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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
CHINFO/FHTNC/USAFNS Debacle - #3 - The First Reasonable Request by FHTNC
A few weeks after the "order" to stop using the official US Navy seal on my website, I got a telephone call from Fleet Home Town News Center (FHTNC) Media Representative. I was asked if I could remove the house numbers from the addresses of the Navy/Marine Corps/Coast Guard releases. I told them that it was possible, but it would take me a week or two to develop, test and debug software to accomplish the task. Then, I was asked to delete all of the FHTNC releases on my website.
Before I could even ask "Why?", I was told that there were security concerns with publishing the house numbers of servicemembers next of kin (NOK) in the releases. I told them that I agreed to remove them, and I told them that I would wait until the traffic on the internet slowed down a little, and I would to so. That promise was made mid-afternoon, and by 9PM (2100 for military types) they were all gone - including the Army & Air Force Hometown News Service Releases (notice that FHTNC and AFHNS can't even agree on the spelling of Home Town. or is it Hometown?).
I had decided to remove all of the releases, as they all had house numbers of NOK. The next day, I advised the AFHNS media representative that I had done so, and why. I don't know which came first, but, AFHNS also removed the house numbers from their addresses at about the same time. Because of that, I felt that someone in the Department of Defense had raised the issue, and had enough power to make it so.
The next day, both FHTNC and AFHNS resumed the production of the releases without house numbers as if nothing had happened, and USAFNS.com went on getting the releases .. for a while.
There is one thing that I would like to say in defense of RAdm McCreary. He inherited this situation from his predecessor very shortly after the decision was made to order FHTNC to cease sending their releases to USAFNS.com. The man who held CHINFO billet when the decision was made is RAdm Pietropaoli. However, military tradition and military regulations make the person "on watch" fully responsible for anything that happens. I don't know the exact date of his retirement, but sometime between 12 June 2003 and 1 August 2003, Pietropaoli retired from the US Navy.
Guess where Pietropaoli went from CHINFO? You couldn't have guessed it! On 1 August of 2003, he replaced Charlie Robinson as the Executive Director of the Navy League of the United States. Earlier that year, Sheila McNeil was elected President of the Navy League. I believe that Pietropaoli had already accepted the Navy League Directorship when he made the decision involving the sending the releases to USAFNS. You might remember that I originally started out developing the website with the releases for the express purpose of giving (yes giving - no charge, nada, zilch) it to Navy League. It is very doubtful that they will ever have anything to do with it now.
In my next segment, I will disclose the name of the mid-level CHINFO staffer that started this mess with the request to remove the Navy seal from my website. Actually, I won't name him, but simply publish his second email to me. The first one being the request to remove the seal.
You can't make this stuff up!
~G - More to come!
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