Note: Beginning with the stories on the PWH FORUM related to flying, I have started a new Blog RememberedSky.com focused on my experiences and those of my friends. What follows is the announcement set about a recently completed series on the return of the Viet Nam POWs. Asked below is the question, cannot a Katrina like diaster be considered a “captive environment?” Does not response, decision making and leadership in this severe crisis require unconventional leadership?  My answer is yes, and there is much to be learned from the “isolated yet unifed” response by our Viet Nam POWs.

The first POWs had flown out of Hanoi to Clark AFB in the Philippines on 12 Feb. Midway had just completed its final line period of the war , resulting in setting the record for most days on the line for a carrier in the Viet Nam War. Champ Commanding Officer, Lew Chatham and a significant number of others went up to Clark for the arrival of the first Hanoi Taxi. Skipper Lew’s best friend Paul Galanti was on that first flight. For its eleven month deployment in the face of the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive invasion of South Viet Nam, USS Midway, Air Wing Five, and squadrons would receive the Presidential Unit Citation – equivalent to the highest award the Navy can give at the individual level – the Navy Cross.

For those of us in theatre at the time, we had long known of the situation at home.  Bringing the POWs –our “buds” – home was our primary personal mission.  As I have noted previously, winning and losing wars occurs at another level. For me this April weekend celebration indicated “mission accomplished.”  I was there and part of the process that had gotten the POWs home.

I started Remembered Sky as a vehicle for me to write – or publish the writing of others – focused on love of flying, with particular interest and focus on the stories from USS Midway/Airwing Five and the Vietnam War in 1972-73.  Maybe even more important than the flying were the connections-developed with “these good men.”  There are lots of good books and websites on aviation, so  Remembered Sky is offered on a personal level – friends of “Boris” or “friends of friends of Boris.” It’s a “one – three degrees of connection” kind of thing, you might say.  I started with just love of flying stuff, then added pieces on the Midway ’72 cruise as a result of the Easter Offensive, and then moved into Linebacker II.  

The various elements - the 100th Anniversary of Naval Aviation in 2011, the 40th anniversary of the Midway war cruise, my own wedding and immediate departure to a rapidly heating up war, and the 40th anniversary of the end of the war and the Paris Peace Accords with the resultant release of our Prisoners of War – all began to merge in my memory as a story of stories in which I and my airwing/squadron mates/friends all played a part, certainly not at a national level, but in terms of degree of commitment and impact to family – a significantly non-trivial role. I am doing this for myself, my family, and with hope that all “these good men” can recall what they accomplished.

But, I do not believe this line of thought would be complete without stories out of the Prisoner of War battlefront and of their coming home – Operation Homecoming.  Forty years later, I still believe the POW story worth recalling and retelling every so often.  The POW mantra was “Return with Honor” and that they most certainly did.  But below that top level is a process developed in the crucible of the Hanoi Hilton relevant today and worth more than just a little scrutiny to my thinking -the idea of “isolated yet unified.”

One hears/reads about the war in Viet Nam today only when some news person wants to draw similarities to current U.S. undertaking and the “quagmire” that became Viet Nam.  For education, history is long, the school year is short.  Twenty years ago when Jim Hickerson and I talked to high school juniors in American history, there was very little in the California American History book. The issue of the POW’s treatment, the actions of the League of Families, and the resultant impact on the press, the NVN world view and even the formalized treaty itself, of bringing to light by those wives, the horrible tortured treatment of their husbands, was not even worthy of a single word.

Your guess as good as mine what is being taught today.  Their story of value today? Obviously, I think there is much that can be learned.

That said, my thinking is that since there are a lot of good books already out there, I wanted to come at the period from a different perspective.  This is not intended as history or as analysis.  It is intended to get the story back on the table, not only as “war and remembrance of friends” but as food for thought.  Here are eight new posts on Remembered Sky:  

• Operation Homecoming Part 7: Lady and the Flag
• Operation Homecoming Part 6: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton
• Operation Homecoming Part 5: Always Leading and Always Will
• Operation Homecoming Part 4:The Bracelets
• Operation Homecoming Part 3: Jack Fellowes
• Operation Homecoming Part 2: Some History
• Operation Homecoming Part 1: The POWs Come Home
• Christmas ’72 Stories, Epilogue: Linebacker II and the POWs – Prelude to Coming Home

Sometime later, maybe in May before the POWs re-unite at the Nixon Library to celebrate their 1973 dinner at the White House, I’ll provide an Epilogue with recommended reading. My intent now is to look more closely at the leadership element in context of “isolated yet unified.”

