Monday, March 12, 2012
In Iraq they say it's safe Inside the Wire: That's a lie.
In Iraq they say it's safe Inside the Wire: That's a lie. (Paperback) This is one soldier's true account of how a Military Police Unit deployed to Iraq dealt with the issue of nine female soldier's ending up pregnant. The females were sent home, the first sergeant was court marshaled and the commander was all the while naive to the condition of his company. The issue of pregnancy is one side of the story, but there is also the misuse and the abuse of positions of authority from the TOP down to the line platoons. The women were sent home, but what happened to the men who got them pregnant? nothing. There are many questions that this story brings to mind: How does a unit of highly trained soldier's fall apart right under the eyes and ears of leadership and no one know it's going on? What could have been done differently within this company to prevent the level of fraternization that was occurring? Who will it be the next time?
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Traumatic Servicemembers Group Life Insurance Policy
Here is the issue:
Like it or not I was injured in Iraq, in the back of an MRAP, on a return mission for the commander with his Personal Security Detachment. Ok so what you ask? Well, the Army has an insurance for traumatic events in place that will assist the soldier if they sustain one of a few qualifying injuries or loss of daily activities of living.
Now here's the rub:
“Traumatic” is defined by the policy guidelines as “any injury caused by an external force”. Some examples of this would be an IED explosion, a car accident, or even falling and hitting a knee on the ground."
Traumatic is defined by the National Library of Medicine as
Like it or not I was injured in Iraq, in the back of an MRAP, on a return mission for the commander with his Personal Security Detachment. Ok so what you ask? Well, the Army has an insurance for traumatic events in place that will assist the soldier if they sustain one of a few qualifying injuries or loss of daily activities of living.
Now here's the rub:
“Traumatic” is defined by the policy guidelines as “any injury caused by an external force”. Some examples of this would be an IED explosion, a car accident, or even falling and hitting a knee on the ground."
Traumatic is defined by the National Library of Medicine as
"A traumatic event is an experience that causes physical, emotional, psychological distress, or harm. It is an event that is perceived and experienced as a threat to one's safety or to the stability of one's world."
The next little phrase that wounded soldiers have to verify are: EXTERNAL Forces.
Introductory physics defines external forces as:
The next little phrase that wounded soldiers have to verify are: EXTERNAL Forces.
Introductory physics defines external forces as:
the applied force, normal force, tension force, friction force, and air resistance force.
So here we go:
How do you prove external force???
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I appreciate my readers
It is always easier to criticize than it is to praise. I recognize this in myself and I personally put myself in check each time I start to say something negative. At the very least I try to reword it and say what needs to be said in a non threatening way. Of course, there are times when you don't have the luxury to worry about how it is said - it just has to be said.
This is true for me in my writtings as well. I free write then I rest, pause and reflect. If my writing doesn't sound as if I am talking about an issue as I would in a normal conversation then I redo it. I am not concerned with the politically correct way to say it I just say it.
In my book, "In Iraq they say it's safe inside the wire" I wrote to my reader. I have header a lot of various comments, but the one I like the best was, " It sounds like you are just sitting here talking to me." That was the goal of the tone of my book.
Thanks to all of you who have read my book!
This is true for me in my writtings as well. I free write then I rest, pause and reflect. If my writing doesn't sound as if I am talking about an issue as I would in a normal conversation then I redo it. I am not concerned with the politically correct way to say it I just say it.
In my book, "In Iraq they say it's safe inside the wire" I wrote to my reader. I have header a lot of various comments, but the one I like the best was, " It sounds like you are just sitting here talking to me." That was the goal of the tone of my book.
Thanks to all of you who have read my book!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
There is still the issue of FOCUSWAGON - a username of an African american male...
Now this next piece is very interesting. In an anonymous posting," focuswagon"( an African American Male 37 years old you know who you are) presents a very illiterate, uneducated, disorganized rant that Amazon deleted it from thier reviews!
So if you are going to write a review, it's probably best to have your wife (or is it mistress?) review it for you.
With that type of writing it is easy to see how the leadership was. Poor. Ill executed. Ignorant. But hey, thanks for trying!
So if you are going to write a review, it's probably best to have your wife (or is it mistress?) review it for you.
With that type of writing it is easy to see how the leadership was. Poor. Ill executed. Ignorant. But hey, thanks for trying!
Christopher Dejesus commented on my book!
I appreciate all the commentary I can get for my book. Good or bad as long as it's honest! So Christopher, using the username of "Me Kego 520" writes:
By reading the publisher's review, you can get an accurate description of what the book is about. However, and I'm sorry to be a bit against you SFC Minks, but I feel like many things were a bit exaggerated. Now, this isn't to say that what she talks about didn't happen. Was there fraternization? Yes. Were there efforts to cover it up? Yes. Were orders from higher ranking Soldiers undermined by even higher ranking individuals? Yes. Its true. But what Sara Minks fails to talk about is the individuals in the unit who did speak up, females and males alike. I know of some of my sergeants who spoke to the commander to advise him of the issues and were shunned. The commander made many mistakes, and he knew it. Our commander was a good guy, but not the best commander. Our first sergeant was a bad guy, and a bad leader. That's that. Unfortunately, Sara Minks makes almost the entire unit look like scumbags. As a Soldier in this National Guard unit for over 10 years, and as a lower level leader myself, I have seen this unit live its ups and downs.
