Paying my dues

In the mail this week came a reminder to pay my annual dues to the AFOSISA: the Association of Former Office of Special Investigations Special Agents. The OSI is the Air Force equivalent of the FBI, the model on which it was created on  August 1, 1948, under the brilliant, innovative and inspiring leadership of General Joseph F. Carroll, a former FBI agent, supervisor, and special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover.

Sixty years ago, I was an airman serving as the Legal Clerk in the 3650^th Air Base Group at Sampson AFB, New York. Sampson had been a Naval Training site during WWII, but when the Korean War started the Air Force took it for basic training of new recruits. The 3650^th was the house keeping group on the base. I wanted to transfer to the Office of Special Investigations and in the spring of 1953 the deputy group commander, Lt. Col. John A. Brock, recommended me for such service.

(In 2013, AFOSI is the second-most requested career-field choice in the Air Force.)

Within a few weeks I was on my way to Washington, D.C., and posted as the Senior Administrative Airman in the Sabotage & Espionage Branch, Counterintelligence Division, Headquarters, OSI. When I arrived in the spring of 1953, street cars were operating on Pennsylvania Avenue, and cherry blossoms were in full bloom around the tidal basin facing the Jefferson Memorial.

Our offices were located in buildings built at McLean Gardens in NW Washington as “temporary” during World War I. The OSI mission in the early fifties was to provide personnel, criminal and counterintelligence investigative services to the Air Force around the world. It was an AFOSI agent who first alerted Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters of the attack from North Korea that began the Korean War in June of 1950.

(Today, OSI is a federal law enforcement and investigative agency operating throughout the full spectrum of conflict, seamlessly within any domain; conducting criminal investigations and providing counterintelligence services.)

In September 1953, I went to the OSI Special Agents’ training school and was graduated in November. For the next six years I served in a variety of assignments, stateside and overseas. My special interest was with counterintelligence and I took advantage of my status and opportunities to learn everything I could. When I left the Air Force in 1959, after eight years of service, I was employed by the United States Navy as a security administrator and director. I was the first civilian security officer hired by the Naval Supply Corps, which in Charleston, SC, had responsibility for world-wide support of the nuclear powered submarine force carrying Polaris-Poseidon missiles as the Navy’s first line of deterrence against the threats posed by the Soviet Union. Later I was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives and was a senior manager at the state’s Department of Corrections.

Looking back it was the totality of my eight years work and specialized training and duties in the Air Force which set the stage for my life’s work. To this end, I will always be grateful for the opportunities I had and the men and women who helped me along the way. That is why I will send off my dues this week and remain in the brotherhood of former OSI Special Agents.

The AFOSISA was incorporated on December 7, 1966, and its objectives are to maintain and further friendships emanating from service with or employment by AFOSI; to assist one another through combined efforts and mutual association; to perpetuate the ideals and principles of AFOSI; to facilitate contact with members on a worldwide basis; and to unite former and present AFOSI Special Agents in the common interest of promoting the security of the U.S. Air Force

.

Did it again

 Do you recall doing some things and enjoying them so much you could not wait to do them again? Like the time you went to a carnival as a teen with your own money and had a waffle covered with strawberries and cream. Or the first time you had sex with someone other than yourself.  A more recent experience did not reach those levels of pleasure, but I did it a second time anyway. 
 In April my cardiologist, Dr. Matthew O'Steen put a stent in the LAD (left anterior descending artery which supplies blood to the front and bottom of the left ventricle) of my heart.
 I felt so much better afterwards. I was walking a couple of miles at a good pace and without stress. My wife said my color was better. I felt better all around. But my blood pressure remained high.
 A month later I went back to hospital and Dr. O'Steen put two stents in the renal artery of my left kidney. If one is good, two must be better, right?  
 Suffice that my blood pressure has dropped 30 points over the past week since the kidney work. A major triumph. My doctors and I have been working on lowering my BP for a long time.
 I share this personal experience with the hope it may help someone to do some things in their life if they are having problems of fatigue, shortness of breath and worst of all high blood pressure. See your doctor as the place to start.
 Life is the most valuable possession we have. We ought to take care of it and enjoy it. "Living well is the best revenge."
(Complete blog here.) 
(To opt out, send "Delete" to arch@archibald99.com)

Prison inmates and e-mail

I was sitting around a doctor's waiting room recently reading the weekly New York Times Magazine, (which I brought with me. Doctor's offices typically having copies of Reader's Digest dating back to the Reagan years.)
 One of the more interesting stories, "A Lust for Zeros," centered on a couple of men who have broken the law, one (Raj Rajarainam),is doing an 11-year stretch in in federal prison for multiple securities fraud offenses, and one, (Rajat Gupta) has been convicted of and is out on bond while his appeal is being heard. He is is likely to be in a federal prison for two years if the Securities and Exchange Commission has its way.

