FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. The cover letter. Contributor Diana Rodriguez with ten tips for success: “The cover letter is your personal ‘pitch’ to the hiring manager or recruiter. It is your introduction, and first impression. That is why it must be well thought out and carefully written. Below is an example of a well-written cover letter, and some tips to help prepare a cover letter that will get noticed, and hopefully yield an interview.”
2. Jobs—Pensacola, Florida. Contributor David Brown explains, “Among those hiring in the city are CSC and Exelis. Jobs available include cyber operations instructors and security specialists. Northrup Grumman, which has outposts in every spy city, it seems, is hiring for such positions as cyber information assurance analyst and both Linux and Windows cyber systems administrators. The company is also collecting resumes for cyber systems engineer positions, which suggests that demand is only going to grow.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Terrorist training ground—Syria. TheDailyBeast.Com’s Bruce Riedel reports, “The flow of foreign fighters to Syria to join the war against Bashar Assad’s dictatorship is becoming the largest in the history of the global jihad, and the Syrian battleground is on the way to outstripping the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets as a training ground for Islamic militants. Security services around the world are becoming increasingly alarmed at the implications for the safety of their citizens.” See also, “Americans joining Syrian war.”
2. A soldier’s story—Dakota Meyer. TheDailyBeast.Com’s Brian Van Reet’s amazing interview with Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer: “During his second deployment, to Kunar Province, Afghanistan, a 2009 ambush near the village of Ganjgal left three Marines and a Navy corpsman missing. Upon learning of the ambush, Meyer, along with other U.S. servicemen and Afghan soldiers, ventured into enemy fire to search for their missing comrades. Meyer’s actions that day helped lead to the recovery of their bodies and saved the lives of a number of wounded troops.” See also the story of MoH recipient Kyle White: “It’s just a matter of time before I’m dead. I figured, if that’s going to happen, I might as well help someone while I can.”
3. Ukraine—violence spreads. AP’s Yuras Karmanau and Radul Radovanovic report, “Ukraine sent an elite national guard unit to its southern port of Odessa, desperate to halt a spread of the fighting between government troops and a pro-Russia militia in the east that killed combatants on both sides Monday. The government in Kiev intensified its attempts to bring both regions back under its control, but seemed particularly alarmed by the bloodshed in Odessa. It had been largely peaceful until Friday, when clashes killed 46 people, many of them in a government building that was set on fire.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Army’s new helos. DefenseNews.Com’s Paul McLeary reports, “In July, the US Army will make its first big decision on how to proceed with the ambitious, decades-long developmental project to replace up to 4,000 Apache and Black Hawk helicopters by the mid-2030s. Four contractors are working on demonstrator and technology projects under the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) program, which will eventually develop the baseline requirements for the $100 billion Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort. The teams will submit their work to the Army in June for evaluation, after which the number of competitors will likely be whittled to two that will build actual demonstrator aircraft that will fly from 2017 to 2019.”
2. Warthogs—hanging on by a thread. DefenseOne.Com’s Ben Watson reports, “Eight leading senators appealed to the Senate Appropriations Committee to save the Air Force’s controversial A-10 aircraft fleet from the Pentagon budget’s chopping block as lawmakers inch closer to a final draft of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2015. The proposal to retire the fleet of 353 A-10s, Air Force officials have said repeatedly in both interviews and recent testimony on Capitol Hill, will save the service more than $3.7 billion of the $12 billion mandated by sequestration.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Cool, soft wheels. Wired.Com’s Joseph Flaherty explains, “SoftWheel . . . uses three compression cylinders to absorb shocks within the wheel before they’re transferred to rider. The goal is to make the wheel’s hub essentially float in mid-air while suspending the chair’s mass. Practically this means riders can traverse stairs and curbs nearly as easily as gliding down a ramp by allowing the wheels to bear the brunt of the forces. ‘Once you’ve eliminated sagging and bobbing you can work miracles’ . . . .”
2. Identity ecosystem. VentureBeat.Com’s Barry Levine reports, “It’s part of an initiative called the National Strategy of Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which is intended in part to make the delivery of state assistance programs more efficient. Many states employ different identity verification programs for each department. . . . This could, in essence, be a federated system — appropriate for a country that prides itself on individual states subscribing to a federal system.”
3. Managing cybersecurity. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’s Molly Bernhart Walker reports, “Public policy can help address U.S. cybersecurity, but it should not be viewed as an issue that can be solved through legislation or regulation. Rather, public policy can help improve cybersecurity management, says a new report from the National Research Council. . . . The report portrays cybersecurity as a never-ending battle against changing adversaries with evolving techniques. Policies can improve the security posture of individuals and private- and public-sector entities, which will reduce the loss and damage done by cyber intrusions and exploits. Authors also say cybersecurity can be improved by more effectively using cybersecurity information and developing greater expertise in protection and resilience.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Conspiracy theory: “White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed a GOP special committee tasked with investigating the Benghazi terrorist attack as illegitimate and accused conservatives of stoking ‘conspiracy theories’ about the Obama administration’s reaction to the Sept. 11, 2012, strike. ‘There is a problem when you have so many conspiracy theories that get knocked down by the facts and yet, the adherents to those theories only become more convinced that the facts aren’t what they so clearly are,’ Carney said, calling the special committee ‘so partisan in nature.’ Carney went on to criticize the ‘information loop’ on Benghazi, saying that Republicans and ‘certain media outlets’ were fueling a false narrative on the attack that killed four Americans.”
2. Benghazi lineup: “House Speaker John Boehner’s office is working with the Rules Committee to craft the resolution that would determine the contours and function of the select committee to investigate the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The resolution could receive a Rules Committee hearing on Wednesday and hit the House floor for consideration Thursday or Friday, Republican sources confirmed Monday after Boehner, R-Ohio, announced that he was appointing Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the select committee. Boehner, who holds the power to appoint all members of the select committee, plans to name some Democrats to the panel unless they choose to boycott.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “US and Syria: The third way.” Aljazeera.Com’s Marwan Bishara argues, “Only as US-Russian tensions deepen over Ukraine, are the pundits suggesting that Washington escalate the war against Assad as a way to hit back at Putin in Syria. Rarely has global power politics been so cynical.”
2. “Is Putin going all the way in Ukraine?” Also from Aljazeera.Com, contributor Peter Zalmayev argues, “If the government is able to prevent a major conflagration and if in the days that follow Kremlin henchmen and sympathisers in Donetsk, Luhansk or Odessa are contained as a result of Kiev’s stepped-up anti-terrorist action, Putin may feel it a matter of his own survival to intervene.”
3. “Theodore Roosevelt on net neutrality.” Reuters contributor Michael Wolraich argues, “The Internet has sparked one of the most dynamic bursts of entrepreneurship since the invention of the railroad. We must not take it for granted. Though multibillion-dollar buyouts in Silicon Valley may beguile the public, technology and media industries are rapidly consolidating. If we sacrifice the principle of net neutrality, the process will accelerate. Once the financial incentives driving consolidation become entrenched, it will be much harder to repair the damage.”
THE FUNNIES
1. U-crane.
2. Isolationism.
