This Knife Might Not Work Once

This Northwest Trail knife is built wrong. Clipped into your pocket, when you take it out, you have to flip it around before you can open it. You get what you pay for.

My neighborhood Walmart is my pharmacy and I enjoy walking the store while waiting for my presscription. The abundance of stuff speaks to our deep, broad, and wide prosperty, a direct consequence of the market economy. Free markets = free minds. Usually, as much as I like looking, I seldom buy. However, over the years, working in physical security and serving in the Texas Military Department, I have bought extra gear. I learned that lesson from a classmate in criminology. She looked into the trunk of my car and said, "You only have stuff for yourself. I always carry extra." 

And you can always use an extra knife. I never leave home without at least one knife and at least one way to make a fire. That was a lesson from a team-building exercise when I worked for Coin World. We had a series of monthly Monday morning meetings to get to know each other in order to improve our quality of worklife. There were about 40 of us from Coin World, Linn's, Scott's, the press operators, and pre-press at about six or eight tables. The last exercise was a survival scenario.

You are coming home from a vacation in South America with the team mates at your table. Your plane hits a storm and you go down. You crash land. The pilot is killed. The plane is unflyable. The radio does not work. You are all mostly all right. You have to come out together. This is an inventory of what you all packed on your vacation. Golf clubs... a bottle of rum... a .38-cal handgun with six bullets... a Christmas candle... and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. Not everyone got out. One team gave up right away and decided to settle in place for the rest of their lives. The one press operator on our team said that she was going out on her own. I said that in real life I would join her and leave them behind, but we all have to come out togther, that's the rules. I told my team mates to leave the gun and the rum or not everyone is going to make it. They ignored that. One guy said to bring the gun so that we could fire it into the air to attract natives who would help us. I thought that was a bad idea on several levels. He asked why I wanted the Christmas candle. I replied, "To help make a fire." He said that we are in a jungle and can build a fire anytime. He said to bring the golf clubs. "Whatever for?" I asked. "To make a stretcher and carry someone who is wounded or to kill small game." The others saw the wisdom in both of those plans. You see, this guy was obviously the de facto leader, well known and well liked. It went on for about 45 minutes. Then they gave us the answer from the back of the book.

According to the Army Rangers, you stay with the plane for 72 hours. Someone knows you are missing. They will come looking for you. The plane is unflyable. If you hear help coming you can set it on fire as a signal. In any case, after 72 hours, set it on fire anyway and head out. Find a stream and follow it downhill. Somewhere near the water's edge, probably at the mouth of the river, you will find a village. Whatever you took, you always need a knife and a way to make fire.

Since that day in AD 2000, I never leave home without at least one knife and at least one way to make a fire. 

How many knives do you need? How many can you carry? As the public affairs officer for the Maritime Regiment of the Texas State Guard, I went out with our dive team several times. One time on shore, one of the divers was fussing with some line and needed to cut his knife free. He reached around left and right and went for the leg he was sitting on and then tried to lean over his tanks to grab his pack. I handed him one of mine. His unit leader saw that. "Don't you always have three knives?" he barked. "Well, yeah, but this one is tied up and ... " His leader shook his head and walked away. 

I do not know what I will do with the Northwest Trails knife. I won't toss it out, but I cannot have it for an everyday carry. My Victorinox is my EDC. When I retired from the TXSG, I stopped carrying the Benchmade that I always clipped to the right pocket of my ACUs. The Benchmade works the way a knife is supposed to. I still need a replacement for civilian life. (See, also Gibbs's Rule #9 from NCIS.) You can always use an extra knife; and in the worst case, it only has to work once.

When I was learning to fly, I was coming in a bit low, and the instructor pushed the yoke forward for a little more airspeed and lift. When we were done, he asked, "What you have done if you had come down in the bean field at the end of the runway?" I replied, "Stay with the plane 72 hours, then set it on fire and walk in to the terminal." 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Genius of Design

Objectified

Documentation is Specification

Leadership

Why I Served

I joined the Texas State Guard in order to be trained in emergency response. The TXSG surpassed my expectations. It was an honor and a privilege to have been a Texan serving Texas.