Special thanks to Mary Ripley at US Naval Institute.

Boris sends

The best definition I have ever heard of a vocation is that it’s the place where your great joy meets the world’s great need. For you to build that vocation will take both compassion and courage. There are infinite possibilities for you for joy, for service, to make a contribution, and we need all of you to find your vocation. To develop your joys, your passions, and to match them to the world’s great needs.

It is traditional for commencement speakers to come and give advice. I have very little advice to give you. Instead, I would like to ask something of you. Let’s decide that today will be both a day of celebration and a day that we embrace a challenge. Let’s look back with pride at all that you have accomplished, and let’s also look forward with confidence, knowing that you will go forward to use all of your talents and abilities, all of your creativity and energy to find a way to be of service to others. If you do that, life will not be easy, but you will have chosen for yourself a very meaningful adventure.  Eric Greitens, U.S. Navy SEAL

(http://now.tufts.edu/commencement-address-eric-greitens)

Here on this blog,  we have often discussed the the idea of intersections – ideas resulting from the coming together of education, experience, and  interests not necessarily or obviously linked.   Success in intersectional idea generation and in bringing those ideas to fruition is most often dependent upon breaking down barriers of association that would more than likely indicate a “non relationship” or at best limited context between or among fields.

In his recent Commencement address at Tufts University, Navy SEAL Eric Greitens defines an intersection easily bypassed in the search for success in a complex, global and messy economic world – the idea of service.  The quest for success most often focuses on attainment of money, power and fame – for many, but fortunately not for all.  Here on Memorial Day we honor those who matched their talent with the need to sustain a country, flawed as it may be, founded on the idea of freedom. We focus and honor those for which service for the country and for their fellow warriors cost them all.

 

For Love of the Gameis a movie about an aging major league pitcher coming back from injury, played by Kevin Costner, centering on the attempt to pitch a perfect game in his last game.  Nothing is on the line save his pride, his memories, and coming to grips with his life.  The movie played on one of the old movie channels a few days ago and for seemingly inexplicable reasons, I was suddenly thinking of Smokey.

Smokey had been a Blue Angel solo pilot but was diagnosed with TB.  The medication prevented his continuance doing something he most obviously loved and had generated recognition that he was one of the best-of-the-best. The diagnosis proved wrong, but Smokey left the Navy and went to fly for the airlines. He came back in – I would submit for love of the game and the people who “played it.”  That’s who he was, and that’s who they were – love of the game, love of the people who loved to fly, people who offered up their lives. Had fun they did, but they knew the possibilities flying off of aircraft carriers day and night.

Smokey could have been the poster child for the story of the Army Delta Force operative who, when asked why he didn’t transfer – given that he really feared heights and hated jumping out of airplanes (a very specific Delta requirement)  – to another unit where parachute qualification wasn’t required, answered – as would have been Smokey’s and a lot of us – quote, I just like being around the kind of guy who likes that kinda thing, unquote.

As related in the previous post, Al Nichols was shot down in May. Smokey came out as Al’s replacement- specifically requested by our Executive Officer/soon to be Commanding Officer Commander Lew Chatham.  They were both former Blue Angels and had been to war together previously in A-4 Skyhawks. I was the first VA-56 Champ to meet him in the Cubi Point Officers Club when I came in to to Cubi to ferry an aircraft back out to USS Midway.  It was one of those meetings in which you know immediately, “this guy is gonna be my Pal.”  The Champs of VA-56 did indeed love Smokey and he loved them back. No better man to fly with, no better friend to belt back a few and “even the strain,” no better comrade when visiting the gaming tables at Olongapo casinos, no better friend, period.  In his less than 5 months with the Champs, I flew with him multiple times and a strong friendship emerged.  We had some big ideas for when we returned stateside.

