To Michael's blog, The Common Virtue, to wish him a happy first blogversary, and to support his being the very first guy with the guts to advertise on Little Miss Attila. (More will follow, I suspect, but he's blazing the trail.)

His blog is interesting reading in particular because he really does represent the leadership of the future. It's especially illuminating for those of us who have no military background. (And, of course, I am such an ignoramous: all I know about military life I owe to my former Marine husband and to Tom Hanks. If the Attila Hub weren't writing a book about Vietnam, I'd know even less.)

The Common Virtue provides a peephole through which we can see today's military passing on its body of knowledge to the next generation. We infer, from reading Michael's posts, what the Army's priorities are in the here and now. It gives us insight as to what the "brass" is thinking. (One of the things I loved about seeing Band of Brothers for the second/third time is that when you see the guys from the 101st go to take the Germans' machine gun nests on the very day they land, you know you're seeing the actions that became the model for lessons being taught at West Point to this very day: that assault became the way to approach a fixed target.

Naturally, it's just one step beyond to want to know not just the physical rigors Michael and his friends are going through, but to see the reasoning behind the exercises they perform. The war games, especially, fascinate me. (Another Band of Brothers moment: we begin to see that Captain Sobel, though a brilliant—and slightly sadistic—trainer of men is worthless in the field, and it shows up in the war games the guys engage in as "warmups" before they go into battle for real.)

As for Michael, he's not above providing "added value" by running the Carnival of the Recipes. He knows what we like—at 22, at 42, and at every age in between. Forget music: Food is the universal language.

Posted by: Attila at 12:37 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Phillip Carter of Intel Dump wrote a tribute on Thursday to the living veterans of our last few wars. It's a beautiful piece, and it ends with this tart little reminder of what we need to be doing:

On this Veterans Day, unfortunately, there is more that we can do to support our nation's warriors. The Veterans Administration, always the victim of chronic underfunding, faces significant shortfalls today. It must ration health care in order to deliver even the most basic services, and it may not be ready for the bow wave of combat veterans who will leave active duty over the next several years. We owe our veterans more than this. Similarly, while the overwhelming majority of mobilized reservists have been supported well by their civilian employers, thousands of reservists have come home from combat duty to find their jobs gone, or to find themselves the victims of some adverse employment action, in contravention of federal law. According to the Washington Post, roughly 40 percent of the reservists now mobilized face a "pay gap", where they make (in many cases, significantly) less money on active duty than in their civilian jobs. These troops have a tough time supporting their families while they serve.

Read the original, which contains clickable links to set us on the right path.

Posted by: Attila at 01:20 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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