I am a technical writer; and I usually work as a contractor. In the winter and spring of 2014, a local temporary agency placed me at the Texas Department of Public Safety Division of Emergency Management (TDEM). I reviewed, edited, and wrote specifications for public bids on materials and services. I was directed to find out about the Texas State Guard because they staff Red Cross shelters for which they need computers and peripheral equipment. They also provide personnel for the evacuation and tracking of people leaving disaster sites on state-leased vehicles. 

My last project at TDEM was to bring into agreement two different sets of training materials on “Managing Spontaneous Volunteers at a Disaster.” Spontaneous volunteers are often called “the disaster within the disaster.” Even though they have good intentions, they are usually untrained and often unprepared to care for themselves. I learned that VOADs are Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters. If you want to be useful, join a VOAD. Unfortunately, I did not find one that offered the training that I was looking for on a schedule that I could meet. 

Then, I was asked to work for the Texas Military Department office of the Executive Director at Camp Mabry. I documented upgrades to a computer system. One day, I walked across the road to the Texas State Guard headquarters and asked the first person I met what I had to do to volunteer. Suddenly, I was surrounded.

Induction ceremony
22 November 2014

 We met a couple more times and talked about my background and their needs. I read a lot on the TXSG and TMD websites. The TXSG asked for at least three years of service. Having just turned 65, I could promise that. (Back then, the last day of service was prior to your 71^st birthday. Now it is the drill before you turn 70.) On November 22, 2014, I took the oath of office and was sworn in as a petty officer 3^rd class (E-4) in the Maritime regiment, but assigned to plans and operations in the headquarters command at Camp Mabry. My first billet was Future Operations (FUOPS).

While in FUOPS, I began learning WebEOC, the virtual emergency operations computer platform used by everyone from FEMA down to the fire department. I began attending classes in WebEOC and helping my fellow learners with the hands-on exercises. On October 7, 2015, I taught “WebEOC for Battle Captains” to the TXSG Officer Candidate School. It was the first of nine classes that I was assigned to teach, including four more OCS sessions. When Hurricane Harvey struck, I served 23 days as the primary WebEOC operator for the Texas State Guard Emergency Operations Center (TEOC). 

 

Meritorious Service Ribbon,
Brevet promotion, and Farewell
26 October 2019

Not being prior federal, I went through RBOT, the Regional Basic Orientation Training of the TXSG. The age-based requirements seemed easy enough, but I discovered that I could not do a single push-up or sit-up. So, I started with toe-touches. Fortunately, that was in January and RBOT was not until April. By then, I exceeded all of the minimums for push-ups, sit-ups, and one mile, for someone half or a third of my age. The last fitness examination was in December 2018. We were held to previous US Army standards and again I exceeded the minimums for someone one-third my age. For me, the physical fitness requirements were an important benefit to being in the Maritime regiment of the TXSG. Exercise has been routine these past four years, and I am lucky to be working now for a company with a gymnasium on site. 

Integral to emergency management, I learned and practiced the FEMA incident command system (ICS). Among the certifications I earned were Managing and Developing Volunteers, Risk Management, Continuity of Operations, Public Information Systems, and Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Insider Threats. 

In July 2016, the Texas National Guard asked the Texas State Guard for six clerk typists (now called operations specialists). I served 14 months as a full-time temporary state employee in the domestic operations task force. Mostly, I read, edited (and eventually wrote) orders. I also carried them from office to office, desk to desk, getting sign-offs. That led to a couple of interesting moments with an Air Force lieutenant colonel who did not understand why he was being tasked by a sergeant. I had to remember that my crows were not eagles. Also while working in DOMOPS, I learned to take care of officers. My first sergeant and I ran the coffee mess, emptied the trash, and cleaned the work spaces.