Smokey was shot down on July 23rd but ejected and survived. He was injured during the ejection and grounded for awhile. Not flying drove him nuts. He  fought back and recovered to fly again but then was lost to us all on 6 November 1972.  With all due respect to his parents and his ancestry, Lieutenant Commander Clarence Orfield Tolbert was no “Clarence Orfield.” To his squadron mates he was “Smokey” and he epitomised that name in every way, on every level one can imagine.  He was a Naval Academy graduate, Blue Angel #6 – a solo pilot, and a Navy “attack pilot,” what in today’s terms is referred to as a strike fighter or just fighter pilot. He embodied what one legendary World War II Ace termed “the spirit of attack born in a brave heart.”  He was my friend. I miss what was and what might have been.  On Memorial Day 2012, Smokey I remember you and I honor all through you.

Blue Angel #6 F-11 Tiger at Murray State College, Tishomingo Oklahoma, Smokey’s hometown

For love of the game

Fly Navy, the BEST Always Have.

As you reflect on this Memorial Day, I urge you to  click the link below to hear an eulogy to Smokey, read into the Congressional Record by another of  my VA-56 pals, and another of Smokey’s great friends, Max Carey.

http://www.maxcarey.com/americasgiftmain.html

An “in-work” story

On April 10, 1972, Midway steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, bound on a 7800 mile voyage to the Vietnam War Zone.  This in itself was not uncommon.  What made this cruise different from proceeding ones in the ship’s history was the fact that Midway was deploying over seven weeks in advance of the scheduled departure date with less than one week’s notice, with a vastly abbreviated training period, and with the additional handicap of a short, three day loadout.

Shouldering these burdens, on April 29, exactly 19 days after departure, the aircraft of Carrier Air Wing Five were winging their way off MIDWAY and towards the Republic of Vietnam.  Their mission, as part of the ship’s overall mission, was of two basic parts: one, they were to provide aerial support for the South Vietnamese forces in their efforts to turn back the tide of the Communist invasion from the north, and two, they were to protect the remaining Americans present in Vietnam as the withdrawal of United States ground forces continued.

From: Opening pages, USS MIDWAY 1972-73 Cruise Book

All days come from one day, as the writer, the poet, the singer  says, so without attempting to channel Ernest Hemmingway, this reflects basic remembrance of the day I and a lot of young men went off to war.  For me, it meant I would spend the 11^thof April at sea – my one month wedding anniversary.  I left a beautiful young woman crying on the pier.  She drove from Alameda to the Golden Gate Bridge to watch MIDWAY change her life in ways completely unexpected a month earlier in the chapel at Point Mugu.  We weren’t following closely the day-day of the war nor privy to the back channel information of impending crisis in the war in Vietnam. Things had been rather quite there since the bombing halt up North in 1968 called by President Johnson after the Tet Offensive.

We had decided to get married thinking I was going to be at NAS Lemoore for at least a year before going on cruise. By  end of May, she and the other squadron wives would be bringing comfort to the wife of one Champ pilot as a confirmed resident in the Hanoi Hilton, and by end of summer Airwing Five wives would be dealing with 4 aircrew missing in action and 6 POWS. The fatalities would rise to 8 aircrew before MIDWAY came back to Alameda.  Not what she bargained for, at least not that quickly. 

The offensive, Operation Nguyen Hue, better known as the ‘Easter Offensive’ began at noon on 30 March 1972, when an intense artillery barrage rained down on the northernmost ARVN outposts in Quang Tri Province just below the Demilitarized Zone.

By this time Vietnamization was the U.S. policy focus along with  American troop withdrawal from South Vietnam, which was well underway, but the old men – the hard core Communist revolutionaries -wanted no half loaf victory handed out on a tray of negotiations.  They wanted a military victory.

The ‘Easter Offensive,’ dropped all pretense of guerrilla war.  Instead, it was a three-pronged multi-division NVA cross-border invasion, well supported by tanks and heavy artillery. General Giap committed six NVA divisions to the attack in the northern portion of South Vietnam. Another three NVA divisions were ordered to strike in central South Vietnam, and a NVA/VC three-division force would attack north of Saigon.

