Remarks by the President on Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you so much.  Thank you.  Please, be seated.

Thank you, Secretary Shinseki, for the generous introduction — more importantly, the extraordinary bravery in service to our country, both on and off the battlefield.  I want to thank our outstanding Vice President, Joe Biden, and his wonderful wife, Dr. Jill Biden, for being here today.  We want to thank the Bidens for their son, Beau’s, service as well; we’re glad he just got back from Iraq.

Nickysplace Over and Out

We are done with this issue.  Several readers have provided more than ample  information and links to some pretty disturbing sites originate by this Coast Guard Auxiliarist.  They speak volumes about the issues that concern us.  Aside from the modernization issues that have made Coast Guard more civilian than military, Coast Guard will have decide if Auxiliarist need to meet any standard to wear the uniform that represents our Military.

We will not entertain or publish comments discussing Nicky.

Coast Guard Lead System Integrater

Coast Guard takes charge as integrator lead in procurements

By Michael DeKort

Doesn’t this mean all of the NSCs will be built with LM/NG in charge of those efforts. What if they put the OPCs under contract before the end of 2011 – does that get grandfathered? That effort alone is 1/2 of the entire Deepwater budget.

Do any of the NSCs have approved and working SCIFs? Do any of the NSCs have approved and working secret level communication systems? Did the TEMPEST tests pass? If so did they pass because they were designed and built properly or the Coast Guard either leveraged the illegal 123 waivers or created new ones?

Our FCA trial will be over before the deadline of 2011 mentioned in the article. Let’s see how everyone comes out when all is said and done at the trial. The Coast Guard senior leaders, congress, officials in the US Navy, the DHS IG, the CEOs and senior program management, engineering, quality and ethics leaders of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will all have to answer for what they did and did not do before that deadline is reached.

Coast Guard Gets Only Three Takers for GEICO Military Achievement Award

Coast Guard has gone out with another ALCOAST soliciting nominations for the GEICO Military Achievement Award.  Only three nominations came under the first solicitation, and Coast Guard clearly wants more.  There is only one problem with that, if all they received under the original solicitation was three, then that’s probably all there was.

When you go back out re-solicit you send a signal that we’ll take anything.  This often ends up with Commanding Offices beefing up packages on individuals they didn’t and wouldn’t normally nominate.  The award is cheapened.

Coast Guard Rush to Modernize an Enormous Time and Money Sink

It’s been a while since we’ve had a comment by a reader that stands on its own merit and is worthy of its own post.  Reader “The Heretic,” left the comment below on our post Communication and Cooperation are no Substitute for Command and Control – The Civilianization of the U.S. Coast Guard.

 

Heretic nailed it.  We believe it would be prudent for Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation to hold a series of hearing into Coast Guards modernization.  Admiral Thad Allen has forged ahead with modernization absent authorization.  What that means is congress neither appropriated nor authorized the expenditure of funds for modernization.  Allen marched forward using dollars scrapped from other resources at a time the service was down hundreds of millions of dollars due to failed Deepwarter ICGS programs.

 

In his rush to get Coast Guard “modernized” before his term as Commandant expired, he did so absent a full understanding of the impact it would have on his resources, people and credibility.  With modernization now at the stage Allen originally referred to as complete, it now has new name … version 1.0.  Nearly a dozen different contractors are working to correct the unintended consequences of 1.0 and get Coast Guard to 2.0.  Employees at the deckplate level already see signs that there may be a need for 3.0 and possibly a 4.0 if they don’t get it right.

 

These contractors come at great expense and are racking up charges in the millions of dollars collectively.  At the same time contractors are banking money off modernization, Coast Guard has left some of its people programs scrapped for cash. 

 

Submitted on 2009/11/11 at 2:20pm

Insider, I agree, especially with your last two sentences.

The first red flag for me is that we decided to pursue modernization full force during an election year in which there was definitely going to be a change in Administration and without Congressional authorization. Are we really that politically tone-deaf?

The second red flag was that this was supposed to be a “resource neutral” transition, which means staffing and funding do not follow responsibilities.

Lastly, all anyone had to do was look at the process maps/swim lanes to see that there are too many offices/divisions/departments involved in pieces of projects and decisions. This led to an inefficient and confused Chain of Command and no accountability whatsoever.

I’ll also second the enormous time and money sink that went into planning OPCOM/FORCECOM. Only to do it all over again for Interim OPCOM/FORCECOM. Only to do it a third time for “Numbered” PAC/FORCECOM/LANT/OPCOM, or whatever it is they are called today.

Coast Guard Report – Twelve O’Clock Reports

 

 

Coast Guard ALCOAST

643/09	RE-SOLICITATION FOR GEICO MILITARY ACHIEVEMENT AWARD	11/10/2009
642/09	FY10 AFC30T MANAGEMENT	11/9/2009
641/09	234TH BIRTHDAY OF THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS	11/9/2009
640/09	RESERVE READINESS MANAGEMENT PERIOD (RMP) POLICY	11/9/2009
639/09	HALF MASTING OF NATIONAL ENSIGN	11/6/2009