C4ISR

I note that the Department of Defense has a lot of acronyms, such as DOD, TRADOC, METT-TC to name a few. I feel one of the more interesting ones is C4ISR. This acronym is actually growing over the years as if it were a tree! Maybe some of the reason for its growth is that it refers to the most abstruse area of the military: electronics and technology. Initially it was a simple, humble C2. That stood for Command and Control. But then people saw that intelligence was part of this. So now it was C2I. Then computers came along and became an essential part of Army technology. So then it became C3I. And then it was C4I and now C4ISR, which stands for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. I hunted for acronyms that begin with C4I and found a whole bunch including Ts for Targeting or Technology, EW for Electronic Warfare, and I for Information. So I combined these together to form the acronym C3I3T2SCREW, which stands for command, control, communications, information, intelligence, Internet, technology, targeting, surveillance, computers, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. I can just imagine a military unit having a C3I3T2SCREW officer. A what kind of officer?

Another possible acronym is CITRICC CITIES, which omits the W in warfare. That suggests where centers of CITRICC CITIES for the military should be - in places like Naranja, Florida (naranja is Spanish for orange, a citrus fruit). In any case I expect the acronym to continue to grow. It may grow to C6I6T4G3BRAVONEWSTATUS by 2100, at which point they may decide the acronym right there and go back to the old command and control (C2).

2003: The weird year

This has got to be one of the weirdest years of my life. It's even weirder than 2000 was (see the link). Aren't the weirdness and trust, both public and private, related? You expect something to happen, and instead something else happens. If "it" were a person instead, then you would expect the person to do something, and instead he does something else or doesn't do it. That leads to mistrust. You can't mistrust natural things such as hurricanes, so I am not sure of the term here. In any case it makes you feel more insecure. But it also gives an excuse to do weird things, doesn't it? After all, if the rest of the world is weird, why not be weird yourself. In any case, these are among the events that make this year weird for me:

1. The US makes charges that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and attacks that country and overthrows it, only to discover (so far) no weapons of mass destruction there after all.

2. I was assigned to duty at an installation operations center for a month, where I did almost nothing.

3. Hurricane Isabel came roaring through here at a weird angle.

4. The election in California. This is the intersection of the Weird State with the Weird Year, and so is doubly weird.

5. Rain and snow and cold snaps in every month in the spring, following a year of extreme drought.

6. Four famous people die recently including this year at age 100: Count Basie, George Burns, Bob Hope, and Strom Thurmond.

7. The weirdest of all. A tree leaning against another tree in our yard because of Isabel mysteriously gets chopped down. Nobody has to pay the bill, apparently.