In July 2018, I became the public affairs officer (PAO) of the TXSG Maritime Regiment. I tended our Facebook page and published a feature story in the TMD monthly magazine. 

On January 1, 2020, the TXSG joint force command structure will be in place and TMAR will cease to exist. We are casing the colors at our annual ball next February.

It was an honor and a privilege to serve. For most of my time in uniform, our commanding general was Gerald “Jake” Betty. Soon after I joined, our office was disassembled and eventually restored brick-by-brick by the historical commission. (They even built replica panes and returned the original glass.) During the hiatus our headquarters was moved to a trailer and some other unused spaces. I attended many briefings for the command group and general staff. BG Betty ended every meeting with three mandates: Do your duty. Take care of your people. Go home with your honor. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Volunteering in an Emergency: What to Expect 

Your State Defense Force

Hurricane Tejas

Hurricane Harvey

I am not Voting in State Elections

I am proud of my voting record. I show up for primaries. I never cast a vote without an opinion: if I do not know anything about the candidates, then I do not choose among them. I always vote for the candidate, never for the party. (I also contribute money to campaigns, but that is another topic.) This time around, I am not voting in state elections. The reason why is that I am currently serving in the Texas State Guard. Although I have been in for four years, I never considered the arguments before. Now I believe that those who serve in the government should not vote. We in the Texas State Guard are permanent, part-time employees of the State of Texas. Therefore, I will not vote on state office candidates or state ballot proposals. 

As is typical for me, several lines of reasoning came together to form a truth. We have over 300 proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. The Binomial Theorem builds Pascal’s Triangle. The circumference of a circle, the area of a circle, the surface area of a sphere, and the volume of a sphere were known as synthetic truths for two thousand years before they could be derived analytically by algebra and calculus. A is A. Contradictions do not exist because contradictions cannot exist.

The first line of reasoning came from the cinematic version of Starship Troopers. There, the writers moved a scene from the closing episodes to the opening. In the book (reviewed here), Juan Rico is in officer candidate school when he is presented with a Socratic inquiry on the subject. In the movie, he gets quizzed in high school. In the film, it is short and direct: We require military service as a pre-condition for full citizenship because when you vote, you call upon the full power of the state to do your bidding; and no one should do that who does not understand the consequences. 

The corollary is not stated: as long as you are serving, you have not completed your term of service. And if war is declared, you serve for the duration without voting.

 

Generals Grant, Marshall, Patton, and Eisenhower
did not vote while serving.

In the real world of planet Earth, among the soldiers who did not vote while in uniform were Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Lt. Gen. George Patton, Gen. George Marshall, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gen. David Petraeus, and Gen. Martin Dempsey. That array came to me from a New York Times op-ed piece by an Army major: “I Fight for Your Right to Vote. But I Won’t do it Myself.” by M. I. Cavanaugh, New York Times, Op-Ed, October 19, 2016, available online here.  

In Good Company Among Non-Voters

 The broad argument there is that politics divides people. “One 2010 study found that over a quarter of military officers reported that another officer tried to influence their vote.”

Statistical surveys of the military show that in the enlisted ranks, Democrats, liberals, Republicans, conservatives, independents, and the uninvolved tend to reflect the American public: we are evenly split and separated by a healthy margin of non-conformists. Within the officer corps, the list to starboard is clear, but even so, about 20% of West Point cadets and about 20% of lieutenants self-identify as liberal or Democrat. The higher you go, the fewer of those you find. 

Whether it is from wisdom or differential selection is not clear. What is clear is that Republicans and conservatives tend to be more vocal in the workplace, though, ironically, less materially committed in real political life. Even so, especially now, both parties put up a military front whenever they can by using people in uniform as symbols for their platforms. Everyone in the military wants more government money spent on the military. Not everyone in uniform wants a border wall or open borders. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Do You Know Your Military?

