{"id":112,"date":"2016-12-07T14:23:52","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T14:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/?p=112"},"modified":"2018-03-07T01:33:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T01:33:00","slug":"wapo-part2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/07\/wapo-part2\/","title":{"rendered":"WaPo part2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember my post about TM? Well, after he returned to the states, he wrote this article:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/checkpoint\/wp\/2016\/10\/16\/band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound-what-americas-new-war-looks-like-in-afghanistans-most-violent-province\/<\/p>\n

Resolute Support leadership had a conniption, removed two colonels from their posts, launched an official investigation (15-6) and created an environment where all subordinate commands are afraid to talk to the media and blame their PAOs if they see a story that they find unfavorable – regardless of how accurate, factual, or even balanced it may be. The change that has affected me the most, however, is that all\u00a0embeds are indefinitely on hold, as of about two months ago.<\/p>\n

This is problematic since my job is to coordinate embeds. I have now been interviewed by a brigadier general tasked with conducting the 15-6 investigation to determine whether or not TM was given classified information (or perhaps to compile enough documentation to scapegoat the\u00a0“bad story” and ruin\u00a0someone’s career), and I’ve spent the last two months spinning wheels and going nowhere; planning engagements for media only for them to be shut down or not supported by flight operations because no reporter\u00a0is allowed to visit a location and stay overnight.<\/p>\n

It has been frustrating.<\/p>\n

The result of this new environment of shutting out the media looks like this:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/dec\/04\/us-military-un-relations-strained-afghanistan-war-reports-disagreements<\/p>\n

where the lead states:
\nThe US military in Afghanistan is increasingly trying to control public information about the war, resulting in strained relations with western organizations offering different versions of events to official military accounts, the Guardian has learned.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Meanwhile, on the embeds, my general officer, DCOS COMM, has promised 5 or 6 reporters that we will get them out on an embed with forces on the ground. I don’t actually have access to troops in the field, nor am I allowed to do an embed right now, nor do I want to spend weeks planning an embed that may never get a greenlight… so when the general gets back from his vacation, I anticipate “greenlight, send someone to helmand tomorrow” as though it’s that easy. Pepper in the number of folks going on R&R that we have to cover for in December, and the village idiot, an O-5 select full-time-navy-reservist who is completely inept as a leader and a PAO, who we have to cover for every day… it’s getting harder and harder to quell my cynicism.<\/p>\n

My mission could very well change from being the media operations team lead to just being a base photographer. It’s disheartening to know you could do a better job if you were\u00a0allowed to. But as a lieutenant colonel, who I have the utmost respect for, who leads one of our subordinate\u00a0PA shops and faces\u00a0very similar leadership dilemmas\u00a0and professional hand\u00a0tying, said, “If they want to pay me deployed\u00a0O-5 pay to do O-2 or O-3 work, then that’s what I’ll do.” So if they want to\u00a0pay me deployed O-3 pay to do an E-3’s job, I could live with it as long as someone tells me that that is my new mission.<\/p>\n

This post really digressed into a confusing stream of consciousness rant. But it was cathartic so I’m\u00a0keeping it. They can’t all be winners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember my post about TM? Well, after he returned to the states, he wrote this article: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/checkpoint\/wp\/2016\/10\/16\/band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound-what-americas-new-war-looks-like-in-afghanistans-most-violent-province\/ Resolute Support leadership had a conniption, removed two colonels from their posts, launched an official investigation (15-6) and created an environment where all subordinate commands are afraid to talk to the media and blame their PAOs if they… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9IVlY-1O","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":81,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/17\/mophie\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":0},"title":"Mophie","date":"October 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Mophie was my first. The first embed I coordinated\u00a0from the initial request through the final escort out the gate. Mophie, a nickname derived from her AOL email address, was kind of a hot mess from the beginning. Often uttered throughout the process were the words, \"fuckin mophie\". When a reporter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/13\/newport-dunes-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":1},"title":"Newport Dunes Triathlon 2018 - Race Report","date":"December 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"November 4, 2018 Olympic Distance Official Time: 02:16:251500m Swim: 00:23:10T1: 00:01:3640k Bike: 01:04:51T2: 00:01:2410k Run: 00:45:24Overall: 9th of 18335-39 AG: 3rd of 24 I\u2019m 2 races behind on my blog now, so I\u2019ll try to be brief to get through them both. 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It was a four day round-trip that included about 50 hours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "life is life"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/chrisdonlon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/MG_5897-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/19\/rockthebay2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":5},"title":"Rock The Bay Triathlon 2018 - Race Report","date":"September 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Rock The Bay International Distance Triathlon Official Time: 01:56:17 1000m Swim: 00:16:26 20mi Bike: 00:49:31 10k Run: 00:47:41 Overall: 13th of 187 Military Div: 1st of 6 Rock the Bay was kind of like my Afghanistan deployment, in that it was a good experience overall, but I don\u2019t feel like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Triathlon"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chrisdonlon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/img_0476.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}