The Triple Nickel

Post 55: Lupine Lupus, The Jackalope Catharsis, and These Colors Don't Run

2012-01-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to you all. While I hope some reflected on the life of one of the 20th century's great leaders, I suspect most of you just took advantage of mattress sales or streamed Netflix. Those of you with crushing liberal guilt at least put up a half-assed Facebook status message lifted from MLK's Wikiquotes page and smiled way too much at anyone that appeared potentially non-Caucasian.

I just returned from an outstanding weekend trip to Austin. Devotees of this blog will recall a passing allusion in 2010 to barely escaping with my life the last time I was in Austin due to drunken encounters with both peacocks and bikers. Austin Part 1 was for the wedding of one of my best friends from law school - also named Austin. The ceremony was held at this gorgeous arboretum that contained hordes of ill-tempered peacocks. While the first thing that comes to mind at the word "peacock" is often "beautiful plumage," these things are about one missed meal away from the scene in Jurassic Park where the game warden guy gets killed by the Raptors. By the end of there ceremony, our group was being actively stalked by an entire muster of these things.

He's, ah, probably pining for the fjords.

But no, not Velociraptor. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two 'raptors you didn't even know were there.

Clever girl.

The reception was tasteful and elegant. This, however, did not stop me from attempting to drink gin at a volume previously rivaled by individuals at 11:59 P.M. the night prior to the enactment of the Volstead Act. While I did nothing that would cause permanent shame on the House of Utah, I have had lingering guilt about my drinking like a teenager at his first high school kegger. I am, after all, an officer and grown ass man. Lock it up Utah. Lock it up.

This weekend's trip back to Austin, with Austin, was highly cathartic. We revisited a number of the locations from the wedding weekend and I feel I was able to reclaim at least a modicum of the dignity I checked at the door back in 2010. In honor of the Broncos getting absolutely embarrassed on Saturday night, I threw out a Tebow while at The Jackalope, a Sixth Street institution.

We all went to the Austin Zoo the next day. I came to find out that the Austin Zoo is no ordinary zoo. It is a zoo for rescued animals. These are animals with a god-damn story. The whole experience ranged from peculiar to depressing. The goat at the petting zoo struggled with a speech impediment. The capuchin monkeys all had terrible self-esteem. Everything had a limp, missing limb, or some other baggage that just made me feel like I was living in an ASPCA commercial. As we were leaving, we came across this outstanding mural. It featured four fierce looking animals, all residents of the zoo. We were four fierce looking individuals, visiting the zoo. It seemed like a sign from on high that we were being assigned our spirit animals.

I am Bandit, a wolf hybrid with only three legs. Courage Wolf has come full circle.

These animals have seen some shit.

Also of interest was the fact that RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan was also staying at the Austin Hilton. We totally hung out.

Cash Rules Everything Around Johnny Utah

I was able to get home to Chicago for Christmas. I always have an outstanding time at home and it was wonderful to be back, especially after missing the holiday season last year due to my deployment. Speaking of which, I need to wish a formal Vaya Con Dios to my former roommate Bohdi, who just deployed for a 365 day tour to Afghanistan. "Living to Get Radical" shoutouts to $-Money from Nellis and my JASOC friend Siv who are in the midst of their own 365s. And because I know he discovered this blog, a special and radical "Back off Warchild" to my deployed Deputy, Major M. I have been despondent and lost without his exemplary leadership and can only hope for his speedy return.

Happy Holidays...is what terrorists say. Merry Christmas from the Utah Brothers.

Things at the office remain busy but have improved significantly. The other JAG assigned to my division returned from his deployment and resumed running our administrative discharge program. I am incredibly grateful for his return; my workload has downgraded from "simply ludicrous" to "sort of manageable."

I received word that I was selected to be the next Area Defense Counsel (ADC) for Cannon. Each Air Force installation has one (and very occasionally two) defense counsel assigned that represent the Airmen that my current office prosecutes. Selection for ADC is competitive as each base legal office as 6-10 JAGs but generally only a single ADC slot. This, in theory, means I have done well enough to separate myself from the pack and move to a more challenging position. It is the career progression I hoped for out of this assignment and while it is an awesome responsibility, I am incredibly excited about moving into the job the summer. More on that to come.

That is it for now. In honor of my new spirit animal, Bandit, one last Courage Wolf for all of you:

THE CHEESE TRIANGLES DON'T GO LIKE THAT!!!

2011-10-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

I write this while watching Da Bears on Monday Night Football. I feel this is important to note as my my writing style and tone may be a bit mercurial depending on how many times our offensive line elects to shit the bed tonight.

Now what if Da Bears were to enter the Indianapolis 500? Uhhh, what would you predict would be the outcome, huh?

How would they compete?

Well, let's say they rode together in a big bus.

Is Ditka driving?

Of course.

I gotta go with Da Bear Bus!

Da Bear Bus!

Bus full of Bears!

Alternate Caption: "Jay Cutler being rushed while in the pocket."

The past few months at work have been extremely trying and, at times, simply demoralizing. I am loathe to complain about work when I am CONUS, able to return to my home every night, and am not surrounded by individuals that have an active agenda to kill me. Life while wearing a uniform can be way worse. But what is the point of having a blog if I cannot be a self-indulgent little shit and throw myself a pity party anyway?

PITY PARTY!!!

(Bears note: SEVEN false starts?!? Freals? Wait, make that eight.)

I only note my present issues on the job as a sort of learning point for the aspiring JAGs in my readership. The positive tone in almost all my JAG related posts carry is legitimate - I love what I do. Three years in, I still get a charge each time I put in my uniform in the morning. That said, I feel it would be gilding the Lilly were I only to report the great stuff. Since starting up at Cannon, the vast majority of each week I find myself to be in way, way over my head, with close to no reprieve. Part of this is unavoidable - the only way to get experience is to do the job and the JAG Corps practice is to simply throw people into the deep end.

The learning curve, however, is inexcusably exasperated by the personnel manning issues at the office. I am still struggling with how the powers that be allow us be this light on bodies and still be gutted by deployments and changes of station. Three years of experience and I find myself as the second most senior officer in the office (only behind the SJA), with my #2 deployed, and my division of four paralegals reduced to one paralegal. Despite that "Military Justice is Job One," our division is at 33% of its allocated manning. A law firm run like this would implode within a week.

Those that know me know that I am dealing with this stress incredibly well.

The unquestioned positive about this assignment so far as been the weekend road trips. As Clovis lacks anything that can be classified as "culture" or "a bar that is not frequently cited in our Security Forces reports as being the scene of multiple stabbings," leaving for the weekends is a must. I've been able to explore and day drink in Albuquerque, Dallas, and Abilene (at which I was present for my first tractor pull. How the hell is that an "event"? More on that in another post). I am really looking forward to ski season at Ruidoso.

All due respect but what the fuck are we doing here people?

I'm pleased (and somewhat relived) that my whole Ask-a-JAG thing was not an abject failure. Most of the questions I've been able to handle by email but I got one in the other day that was open ended enough that I thought it would be good to cover on a post.

"1. Have you ever felt trapped serving as a JAG officer? I've never served in the armed forces and wonder a little how I'd feel if I couldn't quit, they tell you what to do, etc."

I would never say "trapped." I'll readily concede that service means giving up a fair amount of personal freedoms but I cannot say I've ever felt the pinch. I went from a Catholic prep school to five years of collegiate rowing, so I may already have been conditioned to a regimented lifestyle with people telling me what to do. Quitting has never crossed my mind, though that is not really an option for me due to my internal wiring. I descend from Irish stock comes from County Obstinate, so I really cannot quit anything, even when quitting would be a really good idea. This is the same genetic line that causes my mother to brag about not taking Aspirin when she has a fever or headache because she prides herself in being a "tough old broad." You probably should not be taking any advice from me on any subject.

As noted above, I really enjoy what I do. I have spent the first three years just trying to figure out the job I was doing and time has gone by at an unbelievable rate. And, as my mother has noted, "introspection often leads to headaches."

It sounds cheesy but a lot of it comes down to one's outlook and attitude. If you are the sort of person that will view tasks and assignments, even the ones you do not initially want, as opportunities to distinguish yourself, you will do fine. It is also incredibly important to know from the onset what you are signing up for - if you are the sort of person that will have significant problems with someone else deciding where you will be living and what you will be working on, the military is probably not the best place for you. I feel it is only fair to point out that I do not see civilian practice (at least BigLaw

2. What do you see happening as far as deployment? Is it likely that 100% (or 50% or what?) of JAG Officers would deploy during their first 4 years? How has it affected those with families?

I think every applicant should realistically expect to deploy in their first four years and have that be something they embrace. I do not have any stats to work with but the fact is many of us are tapped in our first four years - well over a majority of my JASOC classmates that I consider to be friends have deployed or are presently deployed. A number were those in their first assignment. There is a member in my office right now that specifically requested Cannon in order to guarantee himself the best odds at getting tasked to deploy - it worked. It really is a privilege to serve overseas and it is essential that we put our best downrange, where commanders and operators can get the support they can get, be it from intel, logistics, legal, etc.

In terms of impact to families - I'm not sure that I am qualified to answer this as I am still living the single life. Deploying can be very difficult on relationships but, as in all things in the military, the ultimate answer is that you will have to make do. To be effective at this job, you need your family to be on board from day one. They need to understand and accept moving every 2-3 years, dealing with TDYs, and being ready to support you on 6-12 month deployments. If you go into serving with a "I hope I don't deploy" attitude due to your family or other reason, you may be in for a rough road.

3. Does individual preference in where you'd like to serve matter more the longer you remain a active duty JAG? Or will always seem at the whim of the AF, just wherever they need and want you?

Yes.

---

That is all for now folks. I'll probably come back up for air in a month or two. For the future JAGs out there, please keep the questions coming - busy or not, I always enjoy this sort of thing.

Ask a JAG - Beta Version

2011-07-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

The other night I reviewed the Google Analytics stats for all you folks visiting this blog. My posts from OTS and JASOC still receive a disproportionate amount of the incoming traffic. This is understandable as training seems to be where the greatest amount of anxiety exists for incoming/aspiring JAGs and where there there is little substantive information by the way of official channels. Those posts also lent them to a sort of descriptive specificity that has been hard to capture since.

In an attempt to keep my JAG content relevant, I wanted to try out a sort of Q and A. You email me JAG Corps related questions at Agent.J.Utah@gmail.com, I do my best to answer them in a post. Privacy will be respected, though I do plan on including the original questions in my replies.

No guarantees how timely I will be with responses, but I will do my best. I reserve the right to pick which questions will make it on the blog. Also, no judgement if this ends up fizzling out and I quietly delete this post.

Ah, yes. The "Bob Loblaw Law Blog".

Gusty Winds May Exist

2011-07-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe, but Johnny Utah, like Academy Award winner Sir Nicholas Cage, has left Las Vegas.

Can you believe they gave this asshole an Oscar?

I'm writing this from my boss Temporary Living Facility (TLF) room at my new home: the 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon Air Force Base, home of the Air Commando. I am still wrapping my ahead around the fact that I am done with Vegas. Between the deployment and countless TDYs, I am more than comfortable with being in some random location for a period of time - I have just always returned to Nellis. I expect it may take a little while for this to really settle in. To my new office's credit, they are doing their best to acclimate me to my new surroundings with twelve hour work days and more work than I can possibly keep up with. It is a take on the "your nose doesn't itch when your foot is in a bear trap" maxim.

While there is not a ton to do in this town, I am legitimately excited to be down here. I cannot imagine a better time to have the opportunity to work in the world of SOF (Special Operations Forces). And a reminder to my readers, military and civilian alike: Special Forces and Special Operations Forces are distinct concepts and groups - do not use them as fungible terms. . The media could not seem to figure this out in the wake of the Bin Laden take down and my attempts to remedy the problem by screaming at my television proved unsuccessful. So, I take this forum to try to educate the handful of you reading this.

My drive from Las Vegas through New Mexico on I-40 was mildly Zen; there were a number of road signs admonishing me that "GUSTY WINDS MAY EXIST." This seems more like lazy philosophy than safety advice.

I could not make this stuff up

Not a whole hell of a lot else to report. The housing market in Clovis is a nightmare due to the high demand brought on by the base and limited supply due to the fact that this town is propped up exclusively by Cannon. For a time, I thought I would be living the dream in a mobile meth lab, a la Walter White.

I give myself even odds that I find myself in this exact situation and pose before my tour ends here.

Thankfully, I caught a break and found a great condo down here. I cannot move in until the end of the month, which has mean I've been living on base in a furnished apartment. While an additional three weeks of living out of a suitcase has not been ideal, I do have daily maid service. This has been awesome and and has been critical for my survival down here thus far. Thanks to generations of Irish inbreeding, I am pretty much limited in ability to only do a single task well. I really only rowed in college, studied in law school, and have worked in the Air Force. I have no substantive hobbies to speak of and any attempts at pet ownership would probably end like an ASPCA commercial, sans the Sarah McLaughlin. Taking cleaning out of the equation has been clutch. I'm going to be a hot mess once I move out of here.

(Credit to the above to Hyperbole and a Half - incredibly well done blog that is simply hilarious, well worth checking out)

That is it for now folks. I have some lofty goals of exploring New Mexico and Texas, so hopefully that will result in some good blog fodder. If nothing else, I am purchasing some legitimate cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and a giant belt buckle shaped like the state of Texas. If anyone is curious what happens when a city boy in Top Siders attempts to make these purchases in West Texas, stay tuned.

We don't take kindly...

Operation Overlord

2011-06-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.

You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen.

All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call "chicken shit drilling." That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sockful of shit! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.

An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking! We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do.

My men don't surrender, and I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!

All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamnit, Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the 'G.I. Shits.'

Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, Sir.' I asked, 'Isn't that a little unhealthy right about now?' He answered, 'Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!' Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds.

And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good old American guts.

Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.

Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Someday I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch Patton.' We want to get the hell over there." The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit.

Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!

When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cock suckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.

War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!

I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I am holding my position.' We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!

From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.

There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a- Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!'"

