News from the Naval Neck of the Woods

Sequester, sequester, sequester.  We’ve heard a lot about this automatic cut in spending, and we’ve been assured it’s not going to kick in, because the Dems and the GOP are going to agree to something better, and the Super Committee is going to swoop in and save the day, dontcha know.

Like your friend’s annoying little sister, though, it keeps popping up no matter what they do to stave it off.

So, military muckety-mucks have to prepare for their share of cuts, which is, oh . . .  about half.  Here’s the latest:  US Navy:  Sequester Means Strike Groups Could Stay Home.

I happen to have a handy-dandy little military-to-civilian translator thingy here with me right now, also known as my husband.  He’s going to help me summarize and translate from Milspeak to English.

First, you might not know what a ‘strike group’ is.  I’m not sure how much of this stuff is common knowledge.  It is a group of five or six boats:  one carrier and the ships that support it.  Each boat has its own captain, but they all take orders from the strike group’s admiral, who in turn looks to ‘fleet command’ for his orders.

The important take-aways from the article:

1) Travel will be severely limited and non-essential conferences will be cancelled.  Generally, “travel” in the military means leaving your duty station on temporary orders for training purposes.  This expense could probably be cut quite a bit.  (There’s not much a sailor likes more than a boondoggle.)  Hopefully, mission-essential training and permanent changes of duty station (PCS) won’t be hampered.

2) Information technology support is being cut.  Will the budgets for hardware and software also be cut?  If yes, maybe it’ll work out.  Otherwise, yikes.  (In my experience the computer system is always a mess because they are always “upgrading” because if the command doesn’t spend it this year they won’t get it next year.)

3) Bases must plan to cancel repair and modernization of nearly all piers, runways and buildings through September.  One can only guess about the current condition of most piers, runways, and buildings.  They likely run the gamut.

4) Depot-level maintenance on about 250 aircraft scheduled between April and September could be cancelled.  Even my handy translator had to look this one up.  The gist:  if a squadron can’t do the repair itself, then it must be done by a military or commercial “depot,” but not so much if sequestration.  Maybe we’ll just get along okay with fewer planes, especially since #5:

5) Overhauls to about 30 of the fleet’s 187 surface ships will be cancelled.  Use of the phrase “surface ships” is interesting.  The Navy currently has a total of 288 deployable ships, so . . . the other 101 must be subs and tankers and stuff?  Thirty is a pretty big chunk of 187.

6) Nearly 10 percent of the government shipyard workforce — more than 3,000 employees — will be reduced.  Makes sense.  If you haven’t got money to repair your stuff anymore, there’s no point in keeping all those repairmen around.

I can’t help but wonder if there aren’t other, less essential areas ripe for streamlining though . . . like the Pentagon.  It has approximately 23,000 employees.  A 10% cut there would account for the bulk of layoffs needed.

Reckon it pays off when one’s job is to plan for the expenditure of federal resources.  It’s only natural to include oneself as a crucial component.

If Revenge is a Winning Campaign Platform

. . . then we are losing the culture war far worse than I realized.

I see a lot of “we’ll keep fighting” tweets on my Twitter feed.  Lovely sentiments from tireless patriots.

Many conservative civilians see the 2012 election as just another battle in the never-ending political war.  They are moving on, setting their sights on the bigger picture.  I am grateful for that tenacity, for their imperviousness to the affects of this defeat.

I don’t share the sentiment though.

I am Milspouse.  The president is my husband’s boss.

This election, and every election, effects us all, yes.  Very yes.  The military is exhibit numero uno, and I’m not even talking about the budgetary effects (hello sequestration).  I’m talking about the effect on morale.

The effect is huge–beyond description, which is saying a lot for a gal who loves describing things.  I’ve seen it firsthand, the way morale swings on a dime–well, really on a change-of-command ceremony.

This effect on morale translates into a very immediate change for the NoOne family.  Today, we go from “maybe you can stay in for the long haul and shoot for that extra promotion” to “maybe you can get to the bare minimum and punch out.”

Maybe Hubs can get to the bare minimum–if his conscience, political correctness, and budget cuts don’t interfere.

Maybe.

Even if he does, will the federal government be solvent enough to make good on the retirement benefits it promised?

I dunno.

In the meantime, all I can think about are the years when we didn’t establish roots.  We didn’t become part of a community.  We didn’t help a church grow.  We didn’t make improvements on real estate.  We didn’t learn how to grow a garden and preserve the fruits.  We didn’t protect our interests.  We put the nation’s interest before our own.

