEN she went off on how she didn’t know that it was that big a deal and I should have told her.  Sigh.  That’s how it works in my family.  It’s MY fault.  You think I’d have figured it out years ago, but of course…I didn’t.  It hurt for a few hours and then I just chalked it up as, “Mom’s in her 80s, she just didn’t get it and never would have no matter how much I explained it.”

On to the ceremony.  My family was escorted to their seats which went over HUGE with Boyo.  The Commander and I marched in, took our places and then one of my troops sang the National Anthem.  She’s small but she’s mighty, and she’s got a voice I never would have expected out of her.

My Commander then outlined my career and the rest of the folks that have worked for me and with me did a very cool thing.  They all dressed up in the different uniforms that I wore over the years and as the Commander went over the different parts, they stepped forward wearing the uniform I would have worn during that time period.  With the help of Beautiful Wife, they managed to all be wearing my name tags.

Then came the standard last medal, certificate of retirement from the Chief of Staff.  Certificate of Appreciation from The President, a very nice shadow box in the shape of a Master Sergeant Chevron with the flag folded at the top and my medals and patches in the lower half.

Then the folks that worked for me and with me did a very nice flag folding ceremony accompanied by a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”  Awesome.

My Wife received her certificate of appreciation as well, along with the one of my troops reading the poem, “The Military Wife.”

Then it was my turn to talk and I presented Boyo with a Red Ryder BB Gun.  Yes, the same one from The Christmas Story.  Wife and Daughter received some Hawaiin Leis that I had ordered.  Wife was born on Oahu and she loved it there when we were stationed there.

Then I rambled something that I tried to make meaningful but basically messed up for about five minutes or so.  It’s okay.  There’s the speech you want to give, the speech you give, and the speech you wish you gave.

Then it was time to leave and a not well kept secret is I freaking HATE, LOATHE, DESPISE, The Air Force Song.  I’m sorry if that bugs anyone, but, “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.” just seems the most insipid of all the services’ songs.

So…the bagpiper played “Scotland the Brave.”  We got the crowd clapping and stomping and off I marched to serve cake and punch.

Tomorrow I’ll have my last few appointments and then me and Max be following Beautiful Wife, Gorgeous Daughter, Boyo, Miko the Cat and Spirit the Cockatiel down I80 to our new lives.

It was a good send off.  I’ll remember that day for quite some time.  They did me right.

The other IMers in the group got together and did a very cool thing during my retirement ceremony.  They dressed in the various uniform combinations that I’ve worn over the past 23 years and while the Commander described the various parts of my career, they stepped forward.  All of them managed to have my name tag on the uniforms.  And where they found old A1C and SrA stripes, I just don’t know.

I still have to outprocess on Monday and then after that, I’ll put away the uniforms and disappear West on I80 and then branch off on I84, into the sunset.

I feel like a ton of bricks has been lifted off of me.

You remember that time at the amusement park when you ate a hot dog and a pizza and a corn dog and cotton candy and finished off with a snow cone and then you thought the next indicated thing was to get on the Tilt-A-Whirl?

Yeah, that’s kind of how the few hours before your retirement ceremony feels like.

Just like that.

A meditation upon one of WWII’s most unusual missions… which in even at the time seemed almost as if it were a movie…

From Richard Fermandez, “Wretchard” at The Belmont Club, courtesy of PJ Media.

You would think that the absolute cluelessness of the American Media, and many bloggers I might add, would fail to shock me.  You’d be wrong.

Anyone who thinks this is going to do more than cause some hospitals to paint a wall or two, raise your hands.

For almost 23 years I’ve mostly been given Vitamin M (Motrin) and/or Flexoril for just about every ache and pain that I’ve ever had.  I’ve been to a physical therapist twice even though I’m supposed to see one every other week…he’s usually so overbooked here he actually says, “When it hurts bad enough, come in, I’ll crack it again.”  After 20 years of rather constant “shin splints” they finally figured out I had compressed compartments.  The only reason they decided to operate was that they’d become chronic and were “getting ready to blow.”

And most of my crap is just muscles and nerves not doing what they should.  I can’t imagine being in need of any real treatment.

All support functions will be fully in the hands of civillians.

All highly technical and functions that require long term training will be contracted out unless they’re too dangerous. These functions will have strict restrictions, enforced by union representatives. Mission is no longer first, the people are, and they’re paid five times what those in uniform once accepted.

The only members left in uniform will be pilots and other operators and some select enlisted personnel.

Pilots won’t actually get in the aircraft, they’ll fly the plane via remote control. If they destroy an aircraft they don’t die…they’re replaced…immediately.

All transport flights that don’t include transporting personnel will be fully automated.

All enlisted functions will be in direct support of pilots and other operators, but too dangerous for civilians.

