Lost posts on Small Wars Council o/a Jan 8, 2011

**slapout9** · 01-09-2011

Ken White's entire history of warfare appears to have gone missing also

**Surferbeetle** · 01-09-2011

Same with my eloquent case study post on schools, development, and the tie-in to the law of requisite variety that had Bill thinking hard about moving on over to the CA side of things

**Bill Moore** · 01-09-2011

Same with my eloquent case study post on schools, development, and the tie-in to the law of requisite variety that had Bill thinking hard about moving on over to the CA side of things

I requested that the post be deleted

Steve, you know I'm a fan of Civil Affairs that is based on reality and the people's needs. I'm just not a fan of the endless of Kodak moments that aren't tied to any meaningful end. You guys are still heroes in my book, even if we disagree on execution. I think I put that in my post yesterday.

**Surferbeetle** · 01-09-2011

... I was just joking around with you in the above post Bill,

I'll be glad to spring for beers/steaks sometime.

In the meantime consider that I do agree with your concerns on our execution issues. I often observe/consider/examine the organizational structure we field with respect to the skills and experience necessary to be successful in development/CA/diplomacy/security work.

Let's touch specifically upon education. In my experience education is a long term effort/pay-off (not short term) which requires a deliberate approach in order to be successful.

For example, we could think about if have we properly assessed the existing personalities and systemic capacities present in the area we are working in and the people we have/need working in it? Here are three things that I have been thinking about since we last spoke.

1. Does the Land (Germany)/State (US)/Provincial (ME)/Department (Latin America) Director General of Education have a demographic census, a current budget, plans for future budget requests, and functional staff?

2. Will he one day find a sticky bomb on his/families/friends/co-workers vehicles if he supports a new/refurbished school in a certain area/or fails to provide support for a new/refurbished school in that same area? What are the long-term security needs/issues which will shape his decisions?

3. Do we have the organizational capacity/patience/time to coach him on planning, budgeting, design, construction, operations & maintenance, training/retraining teachers, human resource issues for his staff, etc? What can we do about his long-term security needs?

**Stan** · 01-09-2011

Originally Posted by slapout9

Ken White's entire history of warfare appears to have gone missing also

Dang, and I really wanted to review his post on the 1840s

Originally Posted by Surferbeetle

Same with my eloquent case study post on schools, development, and the tie-in to the law of requisite variety that had Bill thinking hard about moving on over to the CA side of things

Jeez, and to think I had you pegged as a Ranger, Steve

**Ken White** · 01-09-2011

Originally Posted by Stan

Dang, and I really wanted to review his post on the 1840s

I was only up to the first of the 18th Century and was about ready to go into Jenkins's Ear...

Er, uh, figuratively, of course...

**Surferbeetle** · 01-09-2011

Originally Posted by Stan

Jeez, and to think I had you pegged as a Ranger, Steve

It's late on this side of the world, almost missed this one Stan.

Do they really build schoolhouses at ranger school?

Didn't do it when I had a chance, and I am too old now, but admire them all the same

They say there were a few floating around at some of the Embassy's in Africa?

**Stan** · 01-09-2011

Originally Posted by Surferbeetle

It's late on this side of the world, almost missed this one Stan.

Do they really build schoolhouses at ranger school?

Didn't do it when I had a chance, and I am too old now, but admire them all the same

They say there were a few floating around at some of the Embassy's in Africa?

Steve,
Stranger things have happened on this end of the world !
My last 5 bosses were Rangers and several actually did have something to do with building school houses both here and in Sub-Sahara. Not that it was their MOS or anything, but that was the job at hand and so we did it.

Those that "float" around embassies in Africa would be a different sort of Ranger team. If they're there, you have a lot more problems than school houses to build

**SWCAdmin** · 01-10-2011

Damn. My fun meter is pegged and I'm really disappointed -- it sounds like some of you did your best work EVER during that unfortunate window. The stuff I recovered is pretty good, but falls short of the atom splitting, cancer curing genius of some recollections.

Lazarus move complete for the posts listed below. Recovered with stealth and vigor. I was not able to explore and recover anything from the members' forums without an extended re-attack that just seems too hard at the moment, but believe I got all the others. And that's about all the water that is coming out of this rock.