With his reputation and his policy of Vietnamization at stake, Nixon implemented a massive buildup of air power in Southeast Asia and a broadening of the eligible targets. On April 6, U.S. fighter-bombers raided military targets 100 kilometers north of the demilitarized zone. As the available air assets made their strikes both in support of the beleaguered ARVN units and against targets in North Vietnam, squadrons of U.S. military aircraft redeployed from their bases in Japan, Korea, the Philippines and the U.S. mainland. Simultaneously, more aircraft carriers steamed toward Vietnam to join the two already on station there, until by late spring there were six aircraft carriers, each with approximately 90 craft, operating off the coast.

For the CAG 5 guys on MIDWAY who had walked aboard for the three week “mini-cruise” final preparation training event and examination prior to departing on a WESTPAC cruise to the Gulf of Tonkin, we recieved  the goodnews/bad news story on the night of 5 April as MIDWAY steamed south to the operating area off of San Diego. Bad news – we’re going west early.  Good news – we’re not going directly from here, we go back to Alameda for the weekend and leave on Monday. The airwing flew aboard the next day landing in gale force winds as Schoolboy litterally raced north.

As for “training,” I hot-seated into the commanding officer’s plane and launched for two arrested landings. Forty + knots of wind is a bit of unusual operating conditions, and Skipper Harvey, got out of the a/c as I walked up with a very puzzled look on his face.  He had no idea what we’d been told the night before.

Anchors aweigh, my boy, anchors aweigh. No passing Go, straight to war, nod to South Vietnam and head for the Red River Valley. First combat mission 30 April, support the full on conventional war defense of An Loc – tanks and all (TANKS???, this is not France in ’44, what the…?) – for a few days , then right to the heart of it up North on 10 May, first Alpha Strike on 13 May to a little spot adjacent to the Than Hoa Bridge and first sight of Cryllic.  Cryllic- you know  Russian – the writing on the side of that big son-of-a-bitch Surface to Air Missile (SAM) that welcomed my best bud Floo and I to airwar North Vietnam. Dearest love Paulette, your new husband is a combat pilot now. 

Over on the East Coast, on Friday 7 April, “all those thinking you’re heading for fun and sun in the Mediterranean step right on up, not so fast USS SARATOGA and airwing!”  Sara had just completed her mini-cruise and was intended to deploy in three weeks. Instead she left a day after MIDWAY, going around the Horn of Africa. Carol Reardon does a superb job in Launch the Intruders of telling the story of the VA-75  A-6 squadron Sunday Punchers on that cruise. Well written, worth the read.  A-6 suadrons are different than A-7 squadrons and East Coast things were different, but for those who went West on the 10th, you cannot help but see yourself in the mirror.

In May 1972, Nixon went on national television to tell the American people that to bring the North Vietnam government to the peace table, the United States would take the appropriate steps to terminate the North’s ability to continue the war. Major among these steps included mining all North Vietnamese ports, interdicting supplies to the North by U.S. forces, cutting rail and communication lines and resuming bombing in the North.

Operation Pocket Money, the mining of North Vietnam’s ports, commenced on May 9. U.S. Navy A-6 bombers sowed the waters with sophisticated mines set to activate on May 11, giving the many ships in Vietnamese harbors, including 16 from the Soviet Union, time to vacate. Only five actually left, and several ships, including Soviet ones, were subsequently damaged. Since during the previous year up to 85 percent of all imports had arrived through the port of Haiphong, including all oil, this was a devastatingly effective blockade.

Responding to the Easter Offensive led to a full on reassualt on North Vietnam – Operation Linebacker which would continue until 22  Oct, 1972.  Nixon took off the gloves.  Restrictions from the ’65-’68 Rolling Thunder attacks were mostly removed.  Planning was no longer in Lyndon Johnson’s office and Defense Secretary McNamara “stick-and-carrot” was now just stick. Indeed, President Nixon consistently went against his SECDEF to take the fight right onto Hanoi’s front door step. He believed he and America were being tested.  Air power – Air Force and Navy – were the answer.

