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State of FORCECOM September 2013

Good day, Marines.

First off I have two words: flu shot. I don’t care if it’s for the bird flu, the swine flu or the Tellerian spotted flu, if your health allows, get yours. Most insurance companies will cover it to include Medicare and for those military veterans out there, VA will provide it. It’s not a guarantee that you won’t get it, but should you be exposed, your immune system will have kicked into overdrive and help you fight it off.
I really hate to think what the last ten days would have been like if I hadn’t gotten mine. ‘Nuff said.
Also, while you’re at it check with your Primary Care Physician or your local pharmacist to see if you fall in the category of ‘good to get’ for any of the other vaccines: whooping cough [primary or booster], pneumonia, shingles, etc.
Okay – I’ll put the Ship’s CMO away and drag out the right hat: COFORCECOM.
My apologies for a late SOR [please see above]. Better late then never.
Or is it ‘better out then in’?
One ongoing problem we’re seeing with record keeping is a differences in unit data showing up on various portions of the database. ‘How can that be?’ you ask? Very good question. A database relies on two things things that make it up: the code running it and the data it’s drawing from.
That code can ‘present’ that data in pretty much any way you ask for it.
The code also tells the database where to ‘store’ the data you input and where to look for it when you want it back.
However, it can also ‘point’ in the wrong direction and give you some odd results, depending on any random glitch in the code or storage of data.
Now believe me, that’s a very big simplification of a much more complex system and is based on a couple of years of programming training I had years ago. But basics are pretty much basics. And there are two ways to fix errors: correct the imputed data or find where the code is misbehaving and asking for the wrong thing. Now I can’t do much about the latter, but all of us can certainly help out with the former. So once again, I’m asking everyone from the individual Mud Marine on up to check and double check your personal data and your command’s data on the database and report any errors directly to FORCECOM. This can be anything from awards listed incorrectly, your Unit information may be showing errors [wrong individual as OIC, showing an MSG when your Unit’s an MEU, etc] and so on. We will correct what we can and send on to the Code Gurus what we can’t.
Believe me, every set of eyes on this type of problem helps all of us.
Thank you all for your time and hopefully, since the K’normian Death Flu has passed on, next month’s SOR will be a bit more timely.
Stand easy, Marines.
BDR Jari James
COFORCECOM]]>