Politics and the Inverse Square Law 

Why Democracy is Difficult 

A Critic Meets the Military 

Hurricane Harvey

One year ago today, I was into my seventh of 23 straight 12-hour days. I served as the WebEOC communications desk for the Texas State Guard Emergency Operations Center (TEOC). My primary duty was recording to the Position Log every communication I could capture from the operators at three other desks. I also maintained the posted schedule of events (Battle Rhythm). In addition, I answered phones for the Battle NCOIC and the Battle Captain if they were away from their desks. 

Three weeks in and we still looked good.
Easy enough when you are getting fed and
are not waist deep in waste water.

Following the Incident Command Structure (ICS) defined by FEMA, I sat between the operations section and the planning section. Although internally our administrative control was military, we were operationally and tactically serving in response to civil authority.

Nothing happened until and unless a State of Texas Assistance Request (STAR) was filed, approved, and issued. STARs begin with civilian authorities in need of resources. They call the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) State Emergency Operation Center (SOC). If approved, the STAR is passed to a responding agency with authorization.

Texas Maritime Regiment handled water-borne
search-and-rescue and search-and-recovery

The Texas State Guard has three primary missions: evacuating people; staffing shelters; and searching for those in need of rescue or those to be recovered. In addition, we are all trained to be WebEOC operators in order to maintain communications across operations. In reality, that works at the higher echelons of decision making, not in the field.

The Emergency Transportation Network evacuated people
who could not leave the strike zones on their own.

We were awed by the flows of material support from individuals and ad hoc groups. A local Starbucks manager took it upon herself to bring breakfast to the TEOC for days and days. Day after day local restaurants sent over BBQ and soft drinks. 

It was relatively easy to be in the command center. My stresses were from empathy and sympathy as our people in the field used up their rations and their pocket money. The TXSG traditionally is prepared to take care of itself for 72 hours. On the fourth day, our squads, teams, and platoons were in situations no one had planned for. In the three annual hurricane drills I had participated in, the scenario played itself out in 120 hours. Twelve days into Hurricane Harvey, people were ready to go home. Thirty days into Harvey, FEMA declared the emergency over. After 30 days, you no longer have an emergency: you have a state of affairs.

The Israeli Defence Force sent a liaison to find out
how we handle mass emergencies.

Working 12 hours a day does not mean sleeping 12 hours a night. You arrive for shift change briefings and you stay for shift change briefings. You get five hours of sleep, sometimes three. Very soon the rhythm seems natural. So does the intensity of focus. Every fact has to be a necessary truth because every decision matters to someone in a shelter or in a boat who will reap the consequences of your choices. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
AFK: Hurricane Harvey

Volunteering in an Emergency: What to Expect
Armies Without Weapons
Hurricane Tejas 2016

Dining Out Ceremony

The Officer Candidate School of the Texas State Guard held a reunion dinner for all classes 2001-2017, last Saturday night, August 18. I was invited as a member of the training cadre because I teach WebEOC for battle captains.

This was a dining out for officers and their cadre, including spouses and significant others. It followed many of the ceremonial details. (See Wikipedia here for "Dining In.") In addition to the formal flourishes - entering of the honored guests; salute to the colors and anthems; chaplain's invocation - the grog bowl symbolized the celebration.

Dry ice goes in last after the rum, whiskey, beer, and more.
The Lieutenant serves to the XO and the Commanding General.
The XO is also the brains, heart, and soul of the OCS.

 That said, we also paused to remember those who were not with us. The details of the special table were explained. When I worked at the VA this past winter, they had a table set up on our floor. That it was highly symbolic was obvious. What it all meant was not.

 

The lemon is for the bitterness of their captivity.
The salt is for our tears.
Rose, ribbon candle, Bible, and all explained here.

We got home safely, watched some TV and went to bed just after midnight. I got up without an alarm at 0500 feeling good. I had slept through the night without interruption. And I woke up without any aches. I was happy. And it was not for myself. 