The invasion of 1972 saw the first enemy use of massed armor coordinated with infantry and artillery in a fashion that the American generals, trained in European-style mechanized warfare, would be quite familiar with. In fact, the overt invasion by the North proved to be the opportunity that American military and planners had long dreamed of: to lure the elusive Communists into the open in a conventional, setpiece battle. Only in this type of conflict could the United States huge advantage in firepower and mobility be effectively exploited.

Cutting rail and communication lines and interdicting land-based supplies was accomplished to much greater effect than during attempts earlier in the war. Precision-guided munitions were introduced. B-52s were heavy players as were the AC-130 gunships down south. The army of South Vietnam (ARVN) even with uneven leadership stood tall in the saddle.  Giap’s logistics flow was reduced to a trickle. All combined and finally with proper use of airpower, the victor from Dien Bien Phu and Tet got his ass handed to him.

One thought, not stated yet. There’s lots of writing on the VN War and on use/miss-use of Air Power.  Rolling Thunder gets lots of words on ineffectiveness. But what’s not found, unless you get into the more historic analysis by people with credentials significant enough to understand, is how truly effective air power was in staving off a major major effort by the NVN Politburo to win the war outright WHILE Nixon was still President and America was still involved.  If you strip off the fuzz of who, why, why not, and just look at how the air war was fought in this period, you find a different picture, a unique story of our eleven month deployment.

After the Easter Offensive, North Vietnamese generals commented it would be three to five years before they could mount another offensive.  After the Christmas bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong, North Vietnam had nothing left. The war delivered by Air Force and Navy pilots had served its purpose. On a personal level for many of the aircrew, Mision  Number One was complete: Our Prisoners Of War came home.

That “deep story” we earned, we own.

Epilogue:

Al Nichols was that first combat loss, shot down and captured 19 May. Al was a combat experienced A-1 Sky Raider “Spad” guy.  Sobbering. There would be more and worse.

In successfully carrying out her mission MIDWAY was, at the same time, also helping to ensure the more long range objectives: the eventual release of American prisoners of war held captive in North Vietnam, and the end of Communist aggression in the free world.

It is perhaps fitting that MIDWAY could demonstrate her fulfillment of the Navy Creed during this cruise, for 1972 saw the 30^th anniversary of the battle from which she takes her name; the Battle of Midway.  It was during this battle that the aircraft carriers proved their importance in naval warfare and their effectiveness as a mobile weapons system.

Those of us who came home will never forget those who could not.

References for Part One

USS MIDWAY 1972-73 Cruise Book

Vietnam at War; The History 1946-1975 by Lt. Gen. Phillip B. Davidson, USA (Ret)

Midway Magic by Scott McGaugh

Launch the Intruders by Carol Reardon

Aviator Flight Log Book #1: Lt. James E. Beakley, 11 July 1968 to 1 February 1974

Torpedos could not be launched in the shallow water at Pearl Harbor… we said, we thought… the Japanese thought otherwise

When Bob Desourdis lectures on his book and “interoperability” for homeland security, he asks the technology focused audiences “what would you do if you had all the information you thought you needed and all the associated technology that would allow that information to be available?” He suggests strongly, we’d still not get things right. Project White Horse 084640 is mostly based on agreeing with Desourdis. People, ideas, technology… it’s always most about people… and the will to be ready for whatever might come, at all levels, leaders most assuredly, but also us. Please consider these introductory elements from Bob’s book and tutorial as you reflect on events and consequences from 70 years past.

This information flow diagram shows the principal sources of knowledge that the U.S. had before the attack –yet complete surprise (codenamed To-ra, to-ra, to-ra) was still achieved. The diagram shows many, though not all, of the information available to authorities –but the lack of holistic interoperability meant to achieve Hawaiian defense failed. … there were many failures that haunt our more recent disasters and, in all likelihood, our awareness, response, and recovery from the next disaster.

…from the minority report on the Pearl Harbor attack, when the two senators stated that it was “the failure of men,” and not any other reason, that led to the success of the Japanese attack. … these “failures” were well documented in the majority report and are presented in what follows. Note that the congressional investigation was performed in 1946, though the event was December 7, 1941, because Congress did not want to pull commanders out of the Pacific during the war. On December 8th, a second key quote –which belies many of today’s failed interoperability among people, processes, and tools, is that many people at all levels of leadership –and for various reasons we suggest in what follows –believe their abilities and capabilities are “good enough,” and they are inevitably wrong.