 What jumped off the page was the information that the writer, Anita Raghavan, had an e-mail from Jeffrey Skilling, former head of Enron, who is doing a 24-year stretch in a federal prison at Littleton, Colorado, for his well-known felonious conduct. The e-mail was a comment on the career of Mr. Gupta.
 As a former executive in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, I was surprised that an inmate had access to e-mail. I went to the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site and learned about this practice and how it is carried on. The policy is outlined here.
 Essentially, the system is a controlled one and like ordinary mail the sender and recipient of e-mails has to be on an approved (by prison officials) list. Anyone else, such as a reporter, must jump through some hoops to contact a prisoner before there can be an exchange of e-mails.This program is one of the ways the Bureau of Prisons hopes to prepare inmates for an eventual return to the free world.
(Complete blog here.)

(To opt out of future blogs send "Delete" to arch@archibald99.com.)

Fighting over Nelson Mandela

The vultures are out in South Africa. Members of the ruling party, African National Congress, and the opposition, Democratic Alliance, are staging photo ops to bask in the image of the ailing, fading 94-year old Nelson Mandela, life-long activist for equal treatment of all South Africans, 27-year prisoner for his opposition to apartheid, and first black president of South Africa. Amidst all this members of his family squabble publicly over the executor of the trust set up to handle his estate when he dies. This is shameful in the extreme. To be used as a political prop and have your family fighting over your estate is a sad way to end a life of struggle and victory.

This downloaded picture of Mr. Mandela is from a happier time when he was enjoying his later life in his beloved South Africa. 

  I took this picture in 2003 of Mr. Mandela's former cell in the Robbin Island prison where he was held for almost three decades.

 

(Complete blog here.)

(To opt out send "Delete" to arch@archibald99.com)

Sit in the Archibald

This is the "Archibald", designed by Jean Marie Massaud, for Poltrona Frau. The New York Times Style Magazine (May 12, 2013) carried a full page ad for this chair.  Seldom does one see a piece of furniture being one's name. Quite interesting. 

(Complete blog here.)

(To opt out, send "Delete" to arch@archibald99.com)

A new credit union experience

The capabilities of the world wide web and the tel-communications industry continue to amaze me. A credit union where I do business allows customers to scan a check and have it deposited almost instantly in an account. This new service came to my attention about a week ago. Yesterday, for the first time, I had an opportunity to use it. The whole process went smoothly and in a couple of hours the check was credited to my account. I am required to hold the check for 60 days. No more going to the physical site of the CU, no more standing in line, and no more mailing for a simple task. I think the whole process shows imagination and a willingness to innovate. 
(Complete blog here.)
(To opt out of future blog entries send "Delete" to arch@archibald99.com)

Get out and vote

After the March mayoral primary in Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, who won the primary, told Joel Stein (TIME, My 13, 2013, pg. 58),"I got 33% of the 20% turnout of the 49% of the population registered to vote. I had a landslide with 2.6% of the population."
Tuesday, May 7, voters living in the 1st Congressional District of South Carolina have a chance to elect their representative to Congress.  The last incumbent got appointed to the U.S. Senate, thus the vacancy and the special election. The race is between business woman and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert-Busch and former congressman and governor Republican Mark Sanford.
Let's prove we can do better than Los Angeles. 

Get out and vote!

Jackie Robinson - "42"

Went to see "42" last night. It is a provocative recitation of the difficulty Jackie Robinson had breaking into baseball following World War II, a story long overdue in the movie houses of America. Robinson and Brooklyn owner Branch Rickey were racial pathfinders for the ages. We are better today for both of them, not just in terms of baseball and opportunity for non-white athletes in major league sports, but for ourselves as human beings. And for America. Every year major league baseball salutes Robinson when every player on every team wears "42" for one game.
(Complete blog here. )

(To opt out of these e-mails send "delete" e-mail to arch@archibald99.com.)