What does ISIS/ISIL and World War Z have in common?

 So in Max Brooks’ book World War Z, which bears nothing in common with movie beyond the title and zombies in general, he posits an enemy that does not behave by any of the accepted rules.  In most modern warfare, there is a premise that after a certain amount of attrition, the enemy ceases to be a threat.  We can degrade an enemies, Command and Control or Logistics support and they will stop being belligerent.  Maybe more importantly, the enemy can be scared into giving up. In World War Z, the enemy doesn’t behave like this.  The zombies have no Command and Control.  They have no logistics lines.  They are each individual fighting forces that need to be killed in order for them to stop being a threat.  The US Military takes a while to figure this out and suffers some horrific loses along the way.  I wonder if ISIS/ISIL is not similar to the Zombie threat from World War Z.  They claim to be a nation state, a caliphate, but they are not in the traditional sense.  The US is attacking them like a nation state, but they are not retreating.  They are not collapsing.  It is as if they don’t realize they are out gunned.  Maybe it is that they don’t care.  Each individual ISIS/ISIL member doesn’t need direct Command and Control to know what to do.  They don’t need Logistic lines to do what they need to do.  They are not scared of the US and its allies.  DO we need to treat ISIS/ISIL like the zombies in World War Z?  Do we need to kill them to the last man?  Many may argue the answer is “Yes”, but I would contend that is not the US’ way.  The stated goal is to defeat them, not to wipe them from the face of the earth.  So if they do not react the anticipated way a Nation State should react to the threat the US and its allies pose, how do we defeat them?  Is ISIS/ISIL is really nothing more than an overgrow terrorist network and threat, then they need to be dealt with accordingly.  Now the $1,000,000 question is what is that?  As it can be argued we have failed to effectively deal with a large terrorist threat for the last 13 years.  I think that I can confidently say a few things.  First, until the local population wants them out, there is little that the US can do.  Sure we need to ensure that those opposed to ISIS/ISIL have the means to resist.  Having been in that part of the world more than once, getting the arms needed to defeat ISIS/ISIL are readily available to the local population.  If the US introduces more arms into the region, much of them will end up in ISIS/ISIL’s hands as they already have.  Second, fighting a conventional war with a proxy force will not work.  It didn’t work in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, or Iraq.  There is no reason to believe that enough has changed for it to work now.  Third, the more legitimacy that we give ISIS/ISIL by calling them a Nation State or a direct, credible threat to the US, the more strength we give them.  Marginalizing them on the world stage is the only way to weaken them in the eyes of their supporters.  Remember in World War Z, the zombies were once part of our supportive, loyal population, but a virus infected them and they turned on us.  Why is the ISIS/ISISL situation different?

There but for the grace of God, go I

  On Christmas Eve, I helped serve dinner and hand out items at a local soup kitchen.  n the course of the evening between 50 and 75 people - old & young; single, couples and families; drunk and sober; clean and dirty; civilians and veterans - came in for dinner and some free items. These items consisted of socks, gloves, underwear, hats, sweatshirts, bibles, playing cards, and candy.

  I got to talk with some of them.  Some wanted contact and conversation others shied away from any direct human contact.  One gentleman told me that he had never sunk this low in his 65 years on earth, but he knew that God took care of Old People.  A young couple did not seem to be down about their plight, but took it in stride and thanked us profusely for helping them.  Many of them were drunk or smelled of alcohol.  Most of these seemed to be just getting by.  They were only thinking about what comes next - where is the restroom, where is the dinner line, where do I get clean socks, is the shelter going to be open tonight.

  For a Florida evening, it was cold.  It was forecast to be below 40 degrees and had already started to get cold when dinner was served.  Despite this, few of the patrons wanted to stay inside and hang out.  They seemed to either 1) have some place else they needed to gt to or 2) didn't want to overstay their welcome.  This second feeling may have come from previous experiences at the facilities. 

  The staff knew most of the "hard cases" by name and recognized pretty much everyone.  After we were done, they shared that one of the gentlemen there that evening had been a Physician in the local town.  Somehow he had gotten hooked on drugs and eventually lost everything - his practice, his family, and his home.  He went over the cliff and could never get another hold on that very slippery slope.

  Many of us have faced situations where drugs, alcohol, ill-gotten money, extra-marital affairs, name your temptation were readily available to us.  If we had partaken of them, then we too could have gone down that slippery slope to some dark, sad bottom like this individual.  Faith is an everyday thing.  Not just faith in God, but faith in our loved ones and faith in ourselves that we can do the right thing and persevere.