Thirteen of the 25 failures reported in the congressional investigation of the attack on Pearl Harbor were largely independent of technology –these were failures of men:

•Lack of coordination among personnel in different organizations or parts of the same organization

•Assumption that others were taking action, but failure to verify what was assumed

•Failure to think through the entire defense enterprise that protected the fleet in port

•Missed, ignored, paraphrased, or failed to verify messages that failed to prompt an expected reaction.

The remaining 12 Pearl Harbor failures (are)primarily leader shortsightedness and inter-organizational jealousy, letting their personal relationships impact their planning and decisions, while delegating responsibility with limited authority.

(Now) show quotes from the 2004 9/11 Report and the 2005 Katrina Report demonstrating the same type of failure of organization as evident in the Pearl Harbor investigation. A clear lesson taught by 1946 that was ignored through 2005, and arguably is largely ignored today at all levels of government.

As the day closed on September 11 2001, we began the process of “doing what we know”- we had been attacked – strangely suprising to some in other lands, Americans strike back hard when treaded upon – so we went to war in the way we know how.  The events of September 11, 2001 were of such magnitude, shock and so far outside the norm of how we perceived warfare, and our whole intelligence process was so much still Cold War mind set, we didn’t “know what to do” …really. We attacked, we fought, we used B-52s and smart bombs with special forces guys doing the targeting and riding with Afghans on horses. We learned, but we were still doing what we know not knowing what to do. 

After the invasion of Iraq, that became apparent - who exactly were we fighting, how many groups, were they connected?  We learned, the hard way. Army General Petraeus and Marine General Mattis rewrote the counterinsurgency manual – many had long fought even using the term insurgency. Americans fought, Americans died, some learned.  But it has been a tough think.  What kind of war have we been fighting: guerrilla warfare, non conventional, unconventional, fourth generation, irregular?  Is the answer counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, what? The debate on whether what applied in Iraq applies in Afghanistan still ebbs and flows – below the surface for most Americans.

It’s gets hard when the protagonist stop wearing blue and red uniforms to understand the true nature of warfare.  Yet, old principles still abide, Clausewitz’s trinity does indeed still hold:

1. primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; 
2. the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; 
3. element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason….” 

(This set of elements is usually labeled “emotion/chance/reason”; sometimes “violence/chance & probability/rational calculation”; or, even more abstractly, “irrationality/nonrationality/rationality.”)

So questions still persist; Are we better off ten years later, have we gained the imagination so lacking pre 9-11, are our leaders really prepared to make the decisions necessary in a world so ill defined, indeed, are we capable of knowing what to do rather than doing what we know?

Like most Americans over the past week I’ve searched the blogs, read the opinion pieces, the stories of the folks most directly involved, watched hours of commentators and ceremonies and dedications. I’ve searched and struggled to find words for this blog, given the focus on decision making in severe crisis.

Below are three articles and links to the originals that surround the idea of learning and focusing so that we as a people – top to bottom – can know what to do.  They are well worth your time.

One introductory comment, then the rest stand on their own needing no help from me. The first article is about Rick Rescorla.  His story has been featured here before.  (See  Sheepdog of Morgan Stanley) He may be the only person who knew what to do on September 11 2001. Learning from the first WTC attack, he prepared those at Morgan Stanley for what he was sure would be another attack. Ignoring Port Authority notice to remain in place after the attacks, he evacuated Morgan Stanley employees. Were it not for him, the losses at the twin towers would have been not 2800 but 5300.

Knowing what to do is possible – it takes constant learning and the will to stay the course. Day is done, what next?

Rick Rescorla, Hero: Vietnam to 9/11

The Project White Horse 084640 post for Fourth of July 2010 noted that we celebrate our country’s birthday in the warmth of summer recalling the day we declared our right as free and independent states, the day the signers pledged their lives, fortune and sacred honor, but that we would do well to also recall a bitter cold Christmas night, a general and an army that made it so.

