FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. K.I.S.S. While still recovering from 2013 New Year’s Eve resolutions, contributor Erika Wonn reviewed sober advice on resume writing for cleared jobs. If you’re still sending out 2012’s resumes, re-read her recommendations. As with sun bathing, “What you leave off [can be] as important as what you leave on.”
2. Walk a mile for a Camel? Run 10 for a Soldier. Editor Lindy Kyzer offers a delicious opportunity to work off those Kaiser Roll calories and get free bibs to boot: “Run the Army Ten-Miler with ClearanceJobs.com.”
3. Hiring, firing, moving, expanding. Contributor Jillian Hamilton explains how to relax and be more productive this summer, while taking inventory of some attractive career opportunities: “Insourcing (Again), Defense Acquisition and Cybersecurity Expansion – Recruiting Round-Up and Defense Hiring News.”
4. Cybersecurity News. Contributor Michelle Kincaid brings order to summer’s cyberworld chaos.
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. TBI and PTSD: Army News Service’s David Vergun reports: The Army collaborates with NFL, Under Armour, and General Electric in study. Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno advises, “’PTSD is a combat injury. Veterans suffering from PTSD deserve the same dignity and respect as our fellow wounded warriors.’”
2. Don’t let the largest retrograde in military history fool you. “Kerry assures India and its neighbors that U.S. will not abandon Afghanistan,” reports Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung and Ernesto Londoño from New Delhi. Karzai’s probably not too happy to hear it: “U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry assured India and other concerned partners in this volatile region Monday that the United States plans to continue supporting Afghanistan’s military and to keep American forces in the country ‘under any circumstances’ after the scheduled 2014 combat troop withdrawal.”
3. Knock, knock, knocking on Karzai’s door. While diplomats scramble to stabilize Doha talks with the Taliban, Reuters reports on the Taliban’s diplomatic efforts in Kabul: “Taliban militants attacked key buildings near Afghanistan’s presidential palace and the U.S. CIA headquarters in Kabul, a brazen assault that could derail attempts for peace talks to end 12 years of war.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. CBAR – Contracting with DoD. Jim McElhatton of Federal Times reports, “Contractor Business Analysis Repository, or CBAR, which gives contracting officers unprecedented access to contractor financial information. . . . The CBAR, which is administered by the Defense Contract Management Agency, began early last year, providing nearly 2,000 users with information such as contractor pricing rates and compliance with cost accounting standards. Starting June 24, for all negotiated pricing actions of more than $25 million, contracting officers also will upload data on pre-negotiation objectives and contract negotiations into the CBAR . . . .”
2. MSPB Feels Your Furlough Pain. Not really. Stripes.Com’s Chris Carroll reports, “Nearly 200 Defense Department civilian employees have so far filed appeals against paycheck-slashing furloughs that loom next month, but the federal agency that will decide the matter says they’re jumping the gun. . . .” Empathetically (sarcasm), U.S. Merit System Protection Board Executive Director Eric Eisenmann offers that “his 203-person agency, which normally takes 90 to 100 days to make a ruling, can only wait and see whether a deluge of DOD civilian appeals clogs up the process once July 8 rolls around. Luckily, he said, the agency’s employees themselves recently learned they would not be furloughed.” Yeah. Luckily.
3. Go East, Young Man. Andrea Shalal-Esa of Reuters reports on Lockheed Martin’s vision: “Lockheed Martin, already the biggest U.S. weapons maker and largest provider of IT services to the U.S. government, wants to become a powerhouse in foreign markets such as the Middle East and India, a top executive said. . . . ‘We’re moving much more aggressively in the international domain,’ [top Lockheed exec] Dewar said at the Paris Airshow, without giving a new target. ‘We’re going global in a much bigger way.’ Lockheed and other big U.S. arms manufacturers are looking to exports and foreign markets to provide continued growth as U.S. military spending slows amid mounting fiscal pressures, and the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” In other words, the market follows the insecurity.
4. Strange bedfellows. The TTP is in our corner. Things must be going well: “Spokesperson for the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ehsanullah Ehsan, in a video interview, said that the banned organisation had vowed allegiance to Mullah Omar and that any decision taken by the Afghan Taliban chief would be accepted.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Dazed and Confused. DefenseNews.Com shares Julian Assange’s reassuring words: “Snowden [is] ‘in a Safe Place, His Spirits Are High.’” If he’s in Ecuador, more than just his spirits are high. Reuter’s Mark Hosenball adds, “The agencies fear that Snowden may have taken many more documents than officials initially estimated and that his alliance with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange increases the likelihood that they will be made public without considering the security implications.”
