There is this major here at the office that has a Polish last name. We chatted a bit today about what it means to be Polish; apparently this major’s father did not find out he was Polish until his 18th birthday, when he was enlisting in the Army. His mother simply hid the fact that he was Polish from him, and she allowed him to live a pseudonymous life under a generic American last name.

Can you imagine getting a better gift for your eighteenth birthday than a gift of Polishness? I mean, this is a gift that just keeps on giving. What is the better heritage to have?

Not that I am being impartial, because I am not, but if you think about it, if it wasn’t for the Poles, the Teutonic knights would still be in Prussia, Lithuania would still be pagan, Europe would be Muslim, Britain would be German, Jamestown would not survive on its own, America would be British and people would still think that it was the sun that revolved around earth! What is even worse, we would not have croissants and bagels for breakfast. Yup, world would definitely not be a place I would like to live in, if it wasn’t for the Poles.

Word of the Day

pseudonymous \soo-DON-uh-muhs, adjective:

1. Bearing a false or fictitious name.

2. Writing or written under a fictitious name.

I did a lot of pseudonymous writing during this period.

— Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Unless Ollivier was playing a doubly pseudonymous game, the cipher was no good.

— Paul La Farge, Haussmann, or the Distinction

Pseudonymous actually predates the more common word pseudonym which was coined in the early 1800s. The longer adjectival form of the word arose in the 1700s directly from the Latin word pseudonymus meaning “falsely named.”

Pentagon is a one huge office building. I mean, there is like 23 thousand people working here. It is like a small city. No wonder that the Pentagon has its own police department, its own Department of Motorized Vehicles Office and even its own post office.

So, yesterday I went to the post office, because I wanted to mail a couple packages overseas. I got really busy at work, so I left my desk in a real swivet just to get to the Pentagon Post Office merely five minutes before closing.

The post office was empty. The lady at the register was enjoying a blueberry muffin. I didn’t mind that, because I know how important it is to snack while at work, so you can provide your body with the much needed energy to deal with the stress. I mean, everyone has to eat sometimes, right?

The lady motions for me to come to the register, her cheeks are still stuffed with the delicious blueberry muffin. I point at the packages and say to her that I would like to mail those overseas. Then the lady starts to say something to me in an aggravated tone of voice, but I honestly could not make out a single word; her voice was muffled by the muffin in her mouth.

So I apologized to her, and said that I did not understand. Then the lady got really upset at me; she pretty let me know that she does not appreciate me showing up five minutes before closing with packages that will take more than five minutes to mail. Keep in mind that the blueberry muffin still had occupied the larger part of her mouth cavity; as she was showing her displeasure with me, it came out in a spectacular shower of crumbs and blueberries.

I felt really bad for her. Not only I interrupted an afternoon snack that the nice postal lady was having, not only I made her work a couple minutes overtime, but I also got her upset. That’s three strikes during one visit at the post office. Way to make new friends.

Word of the Day

swivet \SWIV-it, noun:

a state of nervous excitement, haste, or anxiety; flutter: I was in such a swivet that I could hardly speak.

This sent her into a larger swivet, but its ferocity now didn’t faze Susan. She now knew the deal.

— Douglas Coupland, Miss Wyoming, 2010

Benny had warned Patsy about this; the mother, he said, was in a swivet about the plea.

— Michelle Huneven, Blame, 2010

Swivet is of unknown origin. While American English speakers started using this term in the late 1800s, it didn’t cross the pond to the UK until the 1920s.

I had this God awful dream at 4 a.m. today.  I dreamed about the British Foreign Secretary Hague.  He was acting all splenetic, and I was desperately trying to find the right piece of information to please him.  I woke up drenched in sweat, and I could not fall asleep after that.

I honestly think that the British government is conspiring to take over my life.  It seems like I cannot pick up a rock and throw it anywhere without hitting a Brit.  I mean, there is a British guy who kicks my ass in CrossFit in the mornings.  My toddlers play with a British toddler at their childcare center.  I could swear I even heard a British accent when they gabbled recently.  There is this British guy here at work, and my desk is next to his.  I have to register every time I hunt with a British lady that works at my military base.  A British landlord takes my money for rent every month.  Even my GPS speaks to me with a British accent, for crying out loud.

 I should have started seeing indicators that this was bound to happened back in 1998, when I saw real Brits for the first time in my life.  They were the instructors at the British Interrogation Course that I attended, and I could not understand like 90% of whatever they were saying.  You see, I had been only speaking (American) English for six years at that point of my life.

