Leadership: Texas Hold em Style

Using poker as analogy for leadership, Captain Andrew Harvey, CPD (ret.), Ed.D. and Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.), MPA found the right mix of practical experience and academic credentials to write a definitive book for leaders. Working together, Harvey and Foster have written Leadership: Texas Hold em Style. Most often leaders find they are given a set of resources people, equipment, funds, experience and a mission. As Foster noted, You are dealt a certain hand. How you play that hand as a leader determines your success

More than a book: A fun and entertaining journey through leadership that includes an interactive website to supplement knowledge gained from the book.
Proven and Tested: Not an academic approach to leadership, but rather a road-tested guide that has been developed through 50-years of author experience.
High Impact: Through the use of perspective, reflection, and knowledge, provides information that turns leadership potential into leadership practice.
Ease of Application: Theory is reinforced with real-life experience, which results in accessible and practical tools leaders can put to use immediately.
High Road Approach: Personal character and ethical beliefs are woven into each leadership approach, so leaders do the right thing for the right reasons.
Uses Game of Poker: Rather than a dry approach that is all fact and no flavor, the game of poker is used as a lens through which to view leadership concepts.

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Strategic Planning Reference and Resource Book

The Strategic Planning Reference and Resource Book was created by the elements of the United States Army and designed to familiarize you and help you through the strategic planning process in a step-by-step approach. It provides an outline for you to plan, organize and conduct your conference, document and execute your plan, and to monitor and adjust your strategic plan, as needed. While we recommend specific steps, we also provide options and alternatives that allow you to tailor your conference and strategic plan to your unique local conditions.

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http://www.pokerleadership.com/strategic_planning_reference_resource_book.html

Soldier Missing In Action From Korean War Is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Korean War, have been identified.

He is Sgt. Agostino Di Rienzo, U.S. Army, of East Boston, Mass.

Representatives from the Army met with Di Rienzo's next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.

Di Rienzo was assigned to Company L, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division then occupying a defensive position near Unsan, North Korea, in an area known as the "Camel's Head." On Nov. 1, 1950, parts of two Chinese Communist Forces divisions struck the 1st Cavalry Division's lines, collapsing the perimeter and forcing a withdrawal. In the process, the 3rd Battalion was surrounded and effectively ceased to exist as a fighting unit. Di Rienzo was one of the more than 350 servicemen unaccounted-for from the battle at Unsan.

In 2002, a joint U.S.-Democratic People's Republic of North Korea team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated a burial site south of Unsan near the nose of the "Camel's Head" formed by the joining of the Nammyon and Kuryong rivers. The team recovered human remains.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA and dental comparisons in the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420

Traditional Holiday Meal Will Replace Field Rations for Many Troops

By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

Nov. 21, 2007 - When troops stationed in the Middle East sit down to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, the turkey won't come in a brown field rations pouch. Thanks to the efforts of the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia's efforts, troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Dubai and Djibouti will enjoy a traditional holiday meal.

"Historically, Thanksgiving dinner is one of the most family-oriented meals that there is," said Ray Miller, director of subsistence for DSCP, the agency that supplies meals to the military worldwide. "When you are deployed and you're not with (family), ... it's a taste of home wherever you are."

Hundreds of thousands of troops will dine on turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, assorted pies and more. While this all sounds very "Norman Rockwell" normal, there's nothing normal about the amount of food needed to feed that many troops.

The employees sent 342,382 pounds of turkey alone. More than 15,000 containers of stuffing mix and about 13,000 containers of white potatoes will join nearly 120,000 pounds of shrimp and a combined total of 249,357 pounds of ham and beef, as well.

"It would be like 100 tractor-trailers pulling up outside your house to deliver Thanksgiving Dinnerdinner," Miller said, describing just how much food was sent to the Middle East for the dinner.

And at the back of the very last tractor-trailer would be the one thing needed to finish the meal in fine holiday tradition: nearly 163,500 pies.

As for those with no access to a dining hall, they're not destined to eat the same old everyday field rations. They, too, will get a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day.

"We ... have provided a special ration meal called an URG-E (Unitized Group Ration – Express)," Miller said. "It won't be the turkey, but it'll be a turkey meal. It's our attempt to at least try to get something to the folks that are on the far end of the supply chain."

That effort doesn't stop with the supply center personnel. The dining facility staffs go above and beyond, often working on their own time, to make decorations to ensure the day is as special as possible.

"Each dining facility has its own theme chosen by the manager," said Army Sgt. Maj. Terry L. Stewart, a Bridgehampton, N.Y., native and food service sergeant major for Multinational Division Baghdad.

Adding a competitive element to the decorating helps to reward the DFAC workers for the time and effort they spend preparing their crafts. Each command with a dining facility judges the decorations, and medals are awarded.

Sharing a traditional holiday meal that's usually a family affair can bring servicemembers closer together Stewart noted.

"It humbles me," the sergeant major said. "Even though we are away from our families at home, those of us here are family, and we come together in fellowship and give thanks for being alive.

"It's especially rewarding to see the soldiers smile and the joy in their faces when they come through," he added.

The total cost of the Thanksgiving feast comes in at just under $5,410,000. The Christmas meal, which parallels the Thanksgiving menu, will cost about $300,000 less and already has been shipped to distribution points awaiting orders, which will start coming in during the first 10 days of December.

The Defense Supply Center Philadelphia supplies $12.4 billion worth of food, clothing and textiles, medicines, medical equipment, construction equipment and supplies, and services to servicemembers, their families and other federal customers worldwide. The center is a part of the Defense Logistics Agency.

(Army Pfc. April Campbell, 27th Public Affairs Detachment, contributed to this report.)