Lieutenant General George S. Patton, U.S. Army

Commander, United States Third Army

5 June 1944

All Gave Some; Some Gave All

2011-05-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

As we enjoy another Memorial Day, remember those that cannot.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

"In Flanders Fields"

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

Canadian Expeditionary Forces

3 May 1915

They'll Like Us When We Win

2011-05-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

A historic night for our Armed Forces, our intelligence community, and our nation. No one is ever out of our reach. And to the operators on that trigger team, your nation owes you a debt that can never be repaid.

How about when we, instead of blowing Iraq back to the seventh century for harboring terrorists and trying to develop nuclear weapons, we just imposed economic sanctions and were reviled by the Arab world for not giving them a global charge card and a free trade treaty? How about when we pushed Israel to give up land for peace? How about when we sent American soldiers to protect Saudi Arabia, and the Arab world told us we were desecrating their holy land? We'll ignore the fact that we were invited. How about two weeks ago, in the State of the Union when the President praised the Islamic people as faithful and hardworking only to be denounced in the Arab press as knowing nothing about Islam? But none of that is the point.

What is the point?

I don't remember having to explain to Italians that our problem wasn't with them, but with Mussolini! Why does the U.S. have to take every Arab country out for an ice cream cone? They'll like us when we win!

- The West Wing, "Night Five"

Disko Partizani

2011-04-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

There is an outstanding Jim Gaffigan bit reflecting on the defiant struggle we all attempt against underwhelming nature of birthdays once one reaches adulthood. “I can't believe I have to go to work on my birthday; I can't believe I have to do laundry on my birthday; I can't believe I have to pay for sex on my birthday.”

"Who came up with the robe? Was some guy just like, 'Hey, I've got an idea! Why don't we make a coat out of a towel? You can have a little belt that goes around. You could dunk the belt in the toilet! Have a toilet belt."

While I am not proud of it, I went through a little bit of this sense of entitlement following my return from Guantanamo. I suffixed any unpleasant activity with "I just got back from a deployment!" While this false sense of entitlement precluded me from grocery shopping or doing laundry for the first 72 hours back in Las Vegas, it did have one unambiguously positive outcome. I was committed to do...something. After all, I just got back from a deployment. Spending a simply ludicrous amount of money at the premium outlet mall did not scratch the itch. Thankfully, fate intervened. "Tyler" over at Inklings of Wanderlust (the moniker is more or less by default as she is the only female character in Point Break and I am loath to break from this theme) is conveniently stationed over at Aviano Air Base, situated about forty minutes outside Venice.

I'm just now noticing they have identical haircuts. I hope Tyler does not hate me for having the more attractive Point Break avatar.

Tyler had leave planned following an impossibly convoluted General Court Martial while I was going to be back home in Chicago on my deployment leave. As appealing as gazing at the Bean in Millennium Park is, Italy as a destination became as inescapable as gravity.

I'm comfortable admitting that I still don't get it.

I flew into Venice and we immediately began on our novel approach to defeating jet lag. Step 1: Deny jet lag exists. Acknowledging it gives it power. Step 2: Copious amounts of red wine and 5 Hour Energy shots. Step 3: Profit. The unspoken fourth step and overall controlling principle: RAMPAGE!

Special Agent Sterling Archer, codename Duchess, captures the zeitgeist of my Italian invasion.

Following wine tasting in the middle of the afternoon (Italians are exceptional supporters of day-drinking which means I am a supporter of Italians) we set off to tour her impossibly picturesque town, Sacile.

I'm still trying to determine if all of Italy is objectively gorgeous or if I am simply highly impressionable and a fan of buildings with Spanish roof tiles. Probably somewhere in the middle.

Following the day in Sacile, we headed off to the also impossibly picturesque village of Moltrasio on Lake Como. This village, like everything surrounding Lake Como, has been the province of the ludicrously wealthy since the days of the Roman Republic. Utah and Tyler, however, were there off-season and were able to pass themselves off as high society, if only for 24 hours.

View from the hotel balcony

Having spent the majority of my life in flat Chicago, I rarely account for vertical distance when reaching a destination. Normally this is not an issue. When visiting a town built into a mountain, however...

Plus side of mountain town: waterfalls!

No matter how long it takes me, I will own a boat on this lake

What I lack in wealth, I more than make up for in handsome

A life of Chicago not only accustomed me to things being topographically homogeneous, but urban planning that follows a highly organized grid system. This also proved to be a minor undoing at Lake Como. We embarked on a walk that I expected to last 15-20 minutes. It ended up covering several miles, multiple jaunts across what I am pretty were private villas, randomly coming across a Church and area of grass that was unquestionably a green and not a sward, required a nap on the aforementioned green, and only ended after a 30 minute ascent up the mountain.

On the way back from Como, we realized we were going to pass Verona. Nearly every junior high student has had to suffer through the mediocre prose of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet simply because the protagonists are similarly aged and teachers assume this will make iambic pentameter more palatable. Utah and Tyler were no different and could not ignore the opportunity to determine if "fair Verona," was, in fact, "fair." The enterprising residents of Verona in the 1930s, probably taking a break from contributing to the invasion of Ethiopia, realized they could make a buck by capitalizing on the Bard's decision to set his tale of impulsive marriage/suicide in their city. They created an actual fictional home/tourist trap for Juliet Capulet complete with a bronze statute of the 14 year old whackjob. In a rather questionable artistic move, they left this bronze adolescent with an exposed right breast. As if this was not enough to appeal to the always profitable pedophile demographic, they created the legend that feeling up this metallic teenager would mean good luck in the second base-ers love life. So, Tyler and I got in a line of primarily Italian teenagers to honk the boob of a fictional 16th century Italian teenager. It was...weird.

While I'm not terribly proud of this, I can use all the help I can get.

And boom does the dynamite.

Like everything in this country, Verona was gorgeous. After some debate, we concluded that that "fair Verona" was accurately described.

Following Como and Verona, we returned to Sacile for some rest and recovery. A 0515 train to Rome awaited us the next morning.

Wow. Quite a drink order.

Oh, well, when in Rome.

Yes? Please go on.

Uh, do as the Romans do? It's an old expression.

Oh! I've never heard of it. It's wonderful, though. 

The train ride to Rome was uneventful. We continued the rampage against jet lag, pausing only to unpack and to allow me to discreetly hide a few more 5 Hour Energy shots in my messenger bag. As I am an individual that celebrates Russel Crowe's entire collection of period pieces, our first stop in Rome was obvious.

My name is Gladiator.

Despite the fact that the early Catholic Church absconded with all of the original marble long ago, the Colosseum remains an truly incredible edifice to behold. The scope and scale are something one can only appreciate in person (or if you have played the latest Assassins Creed installment).

The only thing missing was the thick as pea soup sexual tension between Russell Crowe and Jude Law. That was more intense than Mulder and Scully. Just kiss already.

For the lazy tourist, the Arch of Constantine is conveniently located a couple hundred feet from Il Colosseo.

Constantine, when not legalizing Christianity, had no issues having triumphal arches built in his name to commemorate successful battles. As someone that has had time to appreciate the reproduction of the Arc de Triomphe at the Paris Hotel/Casino on the Las Vegas strip, with the original Arc de Triomphe being based on this arch, I am a man that can appreciate a good arch. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a nice arch.

Following Arco di Costantino, we endeavored to explore Palatine Hill and perhaps another triumphal arch should we be so lucky to stumble across one. A succinct way to explain what actually happened next would be to state that we got lost for the second time in three days. We were never actually lost though. We could see exactly where we wanted to go. It just so happened imposing fences blocked all of our attempted avenues of approach. An hour and several miles later, with no help from the bullshit map provided by our Rick Steves guidebook, we successfully infiltrated Palatine Hill. Like countless thousands of exhausted Romans before us, we took advantage of Palatine Hill's lush greenery and ample shade to pass out again on a green (not a sward). For those keeping track, this is our second outdoor nap.

The exact Palatine Hill nap location. Normally a mid-day nap is the province of the lazy or narcoleptic and a mid-day nap in a public park is the province of the registered sex offender. Napping internationally, however, has a certain je ne sais quoi about it. It is historical napping, and thus, acceptable napping.

According to Roman myth, Palatine Hill holds the location of the cave in which Romulus and Remus were raised by a wolf prior to the fratricide of Remus and Romulus' founding of Rome. It is a gorgeous area, looking over the Roman Forum on one side and the Circus Maximus on the other.

We then found our second arch, the Arch of Titus. Technically speaking, it is not a triumphal arch but it will have to do.

Next stop, the Roman Forum. The Forum was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches, and nucleus of commercial affairs. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world.

That evening, we found ourselves hopelessly lost in the Pyramid District based on the evidently fictional nightlife recommendations in Rick Steeves' book. First the map and now this? I'm coming for you one of these days Ricky boy. Despite this, we ended up at a phenomenal hole in the wall restaurant for dinner and then transitioned to a superb cocktail bar in the Trevi District. These fortuitous outcomes were a reoccurring theme of our trip - we could not lose. Throughout the week we were the unstoppable force Newton spoke of in his Second Law of Motion. Italy clearly could not conjure up the unmovable object with which to stop us.

For anyone that finds themselves in Rome, let me put in a plug for this cocktail bar: Salotto 42 - Piazza di Pietra, 42. It is a hop, skip, and a jump from the Trevi fountain. The quality of the drinks and bartending at this place cannot be understated. We polished off a fair number of expertly made Manhattans while rocking out to Italian/European techo and trance. #WINNING.

This is what Don Draper would look like if he smiled.

Much like napping in Rome, drinking in Rome has a certain added legitimacy due to the fact that one is surrounded on all sides by history. What might be regrettable drunken stumbling in CONUS becomes a totally acceptable inebriated historical exploration.

This was literally just outside the bar. Columns!

Where else does the walk home after last call take you past this?

Sunday was our trip to the Vatican, appropriately enough. Vatican City is simply incredible.

Our first stop in VC was St. Peter's Basilica. Architecturally and artistically speaking, the place is unbelievable. While the Church may state that charity, spreading the Gospel, and ministering to the poor are their priorities, clearly they are taking a lesson out of Don Fanucci's playbook in The Godfather: Part II. I'm no expert, but you can probably feed a whole lot of poor people with the value of all the stuff they have.

"Tell your friends I don't want a lot. Just enough to wet my beak."

That evening we had an exceptional dinner in the Trevi District and, like moths to flame, found ourselves back at Salotto 42. The next day, our last in the Eternal City, had us back to exploring. We started with the underwhelming Spanish Steps (just because it is Baroque does not mean I have to like it) and then spent hours wondering the phenomenal shopping district by the Steps surrounding the Piazza Spagna. Finally, the Pantheon and the train ride back to Sacile. Doing what Hannibal and his pachyderms could not, we bested Rome in three short days. Like Alexander the Great before us, we wept for not having anything left to conquer.

More like the Spanish Meh-ps

Our last day of rampaging was back in Sacile, lounging decadently in the April sun with red wine and Cuban cigars. It was almost two years to the day of our graduation from JASOC. We could not help reflecting on everything the last two years had brought; from our baptism by fire as prosecutors and our deployment to Guantanamo Bay, to the almost incredible fact that we were now sharing wine and cigars in northern Italy. I could not help but answer "no" to the seemingly rhetorical question of "did you ever think you would be doing this?" Whenever I am back in Chicago, I always find myself considering the alternate life I would have had if I had taken one of the summer associate positions for my 2L summer instead of the Air Force JAG Internship. I think it is unnecessarily zero-sum to view a decision like that in terms of right or wrong, but I have no doubts that JAG was a good choice. After all, would I be doing anything worth a blog post slaving away in Chicago BigLaw?

I am now back in Vegas and the countdown is on till my July PCS to Cannon. East New Mexico and West Texas, or as Tyler has taken to calling it, "Mars," will certainly be a change from Las Vegas but as we all know, it is the people - not the location. Rampages will be fueled by Applebess mozzarella sticks and Bud drafts. Cowboy boots and Texas shaped belt buckles will be procured. And there will be blood.

I...DRINK...YOUR...MILKSHAKE!

Fair Winds and Following Seas

2011-04-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Greetings all. I am finally back in Las Vegas after my 196 days at Guantanamo and three glorious weeks on leave. I've been sitting at my laptop for sometime now attempting to come up with some way to distill the nearly seven months in some pithy manner. Based on the number of times I have typed something only to highlight and then delete it, I'm not doing terribly well. There is something to be said for writing longhand when one at least has the wastebasket filled with crumpled up pieces of yellow legal pad ascending precariously to an impossibly high altitude.

Especially for an Air Force officer, with a career ruled by the succinct and often ridiculous bullet points that compose our Officer Performance Reports, it is temping to look back on the deployment through a work based lens. Deadlines met, cases won, and the like. As the months pass, however, I doubt I will retain detail in terms of the projects with which I was involved. As most junior lawyers find out rather quickly, whatever we work on is going to be the most boring possible aspect of the larger project. It is like some distorted version of King Midas' curse, where everything we touch turns banal and is imbibed with Gordian complexity.

For the purposes of this over-extended metaphor, let's just say the gold represents boring.

That little diatribe aside, my position within JTF-GTMO was actually quite fascinating and incredibly rewarding. I served as the Legal Adviser to the Joint Intelligence Group (JIG), composed primarily Navy and Air Force intelligence types, Defense Intelligence Agency analysts, and a number of civilian contractors. I essentially served as the liaison between the JIG and the Department of Defense Office of General Counsel. I became immersed in the byzantine world of GTMO habeas litigation and served in a supporting role to the Office of Military Commissions - Prosecution. Like most things in the JAG Corps, it was largely a baptism by fire; I thankfully found myself with an outstanding SJA and had great support from the folks within the JIG and in DC. Without question, a once in a lifetime experience for an attorney.

