Archive for February 28th, 2005

How a stuffed toy changed the World

February 28th, 2005 by xformed

Back in Dec, the story emerged from Iraq about a little Iraqi girl, who sat in an intersection, clutching a stuffed toy (a present from the US, distributed by our Marines in the area). When the convoy stopped and the Gunny Sargent got out to talk to her, she pointed to a mine. Matt at Black Five was the one who posted the story.

As a result of this unusual occurance being promulgated about the blogosphere, many reporters contact Matt for more info. He indicated he had to delay passing on any specifics, unitl the permission came from the unit where the story began. Only one editorialist had enough respect to respect the word of a retired Army Officer, and waited patiently to get the story, and to get it right.

Tim Chavez wrote and editorial on the time when a little girl had the courage to save lives of the Marines, all because some people had a heart to help a new nation in the midst of their suffering how ever they could. In this case, it was all some people could do, and they did it. They sent stuffed toys to the Marines to hand out.

Tim gets it right: Love wins over hate. Take the time to read his editorial yourself, you won’t be disappointed.

Do you think you can’t help? Can you find a Wal-Mart or Toys-R-Us nearby and part with maybe $15 or $20 of your wages to make a differnet world? If you can do that, you can help in the commission of random acts of kindness.

Got to this link at Black Five and Matt has posted an address of the Marine responsible for receiving the toys. In the meantime, understand that Staff Sgt Tranchitella has plenty of warrior “stuff” to keep up with in his life, just to make sure he comes home in one piece. This type of activity falls under the “collateral duties” arena, which is code for “there’s more to do than people to do it, so here’s more for you.” In this case, I’m sure the Marines glady trade some of their personal time to handle the flow of toys. Make a difference in history and part with a few $$$$!

Category: History, Marines, Military, Military History | Comments Off on How a stuffed toy changed the World

Her son’s a Marine, but I think you’d not want to take this lady on….

February 28th, 2005 by xformed

When it comes to “out of the box” thinking (a polite way of saying it can be completely stupid, and completely unhindered by fact, or even a degree of maturity, in this case), take a moment to see what Deb of Marine Corps Mom found coming from a mind of mush at UMass….

It got her attention and she needed a little stress relief, so she chose to express her opinion in return. Fair is fair, right? If you want to see some articulate writing, portraying a level of understanding, compassion and selflessness of thought, as well as a grip on the state of world affairs, now take the time to peruse her letter, complete with young Naughton’s meager effort to justify his pitiful behavior.

Scary as it is, it seems to be the fundamental MO of the liberal, victimized mindset. If you can’t stand up and defend your position (because you know it’s rotten to the core from the start), hide in the shadows and wait until you can, in the darkness, take what you want. If you deserve it, I ask why don’t you do it in the light? Because you know someone with take exception and bring justice to your life….

Anyhow, she did a fine job of communicating an essential message about life, liberty, the freedom of choice and why this is important.

Category: Marines, Military, Supporting the Troops | Comments Off on Her son’s a Marine, but I think you’d not want to take this lady on….

The Value of the Military Skill Set – Part II

February 28th, 2005 by xformed

Part II – Auditing skills

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII download Faith of My Fathers : “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

In Part I, I discussed how an interview for a Navy A-6 pilot helped educate a civilian headhunter on how the military develops initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills. In this part, I discuss the development of auditing skills from the military experience.

I worked for a few months as an executive recruiter. While I was terribly ineffective then, and looked at it as a failed experiment, I essentially paid for an education. I learned several things while there.

I was tasked to find people for the computer center of a firm you may have heard of, Cantor-Fitzgerald. The reason I had sort of an in to work at this was because a few of my professional friends had been Naval Aviators and had had one of their friends hired there. It seemed he was doing so well, they wanted more people like him. This man got in the door because one of his old commanders was now on the board at Cantor-Fitzgerald. This old commander did what you would expect, when this other pilot was being downsized, his old boss went to bat for him and convinced this firm to hire him. The retiring pilot was a “recipient” of the “peace dividend” at the close of the Cold War. He had been an F-14 pilot by trade, with no college level training in either computers or business, but given that he was a bright individual, they took a chance on him.

He was put in charge of the computer center in the World Trade Center office The operation had to run 24/7/365, because they had offices in London and Hong Kong. With in a few days of arriving, he was tasked to audit the operating budget of his center. He announced he had found a few million dollars surplus in the books. The management was amazed, as this man didn’t have a certificate of degree that said he knew anything about this. How did he do this? Simple, the military gave him the skills.

As officers, and sometimes senior enlisted personnel, are called upon on a regular basis to validate the resources entrusted to the people in uniform, for good reason. It helps identify theft and inappropriate use, but also enables tracking of the proper resourcing of different things. The process is pretty direct: What has come in, what has gone out and what’s still present. It’s not rocket science. By taking a systems view, you can apply this technique to just about anything where you need to make sure things are being handled properly.

In my career, I counted postal money orders, stamps, gas masks, small arms, ammunition (small to very large), classified documents, communications codes, dollars in various accounts and probably a few other things I lost track of.

The assignment to the process to count what ever needs auditing was usually handed out by the Executive Officer, either via a formal assignment on the collateral duties list, or when you got grabbed to just get it done. I don’t recall any officers I served with being exempted. If you were the custodian of something, you didn’t get a hand in the accounting, other than make sure the auditors had the records and access to the things to be checked, but there was plenty of other stuff you didn’t own, so you would always get a turn eventually.

That’s a long discussion about how leadership positions in the service get their hands dirty with auditing, which is a baseline skill that becomes subconscious, and therefore not mentioned in resumes or interviews (“you mean everyone doesn’t do that?” sort of thought). This skill is certainly a “force multiplier” for the potential employer and will be, almost without exception, be a capability the interviewee has.

The side moral to the story: A large civilian firm took a chance and found out they got a lot more than they expected, and then asked for more help. As a side note about what happened to this downsized pilot, he was promoted in 5 weeks to managing director of the computer center. Not bad for a stick and rudder guy the taxpayer didn’t want anymore.

Category: Leadership, Military | Comments Off on The Value of the Military Skill Set – Part II

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