The United States Army is rich in tradition. Among others, the change of command is particularly impressive. All the troops standing on line and then marching in review. By the time you place an entire brigade on line your eyes will be really, really big.
Well, change of command requires a commander and we in the JAG Corps have very few. The last time I checked, The Judge Advocate General, the Commandant of the School and the Chief of the Claims Office were our only commanders. So staff judge advocates, in charge of offices on post had no change of command. This led me to write the following article back in 1982 as I was getting ready to deploy for my next assignment.
Judge is a Short-timer (April 9, 1982)
Guess what? I’m a two-digit midget. Yep, after three great years here at Fort Riley, I’m going to check out in the middle of July.
A couple of people have asked me if the Staff Judge Advocate has a change of command. I’m not a commander, so that means no parade, no band and no little munchies afterwards.
Now when the Adjutant General moved on, he had a change of stewardship (whatever that means). But, of course, he had the 1st AG company to stand tall. Maybe my last official act here will be to submit a suggestion to the Suggestion Awards Program recommending the creation of the 1st JAG Company.
Just because we don’t command or know what stewardship means doesn’t mean we won’t have a ceremony. At my last assignment (in the Puzzle Palace), each chief in our office used a different colored ink. The division chief used green, the deputy used red and the branch chiefs used blue. The actions officers wrote their draft opinions in black. This was necessary when four attorneys were all correcting the same draft legal opinion. You only had to know which ink outranked which.
A poorly drafted opinion would come back to the drafter looking like a Christmas tree. Anyway, when I moved up from branch chief to deputy, the deputy bundled up all of his red government pens in a rubber band and presented them to me. I was moved.
The ceremony we have planned here at Fort Riley will be held in our crowded little law library. The entire office will attend, each bringing their own jelly donut in a small brown paper bag. We have selected 200 Supreme Court cases. The ceremony begins when I stand up and begin to read the first case. I will continue reading case after case until I become exhausted and collapse. At the time the new SJA takes over and it is done. Then everyone can eat their jelly donut
I forgot to mention that I am entitled to receive assistance from members of my office. While I am reading, should I begin to doze off, they can all rattle their paper bags to revive me. Whether they actually will assist me may depend upon how hungry they are.
This column should satisfy even the hard to convince that I have never let the absence of quality nor the lack of a topic stand in the way of meeting a deadline.
Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Why I Will Never Buy an Audi
No, it’s not the commercials. I like watching commercials, but I don’t think I would stop drinking Coke because their commercial offended me. The old Snickers’ commercial where a “Snickers deprived person” destroyed other people’s property offended me, but I never stopped eating Snickers. Now, Snickers has a commercial where Roseanne Barr gets clobbered by a great big swinging log. I kind of like that one.
I don’t care for the Audi commercials, but that’s not my reason for not buying the car. I do, however, believe the commercials reflect the arrogance of the company. The commercial I’m thinking of depicts the owners of Mercedes, Lexus and BMW as mindless sheep following the pack. While the owners of Audis are superior people who are able to think and decide for themselves. I thought the arrogance of the commercial reflected the arrogance of the company.
Back in the mid-80s, the Audi 5000 received a lot of bad publicity when the owners claimed the cars were subject to suddenly accelerating for no good reason. I’m satisfied that the sudden acceleration wasn’t Audi’s fault. It was later determined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the cause of the problem was “pedal misapplication” (the drivers were stepping on the gas pedal and not the brake pedal – and guess what, the harder they pushed, the faster they went). Even though Audi did not feel responsible, they did move the gas pedal and the brake pedal a little farther apart. They were also one of the first companies to put in a brake interlock system, so that the driver could not shift out of park until he had his foot on the brake.
The problem with the sudden acceleration fiasco was that Audi wasn’t quick enough to respond. It doesn’t matter if you have an engineering masterpiece if no one is buying the car. Duh! Their arrogance kept them from being proactive.
I want to digress for a moment. Don’t worry, I will tell you why I will never buy an Audi. But I want to mention something that keeps auto manufacturers from quickly improving safety features. It is product liability law suits. If the manufacturer is being sued over, let’s say a stablility/rollover issue, then, if they widen their wheel base, the plaintiff’s attorney will point to that change as proof that the earlier model was unsafe. Product liability law suits are like a game where fair play is off the table.
It was late in the year 2000 and I had just been hired by Bridgestone/Firestone to assist them in their major tire problem. The Firestone ATX and Wilderness tires were involved in accidents where the tread had separated from the tire. Since I was representing the company, they asked me to assist them in a small problem they were having with tires on the Audi TT.