The Lieutenant was one of the organizers.

I had spent four-and-a-half hours tapping my spoon on the table, being happy for other people. It was a new experience for me. I am pretty much an individualist and my time in the TXSG has been a learning curve. Taking orders, giving a few, working together to accomplish a difficult task, and taking care of civilians in an emergency, that was all predictable. Saturday night was a new experience.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Course

Soldiers of Peace

Volunteering in an Emergency

Securing Your Viper Against Cylons

The Next Hurricane Harvey ...

... will not be a hurricane.

"Some years ago, there was a group in the staff college of which some of you may have heard, Leavenworth Staff College. This was before our entry into World War One, and in that course it was necessary to use a number of maps and the maps available to the course were of the Alsace-Lorraine area and the Champagne in France. But a group of "young Turks" came along who wanted to reform Leavenworth. They pointed out it was perfectly silly for the American Army to be using such maps which could after all be duplicated in other areas without too much cost--they would get some area maps where the American Army just might fight a battle. So, they got, among other things, maps of the area of Leavenworth and of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and in succeeding years all the problems have been worked out on those maps. The point is, only about two years after that happened, we were fighting in Alsace-Lorraine and in the Champagne. 

"I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning." 

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Remarks at the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference
November 14, 1957
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10951

Previously on Necessary Facts
AFK: Hurricane Harvey
CERT: Community Emergency Response Team
2017 Texas Emergency Management Conference
Hurricane Tejas 2016 Exercise

AFK: Hurricane Harvey

The day before the tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico became Hurricane Harvey, the Texas State Guard stood up its emergency operation center. I reported to the TEOC on August 23. We ran 24  hours a day in 12-hour shifts through the 13th of September.  On the 13th, with the flooding largely in recession, the State Operation Center scaled down, and we followed. We now have three 8-hour shifts, with reduced staffing. Texas still has about 6000 people in community shelters. 

State Guard Association of the United States (SGAUS)

State Guard Association of the United States (SGAUS)

The IDF sent a liaison to observe our
response to a mass casualty event.
(Author's file.)

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Your State Defense Force
Challenge Coins
Do Your Know Your Military
Armies Without Weapons

ANOC: Advanced Non-commissioned Officer Course

On the weekend 10-12 March 2017, I completed the Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Class (ANOC) of the Texas State Guard. Although the J-7 (Joint Training directorate) at headquarters likes to maintain the fiction that their orders and guidance ensure that training is the same for everyone, in fact, it depends a lot on who commands in the classroom.

My third class, BNOC, was dedicated to us: we were all BNOC. However, the second class I completed, Primary Leadership Development (PLDC), was, like this one, held in a joint force, cross-component environment. We did not train with them; but we all socialized after hours. So, I benefited from the opportunity to compare and contrast this ANOC with a previous session for another group. The courses were compatible, but not identical.

We all studied the meaning of Leadership, the principles of Supervision, and the application of Leadership Behavior. We all had lessons in Counseling and Mentoring. We all engaged in exercises in applied Creative Thinking. We placed all of that into a narrative of Teamwork based on Management Principles, tempered by Risk Management. The specifics of the PowerPoint slides and the practical exercises were different for us.

Our ANOC instructor was a Marine. Only about half of us in the TXSG are prior federal military. (I am not. ) While Marines can be found in the Medical Rangers, the Air Component, and the Army Component, most of them are (of course) in the Maritime Regiment. Technically, that is the uniform that I wear. However, I am not in TMAR; I am a clerk in the command group. But I knew our instructor. And in real life, he is a high school mathematics teacher. So, this class went well for me.

Non-commissioned officers are the backbone of the military and the reason our military is the best trained, most professional, and most respected in the world. First-line supervisors execute the day-to-day operations with precision whenever and wherever duty calls. Foreword, Army FM  7-22.7

One of our lessons was on the Abilene Paradox. No one really wanted to go to Abilene, but each of them thought that everyone else did, so they each went along with what they misperceived the consensus to be.