I will never forget the final exam at that interrogation course.  We were to do a complete interrogation, from the start to finish.  We were to interrogate our instructors, so they can properly evaluate our tradecraft.  A complete interrogation always starts with a full body search.  When I told my “detainee” to drop his pants so I could search him, it turned out that he was wearing thong underwear, and the front part of it had a happy elephant face.  I am talking, the elephant was complete, with a long trunk, at the end of which there was a little cute jingle bell.  And it is not even that my British instructor was some handsome chiseled Secret Air Service guy, because he wasn’t; he was a middle aged male with a prominent Guinness belly.  I think I have been traumatized for life that day.

Word of the Day

splenetic \spli-NET-ik, adjective:

1. irritable; peevish; spiteful.

2. of the spleen; splenic.

3. Obsolete. affected with, characterized by, or tending to produce melancholy.

noun:

1. a splenetic person.

You see, she stoutly maintained the belief that beneath this splenetic and ogreish exterior there beat a heart of gold, though this I imagine was something she had to do, the idea that her father was splenetic and ogreish all the way through being just too grim to contemplate.

— Patrick McGrath, The Grotesque, 1989

It is true, when the wind is easterly, or the gout gives him a gentle twinge, or he hears of any new successes of the French, he will become a little splenetic; and heaven help the man…that crosses his humor.

— Washington Irving, Samalagundi, 1807

Sharing its root with spleen, splenetic entered English at the turn of the fourteenth century, and comes from the Proto-Indo-European splegh-.

If I might say so in the epexegesis, here is a third part of the Veteran’s story.  suggested to the guy that he starts a blog, he is good with words, and has a writing style that just pulls the reader into his world.  His story deserves to be heard, wouldn’t you think so?

Vet’s Story, Part III

My year long tour in Afghanistan came to an end and I returned to Hawaii where I spent another year.  I wanted to go home.  Finally, on my 21st birthday, I was waiting for my flight home.

They say everything happens for a reason I am a firm believer in this.  I do wish that right there and then I would have realized that I didn’t have a home.  I was already home.

Stupid me.

I went to San Antonio, Texas.  Life was difficult.  I still had some money left, but I had no idea where to go or what to do.  I was completely lost.

I stared drinking.  I drank a lot.

I met a girl who is now my wife at the bar.  She was working there.

I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but we started talking and we hit it off right away.  We started dating.  Sure, it wasn’t the “perfect relationship” but who has one anyway, right?

She quit working as a bartender and I had no job, no education, and no civilian training.  I had nothing.  This is when I proposed to her, and of course, she said “yes”.

Times got harder as you can imagine; we couldn’t pay any bills and soon our electricity and water were cut off too.

With nowhere to go, my father-in-law took us in. What a great guy.

I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing any longer.  Well, I guess I could, but it didn’t feel good on the inside.

So I did the only thing I knew I could do.  I joined the Army, again.

I told my wife what I was going to do, and I guess she thought it was great.  We talked for awhile about it.  She always wanted to join too, so she went with me to talk to the recruiter.

It was a lot easier for them this time, not much really to do, just sign right here and we will put you right back in the uniform.  I had to even convince them to let me stay until Christmas.  They agreed.

My wife had to go through the whole enlistment process but she was not alone like I was a few years back.

When I got to the MEPS in San Antonio, they actually gave the choice of where I could go.

Anywhere, really.  Anywhere in the world where the US Army had infantry brigades.

The recruiter just made a list of all the places I could go and I thought it was pretty cool that I got to pick.  I was a master of my destiny for once, not merely requesting and hoping that my request will be approved.

After talking to my wife who was also at the MEPS with me at this time, I decided I would go to Germany.  Both of my parents were in the Army when I was growing up and I spent a lot time in Germany.  My wife hadn’t been in many places.  I really wanted to show her something “new”.

Word of the Day

epexegesis \ep-ek-si-JEE-sis, noun:

1. the addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence.

2. the word or words so added.

But you did establish personal contact? In epexegesis or on a point of order?

— James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake

One of the most striking peculiarities of colloquial speech in Dutch, and of natural free talk in general, is what is called epexegesis.

— Jan Gonda, Selected Studies

Epexegesis, a late Renaissance word, is derived from the Greek epexḗgēsis meaning explanation.

So, yesterday I started a new course.  I figured that I need to get smarter, if I am to survive the rest of my assignment here.  Yesterday’s classes were pretty good, but today…  Oh my God, I seriously considered putting an end to my misery.  I mean, the classroom environment was classified, so did not even have a phone to play with.  Yeah, sure I had a computer sitting right before me, but the computer was classified too, which meant no fun, just work.  If there was a classified version of Facebook I would be all over it.