As compelling as my work was, it is the people with which I served that I will remember the most fondly. As I find more and more with each year of military service, a good assignment is less where you are than who you are with. I simply could not have asked for a better group of friends and peers down in Guantanamo. The social context of the deployed environment is incredibly peculiar. On one hand, it is highly intimate; one spends nearly every waking hour with the same group of people. Every meal, every workout, and every social outing was generally with the same 5-20 people for nearly 200 consecutive days. On the other, it is consciously ephemeral. We all knew our time together was for a term and once that term expired, we would all go back to our regular lives. It reminds me of my final year in high school, college, and law school - there is something truly bittersweet about having an expiration date that forces one to savor the time left while simultaneously forcing the recognition that one is in a holding pattern, merely delaying the inevitable next chapter.

Crashing the Navy Ball in ABUs, DCUs, and MARPATs. Stay classy San Diego.

GTMO breaks down into two independent areas separated by the Bay. The Naval Station and Joint Task Force are all on the Windward side. The air terminal is across the Bay on the Leeward side. As a result, one has to take a ferry from Windward to Leeward. It is tradition at Guantanamo to send off those leaving the island for good by jumping in the Bay at the ferry landing and swimming after the ferry as it sails away.

No question, it is good to be home. That said, I'll miss you guys. It was a privilege to serve with you.

On the ferry ride to freedom. I have now joined the ranks of Harold and Kumar in escaping Guantanamo Bay.

And Why is the Carpet All Wet, TODD?!?

2010-12-15T15:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know, MARGO!

Season's greetings from Guantanamo! I hope this finds everyone wearing ridiculous Christmas sweaters while pretending to actually like eggnog. Watching people struggle with a cup of this booze batter is like some twisted holiday version of the Emperor's New Clothes. Just admit that it is terrible; no one is going to judge you. One has to question who thought eggnog up; "I want to get a little drunk, but I also want some pancakes."

"Is Rusty still in the Navy?"

I'm stunned to consider that I am writing this at the mid-way point through my deployment. The time has absolutely flown. There is a serious "casino effect" down here that seems to advance time at an accelerated rate. Casinos are notorious for lacking two major things: windows and clocks. As a result, it becomes nearly impossible to judge the passing of time. One experiences a somewhat similar phenomenon here. As I work within what is essentially a secure vault, my workday is windowless. And then there is the weather. There has been absolutely no discernible transition from summer to winter. Living in Chicago for most of my life, I am grown accustomed to complaining about the weather over four distinct seasons. That is not the case here. Even with the random Christmas decorations haphazardly strewn across GTMO, it does not feel like December. I can be told it is December, I can see Al Roker's now creepy quasi-ectomorphic body with still massive head talk about winter, and I can even watch the Metrodome collapse faster than Brett Farve's starting game streak (too soon?)...but I'm still not buying that it is December.

These pictures were taken in "winter." It is like I'm living in a Postal Service song; we can swim any day in December.

Work continues to go well. I'm going to stick with my policy of not commenting on my professional day-to-day within the JTF. That said, if any of my readers out there have an interest in the myriad legal complexities surrounding the Habeas litigation (my focus down here) and Military Commissions prosecutions of Guantanamo detainees, I strongly recommend Lawfare. The authors are absolutely brilliant legal minds that do an excellent job of presenting the issues from a variety of viewpoints. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I get a number of questions from friends and family on what I do with my free time down here. GTMO has a number of outstanding recreational activities to keep us busy when we are not within the JTF. Within the first month, I became a certified open water scuba diver, a revelation that usually induces laughter from those close to me. Scuba diving still strikes me as a bit odd, probably because I spent almost all of my life in the Midwest and currently am stationed in a desert. While there are some fanatical divers out here, I remain pretty "meh" about it. It was cool to do, I've crossed it off my list, but I entertain no plans to retire on the Caribbean so I can send spend all my free time scaring the shit out of fish. That said, because the waters around GTMO are protected from commercial fishing or boating, it is some of the best diving in the world. All the pictures below were taken on our dives from GTMO beaches.

Beyond this sign lie Cuban waters. In full disclosure, I may have poked one of my fins a little past the maritime border.

We can also spear fish, which is, in a word, awesome. Most us use what is called a Hawaiian Sling as opposed to the more traditional spear gun. The Hawaiian Sling, as you can see below, is just a big spear with a bungee type band at the end. It is the same concept of a bow and arrow, with the spear being pulled against the tension of the bungee; when it is released, the bungee propels it forward, faster and further than a diver could by hand.

Johnny Utah, 1. Red Snapper, 0.

We also fish, or as I call it, "A Race Against Time Before I Get Incredibly Sea Sick and Have to Lay Down on the Deck of the Boat."

I received word that I will be PCSing this summer to Cannon AFB in Clovis, New Mexico. Incredible mission, terrible location. I'll be attached to the 27th Special Operations Wing (27 SOW), one of our two Special Operations Wings that fall under Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). 27 SOW operates highly specialized aircraft such as the AC-130H Spectre gunship and CV-22 Osprey in specialized and contingency operations using advanced aircraft, tactics, and air refueling techniques to infiltrate, exfiltrate, and resupply special operations forces and provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and close air support in support of special operations forces (SOF) operations. 27 SOW is also home to a number of SOF operators, with Combat Control, Pararescue, and Combat Weather units.


The AC-130H Spectre, a heavily armed ground-attack gunship.

I am ecstatic at the prospect of the significant military justice and operations law opportunities Cannon looks to hold. Being a second assignment JAG will open up new challenges and greater responsibility, so we shall see how it all shakes out. While Clovis is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, I am a mere stone's throw from Texas. An incidental perk to the assignment is my proximity to Dyess AFB, where one of my great friends from JASOC will be PCSing. She is also a JAG blogger, presently in Italy at Aviano Air Base, and a fellow JTF-GMTO vet. She not only leads a more interesting life than I do, but is also a better writer, so I strongly suggest checking out her blog, Inklings of Wanderlust. I'll also be within driving distance Austin, San Antonio, Sante Fe, and Albuquerque; I anticipate putting a lot of miles on my A4.

I would be remiss if I did not take a moment and extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has sent cards, care packages, pictures, and emails throughout my deployment down here. It is always great to have something to open during mail day and I have been absolutely inundated with packages nearly every week. I sincerely appreciate the time, effort, and expense you all have been going to. If any of you out there know someone, even indirectly, that will be spending the holidays in Iraq, Afghanistan, or in some other similarly unpleasant locale, throw some stuff in a box for them.

That's all for now. For all of you spending your holidays in the sandbox, stay safe. The rest of you, have a merry Festivus and a raccuous Ludachristmas.

"Who cares about the true meaning of Christmas? It’s about getting crap and eating too much! It’s about getting drunk and hugging your cousin until your mom says, ‘Frank, enough!''

Bienvenido a los Tres Centavos, Edición Cubana!

2010-10-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

I just added "blog from a Communist country" to my Columbus Day to-do list. It is going to be sweet to cross that one off the list upon completing this post. This also qualifies as my first international blog entry. I am absolutely crushing it today.

I am blown away that I am going into my seventh week on-island. The time has absolutely flown. This is largely attributable to the fact that the people I work with, both within the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate and the JTF at large, are nothing short of awesome. My particular job within the JTF has also been an incredible experience and opportunity. However, due to the sensitive nature of my position and our mission down here, I am going to refrain from writing directly about my day-to-day within the JTF.

Living in Guantanamo Bay has been an experience. Naval Station (NAVSTA, "Nav Stay") Guantanamo Bay has the unique status of not only being the oldest overseas American military installation but the only one in a Communist Country. The United States leased Guantanamo Bay in 1903 after our five-month long throttling of the second rate power known as Spain in the Spanish-American War. Spain, you may recall, is best known for a work force that naps 22 hours a day (earning them the nickname "Europe's Koala Bear"), having their 1587 Armada decimated by the completely unforeseeable force of nature known to many as "wind," and for possessing the hands down most bat-shit crazy fans whenever the Tour de France passes through the Pyrenees.


Gypsy! Give me your tears! If you will not give them to me, I will take them from you!

The lease of Guantanamo Bay, codified in a 1934 treaty, gives us this hunk of land for a mere $4,085.00 a year. That's a real estate deal that would make even Peter Minuit or Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross blush. Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the U.S. Government. The Cuban government maintains this was only done because of "confusion" in the heady early days of the revolution, while the US government maintains that the cashing constitutes an official validation of the treaty. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (a position that has ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.

I'd think someone at least got the steak knives for snagging GTMO.

This odd history lead to the significant legal question in Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004) if U.S. District Courts had the authority to review habeas corpus petitions from detainees in Guantanamo due to the fact (among other things) that under the the 1934 treaty, it is Cuba, and not the United States, that retains ultimate sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay. Overcoming logic, reason, and case-law with judicial activism, the Supreme Court ultimately found that the detainees, who had previously been focusing their energies on blowing up U.S. citizens and servicemembers, had standing to utilize U.S. courts to challenge their detention.

As an Air Force Officer, it has taken me a little bit to get used to the quirks and culture of working under a Navy Command. The rank structure, both officer and enlisted, is straight out of a Gilbert & Sullivan production. An interesting facet of this is the fact that while my rank of Captain denotes the grade of O-3 in the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps, a Navy Captain is an O-6 (full bird Colonel equivalent). This has lead to some odd situations on the phone when I, calling as Captain Johnny Utah, have been effectively promoted three full ranks by the person on the other end of the line.

To classify the Navy enlisted rank structure as byzantine would be to meet them more than halfway. For the purposes of illustration, let's take an E-5 paralegal. In the Air Force, this individual would be a Staff Sergeant. Simple. "Hey, Sergeant Snuffy, did you get my email?" But not in the Navy. We first take the rank (known as "rate" in the Navy), an E-5 being a Petty Officer Second Class, abbreviated as PO2. The Navy, however, is obsessed with the function of its sailors (make the Seaman joke now and just get it over with). Navy paralegals are known as Legalmen, which is abbreviated as LN. Legalman is their "rating," or job title. We then smoosh their rate and rating together, making an E-5 paralegal an LN2. Legalman, Second Class. LN2 is the term of address. "Hey, LN2, didn't Da Bears look great against the Panthers this weekend?" That still strikes me as weird. This gets even worse when you consider there are over FIFTY different ratings currently used by the Navy. Fifty separate Gilbert & Sullivan titles like Boatswains Mate with their corresponding two letter designations. Madness I say. Madness.

One aspect of this whole Navy thing that I am secretly growing to love is the nautical lingo. Doors are now hatches. Floors are decks. Dining facilities are galleys. Walls are bulkheads. Everyone says "welcome aboard" to newcomers. I no longer have a Wingman looking out for my 6, having replaced it with a Shipmate. I have a feeling I am going to be absolutely insufferable to be around once I bring this back to Nellis.

Any questions? Is the poop deck what I think it is. I like the cut of your jib. What's a jib? Promote that man at once.

Naval Lexicon aside, the single weirdest thing about being here is the wildlife. I am generally willing to tolerate things like dogs, squirrels, rabbits, deer, and the like. The very first thing I saw here, best that I could tell, one was of those small dinosaurs that killed Newman in the beginning of Jurassic Park. I was later informed that I had seen my first iguana. It would not be my last as these things are legion.

Driving around at any given moment, you see dozens of these corpulent scaly beasts blithely sunning themselves on the side of the road. Despite their omnipresence, iguanas here somehow enjoy a protected status. This means no one on the base can do anything that might offend these lizards, to include not using profanity around them or wearing white after Labor Day. God help you if you accidentally run one of these things over with your car. As a result, whenever one of these Godzilla rejects drags its fat ass onto a road, traffic has to stop until it meanders its way to the other side. You will literally see cars sitting for 10 minutes at a time, just waiting. We have mounted security patrols, riding around in Humvees with M-240B 7.62mm machine guns and soldiers carrying M-4 carbines and yet we are all completely impotent to do anything beyond politely saying "shoooo" while making that weird universal "shooo" hand gesture.

"I'ma gonna eat you f-ing face off right after I get done eating this pear."

This little guy is eating out of my neighbor's cat-food bowl. He already ate the cat.

This thing is the size of a small pony. He kind of looks like Marlon Brando after he let himself go.

I also get to hang out with Hutias, better known as Banana Rats. These things are absolutely fine by me. They are nocturnal and do not appear to have any function beyond getting run over by cars and becoming carrion for our robust population of always creepy looking Turkey Vultures. Yes, this place truly has it all.

Oh hai.

Nom nom nom.

Life at Guantanamo is quite comfortable. All of the Joint Task Force officers live in the same giant cul-de-sac subdivision, sharing townhouses with a roommate. Everyone works together, lives together, and socializes together. It is a community unlike anything else I had previously experienced. Everyone is part of the same mission and that combines with the fact that everyone is deployed here unaccompanied, so no one has to rush home to get their kids or prepare dinner. It can take on almost surreal military Beaver Cleaver character at times; no one ever locks their doors, people are always waving to each other and the like. One of my JAG friends down here is from Brooklyn and truly does not know what to make of the friendliness. I think he thinks it is all part of some big grift.

Perhaps the coolest thing I have down here is my whip, a white 2000 Ford Escort SE with 90,000 miles on it. Known throughout the JTF as "White Lightening," it is four cylinders of pure energy, allowing me to live my life a quarter mile at a time, just like my hero, Action Superstar Vin Diesel. I feel sorry for all the married female officers who have to watch me drive around, knowing they cashed in their chips too early.


Xzibit is coming to the island to pimp this ride out. "Yo dawg, I heard you like defending democracy..."

That is it for now. Hope this finds you all well back in the States. It is always awesome to get mail, so get off of your ass and put that care package together.

How do you say "Banana Daiquiri"?

2010-08-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

As expected, the past few months have been busy. I've managed to knock out several courts-martial (to include a GCM in which I got my ass thoroughly kicked), extricate myself from volatile situations with both biker gangs and a muster of peacocks while at a wedding in Austin, Texas, complete Squadron Officer School by correspondence, shoot a MK-19 automatic grenade launcher, and keep my NJP program running without the building burning down. I'm sure I've learned some valuable lessons along the way but it is all lost on me as I'm still trying to figure out what the hell happened during Inception.

