The third generation of warfare has passed, ushering in the fourth generation of warfare. I don't expect that to make sense to a lot of people, but it does make sense to me. Warfare has changed again. We no longer rely on battles fought by large armies on battlefields, and large navies with aircraft carriers, etc. on the sea. Instead, this warfare is more insidious. Fighters are no longer associated with a country/nation state. These fighters are fighting for their own ideals independent of borders and international law requiring uniformed service members. These fighters wear our uniforms, or the clothes of a normal civilian and proceed to wreak havoc not only on our military, but also on our civilian population. Our people are the target, regardless of where they work or where--or even if--they serve. This war is the fourth generation of warfare, and it is guerilla warfare on crack and steroids. If we don't fight this war appropriately and with the same ardour as our enemies, we will lose. I don't think it will spell the end of the United States as a country, but it will destroy our international prestige and our will to fight wars. If we give these fighters an inch, they will take a mile, and it will be taken in the lives of our husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and brothers. We can't afford that to happen, and we need REAL leadership to make it happen. Not George W. Bush's leadership, nor even John Kerry's leadership. We need real leaders with real purpose, and they are going to have to be the ones driving a policy that supports what is needed to win this war. If it comes down to it, the entire resources of the state may have to be dedicated to it, almost an ultimate war that Clausewitz spoke of. Iraq isn't the root problem, neither is Afghanistan. Instead, the enemy is all around us. They live in our cities, work side by side with us, shop with us in our malls--and we never know they are there until it is too late. They collect intel and plan catastrophic events whose soul purpose is to kill Americans and destroy our will to fight. We can't let them do that. We have to stand up and throw the weight of the entire United States--the weight of the entire WORLD--into this effort. The terrorists have declared jihad...our only choice it to do likewise. And, in my opinion, the only truly effective way to stop the terrorist problem is extermination. We have to get into the refugee camps oversees and into the low income villages where up and coming terrorists are bred and we have to show them there is more to life than being a terrorist. We have to give them something to look forward to other than blowing themselves up in an effort to kill more people. At the same time, we have to find the people who are recruiting these misguided kids and exterminate them. It is, sadly, going to require eradicating a large number of people, but when survival of the nation and our way of life is at stake, I believe it comes down to an us or them mentality. In my mind, I would prefer we eradicate them. Enough on that, though.

Last night was a racing night. We had a perfect start for this race. We crossed the start line no more than 5 seconds after the blast was sounded. We could've done much, much better than we did, but we encountered a few difficulties and some communication problems amongst ourselves. Other than that, though, the French Hen sailed beautifully! It was an awesome race that ended after sunset and we ended up motoring in. I think there was 1 boat behind us, maybe two, though I wouldn't swear to that. There was at least one behind us. The sail last night was beautiful, even though it was just Greg, Lee and me. It was fun to handle the boat without a thousand people stirring around topside trying to figure out exactly what it is they were supposed to do, even though they really didn't have anything to do. It was also more peaceful and less stressful than trying to cater to all of the people who typically crew. To sum it up, it was a male bonding night. I'm inserting a link to a picture from last weeks race, which was very similar to this week, only we had more people onboard.

Once we pulled back in from sailing, Greg helped Ron with his transmission in his boat. Yes, he is on number 5 now, I believe. We didn't end up getting home until after 1 in the morning. That made for a short night of sleep and a very difficult time getting out of bed this morning. I ended up buying Popeye's chicken for us for dinner while Greg and Ron were working on the boat. It was most welcome because 10 pieces were scarfed down so fast it was as though the chicken had been tossed into a school of pirhana. I ended up helping out, too, unwittingly. Greg and Ron were having trouble getting the come-along to lower the engine so they could mate up the transmission, so I was watching and noticed how the lever on the handle worked and recommended that they lift that lever up and readjust the handle. It worked--and I ended up passing the 3% rule (eg you have to be 3% smarter than any piece of equipment you try to operate). With that being done, and chicken being out of the way, Scott from down the pier came by and talked for a while. We ended up discussing network security and the like for a while, and then he took me down to his boat and gave me a tour (he's selling his boat for $42K). He has a nice boat, though the galley is a bit cramped and I don't care for all of the wood he has inside. He has a very nice stateroom, though, and a nice quarterberth. The V-berth isn't really a place you could sleep someone--a child perhaps. But it was, all in all, a nice boat. He pointed out the modular construction and how everything popped apart with a screwdriver to allow easy access to items like the engine and the compressor for the freezer. I thought that was nice, especially if you do the work yourself.

This morning found me not really in the mood to do much of anything. Kelly has already called and asked me to come out to Dam Neck to help with the 5401 review. I declined--the document has gone through too many iterations and is still a piece of garbage. I don't know why we keep revising and rewriting it. NPDC needs to stop sending it out for chop and just make one and publish it. It is frustrating the way we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with items like this, and I don't really want to be there listening to everyone bicker and argue back and forth over a document that we are just going to keep getting copies of for review. I was told that it would give me good "face time" with the Captain and XO. Geez, if I had anymore face time than what I had before, I'd want to shoot myself. I don't particularly care for the new Captain and XO, but that is just my opinion. It seems as though they didn't like Captain MacCrea, and now their whole goal is to destroy everything that Captain MacCrea put into place. I understand that Captain MacCrea did things differently than most, but he DID get the job done. I was frustrated with him, too, for his micromanaging, but that's beside the point. I didn't like the micromanaging, but I thought he was doing a pretty good job with setting up the organization. Unfortunately, the new echelons don't feel the same. So, they are setting about tearing apart the organization and putting it back together in a different way. They've encountered many stumbling blocks along the way, the main one being that they've discovered that Captain MacCrea's ideas weren't flawed with his setup of the organization, yet we are pressing on with their version of it. I think it is just their way to curry favor with the Admiral because they are setting us up for more personnel cuts. We have enough trouble doing the job with as few people as we have, and now we are going to lose more! It's almost comedic the way it keeps unfolding. Soon, we'll have 5 people here to process all students and staff because we will have sold our souls to NPDC telling them we can do it. No one wants to fess up and face up to the truth, so those of us in the lower echelons end up working extra hard to try to bring the things they want about--and all that ends up happening is we get overworked, overtaxed, overburdened and burned out. I guess they want that, though, since the Navy is downsizing.

Well, I've been typing for a while, and got a lot off of my chest. I need to get some real work done now, perhaps I'll vent more today--chances are no, thouogh.