In the other ANOC that I observed the new high-ranking sergeants directed us lower non-coms in close order drill. In this class, the instructor called the commands. However, his lessons included several ways to achieve those troop movements. He even taught us “counter march, right about” which, rolling caissons or not, is not a proper command – but is cool to do and see done.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Primary Leadership Training

Basic Non-Commissioned Officer Course

Armies Without Weapons

Money is Speech

Start the Presses!

Most Popular Pageviews

I write this blog for myself. As a contract technical writer, I get paid to write what other people want. I enjoy it. That work is near the top of my Maslow Hierarchy as self-fulfillment. But it is still primarily for other people, work for hire. This is my own diary. 

I do publicize some of the essays here. Even so, I only have seven followers. So, to have 178,133 pageviews in five years is interesting, if not laudable. Just under 100 times a day, someone else reads something here. But who reads what?

Sometimes, readers from Russia, China, or India have taken first place. Occasionally, other areas pop up in the standings. Usually, of course, most of the hits come from Americans. If I were not an American, that might not be true, but, of course, America dominates the Internet.

To me, the curious fact is that the most popular essay is "What (if Anything) Did Dorothy Learn?" which examines the penultimate scene of the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Not in this blog, but available elsewhere, is an article that I wrote about the political, economic, and numismatic references in L. Frank Baum's classic fantasy. It appeared first in the Centinel of the Central States Numismatic Society, Vol. 58, no. 2, Summer 2010, p.58-61 as "The Wizard of Oz: Child's Tale or Numismatic Allegory?"  That issue is archived on the Newman Numismatic Portal here.

Generally, the articles here are about science and technology, numismatics, politics, and science fiction. But those easy rubrics mask what I consider to be more interesting threads.

Nerds, geniuses, and gifteds make it possible for the rest of us to survive. When the great glaciers were melting, we might have had one genius every three or four generations. Now, with 6 billion people on Earth, we have more of them all the time. And I am glad that we do.

Recently, I started writing about the military. On November 22, 2014, I volunteered to join the Texas State Guard. I came to that opportunity by way of contract technical writing. I was on assignment with the Texas Division of Emergency Management within the Texas Department of Public Safety. There, I found out about the work of the TXSG, which evacuates people from danger, manages shelters, carries out ground search, and other duties. My next assignment was for the office of the Executive Director of the Texas Military Department. So, it was easy to volunteer.  And I am learning a lot about leadership which is better than management for everyone in the business world. 

Numismatics is the art and science that studies the forms and uses of money. Numismatics opens the door to history, language, fine art, culture, commerce, and, of course, economics. It is a large lacuna that the great economists were not themselves "coin collectors." (A modern exception is George Selgin, author of Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage.)  Money has many forms and functions, and numismatics is about much more than coins. 

I love cities. I admit that a week in New York is about two days too many, but having lived in two small towns and two villages (in America), a city of one or two million is just about right for me. Austin is perfect. My choices aside, megacities are the jewels of planet Earth.

When I was in graduate school (2009-2010), I had a criminology class in Miscarriages of Justice that focused on misconduct in police laboratories and junk science in the courtroom. From there, I expanded my reading into laboratory misconduct and academic fraud. The two areas are inter-connected. They each can be extended to include electoral voting fraud.

But I write about whatever interests me from astronomy to firefighters. Apparently, other people find some of it interesting, also, and I am glad that they do.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
Most Popular Necessary Facts
100,000 Page Views
World Peace Through Massive Retaliation
Armies Without Weapons
Debt: The Seed of Civilization
B-Sides Austin 2016

AFK: Away from the Keyboard

Since I started this blog on January 2, 2011, I have posted 432 entries, a bit more often than once a week.  But the past few months, I have been busy with what has turned into one of the best jobs I ever had. I work at headquarters in the Texas State Guard.  Right now, I am on assignment with the Texas National Guard. It has been 20 years since I enjoyed work so much.