I thought it was just me, but one look at the antipathetic faces of my fellow students told that the feeling was universal.

Word of the Day

antipathetic \an-ti-puh-THET-ik, adjective:

1. Opposed, averse, or contrary; having or showing antipathy: They were antipathetic to many of the proposed changes .

2. Causing or likely to cause antipathy: The new management was antipathetic to all of us.

The Psalms are really antipathetic to the modern mind, because the modern mind is so abstracted and logical, it cannot bear the non-logical imagery of the Hebrew hymns, the sort of confusion, the never going straight ahead.

— D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation

Collingswood’s teachers had either been indifferent or mildly antipathetic to her. One man, her biology teacher, had more actively disliked her.

— China Miéville, Kraken

Antipathetic stems from the Greek root pathos which meant “suffering, sensation.” The Greek word antipathḗs meant “opposed in feeling.”

It is not a secret to anyone who knows me, that English is not my native language. I’ve been struggling with English since I got to this great Nation. The switch from the enlisted side to the officer corps was especially hard for me. I suddenly found myself among people who used words and phrases like “rotary wing aircraft”, “rail infrastructure” and “in order to” when they really meant “helicopter”, “railroad” and “to”. The general trend always was: “why say something with fewer and simpler words if you can say the same thing with more and fancier words?” This technique works especially well with power point presentations. The more complicated your presentation is, and the more words like “paradigm shift” and “synergy” you throw into it at random, the less likely a high ranking brass will try to sharp shoot you in the front of everyone.

I mean, I struggled at first. Since I became an officer ten years ago I made a conscious efforts to learn to write in hyperformal militareese jargon, because I did not want to look stupid on the front of other officers. In reality it was a nothing but a pseudology for me, because I wasn’t really speaking like this in the real life, I only used words like this when I wrote memos, evaluation reports and power point presentations. I got pretty good at it, I shall add.

And then today, I took a writing class for the Agency I work for. You could not believe the state of shock I experienced, when the instructor sacrificed almost an hour to pound into our heads to use simple words when writing reports, and that an average reader will not think more of you if throw some million-dollar-words into your writing. Wow. What a novel and genius idea. Why haven’t I thought about this earlier?

Word of the Day for Tuesday, January 8, 2013

pseudology \soo-DOL-uh-jee, noun:

Lying considered as an art.

For example, listening to the life history account of András Albert, a Transylvanian lumberman, the outsider may wonder how to distinguish fact from fiction, poetry from lie, and how to regard the relationship between pseudology and storytelling.

— Linda Dégh, Narratives in Society

So many people would love to get their hands on a machine that can inhibit pseudology, mendacity and falsehood. The police, Intelligence services, all sorts and conditions of interested agencies and institutions.

— Stephen Fry, The Liar

Pseudology comes from two Greek roots, pseudo- meaning “false” and -logy meaning “study of.” The word does not literally mean “the study of lying” but has come to embody the sense of “the art of lying.”

So, seven years ago a guy from Cambodia was trying to introduce me to the wonderful world of CrossFit.  Now, CrossFit is a circuit training, and I still had a sour taste in my mouth from all the circuit trainings I did in Basic Training, so thanked him nicely, I just did not think that CrossFit is for me.  He was an insistent little bastard, but even he could not break my iron will not to be physically fit.

Then a Spanish guy at the Spanish Infantry Academy pretty much forced me into doing CrossFit with him.  He did not ask me if I would like to do it, he pretty much decided it for me.  And then I was hooked.  I really wished I listened to the guy from Cambodia and started doing CrossFit sooner, you know?

So, I pretty much did the same with the British guy I met in the Pentagon.  I decided for him that he will be doing CrossFit with me every day.  So he does.  And he does it well.  As a matter of fact he beats me pretty much in every workout.  My national pride suffers as a result, and I get the mulligrubs for the rest of the day.

You see, my national pride suffers twice the suffering of an average American.  It hurts my pride to be bested by a mere Brit as an American, but it also hurts my pride as a Pole.  That British guy is very inconsiderate of other’s feelings, I say.

 ***

Word of the Day

mulligrubs \MUHL-i-gruhbz, noun:

Ill temper; colic; grumpiness.

            “That’s a comfortable place to be.” The barber chuckled. “You’re a philosopher, sir, a philosopher.” “I am, but I’m a blue one. I have the blue mulligrubs.”

         — Brian Lynch, The Winter of Sorrow

            Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody brain!

            — Sir Walter Scott, The Waverley Novels

            It is easy enough to say that a pessimist is a person afflicted with an incurable case of mulligrubs — one whom nothing in all earth or heaven or hades pleases; one who usually deserves nothing, yet grumbles if he gets it.

