Greetings folks. Two days in and it's comfortable being back on the job here in Tampastan. My office, lodging location, and coworkers are about 95% unchanged from 2007. I have to knock out some required inprocessing classes Mon-Wed and then it's really back to work. Florida has really been dry. If you haven't seen the news, it's been over 30 days since some areas have seen any precip. The authorities arrested a suspect in the case of those terrible fires ravaging the Space Coast. Tampa is also very dry, with the locals doing rain dances to stretch our 30% chance of rain into greater odds. Speaking of odd and dancing, perhaps we could snag John Travolta to do the rain dancing. He'll be across the bay in St. Petersburg visiting Scientology world headquarters sometime soon. What would Olivia think?
For anyone interested in what's going on in my Centcom worldview, here are some solid links of authors and news stories that cover this often tense part of the world.
Start with Centcom (U.S. Central Command's) website. It's greatly improved over 2007. Take some time to look through the tabs about the mission, the humanitarian work, and the geography.
There are a few articles about the temporary commander, Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey and his recent trip to the region. I've been fortunate to sit in on some of his staff update meetings. Like many general officers, he's got a 200 terabyte mind and a good relationship with his people.
Gen. Dempsey is in command until Gen. David Petraeus takes over late this summer or early fall.
AFRICOM, or Africa Command, is the U.S. Government's new plan to merge military and diplomatic resources by fall 2008 to quietly help African nations train their people to resist Islamic militant terrorism spreading into Africa. Here is AFRICOM's official site. Here is a short article by reporter Robert Kaplan of The Atlantic magazine that overviews the new organization. There's a lot of work to do, but it's going to happen.
Well, I have to get back to work on a short paper for my course through American Military University. Take care! HF1
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