Everyone around me is 100%. Sure, things go wrong. Mistakes happen. We own the problem and fix it. I have not heard anyone call someone else stupid or lazy. The can-do attitude is deeply learned and accepted. Yesterday morning, I saw a colonel come down the hall, come to a door, square his corner with a left face, and approach the door. We have physical exercise facilities; and I can hear the weight machines being used all day long. The one-mile outdoor track is never empty, even in 100-degree heat. (Hydrate!) And this is an administrative headquarters facility: human resources, information, logistics, planning, training, and finance. Basically, it is just a bunch of office jobs. But everyone I have met in four weeks is up for this. 

My days are long. I have not been out with my telescope in four months. I am not watching the best Perseids in seven years. But what I do during the day is interesting and important. It just keeps me away from the keyboard.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS 

The Scientific Method  

Hurricane Tejas 

The Code Book  

The Perfect Machine  

Open Secrets

Extreme Ownership

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, St. Martins Press, 2015.

“So, there I was, knee deep in hand grenade pins…”  The authors claim that this is not a string of self-glorifying war stories, the kind that old men grow in the retelling.  But, in fact, every teaching point is illustrated with a real war story. The authors assure us that the reports are sanitized so as not to violate operational security (OPSEC). Business briefs follow the battle scenes. Again, the details are altered to protect the client. Unfortunately, that reduces these white papers to blank pages. Although the Navy SEALs are realistic, the business people all sound alike. Lacking depth, the executives and managers are cardboard characters. Despite those flaws, the teaching points are valid. 

The thesis of the book is easy to understand. Extreme Ownership means taking full responsibility for your experiential world. If your boss does not understand your circumstances, then the failure is yours: you did not make it clear enough. I was reminded of a scene in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Some thuggish architects are complaining to each other about the hero, Howard Roark. Face it, one admits. You are just mad because he doesn’t even notice you. “He’d notice me if I bashed his head with a club.” No he wouldn’t: he would just blame himself for not avoiding the club.

The other lessons are equally unarguable.

No bad teams, only bad leaders.

You must believe in your mission.

Check your ego. (In other words, control it, block it, like checking your luggage at the departure gate.)

Cover and Move means that teams protect each other, leap-frogging forward.

Simple commands are easier to carry out. Complex missions must be simplified to their essentials.

Prioritize and execute.  You cannot do everything all at once. Attempting the wrong task will cause other goals to be missed. Know what is most important and do that.

Decentralize command. It is old advice. Nonetheless, delegating authority can be a matter of life and death in an urban warzone. In every organization, span of control means that each decision-maker ideally has only about five people reporting.  I was reminded of how ships –especially warships – are run: each department depends on all the others, and each expects the others to run their shops effectively. The captain cannot do it all from the bridge. Each section is responsible for its own performance.

Plan.  This shocked me: the US Navy SEALs devote more time – much more time – to creating and presenting PowerPoints than they do fighting in combat.  As I came close to the end of the book, I had a long weekend training drill at Texas State Guard headquarters. I chatted with another ex-pilot about software development. Pilots spend as much time or more planning flights than actually flying. But software developers seem to all just bang out code with no planning. The results are all around us. If code really blew up, or if systems really crashed, programmers would do more planning.

Leading up and down the chain of command is a direct consequence of extreme ownership. It takes some finesse to lead the people above you, but it is no less necessary than leading those under your command. You are responsible for your environment. If your boss does not understand your situation, it can only be because you failed to communicate.

Decisiveness and Uncertainty are easy opposites. Leaders make decisions, usually right ones, if they are good leaders. Leaders who waver, postpone, and procrastinate are not leaders at all, but managers who are in deep water (or worse) over their heads.

