Stuff We Are Observing

There are three items a bit off the usual beat we want to highlight.

The Navy is a family, what happens to one of us matters to all of us, and in my life I've seen what the support system behind the Navy is, and how it has the ability to do great things. Many of you who live in the Virginia Beach area may have heard about this story. This is a Navy story. I have been told there is more information available on SailorBob, but BostonMaggie is doing her part to highlight this situation. If you have Paypal and wish to donate to the family, in particular help the family with the two young children, PayPal is set up and the email address is [email protected]. SWOSANITY you are in our prayers sir. This blog is called many things, and the red headed step child of Navy public relations is only one small portion of those things. These stories matter to us as well.

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These are the men and women of the Navy I know, or at least an excellent representation. It isn't arrogance that has these guys thinking they can achieve great things, it is confidence. The men and women of the armed forces do a lot more than a few talking points can summarize, they make a difference and impact the world around them.

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Full disclosure. We have not talked to David about this, intentionally. This is something we have been thinking a lot about, and we admit to being heavily influenced as fans of Michael Yon.

The lifeblood of this blog is the media, specifically Emelie Rutherford. Geoff Fein, Christopher Cavas, Joe Katzman, and a handful of other folks drive many of our conversations, but from our perspective what the Navy is doing outside Washington DC matters a lot more than what is happening in Washington DC.

The Navy is doing a lot of experimentation right now with peacetime strategy, recognizing the need for a proactive peacetime strategy but trying a lot of untested tactics in execution. The only media we have seen so far covering these new operations are local media of the target nation or armed forces media. The American media is absent... which is where David Axe enters stage left.

We are not quite sure we know all the places David is going, but we do know he is going on a few cruises starting in the near future that are specific to the execution of peacetime strategy for the Navy, and these cruises will be in multiple places. David is an independent journalist, he has written for a number of periodicals from Proceedings to World Politics Review to the Prospect Online to Washington Times to the Inter-Press service. He is well qualified to give independent evaluation of the Navy's approach to peacetime strategy. We intend to put our money where our mouth is and support David in his efforts to cover these less than flashy stories, because if he doesn't, who will? The Navy is spending a hell of a lot of money on deployments like the humanitarian missions in SOUTHCOM and Global Fleet Stations to Africa. Are these good investments? Without someone there to look into it, we have to trust what the Navy tells us, which is driven by their own metrics, not independent analysis.

Someone besides the Navy needs to get out there and find out if these investments are worth it, and few would be as qualified in our opinion as David. Because these subjects matter to us, we intend to support him in this effort. Read about Donations for David here, and since he is a blog reader, maybe he will put up something new that gives us more details so we can highlight that too (hint hint). As for us, we just ordered a comic book.

Disclaimer: We will never ask anyone to donate to anything we would not put our best foot forward for first.