Author Archives: Douglas R. Satterfield
[March 24, 2020] If we were to look back upon the planning for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the one thing missing was an exit strategy. It was an invaluable lesson learned from our strategic failures and one lesson that is seriously appreciated. What we need now, during the Coronavirus pandemic, is an exit strategy from the… Read More »
[March 23, 2020] I was watching a little television yesterday, and while catching up on the news (all about the Coronavirus-COVID19), one of the announcers said that “now is the time for leadership.”1 After seeing what many young folks are doing by ignoring commonsense warnings about the pandemic, I would have added that now is the time for… Read More »
[March 22, 2020] When disasters strike, there is often confusion, distorted information, and sometimes panic. Stupidity is also one of the inevitable results. Friday morning, I watched New York Gov. Cuomo lay out his plan – a good plan – to slow the spread of the Coronavirus in his state. Most of what he said made sense, but… Read More »
[March 21, 2020] Before there were government-mandated recycling, sanitary landfills, and rules saying what you can and cannot take to the dump, every community had its Town Dump. As a young teenager, I worked at one to pick out valuable items to sell and reuse. On my first day on the job, I found a non-working vacuum cleaner.… Read More »
[March 20, 2020] The idea that some things in our lives are more important than others has been around since the beginning of humankind. In the 1400s and until recently, the word ‘priority’ meant something being the first one. However, ‘priority’ got hijacked somewhere along the way, and now it means many things. This change has led to… Read More »
[March 19, 2020] For my birthday in 2001, my dad sent me a new book by Tom Brokaw titled, The Greatest Generation. It covered many of the extraordinary stories of a generation that gave new meaning to courage, sacrifice, and honor during WW2. This generation gave so much and asked so little. Today, our young men and women,… Read More »
[March 18, 2020] For those not living off the grid (by definition you are not reading this), you’ve been following the up-and-coming great isolation. The infectious and deadly Coronavirus – origins in China – has been spreading like wildfire on dry canyon grass, causing us to isolate ourselves from one another. At least that is what medical experts… Read More »
[March 17, 2020] Looking through the “free new movies” section of Netflix last night, I ran upon the movie All Hands on Deck (1961) starring Pat Boone, Buddy Hackett, et al. Decades ago, when it first came out, my dad gathered up our entire family to see it at a drive-in on a hot and humid evening in… Read More »
[March 16, 2020] I was a junior military officer and saw many self-inflicted mistakes made by my peers. These errors formed a pattern, and, at the time in the 1980s, I wrote them down in my notebook (that I found recently tucked away in an old footlocker). Here are the 12 biggest mistakes junior officers can make: Thinking… Read More »
[March 14, 2020] I’m a little late to the party with this post. Several of my readers have pointed out that I have not written a comment on avoiding the Coronavirus. I would not want to disappoint. Besides, government public health officials have been full of advice about how we can minimize the risk of catching the virus. … Read More »