The chapter on Decisiveness and Uncertainty introduces the final chapter: Discipline equals Freedom. This chapter actually goes into Aristotle’s “golden mean” without naming it explicitly. The authors run down a list of opposites and counsel moderation in all things: leader and follower; confident but not cocky; humble but not passive; competitive but a gracious loser; and so on.  Through the course of the book, the tension between opposites powers much of the narrative. In Chapter 8, the authors explain that Decentralized Command is possible only when the Commander’s Intent is communicated clearly.  

Books on management and leadership are easy to find. A book that announced radically new truths would be rare. The guidance here is not radical. Shorn of the war stories and business briefs, this might be a 20-page essay.  They are nonetheless 20 very valuable pages.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Primary Leadership Training 

Leadership 

Profiles in Courage 

Entrepreneurship 

Hurricane Tejas

The State of Texas ran an exercise to simulate a Category 4 hurricane strike at the Rio Grande Valley.  The main events ran Wednesday and Thursday, June 8 and 9, according to the news media. However, the execution depended on deep planning running back to January of this year. For myself, as a headquarters support staffer, I arrived at 9:00 AM on Sunday, June 5. I made my last call (from home) at 6:30 PM on Friday. My job was to run the WebEOC emergency operation center computer. Despite the short days on Sunday and Friday (8 hours each), I put in 74 hours in five days. So did a couple hundred other people.

• Department of Public Safety Trooper Robbie Barrera says the drill began Wednesday and runs through Thursday.  (CBS news Dallas-Fort Worth here.)

Loading up on Monday morning for the trip
down to the Rio Grande Valley. This team
gathered evacuees and shepherded them to safety.

•  AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), in coordination with local, state, federal and private sector partners, is conducting a full-scale air evacuation exercise in response to a hypothetical hurricane scenario in which the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) is evacuated. This exercise provides the emergency management community an opportunity to practice and evaluate local, state and federal emergency plans by evacuating a sample group of approximately 300 “general and medical evacuees” (exercise volunteers) from the lower Rio Grande Valley to the sheltering jurisdictions of San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and Irving. The exercise began on June 2 and concludes Thursday, with air evacuations and sheltering taking place today and Thursday.  (K-Star Radio/KVST 99.7 FM, Huntsville, Texas, here.)

The Texas Maritime Regiment (TMAR) practiced
search and recovery.

Of those 300, the Texas State Guard provided 226. Among those were evacuation responders who transported people out of danger, sheltered them and returned them to their homes.  We also had search and recovery rescuers. 

Our joint operations liaison officer
(Texas air component lieutenant colonel, left)
confers with our Battle Group non-commissioned officer in charge
(Texas army component) while a sergeant (Texas army component)
in the background configures
emergency evacuation handheld computers.

In addition, we worked with state agencies such as Public Safety and Emergency Management, of course, but also with the Department of State Health Services, the local city Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), and many private responders, including the American Red Cross and the Amateur Radio Relay League. 

“There were 156 unique stations participating. Of these, 89% reported an ARES affiliation, 17% reported a MARS affiliation and 30% reported a RACES affiliation. 48% reported being Winlink capable. 44% reported having backup battery power, 43% reported having a generator and 6% had solar recharging capability. …“I received a total of 108 ICS-213 forms during the exercise.” (ARRL South Texas here)

ICS Form 213 is a general message for any Incident Command Structure.  The ICS is the standardized FEMA methodology for managing events and incidents.  (An event is planned: baseball game; birthday party. Incidents include hurricanes, wildfires, floods, tornados, and traffic accidents with toxic waste spills.) The ARRL report to members cited here is an indication of the volume of traffic that these volunteers handle when they launch and boot up communications networks to remediate for the infrastructure that is lost during a disaster.

Texas maritime seaman reports
the completion of her assignment
 for a Texas army component sergeant
at the Tactical Emergency Operations Center.

If you have a Facebook account you can see more on the TXSG official pages here.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Volunteering in an Emergency: What to Expect 

CERT: Community Emergency Response Team 

Texans Serving Texans 

Firefighters