Interesting blog post by Tom Ricks about the use of women soldiers/marines in counterinsurgency ops. http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/09/women_in_coin_ii_how_to_do_it_right "I've been reading a recent internal summary of how Marine "Female Engagement Teams," or FETs, have worked in Afghanistan. The bottom line is that done right, this approach works surprisingly well, with benefits among the population that can't be achieved by males."...read more

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The U.S. Army History Musuem is due to open in Ft. Belvoir, VA, in 2013.  A new story on army.mil talks about the future plans and has great photos depicting the new site.  Click here for the story.   U.S. Army Photo, Depiction of Future Army History Museum

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I am blogging from the Combined Arms School at Ft. Dix. Basically, the school is designed for Army Reserve Captains and Majors to learn how to be good staff officers. The school has been very tough so far. There are many briefings due and there is a specific process we must go through in terms of evaluating a problem. Much of it has to do with the military decision making process. More to follow .. . It is interesting to realize how many assumptions we...read more

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I wanted to make a quick post before departing for Combined Arms School.  I will blog daily from Combined Arms School at Ft. Dix starting next week.   Here is a HOOAH photo of the Coast Guard providing support for Army cargo ships arriving in Kuwait. www.hooahnews.com U.S. Army Photo of Coast Guard Port Security Unit near Kuwait Naval Base, Sep, 2009.  

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I just got my orders for Combined Arms School 17 day exercise in September. The school is part of an army reserve officer professional education. It is a requirement to attend ILE and I will psot daily from CAS school in a couple weeks. It should be a great experience to practice the military professioanl decision making process and staff planning.

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As a public affairs guy, I am always searching for Army/DOD stories and how we can communicate those to the general public.  One great place for news in Afghanistan I have found is called www.wired.com/dangerroom   I read this recent story regarding Marines altering their strategy to avoiding IED's by using commercial GPS's to change up their routes.  Many of the user comments complained that the story gave away tactics for the enemy. What do you guys think?   My take is that we have to...read more

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A Special Forces NCO, Tim Kennedy, will leave the service this month and become a full-time professional mixed martial arts fighter. He will headline the Sept. 25 Strikeforce event on Showtime. I wrote a longer article on my associatedcontent site if interested http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2096447/army_green_beret_headlines_mma_strikeforce.html Here is a video of a Kennedy fight in 2007 www.youtube.com/watch

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The new DOD website went live today at www.defense.gov It really is a great site and has a tone of new features.  The best part to me is the resource for all of the new DOD media pages.  Some of my favorites are the U.S. Forces Afghanistan Facebook page, the Walter Reed Blog, and the Joint Chiefs Twitter page.   If interested, I wrote a longer review on my associated content page at www.associatedcontent.com/article/2074243/dod_invites_public_to_interactive_web.html Here are some of my...read more

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As Ulchi Focus is about to begin in South Korea, I wanted to post about my experience in Key Resolve this past March with Special Operations Command Korea (SOCKOR).  SOCKOR is an awesome unit for those interested and are headuartered at Camp Kim, Korea.  I got the chance to cover their operations around the whole South Korean peninsula during Key Resolve as their pubic affairs officer.  The special forces relationships between the ROK and US forces is a very tight one and just a great thing to...read more

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If you haven't seen this before, the Army has comeout with a new way to increase the depth of field manuals and professional development.  As a pilot program, they set up a milwiki where all soldiers with an AKO account can log on and create, edit, or search pages.  I've attached a photo from the Army News story.  It made it onto the front page of the NYT business section today and I wrote up an analysis on associated content.  links and photo below.    I love this idea and it is great for...read more

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