Commentary by Capt. Charles Barrett, 3rd HBCT, 3rd ID
FORT BENNING, Ga. — The Army was still on the sidelines stretching when the gun went off for the social media race.
The entire country was jumping on the Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter bandwagon while the Army “big brother” was just barely opening the razor-sharp jaws that have had a lockdown on internet freedom.
Last year over lunch, the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division’s public affairs team, began to throw out ideas on how to jump start the Army’s social media program. Lt. Col. James Carlisle, Staff Sgt. Natalie Hedrick, Spc. Ben Hutto and Pfc. Erik Anderson had a lot to answer; “How do we get the Directorate of Information Management to give us access to social media sites? Can a dot mil site adequately work as an official site and blog for a unit, or is a dot com the better way to go?
Who is responsible for managing the site once it’s up? What is the current Army policy on social media sites? Is there an Army policy on social media? What operational security considerations should be taken into account? Is this even a good idea?”
Two weeks, Carlisle’s own 100 dollars, and the internet savvyness of 3rd HBCT’s Sgt. Jeremy Gadd, the team was up and running with a unit website and blog, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube accounts. The overwhelming realization came that it wasn’t just a good idea; it was a great idea. The question then became, “How do we take full advantage of everything social media has to offer?”
Capturing every detail of what social media has to offer is a daunting task. Just ask Pfc. Erik Anderson, public affairs specialist for the 3rd HBCT. Anderson is now responsible for maintaining, monitoring, and updating of the brigade’s social media sites. The distribution list for www.hammerpao.com is over 5,000 Soldiers, families and friends; there are close to 1,000 3rd HBCT Facebook fans, and 2,000 Twitter followers. Anderson wasn’t trained at the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Md., to do this, and none of these new responsibilities are part of his job description as a journalist, yet his efforts are felt across the brigade, mostly by the family members.
The real key to social media sites is they allow for feedback; two-way communication between the command and the internal audience. The command is still putting out information to their internal audience as they have been; only the medium has changed. This new medium allows for the audience to more readily respond. If the command fails to take those responses into account then they’re not really taking advantage of social media.
This is the first major benefit. For the 3rd HBCT the responses received through the social media sites have been incredibly supportive. Unit leaders know they’re on the right track and just need to make a few adjustments. Anderson is the Soldier who collects all the feedback and reports responses to his chain of command. He does all of this on top of his normal duties.
The exchange of information assists the command and its internal audience to fill in some of those information gaps. Through online surveys and website analytics, the unit is now able to collect and track a wide range of data. This data can then be used to tailor to the audience’s needs better; something that never could have been done 10 years ago, or at least not without a lot of heartache. The Defense Information School explains the Army should take more of a “glass house” approach to telling the Army story. The 3rd HBCT PAO team now knows there is no better way to do that than through social media.
Once everyone’s on board with the “glass house” approach, public affairs can take on a whole new attitude with the media. There are companies who are praised for their stellar customer service. They don’t know how to say, “No.” All customer service should be like this, and that’s where public affairs customer service should be when working with the media. Building a relationship with this mindset will enhance the social media information exchange, and will lead to very positive and long-lasting effects.
A word of caution; at some point during the reading of this an intelligence officer cringed. It’s more crucial now than ever before that we as an organization maintain operational security. Social media gives us more opportunity to violate operational security and to a much larger audience. To solve this we don’t need to ban or create stricter policy on social media sites, we need to better enforce the already existing policies.
This security begins at the source, the individual Soldier who blogs at the end of every day in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just as important are the spouses of Soldiers who also have a duty to maintain the security of the unit. If you don’t know what is or is not part of operational security then it is your responsibility to find out before you discuss something on a social media site. There are also concerns of privacy, but a Soldier’s privacy has been and will always be a top priority of public affairs operators. Just because social media changes the way we send stories to our audience, it does not change the way we write or film those stories.
Social media is here to stay, whether anyone else wants it to or not. Networks are always vulnerable to attack. It should be the duty of all Soldiers to recognize the benefits of social media and then protect that resource, just as Soldiers would protect other valuable equipment and military systems.
So, where to go from here? It’s evident there must be a change in the way Public Affairs operates. Although not everything is listed for both sides, it seems evident the benefits of social media far outweigh the risks involved. There isn’t a need to create a military occupational specialty just yet for social media, but Soldiers at the Defense Information School should be getting some training on how to set up and operate these social media sites.
For Operation Iraqi Freedom, the tip of the spear has been held by many. So much improvement has been made in Iraq, despite the violence still present, and it is more crucial now to tell the Army’s story of success. Today, there are a handful of public affair operators, such as Anderson, who are the tip of the spear. If the 3rd HBCT PAO is ever asked, “Capt. Barrett, do you seriously think one Soldier can make a difference in this war?” With a smile and an overwhelming sense of pride for his fellow Soldier, he’ll say, “You bet, and his name is Pvt. 1st Class Erik Anderson.”
Cpt. Charles Barrett, PAO, 3rd HBCT, 3rd ID.
OPINION
AUGUST 12, 2009
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A15
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
By JOHN MACKEY
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”
—Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
The state Election Board says TODAY is the deadline for registering to vote in the Sept. 8 special primary elections for a vacant state House seat.
Democrats Larry Peck of Sentinel and Alex Damon of Cordell and Republicans Todd Russ of Cordell and Jeff Ledford of Hobart are running for the District 55 seat in western Oklahoma.
The Election Board says people who are not registered to vote but want to vote in one of the primaries must submit a voter registration application before the deadline.
Rep. Ryan McMullen, D-Burns Flat, resigned from the seat last month after being appointed state director of rural development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Winners of the primaries will meet in a general election on Oct. 13.
Thinking Oklahoma State Treasurer Scott Meacham (D) will NOT be running for re-elect as Treasurer or make a run for Attorney General.
