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ConFusion, or Coast Guard vs. Navy
Jan. 23rd, 2012 10:43 amI had a generally good time at ConFusion, hampered mainly by a personal problem - wicked leg cramps which made walking difficult. But it did give me an excuse to use the hotel's whirlpool, so it worked out.
I mentioned in Sunday's post that I would have something more intelligent to say, referring to a conversation I had with Myke Cole. Myke's a nice guy, with that intensity us Midwesterners see in the native Metro New Yorkers. His current military affiliation is as a Coast Guard Lieutenant, commanding a Reserve small boat unit based in New York harbor.
We were sitting at the bar, talking about his priorities for training his unit, and he said (not exact quote), "my focus is on SAR qualifications." (SAR = Search and Rescue - plucking people out of the drink.) He continued, "If there's time after we get everybody SAR trained, then we work on VBSS. I don't want people using deadly force unless they have the compassion of SAR training." For those non-Navy types, VBSS stands for "Vessel Board, Search and Security" and it's the "point guns at people while you look for contraband" part of Coast Guard operations.
This makes perfect sense for an organization tasked with peacetime law enforcement and rescue work. For a military organization, it's exactly opposite. The Navy wants "warfighters" first, everything else second. But, in my "lets build a Navy on Mars" series, I'm starting from a Coast Guard and working towards a Navy. So, there should be some of this "rescue first" attitude, and a resistance to the "cowboys" who run off and shoot pirates. The fix is easy - in the upcoming rewrite of The Night Watch, I will have to bake some of that attitude in.
You can learn things at cons, even at the bar!
I mentioned in Sunday's post that I would have something more intelligent to say, referring to a conversation I had with Myke Cole. Myke's a nice guy, with that intensity us Midwesterners see in the native Metro New Yorkers. His current military affiliation is as a Coast Guard Lieutenant, commanding a Reserve small boat unit based in New York harbor.
We were sitting at the bar, talking about his priorities for training his unit, and he said (not exact quote), "my focus is on SAR qualifications." (SAR = Search and Rescue - plucking people out of the drink.) He continued, "If there's time after we get everybody SAR trained, then we work on VBSS. I don't want people using deadly force unless they have the compassion of SAR training." For those non-Navy types, VBSS stands for "Vessel Board, Search and Security" and it's the "point guns at people while you look for contraband" part of Coast Guard operations.
This makes perfect sense for an organization tasked with peacetime law enforcement and rescue work. For a military organization, it's exactly opposite. The Navy wants "warfighters" first, everything else second. But, in my "lets build a Navy on Mars" series, I'm starting from a Coast Guard and working towards a Navy. So, there should be some of this "rescue first" attitude, and a resistance to the "cowboys" who run off and shoot pirates. The fix is easy - in the upcoming rewrite of The Night Watch, I will have to bake some of that attitude in.
You can learn things at cons, even at the bar!