I say good job to Sara Minks for speaking up about her experiences, but next time give credit to the good Soldiers in the unit. And the good Soldiers make up the majority.
To This I say:
That's a good point. I do appreciate the review, and just to help clarify. This book is about one experience and one experience only. Yes there were good soldiers - good people in or out of uniform. The entire point of this book is to talk about my experience. You know the old adage - there is always more than one side to a story. I have knowledge of only what I experienced. I can not write about the events that occurred that I was not a part of.
I am writing another book - this one chronicles another experience which sheds light on the good soldiers that are in the National Guard. I am not sure if you have ever used facebook, but there is a former member of the same unit who has shared her first hand knowledge of the 1SG's inner circle. It is worth reading. However I must warn you it goes back quite a ways in her postings. I found it best to scroll through about 12 pages of postings and read it forward.
Clearly this woman was affected by the experience in a very hurtful way. She will never be the same, young woman. Her experience has made her wiser, this is a good thing. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=553408729)
Each person's experience is unique. I personally can only write from my perspective, which is what I did. My intent was to address a problem that has long been ignored. My experience speaks only for me. I acknowledge there were several stellar men and women. What they did or did not do in terms of putting a stop to the event in my book, I will never know. But if it is true that other soldiers' had made the commander aware of the existing situation, and he did nothing, then he lied under oath through his claim that he never knew about the fraternization, pregnancies or affairs. This is the breakdown that I'm talking about. Where does the responsibility lie? Whose job is it to go beyond the chain of command to put a stop to the degradation of human beings? Do we just address it, then ignore it? If a report is made and no action is taken the next step is to get someone involved from outside the chain of command to investigate the claims.
Let me get off my soapbox, thanks for posting.
Lived the life of the book, April 12, 2011
By
Me "kego520" (At home, in California) -
This review is from: In Iraq they say it's safe Inside the Wire: That's a lie. (Paperback)
So, yeah. I pretty much lived the story in this book. I knew Sara Minks, and while I wasn't a huge fan of her, I don't necessarily dislike her. We had no issues whenever we had to deal with each other and so everything in this book is about Soldiers other than myself. That's probably why I'm not a character in the book. And that's a good thing. By reading the publisher's review, you can get an accurate description of what the book is about. However, and I'm sorry to be a bit against you SFC Minks, but I feel like many things were a bit exaggerated. Now, this isn't to say that what she talks about didn't happen. Was there fraternization? Yes. Were there efforts to cover it up? Yes. Were orders from higher ranking Soldiers undermined by even higher ranking individuals? Yes. Its true. But what Sara Minks fails to talk about is the individuals in the unit who did speak up, females and males alike. I know of some of my sergeants who spoke to the commander to advise him of the issues and were shunned. The commander made many mistakes, and he knew it. Our commander was a good guy, but not the best commander. Our first sergeant was a bad guy, and a bad leader. That's that. Unfortunately, Sara Minks makes almost the entire unit look like scumbags. As a Soldier in this National Guard unit for over 10 years, and as a lower level leader myself, I have seen this unit live its ups and downs.
I say good job to Sara Minks for speaking up about her experiences, but next time give credit to the good Soldiers in the unit. And the good Soldiers make up the majority.
To This I say:
That's a good point. I do appreciate the review, and just to help clarify. This book is about one experience and one experience only. Yes there were good soldiers - good people in or out of uniform. The entire point of this book is to talk about my experience. You know the old adage - there is always more than one side to a story. I have knowledge of only what I experienced. I can not write about the events that occurred that I was not a part of.
I am writing another book - this one chronicles another experience which sheds light on the good soldiers that are in the National Guard. I am not sure if you have ever used facebook, but there is a former member of the same unit who has shared her first hand knowledge of the 1SG's inner circle. It is worth reading. However I must warn you it goes back quite a ways in her postings. I found it best to scroll through about 12 pages of postings and read it forward.
Clearly this woman was affected by the experience in a very hurtful way. She will never be the same, young woman. Her experience has made her wiser, this is a good thing. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=553408729)
Each person's experience is unique. I personally can only write from my perspective, which is what I did. My intent was to address a problem that has long been ignored. My experience speaks only for me. I acknowledge there were several stellar men and women. What they did or did not do in terms of putting a stop to the event in my book, I will never know. But if it is true that other soldiers' had made the commander aware of the existing situation, and he did nothing, then he lied under oath through his claim that he never knew about the fraternization, pregnancies or affairs. This is the breakdown that I'm talking about. Where does the responsibility lie? Whose job is it to go beyond the chain of command to put a stop to the degradation of human beings? Do we just address it, then ignore it? If a report is made and no action is taken the next step is to get someone involved from outside the chain of command to investigate the claims.
Let me get off my soapbox, thanks for posting.
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