As I left the theater, I walked behind a couple that was clearly on their first date. The woman asked the guy, "sooooo, what was up with the spinning top at the end?" Initially I decided the woman was a few clowns short of a circus and this guy's best play might be to just leave her at the theater. Upon reflection, however, this woman may have been a genius.


But the top was Mal's Totem, not Cobb's....Mind. Explosion.

One of the realities of military service is the constant rotation of friends and co-workers. Deployments, temporary duty assignments, and permanent changes of station mean that none of us remain in the same place for very long. We constantly meet new people and lose old friends. This happens primarily during the summer months, the famed "summer cycle." While we lost some keepers from my office this rotation, their replacements look to be fitting in just fine. With our current staff and ridiculous volume of military justice, this has got to be one of the best first (or second) assignments in the JAG Corps. I should learn about my second assignment in a few months with a PCS to my next base in June/July 2011. We'll see what the powers that be have in store for Johnny Utah.


Special Agent Johnny Utah hopes to be catching some killer tubes Osan Air Base this time next year. I heard they live to get radical there.

Speaking of deployments, I am shipping out this week for a six to seven month tour. I'll be attached to the legal staff of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I anticipate being able to continue blogging down there, so hopefully I can keep you all posted on how that develops.

"Take caution in your tone, Commander. I'm a fair guy but this heat is making me absolutely crazy."

And for those of you thinking of it, the answer is yes. With this deployment, I am one step closer to Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Kaffe in A Few Good Men. And with the White House talking about easing travel restrictions to Cuba proper, I may also get one step closer to Fredo in Godfather II.

"Banana Daiquiri."

While I am incredibly fortunate to have landed a deployment that is not in an active war zone, I've run out of fingers and toes to keep track of the number of my friends and peers currently in the Stan and Iraq. Out of my office alone, we have three paralegals deployed. While much has been made of the symbolic end of combat operations in Iraq, well over 50,000 combat arms and other personnel remain in theater, plus the thousands supporting their efforts in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc. And this is to say nothing of Afghanistan. It is an incredible lot that volunteer to put themselves in harms way and be separated from friends and family. Keep them all in your thoughts and if you are the church going type, your prayers.

See you all again in March 2011.

Utah's Tactics for Getting the JAG Job of Your Dreams

2010-06-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

I hope this finds everyone well. I thought I would take 66th anniversary of true American heroes (along with the Brits, Canadians, and French) airdropping over and storming the beaches of Normandy to similarly launch a textual assault on the blogosphere.

Things at Nellis remain busy. Despite the workload, the outstanding JAGs and paralegals here truly make the job bearable on its very worst days and a lot of damn fun on the best days. While it is hard to get a better location than Las Vegas (notwithstanding the fact that the temperatures are back to clearing 110 degrees on a regular basis; I'm considering using Kelvin instead of Fahrenheit as my basis for temperature measurement) I remain certain that it is the people, and to a slightly lesser extent the work product, that make any given JAG assignment. While my posts would no doubt involve significantly more references to hunting moose were I stationed at Minot or Malmstrom, I have little doubt I would still be loving life if I had the same cast of characters currently making up USAFWC/JA.

It has been quite a while that I have written a post directly relevant for the incoming or aspiring Air Force Judge Advocates out there and I figure I am due. Allow me to first disclaim how I am not an expert on JAG accessions nor am I affiliated in anyway with the official decision making process. These are merely the personal considerations of a junior JAG whose only expertise is the good fortune he had to be selected in 2007.

I want to cover the two most common questions I get from aspiring and incoming JAGs: 1) Where do I wanted to be stationed?; 2) How do I improve my chances for selection?

Where do I want to be stationed?

The most common mistake made in arriving to an answer to this question, and one I initially made myself, is to base your analysis exclusively on geography. Obviously, the location of your base is important. That said, it should not be your only consideration. As I mentioned above, I love my job because of the work I do and the people I do it with. The fact that I live in the deliriously over-hyped city of Las Vegas is merely the icing to the cake.

While the hotels are pager friendly, there is a reason these three wolves only spent 48 hours in this town. It's the same reason people visit, but do not reside in, Disney World. You can ask Carlos in a few years what he thinks about growing up here.

The most important thing to determine is what you really want to do in the JAG Corps. Prosecute courts? Environmental or Labor Law? Operations Law? When you can answer that question, you can start selectively picking bases that will give you the greatest opportunity to work in that area. It goes without saying that your first two assignments are going to expose you to everything, whether you like it or not. That is the whole point of the first four years. That said, most base legal offices have an inevitable concentration on something due to the mission they support. Nellis is heavy on Military Justice with a dynamic Operations Law workload. Other bases will have a different mix. If you know what you want to do, talk to JAX and learn about the bases have a greater practice emphasis in that area.

How do I improve my chances for selection?

This is the $64,000 question for many. Law students/graduates from schools that have a heavy law firm presence at On-Campus Interviewing each Fall and Spring learn the inflexible, albeit comfortingly predictable, requirements for Big Law. Top 20%, Law Review/Journal, Moot Court, etc, etc. This is also why JAG applicants tend to flip out. There is no set cut off or requirement for the JAG Corps. The official materials talk about the "full person concept," in all of its patent ambiguity, and the JAG Corps absolutely lives up to it with our selections.

JAGs resumes are diverse. We come from a variety of schools, perhaps the one institution that truly does not give a flying shit what insanely arbitrary ranking system Bob Morse at US News World Report invents (that said, #21 this year! Go Illini!).

This year, we'll rank law schools based on the attractiveness of the student body, the types of cars driven by the faculty, and, of course, the volume of books in the law library that no one will ever, ever, read.

That said, the JAGs at my level that I interact with have graduated with strong GPAs and were moot court/law review members. Almost all have a strong litigation/court interest and focused on classes that prepared them for the court room: evidence, criminal law & procedure, trial advocacy, pre-trial advocacy, etc. For those that came in through the Direct Appointment Program, the strong majority of us were interns with the 2L Internship Program. As a group, we believe strongly in what we do, both as Air Force officers and attorneys. Perhaps most importantly, we are in the Air Force because it was the #1 thing we wanted to with our law careers coming out of law school. Many, to include myself, turned down law firm positions to accept their commissions (remember, this is before the recession).

Beyond class selections and transcripts, factors that are often a fait accompli by the time one is applying, the single biggest variable (again, in my totally unofficial opinion) is the SJA interview. The style, manner, and substance of these interviews varies entirely on the SJA conducting them, so I truly cannot comment on these in any meaningful way. What I can offer, however, is the biggest mistakes I see routinely made.

The dozens of half-baked "get a law job" books out there, a number only multiplying due to the recession, always speak ad nauseam about researching the law firm/company as the base of your successful interview. An obvious, but valid, point.

"Hey, I bet this is how Utah got the dumb title for this post."

Just because the advice given in these tomes is directed toward the private sector does not mean their principles do not apply to us Feds. If you are applying to be an officer and attorney in the US Air Force, you should probably know about the law firm to which you are applying. Know about the Air Force and the mission we perform as the air component of the US Armed Forces. Know the rank structure, both officer and enlisted. Know what the JAG Corps does. The JAG Corps is an unique of a legal practice setting as they come. I've seen too many applicants that seem to think we are some Department of Justice branch that happens to wear uniforms.

More like a branch of the Department of Handsome.

A JAG's primary function as an officer in the Air Force is the support the war fighting mission through our professional capabilities. Some officers fly planes. Others deal with analysis of intelligence. Others lead combat search and rescue operations. We happen to provide legal counsel to the commanders that are making the decisions. Understanding this role is critical. Even more critical is knowing why you want to be a part of it and what you can offer. Being able to answer the "why JAG?" and "why the Air Force?" is often incredibly difficult.

Also important is comprehension of what being an officer entails in the practical, vice philosophical, sense. Know that you will be expected to meet and exceed USAF physical training standards. Know that we move every two years to new bases, sometimes to locations we want nothing to do with, and that we change positions within our offices even more frequently. Know that we are at war (yes, it is still going on over there) and that JAGs deploy with increasing regularity. If you are a fat tub of goo (there is a reason you submit a picture with your application), or you will be shocked and appalled to hear you will be getting a 6-month all expense paid vacation to Kandahar or Bagram, complete with nightly mortar/rocket attacks, this might not be the job for you.

Things like dress and appearance are taken very seriously. Conservative hair and clothing at the interview is a must. You will be interviewing with a Colonel (or Lieutenant Colonel), a rank that means entire rooms of people stand and come to the position of attention when they enter and just about everyone on the installation refers to them as "sir" or "ma'am." In other words, when dealing with a high ranking officer of an institution that has a systemic obsession with customs and courtesies, it behooves applicants to act accordingly.

Some other good unofficial resources for the JAG hopefuls:

Military Law thread on Top Law Schools:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31543

JAG thread on Air Force OTS:
http://airforceots.com/portal/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=51

As a random aside, I had mah eyeballs checked at the 7 month mark from my PRK corrective surgery. I'm at 20/15 in both eyes now and that is totally vassup.

Bruno agrees. Totally vassup.

That is all Utah has for now. The rest of June and July is going to be pretty rough at work, I'll get back posting in late July.

Foreshadowing, Chuck Bass, Courage Wolf

2010-04-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

I realize it has been four months since my last substantive post. If you scroll down a little, you will find the following: "When I review my old posts, March 2010 Agent Johnny Utah is going to think that January 2010 Agent Johnny Utah is an asshole for not knowing how good he had it." If I were writing from the third-person omniscient perspective, we could call this foreshadowing. As I am not, let's just say April 2010 Johnny Utah thinks January 2010 Johnny Utah made a wise decision.

I just foreshadowed to an image about foreshadowing. Consider your minds blown.

Back in March, I was fortunate to be selected for the Operations Law Course at the Army's JAG School in Charlottesville, Virgina. The course was, in a word, awesome. To say nothing of spending two weeks on the grounds of the University of Virgina, the subject matter covered at the course was simply outstanding. (A note to readers non-affiliated with UVa: do not make the mistake of using the word "campus" within the limits of Charlottesville. Everyone within earshot will tell you how the school's founder, President Thomas Jefferson, intended the world to be a campus and so the university has "grounds." I agree that this is something so ridiculously pretentious that I'm even rolling my eyes as I type this. That said, learn from my mistake and save yourself from being corrected by some dbag 21 year old Sigma Chi wearing a down vest from Vineyard Vines.)

Even colossal douche bag Chuck Bass thinks calling UVA's campus "the Grounds" is stupid.

As I was saying prior to that paragraph long parenthetical diatribe, the Ops Law course was amazing. For my upcoming and current JAG readership, do not miss out on this opportunity if you get the chance (on that note: JAGs - if you are not scanning the Course Nomination System on FLITE for TDYs on a regular basis, you are missing out). The students at the course come from all five service branches, which was an unexpected plus. Even at a base like Nellis with its strong Navy, Marine, and Army presence, this is still the most interaction I have had in a Joint environment. Especially when learning Operations Law (the infinitely complex and myriad laws surrounding how our Armed Forces kills people and blows things up), seeing the perspective of JAGs from the different services incredibly valuable. I cannot say enough good things about our guys in Green; the hospitality shown to us throughout the course was without equal.

Rocking out Monticello. For those wondering: The Life of Thomas Jefferson > The Life of Thomas Jefferson's Slaves.

Once I put away my popped collar Polos, Sperry Topsiders, and Nantucket Reds (Uniform of the Day at UVa), I switched from my office's General Law division, where I was previously Czar of Claims and Administrative Law, to our Military Justice division, where I now head up our Article 15 program. I absolutely love the new position. Not only is the subject matter far more interesting (no offense to my Report of Survey fans out there) but I now interact with our Squadron Commanders and Shirts on a near daily basis.

Nellis also continues to be absolutely slammed with courts-martial. The plus side to this is that I'm gaining all the trial experience that I joined the JAG Corps to obtain. The bad side is that the whole "work-life balance" concept has gone the way of the Dodo.

Oh hey, it's my social life.

Regardless, it has to be way worse for our Area Defense Counsels right now. If I were in that position, my advice would probably take on this tone:

"He knocked over another ATM. This time at knife point. He needs your legal advice."

"Stop breaking the law, asshole!!"

Beyond that, there is not too much to report. I've been pretty much too busy to be interesting. I'm still scheduled for a deployment in August, though it is looking like it will not be to somewhere than ends in "stan" or "q" so that is a plus.

Hope this finds everyone well.

Once Year Hence

2010-02-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

I graduated from OTS one year ago from yesterday. 2009 Johnny Utah starts JASOC this Tuesday. Time flies.

"Oh, young Jim. There is so much I need to warn you about and yet, tragically, I cannot."

Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas...

2010-01-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

I was going to start this post with a Irish-Catholic Guilt induced apology for not having posted in the past month due to how busy I have been. I'm fighting that urge. The first reason for this is that each month seems to get busier than the one previous. When I review my old posts, March 2010 Agent Johnny Utah is going to think that January 2010 Agent Johnny Utah is an asshole for not knowing how good he had it.

The second is that Agent Johnny Utah has nothing to apologize for. He lives in Las Vegas. He has a job that involves several titles that begin with "Chief." He drives a Dodge Stratus. He transitions into the third person for no particular reason. He is, in other words, very important.

That's my motto. Thanks Courage Wolf.

In all, work has been going quite well. It looks like I will be deploying this summer, a prospect that I am very excited about. I'm not at liberty right not to disclose the location but it will be an incredible opportunity as both an officer and an attorney.

My office has come together nicely from a social angle. We have a great collection of Captains that makes makes even the worst working days bearable. It also has lead to some great times when we are off duty hours.

Bringing in 2010.

We're not compensating for anything.

This represents the most training I have done with an M-4. Thanks Air Force.

I also successfully concluded my fourth court-martial today and another three just around the corner. Feels like I just wrote that post about that first court-martial. Needless to say, I am no longer shocked about the confinement officer from Security Forces coming over with the handcuffs and leg irons. I've actually started to look forward to it. I guess that modicum of humanity and compassion I had starting out as a prosecutor has now been quashed.

Merry Christmas, kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass. Happy Hanukkah.