How much longer can we do that?  I sure can’t keep fighting for the big picture after Obama’s reelection.  The smaller picture–my family’s future–is weightier.  My posts will probably reflect this shift in priorities.

The establishment of roots.  Preservation and protection of assets.  Education of my children.  These are the priorities now.  The fair citizens of Idiocracy can water their crops with sports drinks, for all I care.

A hiatus is probably in order.

I’m not quitting.

Just refocusing.

Best wishes and prayers for all my readers.

The Need to Post and Politics

I need to post, but for several days I haven’t been in a posting place.  Tonight I shall post come hell or high water, not because I have something new or especially incredible to say, but because the posting itch is unbearable and I must scratch.

I left my first gas station note regarding the price of gas today.   It had $$ signs and a frowny face and a question about hope and change.  This question is worth asking, but some can’t stand the public scrutiny.  They can bury their heads in the sand, but the DNC’s message tonight seems beyond bizarre, something like:  “churches & charities are cool, but they don’t mean sh^t compared to government which can’t fix it but ain’t the problem and also I approve of gay marriage.”

Anybody else got whiplash from the all-over-the-place messaging?

UPDATE:  slightly edited version of original.

War Games

The kind of mindset I never want to see from anyone even remotely tied to our nation’s military:

“Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles.”

Yeah, it’s just a retired Colonel and some no-good civilian “Civil War expert,” but the article was published in what was termed a “respected” military journal.

Also, there was a stir twenty years ago about a military coup article, but at least it contained a disclaimer that the scenario was “purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction.”

No disclaimer this time.

People who like to play expert with respect to things about which they really have no expertise nor understanding whatsoever . . . well.  Hopefully their foolish words are meaningless.

I, for one, know no military members willing to engage in this type of operation.

A Warning (Now updated with more deliciousness!)

Let us serve, at least, as a warning to others.  This is what happens when you shop at IKEA the day before the movers arrive:

Yikes

Life is good, though.  We are trying Roku instead of cable.  So far so good.  Older son is sad to miss the new season of Gumball, but we really could not take any more of the Let’sMove.org or Big Time Rush ads.  Ugh.

Oh, and we got to a Brandon FL location of Chick-fil-A on Appreciation Day.  Hubs picked up our dinner about 8:30pm the night before the movers arrived, and he said the place was still slammed with customers.  Yay for a successful showing of support to an awesome business that gives you the best chicken sandwiches right along with the best customer service you can find in a fast food chain.

Seriously.  I’ve been to a lot of Chick-fil-As in my day, and the employees are always cheerful, polite, and hardworking.  Also, there is some kind of secret ingredient in the breading that no other restaurant has duplicated in my chicken-sandwich-eating experience, which is long and illustrious by the way.

Our last picnic before the furniture arrived.

UPDATE:  Edited to correct my spelling of Chik-fil-A, I mean Chick-fil-A.  I blame the cows for making me misspell the name.  Also, writing this post made me crave the deliciousness, so after picking up Trauma Dog from the kennel (I still need to write part 3 of her saga!), we went through the drive-thru.

What you have to understand is, I am a real Chick-fil-A junkie.  It was the restaurant I missed the most during our three years in the UK.  Barbeque pork can be adequately faked in a crockpot, and cheeseburgers can be made at home.

Chick-fil-A can’t be duplicated.

Once again the Lake Brandon Village location was hopping busy.  This is normal during lunch, but we noticed they have a new system.  In the past, we’ve seen Chick-fil-A station an employee outside whenever the drive-thru line gets long.  This person takes the order and submits it to the kitchen long before you get to the order station.  The speed at which they move you through the line is always surprising.

Today, they had three employees stationed outside.  They are serving so many cars, the usual speaker/window system simply can’t keep up.  The employees have electric fans, umbrellas, and sunglasses in order to cope with the Tampa sun cheerfully.  My husband commented to gal #3, “I bet you guys have been busy ever since Wednesday.”

She replied emphatically, oh yes we have.  She told us that yesterday (Friday, August 3rd), during the peak time of business, their location served 170 cars in one hour.

That’s 2.83 (repeating of course) cars with completed transactions and sackfuls of yum per minute.

Somehow, I don’t think the politicization of a successful private business is working out the way some folks thought it would.