2. Army Chief of Staff opens Cyberschool. Army Times’ Joe Gould reports that the “Cyber Center of Excellence will incorporate the Signals Center of Excellence and unify training and modernization efforts for cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, cyber electromagnetic activity and cyber-related signals intelligence.” See also Gould’s article from April, “Be an Army Hacker”: “One projection has 3,000 uniform and civilian positions dedicated to Army cyber over the next four to five years, according to an Army official close to the effort. Precise numbers are unavailable, in part because the size of some of the organizations is classified.”
3. Modest and Cautious. Not how one normally describes the US Navy. Graham Warwick of AviationWeek.Com explains, “After the debacle of the General Dynamics/McDonnell Douglas A-12, and the delays to the Lockheed Martin F-35C, the Navy wants a program success. To that end, the service has structured its first operational carrier-based unmanned aircraft program to provide a modest capability at minimum risk.” One ping only, please.
4. Big gambles on little vessels. AviationWeek.Com’s Michael Fabey begs to differ with colleague Graham Warwick: “The U.S. military’s so-called Pacific pivot has the Navy taking a big gamble on a little vessel – the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The Navy is betting the frigate-sized ship will provide just the right kind of presence without being overpowering as the U.S. struggles to boost its presence in the region without flexing too much muscle and infringing on the sovereignty of the Asian partners it wants to woo.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. The old soft shoe. Reuter’s Paul Eckert and Patricia Zengerle explain that while “U.S. officials and lawmakers have made it clear they’re furious at the governments that have played a role in enabling fugitive security contractor Edward Snowden’s globe-trotting . . . . Washington must be careful not to damage international relationships that are critical to other percolating issues, despite its frustration over Snowden.” Like we’d extradite a captured Russian spy to Moscow.
2. Kerry does Aretha. CBS News’ Margaret Brennan reports from New Delhi, “Kerry warns Russia on Snowden: ‘Respect the relationship’”: “The global manhunt for Edward Snowden has turned into a diplomatic standoff between the U.S. and Russia, with the Departments of Justice and State — along with the FBI and White House — all pushing the Russian government to hand over the NSA leaker.” R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
3. Off Putin Behavior. Agence France-Presse reports, “Just two weeks after Obama cozied up with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a summit in California, White House spokesman Jay Carney lashed out at Beijing for letting Snowden go despite US extradition requests.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. Ron Paul – a ray of sunshine. But is he right? ABC News Radio give Paul platform: “’Guess what, after 12 years, trillions of dollars, more than 2,200 Americans killed, and perhaps more than 50,000 dead Afghan civilians and fighters, the Taliban is coming back anyway!’” Linda Heard gives some weight to Paul’s argument: “Afghanistan was a fool’s war”: “The terrible price in blood and treasure paid by all concerned could have been brought to a minimum had the Bush administration listened to President Hamid Karzai in December 2001 when he announced that amnesty had been extended to ‘common Taliban’, including their leader Mullah Omar, provided he renounced terrorism. The Bush administration was incensed, threatening to deprive the country of donor funding. Karzai had little choice, but to do U-turn on a wise decision that would have tempered hostilities by permitting moderate Taliban to be reintegrated into Afghan society.”
2. Vet Admin’s own disabilities. Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Gade diagnosis VA’s ailment: “the biggest issue by far is how the current system defines ‘disability.’ The average American may picture a disabled veteran as a wartime amputee, burn patient or wheelchair user. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. The number of major amputations from Iraq and Afghanistan combined is less than 2,000, and the number of serious burns is around 2,500. The reality is that the majority of veterans’ disability claims are for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or minor physical conditions, including common age-related ailments such as hearing loss, lower-back pain and arthritis. Furthermore, 62% of the claims in the backlog of unprocessed claims are not first-time claimants, but are from veterans reapplying for increased benefits.”
3. Confederacy of Dunces. St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Ed. Board: “Last week the theater of the absurd opened a production in Doha, Qatar, where with the sort of cheesy pomp normally associated with Donald Trump, representatives of the Taliban raised a flag and snipped a ribbon to mark the opening of what they regarded as an embassy and announced they were ready to talk about making peace in Afghanistan. You would think this would have been a major milestone. It might have been, but for Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, who immediately pitched a fit and said he was having no part of it. . . . we’re again trying to salvage something from a long and bungled war. The Afghan people might be better off under the Karzai kleptocracy than they were under the Taliban’s 7th-century theocracy, but the Taliban aren’t convinced.”
THE FUNNIES
1. One ringy dingy.
2. Sweet Surrender.
3. Radical humor.
