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State of INFOCOM August 2014

Greetings Marines,
First off, I wanted to say I had a great time at IC this year.  It was great meeting new folks and seeing friends I’ve haven’t seen in a while.  The flight to and from Chicago was uneventful.  The possible problems with the hotel turned out to be nonexistent.  My room was pleasant and my interactions with the hotel staff were good.  It wasn’t the Beverly Hilton but it’s about what you would except from an IC hotel.  I really looking forward to IC 2015 at Niagara Falls, I have always wanted to visit and with having the IC there, well that will be two birds and one stone, so to speak.
Congratulations to Shirley Kolb of the 12th Brigade on receiving the SFMC Communication Service Award at the International Muster.
I ran across an interesting article the other day and wanted to share some of it with you.  A quick google search will find you more information on this.  “Marines deactivate decorated Walking Dead unit.”  Being a fan of the TV show I had to see what this was about.  I consider myself fairly versed on military history but after reading the article it just shows me how much of our military history I don’t know.
This Marine Corps battalion has been decorated for extensive combat in World War II and Vietnam and earned the nickname “Walking Dead”.  Now designated 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment has also saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It was deactivated during a ceremony last week at Camp Lejeune North Carolina.
Marine Corps historians believe the battalion appears to have gotten the nickname because of its high casualty rates during the Vietnam War. But the unit also has a reputation for heroism that included Medal of Honor recipients at Guam and Iwo Jima during World War II and two in Vietnam.
Formed during World War I, the battalion had previously been deactivated in 1994 and reactivated in 2007. Its insignia depicts a cloaked grim reaper carrying a scythe.
Retired Marine Col. Wesley Fox, who received the Medal of Honor while leading a company within the battalion in Vietnam, said he wasn’t happy about the deactivations.  He was quoted as saying “Not a better battalion in the world. I don’t know why they’re the ones who keep getting put on the bench, but that’s the way it goes I guess,”
The article goes on to mention that on the eve of the deactivation, Col. Fox recalled first hearing the nickname in 1968 from a personnel officer.  “He asked me if I wanted the 1/9, and I said that sounded good to me. He did the paper work,” Col. Fox is now 82. “Then he asked: ‘Have you ever heard of the Walking Dead?’ My response to him was: ‘Maybe a better name is the Walking Death.”
My thanks to Col. Fox and all the Marines in this and other units who picked up a rifle, stood a post and took my place me when they were called upon. May that all live long and prosper in peace.
In closing here are the pingdom stats for July 2014.
Uptime: 99.73%
Outages: 3
Downtime: 60 minutes
Response time: 360 ms
 
Mark “Slayer” Anderson
Major General, SFMC
COINFOCOM
Team Delta]]>