Alaska Veterans Network

Author Archive

We recently held a DodLive Bloggers Roundtable with Mike McCord, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), on Wednesday, Feb. 15. McCord discussed the Department of Defense FY2013 Budget Request, announced on Feb. 13, as well as the guiding principles highlighted the department's strategic goals for the FY2013 budget request, which are drawn from the recent Defense Strategic Guidance.

We recently held a DodLive Bloggers Roundtable with Mike McCord, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), on Wednesday, Feb. 15. McCord discussed the Department of Defense FY2013 Budget Request, announced on Feb. 13, as well as the guiding principles highlighted the department's strategic goals for the FY2013 budget request, which are drawn from the recent Defense Strategic Guidance.

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, we hosted a DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable with Dr. Michael Crawford, a Senior Historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Dr. Crawford discussed how the U.S. Navy contributed to some of the most significant outcomes of the War of 1812. Joining us on the call were Chuck Simmins, of America's North Shore Journal; Tom Goering, of the Navy Log Blog; and Boston Maggie, of BostonMaggie blog.

On Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at 2:00 p.m. EST, we hosted a DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable with Pentagon Press Secretary George Little and DoD Spokesman Capt. John Kirby. During the roundtable they discussed major budget decisions for the FY2013 Defense Budget stemming from the Defense Strategic Guidance.

On January 5, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. EST, DoDLive hosted a Bloggers Roundtable with Pentagon Press Secretary, Dr. George Little and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations, Capt. John Kirby. They discussed the Defense Strategic Guidance announced by President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey that morning. The team provided a summary of the strategy and took questions from bloggers. Participating on the call were: Dr. Andrew Lubin from Leatherneck Magazine; Christopher Radin from the The Long War Journal; Gail Harris from Foreign Policy Blog; Chuck Simmins from North Shore Journal; John Doyle from 4G War Blog; and Walter Pincus from the Washington Post.

On Monday, December 5, at 11:00 a.m. EST a DODLive Bloggers Roundtable was held with Mr. Paul Eremenko, program manager, and Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, deputy program manager, of the Adaptive Vehicle Make portfolio of programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. They discussed how DARPA is pioneering new methods for the design and manufacturing of defense systems in order to compress the development timetable by a factor of at least five. They also discussed how the agency is seeking to expand the pool of innovation through crowdsourcing and collaboration.

On November 22nd, 2011, the DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable welcomed U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Bradley Becker, Deputy Commanding General (Support) for United States Division - Center, Baghdad, Iraq. Brig. Gen. Becker answered questions about the final base transitions. The conversation was an update to the BRT that Maj. Gen. Spoehr gave in September. This will likely be the last BRT from Iraq before the final transition.

On Thursday, Nov. 17 we held a DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable with U.S. Navy Capt. Pat Burns, director, Navy Office of Commemorations, who discussed the upcoming Bicentennial of the War of 1812, the Navy's commemoration campaign, and how it helps us tell the story of today's Navy. The U.S. Navy is finalizing plans to host a nationwide commemoration of the War of 1812 that will kick off in New Orleans in April 2012 and celebrations will take place in more than 14 cities across the country and in Canada - including NYC, Boston, Norfolk, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago. If you think the annual Fleet Week in NYC is big, it pales in comparison to the events planned for 2012. Each city is planning a week-long celebration with educational events intended to showcase their city's historic role in the War of 1812. The Chief of Naval Operations has invited 120 nations to participate as well.

We held a DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable on Wednesday, Nov. 16, with U.S. Maj. Gen. Michael A. Keltz, Director, J-5, Strategic Planning and Policy, who discussed the recent 14th annual Chiefs of Defense Conference (CHOD). This engagement brought together senior military leaders from nations in the Asia-Pacific region to discuss mutual security challenges, improve relationships and foster security cooperation. The roundtable also covered ways the U.S. Pacific Command is partnering with more than 36 nations in areas of mutual interest, such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, military-to-military training, building the U.S.-India strategic partnership and countering transnational threats. Joining us on the call were Chuck Simmins, of America's North Shore Journal; Walter Pincus, of the Washington Post; Gail Harris, of the Foreign Policy Blog; John Doyle, of 4GWar; Titus Ledbetter, of Inside the Air Force; Megan Eckstein, of Inside the Navy; William Wan, of the Washington Post; Charley Keyes, of CNN; and Kyle Mizokami.

When the Army, Navy and Air Force conduct joint operations, a request to engage a target often has to pass multiple communications systems and manual approvals, thus slowing down a process that depends on speed. On Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 10:00 a.m. EST, members of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command's communications-electronics center (CERDEC) discussed how they have successfully executed multiple projects to enable efficient rapid-information sharing across disparate Joint networks and mission command systems – in particular, their successes during a recent multi-service limited technology experiment. Joining us on the call were Alex O'Ree, a computer scientist in the Systems Engineering and Architecture Branch for the CERDEC Command and Control Directorate; Christopher Shin, a computer scientist in the Systems Engineering and Software Architectures Branch for the CERDEC Command and Control Directorate; and Ron Szymanski, Chief Architect for Software & Technology in the Command and Control Directorate at CERDEC. Mr. Szymanski currently provides technical oversight to dozens of C2 related software efforts across two divisions.