All health care will be provided by the local “Doc in a Box.” You know, the free clinic that folks on welfare won’t even go to unless they’re absolutely sure they’re dying.

Every unit will have the following specialists assigned:

- A Lawyer.

- A physical fitness specialist (gym teacher). This person will decide whether or not a member is physically fit for duty, not the Commander or Medical Personnel. They may have additional training in law to ensure to they fully document the member’s health and fitness shortfalls.

- A security specialist to protect the above personnel from the rest of the squadron.

- First Sergeants will no longer even pretend to care about morale and health issues. Those wearing the diamond will be the Superintendents of today, adding discipline to their duties. Their primary purpose will be to help the Lawyer and Gym Teacher in getting rid of personnel who are no longer meeting standards. There are no second chances, one strike and they’re out.

- Commanders are simply in place to sign the paperwork the previous specialists place before them. If they do not agree with the lawyer, they may be brought up on dereliction of duty charges. You can bet they’ll stick.

Too cynical? Commanders will never put up with it? Senior NCOs won’t allow their people to be treated in such a manner? One can hope. Unfortunately, in some ways, we’re already there.

Some heartburn noted this week in some quarters about the Washington Post story about the treatment and the living conditions of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Hospital, and why the milblogosphere is not having a conniption-fit over that, with many dark hints about how we would be screeching like a cage of howler-monkeys if it had happened under another administration.

Not having a background in medical administration, or any particular knowledge of the set-up at Walter Reed, or even personal knowledge of anyone undergoing treatment there, I’d have to defer involvement in this fracas… except for a comment on the reported decrepitude of the building where many of the out-patients were living. From the description it sounds like, and most probably is, a dump.

All of these might come as a surprise to the dear little civilian writers of the WaPo and it’s ilk, who see the nice, shiny public side of the gold-plated bases, and assume that the rest of the base, post or fort is similarly bright and shiny and new. Au contraire, as they say in France, and ‘twas ever thus: George Washington lived in a house at Valley Forge, but everyone else lived in something considerably less commodious.

The reason that no one in the mil-blogosphere is hyperventilating over that aspect of the story is that most of us have lived in, or did business in worse, during our time in service. Peeling paint, leaking plumbing, sagging floors, corroding pipes, herds of rampant vermin wandering untrammeled in cheap and badly-maintained structures that are two or three decades (or more) past their best-if-used-by date? Been there, done that, got a raft of horror stories of my own.

Let’s see, there was the old high school on Misawa AB, back in the days when it was a sleepy little Security Service base; it was housed in three long sheds which had been stables when Misawa AB was a Japanese Army cavalry post in the late 1930ies. On a hot summer day the place still smelled distinctly of horses. It was slated to be replaced during the Carter Administration, except that Jimmeh passed on the defense spending bill which would have paid for it; another good reason to despise him even before bungling the Iran Embassy hostage crisis. Even the relatively newer facilities on MAB then were no prize: famously the hospital barracks was in such bad shape that a guy once walked into the upstairs shower room and crashed straight through the floor into the downstairs shower room. This was the place where I developed my life-to-date habit of storing all non-refrigerated foodstuffs in sealed jars, since the barracks I lived in then had roaches. Lots and lots of roaches.

The infrastructure on Zaragoza AB wasn’t too awful— this was an Air Force Base, where we do cling to some standards— but the water pipes were so corroded that tap-water on base came out colored orange, about the color and consistency of Tang. People living in base housing spent a lot of money on bottled water.

The infrastructure at the Yongsan Garrison, ROK was not that much better. A couple of decades of living with the expectation of relocating the mission elsewere had left the electrical grid in such shakey condition as to make power-outages a part of the expected routine. The water pipes were so corroded that I earned fame everlasting on the day I walked into the Air Force female dorm bathroom and noticed that the shower-heads emitted a bare trickle. I took out my trusty Swiss-Army knife, unscrewed the shower-head-plate and emptied about a quarter of a cup of crud out of each. This was also the place where some of the Army troops were domiciled in Korean War-era Quonset huts. In the fall, CE had to hold training classes for the dorm managers to teach them how to run the antique kerosene heaters that warmed them… the heaters were so old that the average soldier would never in his or her life laid eyes on artifacts of such antiquity.

The AFRTS station building in Greenland had mice so tame that one of the board operaters tried to train them to sit up and beg for food. A broadcaster friend of mine who was stationed at a Pacific Island Navy base was warming a pan of canned chili in a saucepan, when a huge rat jumped into the hot chili… and jumped out again, and skittered down the hallway of the dorm, leaving little rat-footprints of chili con carne.

