Wizards of Oz

"Life is fraughtless ... when you're thoughtless."

2.2.08

5GW Attack on JFCOM?

Yesterday a good friend from Virginia sent me an article from "DataTech Government Newsletter" that harshly criticizes the "Training Transformation" program at U.S. Joint Forces Command (one of ten joint [all-service] Combatant Commands in the U.S. military). Besides harshly maligning the corporate culture at my former employer (claiming the parking lot isn't full until nearly 9:00am, and almost empty shortly after 4:00pm), it also accuses the Joint National Training Capability of failing to deliver a product despite a budget of over $170 million.

The curious thing about this article is that "DataTech Government Newsletter" returns zero hits on a Google search. And a search for "Bob Gerlach", the alleged "AFU Correspondent" who penned the article, yields a similar doughnut of results. Furthermore, there is no date in the excerpted pages as one would expect from a legitimate publication. And the reference to the current four-star USJFCOM commander (Gen. Jim Mattis, USMC) as "Lt Gen Mattis" (using the U.S. Air Force honorific for a three-star general, not the U.S. Marine Corps "LtGen") further erodes the credibility of the piece. Lastly, the subsequent article references a non-existent "North American Health Logistics Forum" (again, zero Google hits) and "Section 16 under USC Code [sic] 27", the portion of U.S. federal law that addressed Prohibition and has been repealed for more than seventy years. You can download the excerpted 1.4MB .PDF file here.

Could this be an elaborate hoax -- an attack designed to change the very context by which an entity is perceived -- to discredit U.S. Joint Forces Command's training activities? When I asked a former colleague I was told that not only are they aware of this piece, but that Major General Kamiya (the Joint Training Director) distributed it to all personnel. When faced with an anonymous foe who wants to distort perceptions, I think MG Kamiya's response was very appropriate.

[Crossposted at Dreaming 5GW]

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2 Comments:

At 8/2/08 15:22 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shane- I was looking for this piece and I can't believe what I found....your site. Is that my bike your riding?? Check this out: web.mac.com/lauders
Or do a google search on James Theresa and Scooter.

-James

 
At 9/2/08 08:38 , Blogger deichmans said...

James, That is indeed your Moab I'm riding -- the best mountain bike I've ever had! The hills of Tennessee are truly an ideal home for it. If you need a REAL mountain fix, c'mon out with Scooter and Theresa for a visit.

(BTW: I love the kite-surfing pix -- and the broken longboard is unreal!)

 

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