  I was recently asked about my Bucket List.  I really don't have a Bucket List.  To me, a Bucket List implies that if for some reason I do not accomplish these items, then my life would somehow be incomplete.
  If we use this definition, then I have already fulfilled my Bucket List.  i have found the love of my life and am spending my life with her. I have two beautiful children that make me proud each and every day.  I have given of myself in service to my country and community.  These are the things that I would include in my Bucket List.
  Do not take this as I am contented with a static life.  I have much that I would like to do, people that I would like to meet, and places that i would like to go, but they are not on my Bucket List, they are part of me living my life simple as that.

  My thoughts have turned to elections.  We have been tasked with giving the USAF some ideas of what can be deleted in order to save money and my thoughts have turned to election (not that it falls within the USAF's realm, but I was thinking).

  First, we should eliminate the Electoral College.  We already have to count the votes in each state/district, why not stop there.  Why spend the money to actually send people to Washington, DC to cast the Electoral College votes?  When it took weeks for the wagons to collect ballots and days to count them, the Electoral college might have made sense.  Now it is a way to disenfranchise voters who are of a minority opinion in the area that they live and help the Two big parties concentrate the money spending in a few "key states".  Doing away with the Electoral College would save money, truly make the "one person, one vote" really count, and force the parties to address the entire population equally.

  Second, why do Tax Payers pay for Primary elections for the Democrats and Republicans?  There are many Parties who choose their candidates with spending millions in Tax Payers money. The Primary Election just serve to force the smaller parties into further obscurity with tax supported advertisement.  If a party needs to pick who should run between more than one candidate, let them foot the bill.  They can draw straws, Indian Leg Wrestle or vote, but they should do it without Tax payer's dollars.

Mt Seorak

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to Mt Seroak in Northeast Korea. It was beautiful. Mt Seorak is one of the most popular national Parks here in Korea. it is only about 4 hours from Seoul and many people travel there. We were there for two days and stayed at a Korean Hotel right int he park.

It was gorgeous. The mountains were great and the tree colors were very, very nice. We took a few hikes to some waterfalls. They had a cable car up to the top of one Mountain which was interesting.

There were many Koreans there. The Koreans come in two kinds. Kind 1: The serious hiker. These are mostly men that have large packs that are moving very fast either up or down the mountain. Kind 2: The clueless Korean hiker. These are Koreans in flip-flops or high-heel boots that should not be hiking at all.

Here are some pictures also.

New Interpreters

I experienced one of the most fascinating things a few weeks ago.

Half of my office are Korean Air Force. Every six months they choose people to be interpreters for us and the upper leadership here in Korea. As every male must do some form of national service (military, police, hospital, etc.) these are relatively prestigious positions. They are working directly with US and ROK General Officers and high level diplomats. I was asked to help screen the potential candidates from an English language perspective. We interviewed about 50 candidates. Some of them were very young 20-21 years old and other were older 32-3 years old. many of them had been educated in the US, England or Australia and spoke very good English. Others had learned it here in Korea, but were still better at English than I am at Korean.

It was very impressive how some of them could go back and forth between English and Korean very easily (a necessary skill for being a translator). I was told by my Korean counterpart that although some of them spoke very good English their Korean was not so good as they had spent much of their life overseas. Speaking excellence Korean is just as important as excellent English.

I was mentally drained after the day. Trying to listen to each one and give them a fair assessment was hard, but very interesting and rewarding. I look forward to doing it again in 6 months.

Getting to Korea

Here is the quick version - VERY long.

We got a direct flight from Dulles to Inchon Airport. The flight was just about 15 hours. That is an awfully long time to be stuck in an aluminum tube. It is hard to say to your kids "We've been here for 7 hours and we are almost half way." We flew KAL and they did a great job with service, etc. We had individual entertainment systems for every seat so we could watch movies, play video games etc. at our leisure. Th dogs flew in the same plan with us, but down below. They don't let you take 70 pound dogs into the cabin with you.
Once we got to Inchon everyone was very helpful to the point of pushing our luggage and dogs around so that we could go through immigration, animal import and customs. They has free luggage carts and did not expect any kind of tip. What a change from the states.
The we started to drive and ran into the Seoul traffic that we had heard about. It was bad. it took us about 3 hours to get to the base. It made for a very long day, but all in all it went as smoothly as it could have.