Maintenance of facilities; it’s one of those dull, dull issues that hardly anyone ever pays attention to except those who have to deal directly with it on a daily basis. It’s not one of those sexy military spending issues; it is more of enduring headache, for there is never quite enough money approved for a tenth of local needs. What there is, winds up being spread as thin as a pat of butter on an acre of toast.

Overseas bases, and facilities that are on the verge of being closed generally get last call; and I’d note that politicians and investagative reporters are usually among the first to make a lot of hay when there is money spent on an aging military facility about to be closed.

So call me grimly amused, when they are making hay about money not being spent on an aging military facility.

Just for the heck of it though, the next time I have an appointment at BAMC, here in San Antonio, I’ll snoop around and take a look at what the outpatient troop quarters look like… but the last time I looked, six months ago, they all looked pretty good.

Any recollections of infamously awful troop billets are invited, of course. Misery loves company.

A must see for fans of USAF history is the History Channel Modern Marvels episode on Edwards AFB. While the planes are stars, the show also touched on some of the wild personalities who brought the projects to life, Bob Hoover being one of the more notable.

What can I say, I just love planes.

I originally posted this on DragonLady’s World, but have updated it some for readability, and a thing or two I just left out of the original.

I can’t write about why I got out without first talking about why I joined. There were many reasons for both. During my last undergrad course (the internship), I was looking for a post graduation job. The box factory was fine for summer work, but I didn’t spend 6 ½ years getting a 4 year degree to stack and pack boxes. My professor put me in touch with a former student who worked at the Frigidaire factory. The company was looking to fill a position working with her, as she was a single point of failure type of job. By that, I mean she was the only one who could do what she did, and if something were to happen to her, they would be hosed. I was called back for a second interview as they had narrowed the applicants down to me and one other person. Then the company decided not to fill the position.

I was bummed. I started hitting the temporary agencies to get something while I started a new search. By this time, I had my B.S., and was not looking forward to more factory work. (My degree is in Industrial Technology with a Manufacturing concentration.) This was the point that every recruiting commercial I had ever seen flashed through my head. I decided to join the Guard. I talked to Army vet hubby first. He told me that I would be happier with active duty than Guard, and to join the Air Force, not the Army because “the Air Force will take care of you.” So, I called the recruiter, and he processed me both as enlisted and officer. I was joining no matter what, and as it turned out, OTS board results would not come out until after I was scheduled for basic training. My enlisted job was guaranteed, and rather than risk losing my guaranteed job (which I methodically picked primarily because it looked fun and easy and “combat” wasn’t in the title or description), I chose to enlist rather than wait for OTS board results.

I had thought about joining the Guard in high school. My parents always spoke about the military with great respect, and built up this honorable entity for me regarding the US military. Now, of my mom’s six brothers, five were in the military: two Marines, one regular Army (he was drafted during Vietnam), and two National Guard. Of my dad and his three brothers, only two were in the military that I know of. Uncle Lawrence tried to enlist in the Army, but they didn’t want him because he didn’t finish high school. He was drafted after Pearl Harbor, and volunteered for the Army Air Corps, mainly because he thought the LT who told them about it was full of it. He said by the end of the day, he was on a train headed for FL for Air Corps training. My dad volunteered after Pearl Harbor, but the Army wouldn’t take him because he was missing two fingers on his left hand, and they considered him handicapped. Then they tried drafting him four or 5 times. He said he almost made it through the physical exam once without anyone noticing his hand. He was at the last station, and was a signature away from making it when the doc noticed. He finally moved to Alabama and joined the state militia there (which eventually became the National Guard) for the rest of the war. I also had several cousins on both sides of the family who served in the military. Anyway, I mentioned joining the Guard in front of a friend’s dad back in high school. By the time he got finished describing his experience at Ft Polk, I had changed my mind, which was his intention.

Now, that all makes it sound like I joined just to have a job, but with patriotic or family history leanings. Both are true, but not the only reasons. The hubby and I were not in a very good place in our lives, and really needed to get away. Also, neither of us had any kind of health insurance, and I knew we would eventually want to have kids. Both kids were born during my first assignment. I got to “see the world,” though Kuwait was not on my list of places I wanted to see. I got the GI Bill that is helping pay for graduate school. Most importantly, I finally got some much needed self-discipline.

When I heard this on Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live…I KNEW it was fake news.

Apparently not:

Self-Cleaning Underwear Goes Weeks Without Washing.
Self-cleaning fabrics could revolutionize the sport apparel industry. The technology, created by scientists working for the U.S. Air Force, has already been used to create t-shirts and underwear that can be worn hygenically for weeks without washing.

The new technology attaches nanoparticles to clothing fibers using microwaves. Then, chemicals that can repel water, oil and bacteria are directly bound to the nanoparticles. These two elements combine to create a protective coating on the fibers of the material.