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour” offered a narrative connection of the 4 July adoption of the Declaration of Independence with the Christmas morning Battle of Trenton as possibly representing the singularly most significant or compelling event in our country’s history to this day. Without Trenton there would have been no “Spirit of 76″ out of the 4th of July.

Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth

And yet beyond Trenton, Princeton, and the Petite Guerre of winter 1777, Washington and the Continental Army again found themselves in dire straits through the next winter at Valley Forge.  It was not until the little discussed Battle of Monmouth 28 June 1778, that Washington’s perseverance and leadership and commitment to the training for European style battle gained at Valley Forge began to indicate the real possibility that the aims of the Declaration could actually be gained.

We celebrate a day, but our independence is a narrative that ebbs and flows.  It cannot be understood or grasped from one event or the decisions around that occurrence.  It is easy and understandable to find ourselves in the great American game of baseball, high fiving the coach at third base, losing site of the fact that we didn’t hit the triple that got us there, nor is there guarantee the next batter will bring us home.  We won the lottery of birth but what do we owe and what must we continue to do in recognition of our luck?

The fourth part of DaVinci’s Horse posted in Spring 2008 sixth PWH edition concluded with a point out of East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck which tells the stories of three generations of two families, focusing on the theme of good against evil and making prominent use of the biblical story of Cain and Abel.   Cain murders his brother out of jealousy after God rejects his gift but then accepts Abel’s. In the novel, Steinbeck ascribes great significance to the translation of the Hebrew word timshel (“thou mayest” or “thou will”) overcome sin or evil.  He believes it demonstrates that humans have free will and can triumph over sin if they choose to do so, but victory is not guaranteed.

Continuing, the George W. Cecil quote was offered:

On the Plains of Hesitation, bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the Dawn of Victory, sat down to wait, and waiting died.

Said then and again now on 4 July 2011, I submit to you that those frontiersmen who defied Great Britain at risk of everything dear in fathering this nation, recognized full well that they were not guaranteeing anything, knew that what they had crafted was inherently flawed, and realized that what they had accomplished was to place a new nation at the dawn of victory – not for a year or a decade or a century but for as long as the people of the nation could reproduce the resiliency – spirit, blood, and treasure – of 1776.

Thou mayest.

The story must continue.

(Wonder how Molly celebrated the Fourth of July 1778?)

The Observe Orient Decide Act decision making process,  or as it is commonly known, OODA Loop, was evolved over time by John Boyd in search of improvements in capability in the highly competitive environment of war. Over time many have come to see the worth of the OODA process as instructive in any competitive environment.  Indeed Boyd’s last work summarized his thinking in stating “without OODA loops… and without the ability to get inside other OODA Loops (or environments) we will find it impossible to comprehend, shape, adapt to, and in turn be shaped by an unfolding, evolving reality that is uncertain, ever changing, unpredictable.”  Many consider Boyd and the “loop” in only the context of having a faster loop than the competitor. But the real value is found in the realization that the OODA loop in its complete form is really a process of learning – a way of search, analysis, synthesis, and aquistion of actionable understanding.  As such it is offered here as a crucial element when considering a culture of preparedness and the make up of resilient communities.

The video below was developed for youth soccer coaches based on the OODA process. I think you will find the method of presentation enlightening. You should be able to navigate to all 17 currently available segments.  Each lasts 2-3 minutes.

UPDATE 16 March: See the comments below from PWH’s contributors and advisors

One significant element of an unconventional crisis as compared to other large catastrophes is the complex maps of actors – Catastrophic crises systematically involve an enormous variety of stakeholders, on an international scale.

Pictures from Japan: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2011/03/world/hires.japan.quake/index.html?hpt=T1

Preparation? Readiness? Thinking the unthinkable?

Initial earthquake damage, then explosions and massive fire, then 30 feet of water, then flooding., nuclear meltdown, massive radiation in the atmosphere. Where does response start, where is the forward edge of battle, where is the center of gravity? How does leadership define and shape this “battlespace?”

 This most applies does it not? Unconventional Crisis: Parameters

Comments below reflect e-mail discussion that resulted from the recent announcement of the PWH blog Round #2 of the 2011 Boundary Conditions. They address  ”unconventional crisis” in context of the catastrophic events ongoing in Japan: