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Back in 2006, Gina Elise, then working in hotel management, decided the influx of wounded troops flooding into our nations veterans care organizations needed some support. More than that, the troops and veterans themselves needed support. Rather than just cutting a check, she decided to see what she herself could do to help. And so Pin-Ups For Vets came to be.

Selling calendars with the look of classic 40s era pin-ups, Gina and her friends raised funds for troops, and gave troops some awesomely morale boosting calendars.

Photo courtesy of Pin-Ups For Vets

Pretty tasteful and really, these days, quite demure.

But of course, someone always has to be butthurt.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure there are better, more effective ways to support veterans than by parading yourself around in front of someone else’s husband while wearing sexy retro outfits and burlesque costumes, shooting provocative pin-up calendars and holding a burlesque show fundraiser.

Or maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m “just” another jealous military spouse who would prefer her husband’s eyes be on her, not on some busty veteran supporting pin-up girl, regardless of her good intentions or “good cause.”

Maybe you’re just a little overly sensitive.

Friend of the blog SKK chatted with Gina about the opinion piece at SpouseBuzzz:

“It’s important to note here that 50% of our supporters online and at our events are women, who enthusiastically embrace the pinup image and its positive effects in the hospital wards across the U.S.,” Gina tells me.

Nor is the group entirely male-directed.

“We often visit women Veterans in the hospitals who are thrilled to meet our female Veteran volunteers, their sisters from the military,” Gina tells me. “In fact, on our last hospital visit in Alabama, a female Veteran, who was completely surprised by our visit said, ‘If you can make me smile, you can make anyone smile.’ The Veterans often tell us, ‘When you are here, my pain is gone.’ “

Happiness is key to healing, Gina says. “One of our calendar models is a former Naval Flight Surgeon, now an ER doctor, and she has attested to how much these visits matter in recovery for our ill and injured Veterans.”

At a time when so much of our society seems to ever more sleazy and skeevy, Gina and her ambassadors are trying to class up the joint. 

We think Gina and her gang are the cat’s meow.

To SpouseBuzz’ credit, they did invite Gina to pen a reply on their pages.

The Russians love them some big stage production live fire exercises.

Grenades seem simple enough to use. Flip off the safety clip, pull the pin, throw the grenade. And yet, people manage to screw it up pretty badly all the time. And I’ll just say this, the grenade test on Expert Infantry Badge testing is always one of the most difficult to pass. But hey, that’s what training is for.

That nice boom is one of the things that makes live fire grenade training one of the funner ranges to run.

HBO has been a heavyweight in the miniseries division with award-winning submissions such as Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Olive Kitteridge. Their newest one is now taking flight and involves the story of the Wright brothers, according to Deadline.

The premium cable network is teaming with Playtone, along with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman to produce their next project, which is based on the David McCullough book The Wright Brothers, which tells the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright, and how they sold and repaired bicycles on their way to their invention of the airplane.

via HBO Picks Up The Wright Brothers As Next Miniseries :: TV :: News :: Paste.

So, Nick Searcy as Wilbur, who plays Orville?

And I’m still waiting for a release date on Masters of the Air.

Air Force investigators were able to recover the front section of the Eagle’s radome, which showed an imperfection on the tip, called the nose cap. There was a gap between the radome body and the cap, with about 3/16th of an inch of sealant extruding from the section creating “an uneven aerodynamic surface,” an Air Force Accident Investigation Board report stated.

The F-15 System Program Office told investigators that an imperfection like this is consistent with wind tunnel tests that found it would cause a high enough yaw rate to create an aircraft spin.

via Air Force: Tiny imperfection on F-15’s nose caused October crash.

Attention to detail. Someone at some time likely replaced the sealant at the nose cap and did a poor job, or the sealant deteriorated over time and began to protrude, and no one noticed it.

The services used to spend a lot of time in basic training on things like making a bed with hospital corners  and shining shoes. The items on ones wall locker had to be precisely displayed according to a very exacting set of rules. These seemingly silly fetishes were no so much because the Army or the Air Force really, really likes tightly fitted blankets on a bed, but because they taught the simple concept of attention to detail. Very small things matter.  And once you learn to pay attention to small things like shining shoes and lining the toes of your shoes up on a line in the tile under your rack, you can learn other, more important details.

That’s not to say  I’ve never screwed up details. I’m quite good at making mistakes. And I certainly never enjoyed making my bunk or shining shoes. But I at least understood the reasons behind those tasks.

FALL RIVER, Mass. — Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez was found guilty Wednesday of first-degree murder and sentenced to serve a minimum of four years hard time on the West Point football team.

The sentence, carried out by Judge Susan Garsh (USMA ’74), would force the former NFL tight end to play for the U.S. Military Academy’s “Black Knights,” a move many academy grads hope would finally allow the team to defeat Navy after a crushing 117-year losing streak.

“Your honor, my client would rather just be put to death,” said Hernandez’ attorney, shortly after the sentence was read in court. He went on to say that such a sentence would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.

via Judge Sentences Aaron Hernandez To Serve Time On West Point Football Team.

FORT RILEY, Kan. — After 7 years of litigation and $75,000 in legal fees, Sgt. 1st Class James Kinchloe finally gets to claim his entire platoon on his tax return.

Kinchloe, after years of mounting monetary losses, was forced to examine U.S. tax laws after he spent roughly $24,000 in bail payments, $14,239 in XBox 360 subscriptions, and $8,000 in down-payments for gender reassignment surgeries in 2013 alone.

Court documents indicate Kinchloe’s main complaint challenged the “qualifying relative” definition in IRS Publication 501: Exemptions, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information. It states that a person may be claimed on a tax return “if their own funds are not actually spent for their own support” and are a “member of the household.”

via Platoon Sergeant Claims 38 Soldiers On His Tax Return.

If you’ve been looking forward to the day you could rate your boss, your hopes may be dashed in the wake of an official Pentagon study that concludes “360-degree reviews” probably should not be used as a part of the formal military evaluation and promotion process.

Also known as a “multirater review,” the controversial assessment tool mixes input from peers and subordinates as well as supervisors. It was widely touted a few years ago as a way to screen out so-called toxic leaders from senior military commands.

But the new report cites a long list of legal, cultural and practical concerns that would prevent this type of review’s widespread use in determining who gets selected for promotions, command assignments or slots at prestigious schools.

via Study pans use of ‘360-degree reviews’.

One officer was kind enough to shared his 360 with me. It was interesting.

The gist of this article is that such a review is ill suited for use in determining promotion and other official uses. And it is.

But I do think such reviews can be very useful as a personal and professional development tool. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read a series of peer/subordinate evals and take note of trends.

Of course, those issues subordinates and peers choose to emphasize in their reviews might not align with the evaluated officer’s superior’s priorities. For instance, if the Colonel is focused on the production of critical software, that’s going to be the Major’s priority. But if the Captains are focused on some other unit issue, they’re review of the Major will be skewed. That can be a tool the Colonel uses in the development of the Major, but would hardly be appropriate to use as a metric for promotion consideration.

I think there is a place for the 360 review. Just not for promotions.

Incidentally, the impetus behind the 360 review was to identify toxic leadership. But as the article notes, it’s not like it is a big secret as to who the toxic leaders are, but that so many are allowed to continue in their position, either being promoted to the point where their style of leadership becomes the accepted norm, or they engage in such egregiously bad behavior that they are relieved, by which time the damage to many, many people has already been done.