            — William Cowper Brann, “Beauty and the Beast,” Brann: The Iconoclast

This fanciful formation was developed in 1599 as a synonym for ‘a fit of the blues’ and an alteration of megrims.

So, yesterday the jackpot for the Powerball was at its highest.  Half a billion dollars.  Wow, a lot of money.  People were going crazy here, at the Pentagon.  The few convenience stores, conveniently located in this symbol of National Power that sold lottery tickets, had mile long lines of government workers and military, some svelte, some rather big, all blinded by the hundreds of millions to be won.

Back in the office was no better.  The lottery jackpot was on everybody’s mind.  Everyone talked about it.  People pooled their money to increase their chance of winning.  I think if there was a new crisis that erupted unexpectedly somewhere in the world it would have gone unnoticed, all due to the lottery madness.

I had a share in that madness to be honest.  I bought a few tickets for myself too.  Two of the numbers fell on my sons birthdays, unfortunately I did not plan the birth of my third son right, so I did not win anything.  Sigh…

***

Word of the Day

svelte \SFELT, adjective:

1. Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure.

2. Suave; blandly urbane.

      In 1944 his mother had been a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds.

      — Stephen King, It: A Novel

      “When I walk under one of the pathway lamps and look down you can indeed see the silhouette of my body which doesn’t look quite as svelte and hourglassy as I believe it did just an hour ago when I was admiring myself in the mirror.

      — Terry McMillan, How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Svelte enters English in 1800s from the French, and originally derives from the Latin verb exvellere, “to stretch out.”

I actually have been working here for a couple months now, but one thing that amazes me every day I come to work is the amount of fast food restaurants present at this symbol of American National Power.

I mean you have every type of junk food you can ever imagine here. Hamburgers dripping with fat, hot-dogs filled with meat-like substance, pizza with cheese substitute, and donuts coated with rime of highly processed sugar frosting. I think there are at least three dunking donuts restaurants alone, in one building!

For long time I wondered why in the headquarters of the American military you cannot get any real food from an ordinary military chow hall. Today I was awestruck with the brilliance of the people who designed this system. I mean, what would happen if our entire military leadership was composed of testosterone dripping “lean mean killing machines”? We would probably want to start wars with everyone and we cannot afford any more wars. It is a proven fact that fat and sugar kill testosterone, so why not put every fast food restaurant known to mankind in the Pentagon in order to ensure peace for years to come?

***

rime \RAHYM, noun:

A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of water droplets.

The Chief’s follow spot cast a light like a rime of ice into the murk, and mom swam inside this circle across the entire length of the lake.
— Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

When it got real fierce, when your very speech would freeze as it emanated from your lips and blow back in stinging rime against the cheeks, we hung close to the tepees and ate the dried meat taken the summer before and stored in rawhide parfleches and pemmican, the greasier the better on account of a bellyful of melting fat will warm you sooner and stick longer than most anything I know.
— Thomas Berger, Little Big Man

Rime, also known as hoarfrost, comes from the Old English hrim. Used mainly in Northern England and Scotland for centuries, it was revived in literature in the 19th century.

How does an officer become a FAO? Both proponent and HRC receive inquiriesdaily from prospective FAOs and we need your help in informing young Armyofficers on the process of becoming a FAO.

Officers are now selected to become Foreign Area Officers through theVoluntary Transfer Incentive Program (VTIP). VTIPs are held quarterly at HRC,and interested officers should refer to the most recent MILPER message for the

specifics of each individual VTIP.  All potential FAO applicants should reviewand be familiar with Chapter 28 of DA PAM 600-3. Officers selecting FA48-Foreign Area Officer (FAO) as a preference must meet minimum requirements for

FAO and complete a specialized questionnaire (FAO Questionnaire) which is sentto FAO Proponent. Note: this enables FAO Proponent to consolidate applicant

questionnaires for analysis in order to provide an informed recommendation tothe VTIP panel. Requirements vary by Cohort Year Group, and it is criticalthat the officer consider not only the general requirements, but specificrequirements for their year group as outlined in the MILPER for the particular

VTIP.

Neither FAO Assignment Branch at HRC, nor FAO Proponent approve VTIP transfers.  We provide recommendations to the VTIP panel as the potentialgaining branch and ensure applicants meet general qualifications/requirements.

Officers compete against other officers for the limited number of vacancies ineach functional area. History has shown that FAO is among the most competitiveof all the functional areas and around 50% of applicants are selected.