2009-12-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

Belated season's greetings ya'll. I hope this finds everyone well.

I'd like to send my very best to everyone stuck in a deployed location over this holiday season. Johnny Utah shoutouts to Capts Joni and Andrea, fellow JAGs who spent their Christmas in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. I'd also like to welcome back Capt Dave from his OIF deployment, his homecoming being even more notable as he was able to meet his newborn daughter for the first time. While the current wars seem at best an abstraction for many, never lose sight of the massive impact deployments have on the service members and their families.

Prior to heading home for Christmas I had an exceptionally busy couple of weeks. I had my second court martial which proved to be a far more complicated proceeding than my first, though it still ended with a big win for the legal office. In retrospect, the curveballs that the court presented were an invaluable learning opportunity. At the time, however, I could only consider that the stress was causing my hairline to continue with its 1940 French at the Maginot Line retreat.

Too soon?

I also had my first post-JASOC course at the Air Force JAG School, Deployed Fiscal Law & Contingency Contracting. The title pretty much tells you all you would want to know. Alternatively, I'll borrow from Mark Twain: "Chloroform in print." The material, while both dense and dry, is nevertheless invaluable. Fiscal Law and Contracting Law are those areas that no one but a deranged few love but are still critical, especially while we are at war.

The best part of the course was laboring through it with some of my favorites from JASOC. After spending nearly every waking minute together for the 10 weeks at the JAG School, it was bittersweet when we dispersed to our bases throughout the world. These 1-2 week courses, known as TDYs (Temporary Duty), not only allow us to hone subject matter expertise, but to reconnect with old friends and network with new ones. I'll be heading to the Army's JAG School on the campus of the University of Virginia this February for my next course.

It took quite a bit of maneuvering but we conned our way into the O-Club with its beloved Crud Table.

Being back in Chicago for the holiday was an absolute blast. It was something to spend one morning at a St. Ignatius Crew practice with the women's team I coached last year, to spending a night with friends I met fourteen years ago at Fenwick.

I hope everyone has a merry Festivus and a happy New Year. For all those in the AOR, stay safe!

Shitter was full!

The Air Show

2009-11-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

The past month has not been terribly eventful, hence my lack of posting. I am happy to report that my eyes are still doing well post-PRK. I had my one-month checkup and am seeing 20/20, though I get that through a right eye that is better than 20/20 and a left eye that is 20/30. It seems this disparity is pretty common and should sort itself out over the coming months. All in all, I am thrilled with the procedure and recommend it to any of the active duty folks out there that qualify.

For the USAF JAG selects and hopefuls among the blog readership, we got some great news from TJAG. The JAG Corps will now be helping pay back our student loans; up to $65,000 over three annual installments. The first payments should go out late summer/early fall of 2010. The money will be paid directly to the loan companies and will be considered W-2 taxable income. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the money comes with no strings (additional service commitment) attached. This is simply incredible and will make things far easier for all of us who are attempting to pay down considerable law school debt on a military salary. For my JAG Corps superiors that are no doubt monitoring this blog, you have my sincere appreciation for all the work that went into getting this money appropriated.

This month allowed me to experience my first air show in which I was part of the Emergency Operations Center. The EOC is the collection of everyone on base that is tasked with responding in the event of a disaster, e.g., a plane crash. This ranges from Bioenvironmental Engineering to Explosive Ordinance Disposal and, of course, Legal. The plus side to this was that we all assembled in a secure room that was somewhat close to what these rooms look like in the movies, i.e., everyone at assigned work stations with computer monitors with the giant screens in front.

The Armageddon/Under Siege type movies always seem to conclude with the protagonist completing the mission and everyone in the EOC type room erupting into cheering/random acts of hugging/self-laudatory handshaking. Needless to say, that did not happen for me.

The negative to this is that I spent 72 straight hours basking in sheer anxiety at the thought of planes crashing. There is nothing like sitting at an air show, an event with the sole purpose of thrilling the audience with risky aerial acrobatics, when you are one of the people on the hook if something goes wrong.

The air show had some excellent static displays set up as well.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, "The Warthog." My favorite plane in the USAF arsenal.

The B-1 Lancer, "The Bone" (as in B-One).

V-22 Osprey

F-15 Eagle

F-22 Raptor

RQ-4 Global Hawk

Lasers in Mah Eyeballs: The PRK Adventure

2009-10-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

I underwent Photorefractive Keratectomy, PRK, on Monday the 26th. I've been up at Travis AFB for the procedure and have been residing at base lodging. PRK is distinct from the popular LASIK procedure. LASIK involves the ophthalmologist using a blade or laser to cut a flap in the epithelium layer of the eye, pinning it back, then using a excimer laser to reshape the cornea, and finally reattaching the epithelium flap. The military is not wild about LASIK in that there is always the risk that the flap can come lose in car accidents or other incidents which knock the head around. This is rare, but in that uniformed personnel have a higher risk for head trauma in combat situations, the DoD prefers we undergo PRK.

LASIK

PRK, also known as LASEK (with an E), is a technically more simple procedure. Instead of creating the flap, the surgeon simply dissolves/removes the entire epithelium and then reshapes the cornea with the excimer laser. The benefit of PRK is that far less can go wrong during the procedure as the entire complicated step of creating and securing the flap is removed from the equation. As mentioned, it is also more stable in the long term as the patient does not have the flap that can come lose. The negative is that the recovery is far longer and can be painful, as the entire epithelium has to regrow.

PRK

For the curious, this is how the whole process went for me:

Pre-Op Week:
I arrived at Travis a full five days before my actual surgery date. This is due to the extensive pre-op workup the Refractive Surgery Center has to do before the procedure. I went through hours of eye tests, some normal, (reading from the Snellen eye chart) some totally bizarre (having the surface of my cornea digitally mapped). I learned that I have extremely active tear ducts. This has actually been a huge asset in my recovery as dry eyes are a major complication in the healing process. So, in terms of the genetic hand I've been dealt, I have a receding hairline but productive tear ducts. I guess that is a push. The way I learned about my tear ducts was interesting. After the nurse applied numbing eye drops, she stuck what are essentially acupuncture needles into my tear ducts. The numbing drops worked quite well and I did not feel a thing, but it was still somewhat disconcerting to look down and see needles sticking out of my lower eye region.

TD-0, Surgery Day:
I was scheduled for an 0815 surgery time and I arrived 45 minutes early for all the pre-surgery procedures. This consisted of tons of eye drops, ranging from numbing to antibiotic. To classify my mood as "anxious" would be a considerable understatement.

When it was my turn, I was taken into the surgery room and I laid down on a reclining chair/table, similar to what dentists use. My blood pressure was absolutely through the roof at this point. The Doctor explained what all the equipment was and fired the laser so I would be prepared for the sound of the machine. I paid absolutely zero attention and simply tried to keep myself from hyperventilating.

My left eye was the first to be operated on, so they covered my right with an eye patch type thing. The Doc then put in spreaders, essentially an eye speculum, to keep me from blinking. This would have no doubt been terribly painful but for the gallons of numbing drops they had been putting into my eyes. It was still uncomfortable, in that "you're going to feel some pressure now," way you get at the dentist.

This is how I was feeling

Then came, in my opinion, the worst part of the procedure. As I mentioned above, the biggest difference between LASIK and PRK is in regard to how the epithelium is dealt with. PRK involves removing the entire epithelium. This was done by putting a rotating brush on the surface of my eye. It looked similar to the rotating tooth cleaning tool they use during dental cleanings. Again, it was not painful, but it was extraordinarily uncomfortable. The Doc then used a sponge type instrument to wipe away all the epithelium tissue he had destroyed with the brush . Then came the actual laser. The unit looks like a giant desktop computer, and I was situated under a portion of it. I was looking straight up at a series of blinking lights and was told repeatedly to keep my eye fixed on the red center light.

The natural fear of most people is that they will move their eye as the laser fires. This is now essentially impossible, as the laser computer's system tracks the patient's eye position up to 4,000 times per second. In short, the laser moves far more quickly than the patient's eye muscles and also automatically shuts off in the event that the eye moves too far out of range.

The Doctor then gave me a brief countdown and the actual procedure commenced with a series of flashing lights and mechanical clicks. The clinical term for what happens here is ablation, a fancy word for VAPORIZING portions of my cornea with the laser beam. In that I did not need extensive correction to my eyes (I was only -2 diopters in each eye), the laser only fired for maybe 15 seconds. Talking to other patients, it seems the worse your eyes, the longer the laser is engaged. It was utterly painless, though I was still white knuckled on the stress balls they had given me. The doctor then sprayed some water into the eye to wash everything out. The water came as a bit of a surprise and was horribly unpleasant. The process was then repeated for my right eye. The Doc then inserted bandage contact lenses to act as a buffer between my cornea and my eyelid, as my epithelium was no longer there to serve in that role. I was out of the operating room in a grand total of maybe 12 minutes.

I felt absolutely fine following the procedure. My eyes felt weird but I was not in any pain whatsoever due to the numbing eye drops. I was issued cheap wrap-around sunglasses to protect my eyes from UV rays and some insane Chronicles of Riddick goggles to cover my eyes when I showered and slept.

If I were bald, I would look exactly like action superstar Vin Diesel.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I was given Percocet for pain management and I took them liberally anticipating the worst. I could see fairly well, that is, I could get around my hotel room without a problem. I grew increasingly light sensitive, though not nearly as bad as former patients had described it to me. I began the regimen of eye drops that were prescribed to me, taking four different prescriptions several times throughout the day. I pretty much spent the day sleeping or listening to the 30 Rock and Arrested Development episodes I had downloaded on my computer.

TD-1:
I slept fitfully, though I account most of that to having slept for the bulk of the preceding day. I had my 24 hour follow up appointment in the morning which was not terribly eventful. I was not experiencing significant pain or light sensitivity, which was a relief. My actual vision was 20/35 in both eyes, which allowed me to see but not really focus my eyes with any real precision.

My sensitivity to light increased throughout the day. I kept the lights off and curtains drawn for the entire day and needed to wear my sunglasses to watch TV or look at my phone/laptop. All in all it was not too bad, especially compared to the stories I had been told or found on blogs/message boards.

TD-2:
This was the reason they prescribed me Percocet. Holy shit did my eyes hurt. I was extremely sensitive to light and would classify my eyes as being "on fire." My visual acuity had definitely regressed compared to the day before, though that was not really an issue as I tried to keep my eyes closed for most of the day. The only slightly positive part of Wednesday was scaring the bejesus out of the maid who came by - she knocked only to have me open the door to a completely dark room, curtains drawn tight, with me in a robe and wearing my Riddick goggles. She had absolutely no idea what to make of the situation.

I passed the day trying to sleep or listening to the perils of Michael Bluth and Liz Lemon.

TD-3:
Everything was back to normal. I could see better and with no acute pain. My eyes still felt weird but nothing terrible, just something I would notice. I actually drove around the hotel parking lot to see how I would measure up and felt absolutely fine.

The day was just more of the same. Dozens of eye drops on hourly intervals, microwaved Lean Pockets, and watching TV/DVDs.

TD-4:
It was finally Friday and time for my five day checkup. I was seeing 20/25 in both eyes, which is already a huge improvement. My middle to long distance vision is great, though I am still struggling in reading my computer monitor. Most importantly, I am well beyond the 20/40 cut off for driving legally in California, so I no longer have to fret about getting back to Las Vegas on Monday. The bandage contact lenses were taken out which was a huge plus as they were getting uncomfortable to wear, especially for someone that had never worn contacts in his life.

I am through the painful part of the recovery and now simply have to be patient as my eyes heal. I ran into some pilots and special operators who did the procedure years back and who now see 20/15 or better, but said they did not get to that level for 3+ months. I guess it will all be little improvements hereon in. If nothing else, it was an easy enough recovery and I can see enough now to be totally functional.

I will have my one week check up tomorrow morning and be on the road back to Las Vegas immediately thereafter.

Travis AFB & San Francisco

2009-10-31T18:38:00.000-07:00

I have been up at Travis Air Force Base for the past two weeks for PRK corrective surgery (more on the surgery later. In that I am typing this, you can infer that it went well). Travis is between San Francisco and Sacramento and is absolutely gorgeous. I cannot overstate how nice this base is. Not only is the vegetation green and lush (a nice departure from the "nothing but rocks" motif found throughout the Las Vegas area), but the base infrastructure all looks brand new. I could write an entire post on how nice the gym is. Without question, Travis is going on my "wish list" once my two years at Nellis are up.

In that my first week here was all pre-op appointments, I snuck down to San Francisco for the weekend before my surgery . As fate would have it, Dr. Mom was in town for a conference, so we were able to spend the weekend together. While I lived in San Francisco from 1982-1989, I had not been back in the twenty years subsequent. As an aside, it is extremely odd/unsettling for me to have something I can refer to that happened two full decades ago. I also just realized I have my ten year high school reunion at some point in the next year. I understand this getting old thing is inevitable but it is quite disconcerting.

San Fran was fantastic. A lot of the sights came right back to me, though many more I was seeing again for the first time. This was to the consternation of my mother who could not help but note that she, "had already pushed [my] ass in a stroller to all of these places." We did the all touristy things which was an absolute blast. My Aunt Mary, who lives in the Bay Area, selflessly donated her entire Saturday to carting my Mom and me around.

China Town, obviously.
"I'm not going to lie to you. This is going to get weird: Two dragons."

One thing China Town had a ton of, perhaps surprisingly, was swords. I guess they feel Americans expect Asians to have (and sell) ninja related weaponry. If I have one regret, it is not buying one. I was a mere $50 away from being GOB Bluth with the Sword of Destiny.

"I'll buy you a hundred George Michaels you can teach to drive."

The Oakland Bay Bridge.

"La Gorda de Napa." A 1,470 pound Pumpkin. The little orange sign behind it reassures the viewer that "yes, it's organic." God damn Hippies.

The Pacific. I felt quite Balboa-esque.

Holy. Shit.

If I had the foresight to have been looking off into the distance, this could have made a great album cover.

You have to admit that the fog rolling in over the Golden Gate Bridge like that is pretty amazing.

Aunt Mary and Mom

Awww.

Travis also has an amazing Air Force museum.

The F-101 Voodoo. The F-101 was a nuclear capable fighter bomber, serving as a strike fighter and interceptor throughout Vietnam with a reconnaissance variant serving an instrumental role in the Cuban Missie Crisis.

I thought this was pretty damn clever.

The F-100 Super Sabre, also known as the "Hun" (as in hundred...F-100). This fighter is always recognizable by the oval air intake on the nose. The F-100 was a follow on to the F-86 Sabre (see my posts from Maxwell) as an air-superiority fighter. The Hun flew extensively in a Close Air Support (CAS) role throughout South Vietnam until it was replaced by the A-7 Corsair II.

The F-105 Thunderchief, known as the "Thud." The largest single engine fighter ever employed by the USAF and that was obvious seeing it in person. This thing is an absolute beast. The F-105 was the primary bomber over North Vietnam in the early stages of the war. The 105 carried a 2omm Vulcan cannon and was critical in demonstrating the necessity of having a gun, in addition to missiles, on a fighter platform. The F-105 was also critical in taking out North Vietnam surface-to-air radar/missile defenses (known as SEAD in Air Force parlance, "Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses") as the EF-105 (e = electronic, f = fighter) known as the Wild Weasel III.

The famous B-29 Superfortress. This was incredible to see in person and is an absolutely gorgeous aircraft. In a break from all the Vietnam-era fighters featured above, the B-29 is a WWII-era bomber. It was an incredibly advanced bomber for its time, featuring a pressurized cabin, an electronic fire control system, and remote controlled machine-gun turrets. The B-29 played the primary role in the firebombing campaign against the Empire of Japan in WWII and carried the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima ("Enola Gay") and Nagasaki ("Bockscar").

Scariest Environment Imaginable

2009-10-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

The month since my last post has not been terribly eventful. That is one of the problems with working in a Civil Law billet. While I am busy and have produced a considerable volume of work product, it is hard to really write about any of it. Pursuant to my duties as the Installation Claims Officer, I did get the "opportunity" to drive three hours north of the base to the absolute middle of nowhere in order to investigate claimed damage from a sonic boom.

Sonic boom investigations were an unexpected facet of my Claims Officer responsibilities. Due to the combination of the Nevada Test Range and all sorts of kick ass supersonic aircraft, Nellis has to deal with a number of sonic boom complaints. When an object passes through the air, it creates a series of pressure waves in front of it and behind it, similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. These waves travel at the speed of sound, and as the speed of the object increases, the waves are forced together, or compressed, because they cannot "get out of the way" of each other, eventually merging into a single shock wave at the speed of sound.

While this might look cool, rest assured that it is not. It means me driving all day in a minivan.

Depending on the speed and altitude of the plane, this shock wave can ruin things, like windows...or my day.

I also had my formal six-month feedback session with my SJA. I can now officially report that I am doing well as both an officer and an attorney. That said, it is only going to get tougher and tougher as I get more experience and more responsibility.

What would you say...you do here?

I will be leaving this Tuesday for Travis Air Force Base, located between San Francisco and Sacramento. I will be there for the next two weeks for PRK corrective eye surgery. The "pro" of all of this is that it is at no expense to me. The military covers the costs of the surgery and my time out of the office is considered a TDY, meaning I do not have to burn leave. The "con" is that I am volunteering to have a goddamn laser shot into my eyeballs. I am incredibly anxious about the procedure. I understand this anxiety is largely unfounded but there is no getting around the fact that I am volunteering to have a goddamn laser shot into my eyeballs.

"Melting Raiders of the Ark Nazi" is my worst case scenario.

I have been reading dozens of blogs and forums regarding people who have had the procedure. It seems that the actual surgery is painless, though the whole set up totally freaks me out. Every description I read, no matter how detached and clinical it might be, takes me back to that scene from Armageddon when the NASA personnel describe the conditions Owen Wilson's character can expect on the asteroid. He replies, "Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That's all you gotta say, scariest environment imaginable."

From all accounts, the first three days are the worst, both in terms of visual acuity and pain. Once my eyeballs are in computer screen reading condition, I'll post and let all of you know how the surgery went...assuming my face does not somehow get melted off.

So This Is What a Courtroom Looks Like

2009-09-19T15:41:00.002-07:00

I prosecuted my first court martial last Wednesday. I served as Trial Counsel (the primary prosecutor) for the entire court, from receiving the Report of Investigation this summer to giving the sentencing argument. To work a case like that, from start to finish, was an incredible experience. From the Government's perspective, the court went very well. The Accused was convicted and received sentence that was exactly in line with what we asked for in the sentencing augment (and that exceeded our own practical/pessimistic expectations).

Admittedly, it was not a complex court martial by any means. There were no curveball issues with witnesses, evidence, or motions. That said, there were still plenty of things I could have screwed up that thankfully I didn't. I'm counting that as a win.

A court martial is truly an office-wide collaborative effort. There is no way anyone could truly use the first person singular in referring to a court martial victory. I was continually picking the brains of the more senior captains on their trial experiences. My Chief of Military Justice ensured that I did not miss any of the "little things" like case docketing, discovery deadlines, or key evidentiary considerations. The paralegals and attorneys in General Law picked up the slack in terms of my workload so I could focus on court prep. The Military Justice paralegals adroitly handled the Herculean level of work that goes into actually making the court martial happen. I am and will remain immensely grateful to everyone that went above and beyond to see that the court went successfully.

A number of my posts have alluded to the fact that my role as a Section Chief in General Law has had a steep learning curve. I have never felt that JASOC failed me in this respect; there is simply no way to comprehensively prepare someone for the infinitely variable civil law issues that exist in a base with 5 Wings and 10,000 people. I must give credit where credit is due in regard to the military justice training I received. I was totally prepared for this court in regard to the mechanics of a court martial. From the preferral of charges to entering sentencing exhibits, it all felt familiar. Truly, the actual court proceeding was probably the least stressful element of the entire experience. So, props to the JAG School. May they continue to produce many more First Lieutenants/Captains that successfully avoid any humiliating moments in their first court.

The one moment I know I will remember in regard to this trial oddly enough occurred nearly an hour after the sentence was handed down. When confinement is a possible sentence in a case, Security Forces is present at the trial so the Accused can be taken into custody if confinement is adjudged. As confinement was part of the sentence in my court, SF was there to do just that. The surprising/memorable aspect was that they brought full body restraints. Handcuffs, leg irons, etc. It is standard procedure at a number of bases in light of the unpredictable behavior that can come following being convicted and sentenced. Standard procedure or not, it impossible to articulate what it is like to actually see that for the first time.

The trial was all about taking the abstract and turning it into reality. The Military Rules of Evidence were actually being used to enter evidence. The Accused was no longer a mere name on hundreds of pieces of paper, but now had a corporeal form with a family watching from the gallery. Confinement was no longer merely something I was arguing for during sentencing, it was heavy metal restraints. Winning the court was, in the first moments, initially satisfying in that intellectual/academic achievement sense, like acing a law final. The reality was something else as the Accused, now a Federal convict, was shackled and led shuffling out of the courtroom. After years spent in school, that moment was the first time I truly recognized that this is now the real world and I am playing for keeps.

Vaya Con Dios, Brah

2009-09-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

I thought it appropriate to briefly comment on the passing of the great Patrick Swayze.

While his untimely death is obviously a tragedy unto itself, I think the greater tragedy is the fact that every headline noting his death will somehow reference Dirty Dancing. "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Yeah, we get it.

The true Patrick Swayze aficionados in my blog readership know that his first cinematic triumph was as Dalton, the nationally known bouncer with a PhD in philosophy and a friendship with Sam Elliot in "Road House."

"Take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee, and he'll drop like a stone."

The second, of course, is so obvious that it needs no mention.

Godspeed Bohdi

On Flying a Joint Strike Fighter to Work...Or: Why I Hate the CBS Series "JAG"

2009-09-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

I have lost track the amount of times I have been asked if I am a pilot when it comes out that I serve in the Air Force. Most of the time, I guess this is a fair question. If an individual does not know a lot about how the military works, it is a natural progression to go from Air Force to planes to pilot. For the longest time, however, I could not understand how people that knew I was a lawyer/JAG also asked me if I was a pilot.

And then my roommate began buying DVDs of the CBS clusterfuck that is "JAG." While I truly cannot express how much I have grown to hate this show, it did serve one valuable purpose: answering why people associate military attorneys with flying fighter jets.

I hate you all so very very much.

The show's protagonist, Commander Harmen "Harm" Rabb Jr., is a former Navy fighter pilot turned Judge Advocate. This career transition is my first problem with the show. Harm only becomes an attorney after he crashes the shit out of his F-14 and is removed from flight status. The unspoken message for the audience is that law is the silver medal of careers, nothing to strive for but a decent backup in the event that you are ever diagnosed with night blindness after accidentally killing your RIO due in an abortive aircraft carrier landing.

It's like they had to dumb down the concept of James Bond for people

So, in a sentence, the show can be summed up as "former Naval Aviator becomes a Navy JAG." They even explain this in the opening credits. Despite this, in a blinding act of cognitive dissonance, the show simultaneously ignores the "former" in "former Naval Aviator." Harm flies F-14s. Constantly. He is in the cockpit more than the courtroom. No matter how tangential it is to his role as an attorney to have him fly a fighter, he will be in the air. No one, not in the JAG Corps or the Navy at large, seems to have a problem with this.

And so, I now understand why people hear what I do for a living and assume that I am driving an F-16 Viper when I am not behind my desk. These good people are not to blame. CBS and Donald Bellisario (the show's creator/writer/EP) are to blame.

The sad part is that the flying is only the tip of the shit iceberg with this program. After a few episodes, one cannot help but conclude they did not consult a single lawyer, officer, or JAG in producing this show. There appear to be at most 5-6 attorneys in the entire Navy JAG Corps, all of which work directly under the Navy Judge Advocate General. They all sleep with each other at various points and regularly socialize, even when they are opposing counsel. The Navy TJAG is a former SEAL, further reinforcing the notion that law is a great backup career once you can no longer do what you love. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the show is that when Harm flashes back to memories of his father, his father is played by the exact same actor but he wears a ridiculous mustache to help the audience differentiate between Harm Sr. and Harm Jr.

In addition to the writers not consulting anyone that knows about the Navy or the law, they also apparently did not consult any women either. This show might be the single most unintentionally misogynistic program that was on prime time. If a female character is attractive, she will sleep with Rabb and then conviently disappear from the plot line, usually by being murdered. Other options for female characters are to become pregnant and provide comic relief or to be the ball busting ice queen archetype. The strongest female character, Marine Major Sarah MacKenzie, is still an alcoholic that is hopelessly in love with Rabb.

There is no real point to any of this other then to caution this blog's readership against ever watching reruns of this program. With that said, time for me to fuel up my F-15E Strike Eagle and administer some Air Force justice.

This entire post was a lie. I fly fighter jets all the time.

It's ALWAYS Sunny in Las Vegas

2009-08-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

I have been on leave for the past few days. As a result, I have been bumming around during the day and have had the cable news stations on. CNN has this very excitable weather guy who does nothing but wet his pants at the prospect of hurricanes. Even if it is a mere tropical depression with the slightest chance of becoming a hurricane, this guy is going to tell you, and then telestrate, all about it. Woe be to anyone who is actually hoping for weather conditions outside of the vicinity of Bermuda.

Mr. Hurricane Pee Pants reminded me that are actually variable weather conditions out in the world. Since moving to Las Vegas in April, I have been subjected to only unrelenting sunlight. Every single day is unbelievably and unrepentantly sunny. There are never more than a few scattered clouds. There is never rain. It is always over 100 degrees. It is always sunny in Las Vegas.

I understand this is stating the obvious in that I live in the desert. That said, to conceptually understand this climate it is one thing. To live it, another. I long for thunderstorms. I envy those with overcast days. I think I am experiencing some variation on Seasonal Affective Disorder. Life out here is like staring into the "light boxes" they use to treat SAD for every waking hour of your day.

This is like life in Las Vegas. Except that the lamp is actually the Earth's Sun, that lady is me, and it never stops.

I'm pretty sure this is why everyone is always pissed off in the Middle East. All sun. All the time. If we could somehow get that region of the world Seattle-like weather, the majority of our problems over there would be solved.

Climatic considerations aside, life is good. I continue to approach work with the Joe Dirt "keep on keeping on" mentality. Every day remains a challenge in one way or the other. With the high volume of work that my office handles, I simply do not have the time to determine if I am progressing/succeeding as a lawyer and officer. I go on the assumption that if I was screwing things up, someone would tell me. I happened to watch a few DVR-ed episodes of Scrubs that were from the first season. I despite my unmitigated hatred of everything Zack Braff, I have to concede that the show did an excellent job of capturing the insecurities/fears that come with being in a profession like medicine or law. There is nothing quite like spending years and years in school only to realize that on Day 1 that you truly do not know anything.

Even though I worry that the heat here may melt me like a Raiders of the Lost Ark Nazi, I have zero regrets about joining the JAG. It is weird to consider that this time last year I was back in Chicago waiting for my bar exam results and coaching high school rowing (Go ICC!). It is even weirder that at this time two years ago I was sitting in my storage closet of an office at Pre-Law at UIllinois when I learned I had been accepted for Direct Appointment into the JAG Corps. Time flies.

With that in mind, for those prospective JAG applicants out there, make sure to consider the Summer Internship for your 2L summer job. I was on the fence if I was willing to commit to four years of active duty in that I had zero military background. The internship answered all the questions I had about joining JAG and then some. I had an amazing time at Wright-Patterson. Additionally, it seems to give a considerable advantage when one is applying for Direct Appointment. There is no wine & dine or any of the other perks of a BigLaw summer associateship. That said, at the end of your 10 weeks, you will know if a uniform will be right for you.

I hope this finds everyone well. Enjoy that next cloudy/rainy day.

Good Luck Bar Takers!