The Audi TT was, and probably still is, a neat little sports car. Bridgestone provided the high performance tires for the TT (225/45R-17/91Y). They were quite wide, but the distance from the tread to the rim was only about three inches. This only became a problem when the driver sped through a deep pot hole. This could cause the sidewall to pinch the rim and cause a bubble or blister on the tire. In Europe, where the tires had been around for years, the driver would recognize that he had abused the tire and go out and purchase a new one. In the United States, the driver would return to the dealer and claim the tire was defective.
I think both Audi and Bridgestone knew there was nothing wrong with the tires, but Audi wanted to have a meeting to discuss the problem and, quite frankly, Bridgestone wanted to help their customer. The meeting was set up in Washington at 11:30 AM at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. I attended the meeting along with the account sales executive and a senior Bridgestone engineer.
When we arrived in Audi’s reception area, we could see that another meeting was going on in the glass enclosed conference room. We got comfortable and waited. Around noon, the meeting was still proceeding and catering carts arrived from some eating establishment probably buried somewhere in the enormous building. I thought, hey, I may get a free lunch out of this. Free lunches are good. The meeting broke up about 12:30 PM. The Audi officials came out and greeted us and then disappeared for a few minutes. Lunch was wheeled into the conference room. Things were really looking up. Then, the Audi officials came back, proceeded into the conference room, closed the door and ate their lunch for the next 45 minutes. We got to watch. I would have settled for a slice of cheese. Hey, are you going to eat that pickle?
We started our meeting about 1:30 PM. The meeting went as expected. Everyone agreed there was nothing wrong with the tires and Bridgestone agreed to assist Audi in replacing damaged tires at no cost to the costumers. Of course, nothing was said about the shabby way we were treated. Because of their superior attitude, it probably never occurred to them that the peasants had to eat too.
It is hard to be politically correct when dealing with such jerks. I will just say that in the United States Army we make sure the troops are fed. And we have been pretty successful. Is that subtle enough? As I have grown older, I have mellowed. I now will agree to ride in the back seat of an Audi, as long as I am being chauffeured by an Audi executive.
Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
Too Late for a New Year’s Resolution?
I’m not a big New Year’s Resolution guy. This year, I didn’t give it any thought at all. A couple down the street threw a New Year’s Day reception. I told some neighbors present that I hadn’t done anything about New Year’s resolutions. A woman said, “It’s not too late. You can make New Year’s resolutions anytime.”
This really got me thinking. I always thought you had to make them before the year started. I realized that I didn’t know the rules for New Year’s resolutions. I needed to find the rules and study them. Maybe it wasn’t too late. In fact, the longer you wait in the year, the better your chances are at being successful.
So I Googled “New Year’s Resolution Rules.” Of course Google has something on everything. I found one article entitled the Seven Rules of New Year’s Resolutions. Rule one and two were exactly the same. “Do not talk about New Year’s resolutions.” I think the idea was, if you don’t talk about it, you won’t have a “falsely inflated self image” (whatever that means). Sounds pretty hokey. I doubt if many people spend time bragging about New Year’s resolutions. But, again, I’m not a NYR guy. Then, rules number 5 & 6 were “commit your New Year’s resolution to a friend” and “have the friend hold you accountable.” I am struggling with not talking about it but telling a friend. Wouldn’t telling a friend falsely inflate something or other? I was grateful to learn that none of the rules demand penalties. That’s because I think breaking New Year’s resolutions is right up there with death and taxes.
WinSoft is holding a contest for people to submit (on their software) the most funny or crazy resolution. What’s exciting about this is that the contest deadline is on January 16, 2012 at Midnight in Paris, France. This is exceedingly important because it proves that New Year’s resolutions don’t have to be made before the start of the year.
So I think I still have time. I’m having trouble coming up with a resolution. I would like to discover a full proof remedy for stopping hiccups or building an invisible teleprompter, but I’m not qualified. I thought about saying, “I resolve to be a better person this year.” That sounds lofty. But better than what? Better than I was last year? Better than somebody else? That seems vain. There are some people that it would be impossible to be better than, like Superman. Faster that a speeding bullet, more powerful that a locomotive. Not bad for a mild mannered reporter. If I were better than President Obama, the media wouldn’t tell you. Fox News might. You know – fair and balanced.
Speaking of politics, I could resolve to get my man elected. If I do everything I can and my man loses, where does that leave my resolution? I think there should be a Federal advisory board to answer such questions. We could call it the New Year’s Resolution Resolution Board.
So where does that leave me? I clearly have until January 16th. I could pass or have a stealth resolution. Stealth resolutions are not subject to the Resolution Resolution Board. I think I will make a resolution to publish more blogs this year. It is obvious that I don’t put much emphasis on substance. Go Daddy, my web meister, keeps all kind of stats for me. So far I publish .76 blogs per week. That comes to three and a third per month. I should be able to do better. When you write the junk I write about, you don’t have to worry about writer’s block. I think I will resolve to publish a blog a week. I have a few subjects lined up and think I can rock right along until late January!
Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com