In general, officers applying for FAO must meet the following requirements:

a. Complete the FAO Selection Questionnaire located at www.fao.army.mil.  Thisquestionnaire will be reviewed in detail by FAO Proponent and if the officeris selected for FAO will be used to help determine their assigned AOC.

b. Officers are required to complete the Defense Language Aptitude Battery(DLAB) and have the score updated on their Officer Record Brief (ORB) prior tothe VTIP board convening. The minimum acceptable DLAB score is 95. Officersthat already possess a foreign language are still required to meet minimumDLAB requirements as the Army may require the officer to learn a differentlanguage to meet specific year group language requirements.

c. Officers must have completed their respective Captain’s Career Course(CCC). Additionally, officers must have completed company grade-level KDpositions in their basic branch, or must be currently serving in their KDposition.

d. IAW AR 621-1, an officer must have a baccalaureate degree with a GPA of 2.5on a 4.0 scale, or have completed a FAO-related graduate degree as per DA PAM600-3 and FAO Proponent ACS Webpage). All FAOs that do not already possess a

FAO-related graduate degree (as determined by FAO Proponent) must take the GRE.  Officers who do not meet the 2.5 GPA requirement in their baccalaureatedegree must provide graduate degree transcripts or GRE scores in order to

compete in the VTIP.

e. Officers must be willing to accept designation into any Area ofConcentration (AOC). While officers may submit up to four preferences, AOCdesignations are designed to meet Army requirements, therefore officers maynot receive a designation into one of their stated preferences. Officers thatare offered accession into FAO branch through the VTIP and subsequentlydecline the transfer are ineligible for future selection.

f. Officers who are competing for other specialized programs (i.e.Fellowships, TWI, USMA, etc) may not be eligible to compete. FAO training isextensive and an officer’s commitment to another program may conflict withvital FAO training. Officers must be able to meet the availability timelinesspecified in the latest MILPER message so that upon promotion to MAJ they arecompleting or have completed FAO training and are ready to move to a FAO 04

billet.

g. FAOs MUST be able to serve in remote assignments where services andconcurrent spouse assignments may not be available. Officers who have familymembers enrolled in the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) or who are

dual-military, should give serious consideration to whether a career as a FAOis the right choice for them and their family. All officers with familiesshould have their family members screened for EFMP prior to VTIP packetsubmission. This will provide the officer and the branch the opportunity tomake an informed selection decision.

Specific Cohort Year Group (CYG) requirements vary with each VTIP boardconvened. The following requirements are valid as of April 2012:

CYG 2004 and older are FULL - FAO does not have the resources to train any more officers in these Cohort Year Groups.  Officers in these year groupsdesiring accession into FAO Branch must already possess the required skillsand training to operate as a trained FAO. Specifically, the officer must have:

Language Skills. The officer must possess a current (within the last 12months) DLPT score of 2/2 or higher in a language of the region for which theywant to apply.

Education. Officers in these CYGs must already possess a graduate degree in anappropriate FAO-related discipline such as International Relations or AreaStudies (see Chapter 28, DA PAM 600-3). MBAs are not acceptable.

Regional Experience. Interested officers must possess extensive regionalexperience in the area/region of the World they are applying for. Thisexperience will be verified by the FAO Proponent as being In Region Training

(IRT) equivalent.

Officers in year groups 2004 and older desiring transfer to FAO Branch mustreceive a letter of endorsement from FAO Proponent ensuring they meetlanguage, masters, and in-region experience requirements listed above.

Interested officers should contact FAO Proponent at DAMOSSFFA48@CONUS.ARMY.MIL

to begin this process. This letter in no way guarantees selection for FAO bythe VTIP Panel but it does ensure the Officer is fully qualified and can beconsidered by the panel.

CYG 2005, 2006, 2007 - Officers in these CYGs must possess the seven generalrequirements (a-g) listed above. In addition, it is highly-desirable forofficers in this CYG to possess one or more of the skills/experiences outlined

above (relating to CYG 2004 and older qualifications). Lastly, CYG 2005, 2006and 2007 officers must be eligible to move and begin training by October 2013.

The required training start dates are adjusted with each VTIP and are intendedto ensure that the majority of FAO training is completed while the officer isa CPT so that when promoted to MAJ the officer can fill valid 04 FAOrequirements.

Additional Resources:

For the most current information related to the VTIP process, please refer officers to the HRC LDD VTIP page.  The next VTIP is currently scheduled toconvene in July 2012.

For information about the FAO program in general, please refer officers to DA PAM 600-3 , Chapter 28, Foreign Area Officer.  Interested officers should alsoreview information available on the FAO Proponent website.