2009-07-26T13:26:00.004-07:00

I wanted to wish the best to everyone taking the Bar this coming Tuesday and Wednesday (and for the very unfortunate, Thursday).

I cannot recall a more awful experience than the three months I spent prepping for the bar last summer. Anxiety induced vomiting in the week before the exam, my gradual descent into madness evidenced by my "shooting" rollerbladers on the UIllinois Quad during the pistol shot chorus of KIA's "Paper Planes," coming to a first name basis with the homeless denizens of the Champaign Public Library, my Janitor from Scrubs relationship with the fear-no-human squirrel army that inhabits the Union and Quad, and my profoundly unhealthy dependence on 5-Hour Energy & Advil PM. All fine memories.

I still have significant doubts if the exam serves any greater purpose than an incredibly elaborate and expensive hazing ritual. I'm pretty sure Richard Conviser is the only person that actually has benefited from the bar exam existing in its current form.

Best of luck to all of you. Especially Pockets.

O Captain! My Captain!

2009-07-11T10:35:00.006-07:00

My congratulations to all of my fellow JAGs who went into the office yesterday as mere First Lieutenants and emerged as fearsome Captains. While we knew we were scheduled to be promoted on 10 July, it is common that JAG promotion dates are often held up due to bureaucratic lethargy. The JAGs that were in the Officer Training School class before me had to wait nearly six weeks beyond their projected promotion date before they pinned on their Captain's bars. It came as a wonderful surprise that we would pin exactly six months to the day from when I put on First Lieutenant.

As officers wear metal insignia on their uniforms to indicate rank, a promotion means physically changing all of one's insignia to reflect the new rank. One literally pins the new metal rank onto the uniform. Accordingly, the term "pinning on" is synonymous with being promoted.

Second Lieutenant

First Lieutenant

Captain

My office did an amazing job of feigning ignorance if our promotion notices actually came out on time. By about 10:00 AM I had resigned myself that my Captaincy (that's actually a word even though I'm using it improperly) was going to be weeks off, stymied by administrative plaque on the arteries of the Pentagon. I was pleasantly shocked when Bohdi (the roommate and fellow lover of things Xtreme), Devil Dog (another JAG that Bohdi and I went through OTS and JASOC with), and myself were called down during our office standup to take our Oath of Office.

The Boss administering our Oath of Office

From Left to Right:
Captains Devil Dog, Bodhi, and Johnny Utah, United States Air Force.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About JAG: Part II

2009-07-06T20:06:00.003-07:00

I hope the 4th of July holiday found everyone well. I had a fantastic long weekend back in Chicago, celebrating America's birthday in style with friends and family.

I've always been curious how terrible it must have smelled in that room. Philadelphia in July heat and humidity, wool suits and wigs, and a quite some time before Old Spice bodywash would come into existence. I don't see any windows either.

I was able to confirm that my Border Collie is still alive at 13 years - there is a longstanding family quarrel about the ultimate disposition of my Golden Lab back when we moved from San Francisco to Chicago in 1989. My parents claim that they gave Jinx (the above mentioned Lab) to a family friend who owned an Avocado farm and that he lived out his years in Avocado filled bliss. My brother and I strongly suspect something more nefarious occurred but we lack any way to prove it. Needless to say, I do not totally trust my parents when it comes to the status of my dog. Thankfully, Dooney is alive and well. Slightly more gray, slightly easier to tire out, and with an ever growing wart on his nose that is disgusting, but alive and well.

Dooney in festive Christmas attire. We are never going to let Mike and Jane send you to an "Avocado Farm."

I also went to the Cubs game for the first time in quite a while. The last time I can recall going to Wrigley was for a high school senior ditch day that ended with me passing out in my seat and paying for my friend to have his car washed. Thankfully this went far better.

I decided I am going to try and make semi-regular "JAG as a job" related postings on this blog. I remember having to scrounge through blogs and message boards for any scintilla of JAG related information back in law school. It was not until I spent my 2L summer at Wright-Patterson AFB with the AF JAG civilian internship program that I could understand what working at a Base Legal Office entailed. Hopefully posts like this will help shed a little light on lawyering in uniform.

Physical Training (PT):

PT is one of the great perks of working in the Air Force. While my usual day at Nellis is 0730-1630, I don't start work until 0900 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We are all authorized to spend those 4.5 hours a week working out. I seriously doubt there are any other legal institutions out there that give away that much "on the clock" time for their employees to maintain physical fitness.

All three bases I have been at, Wright-Patt, Maxwell, and Nellis, have all had excellent workout facilities. I would have to rank Nellis at the top in light of their outstanding free-weight room, but all three were very good, especially when one factors in that they are completely free.

My office does PT as a group every Wednesday. Despite myself, I am thoroughly enjoying it. The wife of one of our JAGs is a personal trainer and she has lead our office in spinning, yoga, and weight circuit training. I never in my life anticipated doing yoga. Needless to say, it thoroughly kicked my ass and left my ego a little bruised.

Legal Assistance:

Every legal office offers free legal assistance to military members, retirees, and their dependents. My office has both scheduled appointments as well as walk-in hours. As I've mentioned previously, it can be a mixed bag. There is still the bar exam level breadth to the experience that I am coming to terms with. With the exception of criminal matters and some specific areas of civil law, nearly everything is fair game in these consultations. I often have little, if any, advance warning as to what specific issue I will have to advise my client. Thankfully we are always able to use the other JAGs in the office as a resource when we get the inevitable "out of left field" type of question. Some of my peers use a strategy in which they fake having to consult an reference manual that is not in their office when they go to another JAG's office for advice. I prefer to quite suddenly stand up and leave my office without announcement or explanation. I think it adds an air of mystery and a certain je ne sais quoi to my legal consultations.

The truly plus side to doing legal assistance is that you are literally helping people. It is not an advisory opinion that "helps" a commander or "helping" the Air Force/United States writ large by prosecuting those who violate the UCMJ. Rather, you are helping the person in your office with some issue that is complicating their lives. There can be a certain satisfaction that comes with such one-on-one contact that is often evasive in the abstract world of law practice.

The drawback to all of this is that it takes time. Hours spent with legal assistance clients are hours I am not working on my upcoming courts or civil law assignments. There are only so many hours in the week and at the end of the day, I am either meeting or busting my assignment deadlines. Losing those hours, no matter how valuable legal assistance might be, is becoming a reoccurring frustration.

The JAG Accessions Timeline:

This is is a bit of a non-sequitur but I see a lot of questions in regard to how the timeline works from law school to active duty JAG. While this is obviously unique to my circumstances, this hopefully can provide some general context:

Summer between 2L/3L
July 07: Interviewed for a Direct Appointment slot, application would be going before the August accessions board.

3L
23 August 07: Received the phone call that I had been approved for a Direct Appointment into Air Force JAG

October 07: Attended and passed my military physical (MEPS)

May 08: Graduated law school

July 08: Sat for the Illinois Bar

01 Oct 08: Received my (passing) bar results. Notified JAX of my bar passage the same day.

07 Oct 08: Received my station assignment options from JAX. I was offered Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota and Nellis AFB, Nevada. Grand Forks was not on my "Dream Sheet," Nellis was my number four choice of twenty-five bases.

06 Nov 08: Sworn into the Illinois Bar, sent JAX my credentials that I was licensed within a week or so.

Nov 08: Received my commissioning paperwork, official orders, etc. A lot of paperwork was filled out and sent back to JAX. I learned here that I would attend the January class of Commissioned Officer Training (COT 09-02) and JAG School immediately thereafter in February (JASOC B-09).

January 09: Officer Training School, Maxwell AFB, AL

February 09: Judge Advocate Staff Officer Course, Maxwell AFB, AL

23 Apr 09: Reported to Nellis AFB

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About JAG (But Were Afraid to Ask)

2009-06-23T10:11:00.006-07:00

As this blog has a fairly decent following among JAG hopefuls or the OTS bound, I thought I would address a few job specific things that I have picked up since starting at Nellis.

Something good about the job that you don't learn at JASOC:

How awesome it is to wear your Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) 4x a week. Wearing digital camouflage starts out as a novelty. It almost is like wearing a costume for the first few months. After that, it becomes routine. What does not become routine is how great it is to wear what are essentially functional pajamas to work. It does not wrinkle or stain. It does not need to be ironed. It has pen pockets all over the place. After a dozen or so washes, the fabric becomes softer. I will be the first to note that the Air Force Uniform Boards can come up with some absolutely asinine decisions, e.g., walking with a cell phone - okay, walking with a Bluetooth - verboten. That said, nice work on these.

It's like a pixelated camouflage Snuggie except way less creepy

Something bad about the job you don't learn at JASOC:

The JAG Phone. Every week at my office one unfortunate JAG is the "On-Call" JAG. Much like in the medical profession in which a physician is "on-call," we always have an attorney available 24 hours a day in the event of an emergency. This is the most literal manifestation of the Sword of Damocles I think a junior attorney can experience.

Note the sword.

If anything goes wrong after duty hours and you are the possessor of this phone, it is up to you to figure it out. Every hour of every night and weekend. While we do have a safety net, i.e., the other JAGs in the office, it is still an experience. I spent the first night just staring at the cell phone, willing it not to ring.

The On-Call Phone is actually just a cell phone but this is a way better mental picture.

Thankfully my week with the phone was very low threat. No terrorists trying to crash the gate or planes falling out of the sky.

Something good about the job that you don't learn (or at least cannot appreciate) at JASOC:

You are going to be exposed to a wide variety of areas of law and are going to be exercising a great deal of influence in those areas. I spent yesterday morning working with our Security Forces (SF, our cops, analogous to the Army's Military Police) and our Office of Special Investigations (OSI, a CIA/FBI hybrid, analogous to the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, CID) on matters pertaining to an upcoming court martial. My afternoon was working with our contracting squadron, resolving a possible violation of the Federal Acquisitions Regulation.

This morning I drafted a will and medical power of attorney for a deploying Airman and will head to the District of Nevada Federal Court to prosecute shoplifting civilians this afternoon.

I rarely have a dull day.

Something bad about the job that you don't learn (or at least cannot appreciate) at JASOC:

You are going to be exposed to a wide variety of areas of law and are going to be exercising a great deal of influence in those areas. Many of these areas will not have been covered by law school, Bar/Bri, or JASOC and will come to you with little, if any, advance warning. So, good luck with that.

You will rarely have a dull day.

A Tourist in my own City

2009-06-21T17:11:00.012-07:00

I hope the past four weeks have found everyone well. Things continue to go well in Vegas. Though I have been here for nearly three months, it still does not quite feel like I "live" here. Thanks to college and law school, I have never lived anywhere for more than nine straight months since I turned 18. As a result, I think my brain is still approaching my life out here through the paradigm of a temporary denizen, as though I was out here as a summer associate or for yet another year of school. Its odd, to say nothing else.

That said, I have been productive. I visited LA with Pockets for the first time a few weeks ago. I saw all the obligatory sights: Grauman's Chinese Theater, the Hollywood sign, Audrina Patridge, etc. One profoundly disappointing moment was seeing that Ricky "She Bangs" Martin had his own star. Clearly, the bar for getting your star on Hollywood Walk of Fame is disturbingly low.

As Pockets is a selfless host no matter what the forum, she took me to lunch at an exclusive Hollywood restaurant. I showed my gratitude by throwing up in their bathroom due to a soul-shattering hangover. On the plus side, they had Lady Gaga playing over the bathroom sound system. I have yet to find a situation when "Just Dance" or "Poker Face" is not the perfect musical accompaniment. Driving, running, lifting weights, or even throwing up. I love this record baby, but I can't see straight anymore.

I also opened a Roth IRA. That was good for a brief moment of feeling like an adult in my otherwise Man-Child existence.

I wanted to send my best to two friends now in the sandbox thanks to recent deployments. Lt Dan Horwitz, a KC-135 driver, and Capt Dave Blomgren, JAG. Be safe guys.

Also deserving a mention are those who are deploying into a different sort of area of operations. Sincere congratulations to the newly engaged: Austin & Liz as well as Dan & Jen. I look forward to being at the wedding table you stick way back in the corner because all of your law school friends tend to become a liability with an open bar.

Awwww.
AWWWWWWW.

Those of my law school friends that were not busy keeping De Beers in business made their out to Las Vegas last weekend to visit me and Pockets. It was an outstanding time. There is a lot of tourist Las Vegas I have yet to see and I welcomed the opportunity to gawk, take pictures, and drink daiquiris out of preposterously sized/themed containers. Until you have purchased over a gallon of daiquiri that is contained in a giant plastic Eifel Tower, brother you have not lived.

It's like this only plastic and filled with booze.

Some notable sights/moments from our Illini weekend:

There is no need to ask for the poor/tired/wretched refuse of your teeming shore. They are already here. They flew in last night on Southwest and are eating at Toby Keith's restaurant. You'll find them at O'Shea's later.

Of course we have our own Eiffel Tower.

I've been getting a lot of emails from friends asking me if the MGM Grand has a giant decapitated statute of V.I. Lenin. The answer, of course, is yes. The answer to every question in Las Vegas is yes.

Pockets got us into the Foundation Room at the very top of the Mandalay Bay. The view was, in a word, stunning.

Models and bottles.

We wake up in the morning and piss excellence.

This is not terrifying or anything. It takes balls to establish a John Wayne Gacy themed casino. Way to go guys.

I should add this to previous post with the Lion/Horse & Bear/Shark. Clown/Elephant is a worthy adversary. Just when I could not hate Pachyderms any more...

Happy Father's Day everybody. Till next time.

Lawyers Don't Surf, Lions Don't Ride Horses

2009-05-25T16:00:00.007-07:00

Things are coming along in Las Vegas. Due to the fact that my JAG Corps superiors monitor our blogs, I cannot get into the various exploits of Bohdi, Pockets, and myself. That said, I am beginning to appreciate the "real" Las Vegas as opposed to the Bacchanalian insanity that is the strip. Bohdi and I have discovered a couple of great "locals" places which allow for a good night out without the ridiculous prices or people that come with any venue on Las Vegas Boulevard South .

Bohdi and I enjoying a quiet moment of reflection before we get radical. "Lawyers don't surf. This one does."

My only real beef with Las Vegas, aside from the unrelenting heat, is the pressure to have a great time, all the time. Imagine New Years Eve every single day. It is hard to simply stay in without feeling like a turd. One just HAS to be Extreme in this town. If I am not smoking a big bag of crystal meth then splitting my aces and doubling down on both while base jumping from a rocky cliff using a parachute packed by someone with severe ADHD all the while being pursued by a lion riding a horse and a bear holding a shark, then I am just not getting the most out of my Vegas experience, am I?

A lion riding a horse. You can tell the horse knows this is going to end badly.

In case you were wondering, a bear holding a shark is one of the few things in life that warrants a full 10 out of 10 Extreme rating.

In my 27 years, I have found very few things to be fairly portrayed in movies. Things either appear way more fun, or way easier, than in reality. Take shooting a Zombie in the head. Probably a lot harder than it looks. Or the spontaneous eruption of a choreographed dance number. I don't think so. My time spent at Irish weddings and Tim's has pretty much convinced me that any of that "She's All That" crap, Usher as a DJ notwithstanding, is not going happen.

Harder than it looks

At my latest count, I have at least three Indian friends. This has never happened.
Dear Anchit, Bhavika, and Sivram: Please explain yourselves.

There is one thing, however, that is as awesome in real life as it is in the movies. Craps. This is the game I've been waiting for my whole life. Pockets taught me how to play when I was in Las Vegas for Spring Break last year and my life has never been the same. If you, like me, have an addictive personality, a father who has had you gambling since you could walk, and a love of being the center of attention, this is the game for you.

Work is going well. The bulk of my time in the past weeks has been spent in my role as Chief of Claims. I am, for all intent and purpose, the tort lawyer for Nellis. We have claims asserted against the base, such as when a government vehicle damages a privately owned vehicle, an aircraft crashes onto private land, or when a sonic boom damages private property. We also assert claims against citizens for their damage to government property. As my always delightful father commented, "you are basically an Ambulance Chaser for the Air Force." That's half right at least.

I have also been prosecuting cases down at the Federal District Court of Nevada. In my role as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, I handle the lower level criminal matters conducted by civilians on base when we have exclusive federal jurisdiction. It is low stakes, like shoplifting low stakes, but it is getting me into Fed Court.

I've also been assigned to two upcoming courts-martial. I am sitting second chair on one and will be lead trial counsel for the other. Anxious is probably the best way to describe how I am feeling about this. Being a trial lawyer is why I joined the JAG Corps but there is the always nagging possibility that I might be terrible at it. Time will tell. Thankfully JASOC gave me a firm foundation on the mechanics of how everything works. We'll see how it all shakes out in the real world.

I hope this finds everyone well. I will try to keep the posts coming every two to three weeks. If longer goes by, assume that I am either busy with work or that I have combusted due to the heat.

Happy Memorial Day

2009-05-25T14:22:00.006-07:00

I hope this Memorial Day finds everyone well. While I strive to be an irreverent smart ass in all that I do, I must momentarily break from that in order to extend my sincere gratitude to all of those who have served and are no longer with us to enjoy a three-day weekend. Of a nation of roughly 304 million, only 1.4 million serve in an active duty capacity, with another 1.1 million in the Reserves or National Guard. No matter how you cut it, that is an shockingly small percentage. Of those 2,500,000 citizens, it is an even smaller portion that are among the combat arms community - those literally doing the fighting and dying for this country. My sincere thanks to all of those, past and present, who have volunteered to put themselves in harms way.

Welcome to the Fabulous USAF Warfare Center

2009-05-04T21:28:00.014-07:00

Home Sweet Home?

I am finally settled in. I have to give Pockets (nickname, obviously), one of my close friends from law school and an attorney practicing here in LV, special thanks for all of her help with my transition. Way to go on the Nevada Bar!

I am living in Summerlin, a suburban enclave that is north of the Strip and south of Nellis. It is equidistant between the two which makes getting around quite easy. I am renting a huge 3 bedroom condo with a friend from OTS/JASOC, that also works in my legal office. We will call my roommate Bohdi to maintain his privacy and to provide a foil to my Special Agent Johnny Utah moniker.

This is a fair and accurate depiction of the friendship of me and Bohdi as well as how totally extreme we both are. I would have to say that our Summerlin condo is a 9.5 on the extreme scale, with 1 being not so extreme and 10 being extremely extreme.

This is such a extreme movie.

The actual condo is great as well as the little gated community in which it resides. We have a fantastic pool, as well as a park and fitness center. I'll get around to taking pictures one of these days.

Work is also going well. I am finally set up in my office. All of my household goods arrived on Friday so I am finally able to hang my J.D., law license, and all the other pretentious trappings that come with being an attorney and an officer. In addition to all my other duties (more on that later), all the JAGs in the office do Legal Assistance throughout the week. Any service member or dependant is able to get free legal advice on just about anything. It is kind of like the bar exam in terms of having anything under the sun thrown at you, except this actually impacts people's lives. It is, in a word, terrifying. All the framed and important looking things on my wall hopefully will give me some credibility with these clients. At least I hope the framed stuff will put an end to them asking if I am a little too young to be a lawyer.

For those who might not have talked to me in a while, I am stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, just north of downtown Las Vegas. It is a massive base. I am assigned to the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center (USAFWC), which is an amazing command. The Warfare Center is home to, among other units, the "Top Gun" School of the Air Force, known as the USAF Weapons School, with the responsibility of training all of our our elite combat pilots. "Top Gun," of course, does not feature the USAF but rather is a Navy movie, set at Naval Air Station Miamar. You know they are Naval Aviators due to the overwhelming level of homo-eroticism seen throughout the movie.

You can cut the sexual tension with a knife. Just kiss already, Ice...man.

It seems Navy guys like nothing more than stripping down to their jeans, oiling up, and playing volleyball with some other dudes who have also stripped down to their jeans and oiled up.

Back to what I do for a living. The Warfare Center is an amazing first assignment. Most junior JAGs are assigned to a base that has a single Wing, analogous to an Army Brigade, headed up by a Colonel or Brigadier General. The Warfare Center is composed of 5 Wings, three of which are located at Nellis, plus direct reporting units at nearby Creech AFB, and we are headed up by a Major General. Therefore, we are far more like a Numbered Air Force in size and composition than a Wing. This means we are responsible for providing legal services on a far larger scale, which will result in amazing exposure and experience for me. At the moment, however, it feels like I am drinking from a firehose.

I am serving as Chief of Administrative Law and Chief of Claims. I was also just sworn in as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Nevada, for when we prosecute civilians who have committed crimes on base -- we cannot prosecute civilians in a court-martial as they are civilians and not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In that military installations are Federal property, crimes committed here fall under Federal jurisdiction and must be prosecuted in the Federal District Court where the installation is located.

In that the USAFWC trains up all of the elite combat pilots, I get to see the planes that compose the Air Force arsenal on a daily basis. There really is nothing like walking to your car while a formation of F-22 Raptors fly over.

So far, I have been able to observe F-16 Vipers, F-15 Eagles, F-22 Raptors, and F-18 Hornets. We are also getting the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) - Lightning II, which will be nothing short of amazing. It is probably a bit adolescent to get this excited over fighter planes but I am not going to worry about it.

The F-16 Viper. The Viper is a multi-role strike fighter with amazing dog fighting capabilities. It has a thrust-to-weight ratio of greater than one, which means it can climb and accelerate vertically. The F-16 will ultimately be replaced by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Thunderbirds, the Air Force's Air Demonstration Squadron, also fly the F-16. They are stationed here at Nellis and are truly a sight to be seen.

The F-15E Strike Eagle. This is the cousin of the F-15 Eagle, the fourth-generation fighter that I was able to interact with down at Eglin. The F-15 is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor.

The F-22 Raptor. This is our fifth-generation air-superiority stealth fighter and is unmatched by any other fighter in the world, either presently in service or projected in the future.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, known as the Lightning II. This is a multi-role stealth strike fighter much like the F-16, except far more advanced. F-35 is the world's premier strike fighter with close and long range air-to-air capability second only to that of the F-22.

All in all, things are going wonderfully in Las Vegas. While the first two weeks were hectic, I'm finally hitting my stride. I'm looking forward to the next couple months as I get more and more comfortable with my job and living in Las Vegas.

So Long Maxwell

2009-04-20T09:50:00.008-07:00

Since returning from D.C., things at JASOC were at high speed. We all prosecuted our fully litigated moot courts-martial, which ended up being both easier and harder than I expected. I am confident in asserting that I am not going to be a terrible trial-counsel in representing the United States. That said, there are simply a massive amount of things I need to learn/hone before I would classify myself as competent. Mauet, the author of our Trial Advocacy text back when I was a 3L, noted that it is generally accepted that it takes the experience of 50 trials in order to evolve into a "good" trial lawyer. Having seen the complexities of a fully litigated court, I cannot disagree.

We also had our final exam. I am so done with taking tests. 5 years of college, 3 years of law school, Bar/Bri, Illinois Bar, Officer Training School, and JASOC. Enough with the tests already. I will proudly note that my JASOC Flight, Alpha (again, the NATO phonetic alphabet), earned the highest Flight average. Echo Flight can cheat their way to a softball victory but we got them where it counts.

Alpha!

Alpha might not have been "good" at "winning" at "competitive sports" or "anything else" but at least we were not Echo.

We then had our JASOC Dining Out the night before graduation. I'm currently averaging a Dining Out once every 5 weeks.

The infamous Grog. Anyone caught breaking a rule of the Mess is sent to the Grog. When the President of the Mess directs a violator to the Grog, the individual proceeds promptly. Upon arriving at the Grog, the violator does the following:

Stops one pace from and centered on the Grog Bowl

Does an about face and salutes the President

Does an about face and salutes the Grog and then fills the cup

Does an about face Toasts the Mess by raising the cup and saying "To the Mess"

Drains the entire contents of the cup without removing it from the lips

Turns the empty cup upside down over the top of their head

Does an about face and replaces the cup

Does an about face, salutes the President, and returns to his/her chair

With the exception of the toast, the violator is not permitted to speak during this process. Omissions of any of the above steps may demand a repetition of the entire procedure by the President of the Mess.

This is all alcohol. I'm not sure who thought of the marshmallows but they were an excellent touch, requiring the person before to Grog to chew them down before finishing their cup.

And of course, it would not be a JASOC event without Crud, Mess Dress notwithstanding.

Graduation was the next morning. While I could not wait to get away from OTS, I am still bummed about leaving JASOC. I have no doubt that Las Vegas is going to be legendary but JASOC was a great experience. While I will not miss living out a hotel, subsisting on South Beach Microwave Pizzas and whatever else could fit in my mini-fridge, or interacting with the ASBC students in any situation, the faculty and students at JASOC are simply without equal. I'm looking forward to when our paths cross again.

Accepting my graduation certificate from Lieutenant General Jack Rives, The Judge Advocate General of the United States Air Force.

The men of Alpha Flight, now certified Air Force Judge Advcoates.

A judgeship in my future? Stranger things have happened.

I guess there is no more putting off Act II in the life of 1st Lt. Johnny Utah, USAF. Here's hoping that Las Vegas does not kill me and that I end up making a decent attorney.

A "Legal Warrior" indeed.

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

2009-04-12T08:56:00.002-07:00

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Easter.

I graduate from JASOC this Friday (17th) and am Vegas bound that morning, so if you were planning on mailing anything to me at Maxwell AFB, I would do it no later than Monday.

A City of Southern Efficency and Northern Charm

2009-04-04T19:18:00.012-07:00

This past week has been a great one. My JASOC class touched down in Washington D.C. on Tuesday and we had a week jam-packed with being sworn into appellate courts, cherry blossoms, and meeting the top brass of the Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps.

We knocked out some obligatory tourist things the day we arrived.

I have a secret fear that one day something will animate this statute and 19 feet of white Georgia marble will run roughshod all over the National Capital Region.

It was Cherry Blossom Fest. People were really excited about this so I felt obligated to take a picture.

We were put up in a great hotel, right on the Potomac River. My room actually overlooked the historic Potomac Boat Club Boathouse which was way cool.

I had the pleasure racing PBC when I rowed for Lincoln Park Boat Club. I think the Potomac River is an even more picturesque rowing forum than the Charles. For the record, I did not paint this watercolor of the PBC Boathouse.

Continuing the secondary rowing theme of the week, I was also able to meet up with a number of my former UD Crew boatmates who are now kicking ass/taking names in the NCR. It is nice to see Dayton Crew alums doing so well out there. Go Flyers.

After bookcases filled with important looking leather-bound books that we never actually use, nothing is more lawyerly looking than tons of important looking framed pieces of paper decorating one's office wall. While my J.D. and law license were a good step, I needed more. The Air Force saw this void of professional wall accoutrements and stepped in. On top of my officer's commission, I now have the privilege of adding my admissions to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals (AFCCA) and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF).

AFCCA is an independent Article I appellate court located at Bolling AFB. The court is composed of 7 senior Judge Advocates, all Colonels, and is the first step of review for the majority of criminal cases.

CAAF is also an Article I appellate court but is not just limited to the Air Force. CAAF has jurisdiction over all members subject to the UCMJ. Another distinction is that CAAF has no military judges but rather is staffed by five civilian judges for fifteen year terms appointed by the President. This can be the next step of appellate review for an Airman, with the U.S. Supreme Court being the final possible destination.

Speaking of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), we also spent some time there. Unfortunately we were not sworn into the Highest Court of the Land (copyright pending) but in light of the $200 application fee, they can keep their piece of paper.

The highly impressive front doors that unimpressively do not open.

Taking it all the way to the Supreme Court.

We capped off our trip with a day at the Pentagon, meeting with the movers and shakers of AF JAG. We had the privilege of attending a Dining Out that evening at the stunning Cannon House Office Building. In addition to our JASOC class, we attended the dining out with the top brass JAGs of Headquarters Air Force and other senior JAG leadership.