The Army Professional Forums recently reached 250,000 members.
The 250,000th member was Staff Sgt. Matthew Taylor, a counter-improvised explosive device instructor from Fort Polk, La. Taylor said he joined to ensure that his unit “was tracking the most current trends, TTPs, and equipment used in the C-IED fight.”
The Army Professional Forums began in 2004 with four officers who were preparing to assume command of companies and wanted to learn lessons from those who had gone before them. This marked the beginning of CompanyCommand.com. At nearly the same time, a group of noncommissioned officers began a forum to share online with each other at SquadLeader.com. Both forums were gifted to the Army.

Facebook. It seems like everyone, and everything, has a Facebook page. From middle school students to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, millions of people, businesses and military organizations log on to Facebook every day to share information, interests and news.
For members of the U.S. military and other government agencies, Facebook makes keeping in touch with friends and family easier than ever. With a click of the mouse, Soldiers can communicate with friends in Japan and family in Nebraska, sharing any details of their lives and occupation that they please from wherever they are. This is, of course, where the problem with Facebook lies.

Last fall, 66 people positively changed their financial future through Financial Peace University at Frontier Chapel.
FPU is a 13-week DVD course taught by nationally syndicated radio host and financial counselor Dave Ramsey.
FPU teaches particpants how to develop a plan for their money so they are able to build lasting wealth. Topics include saving for emergencies, getting out debt, investing for retirement and college, and giving. The lessons empower and provide hope to everyone from the financially secure to the financially distressed.

The Fort Leavenworth Lamp welcomes letters and comments from readers.
Letters should be typed or legibly printed using capital and lowercase letters. Writers should try to keep letters less than 500 words, but exceptions to this limit will be considered.
All letters selected for publication will be edited for style, brevity and clarity. Form letters, political letters, personal attacks, and other letters deemed inappropriate will not be published.
Send them to: Letters to the Editor, Fort Leavenworth Lamp, Command Information, Public Affairs Office, 290 Grant Ave. Unit 6, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-1417, fax to (913) 684-3624 or e-mail to editor@ftleavenworthlamp.com.

New members of the Fort Leavenworth community planning to rent or lease a home can do several things to avoid landlord-tenant problems.
First, start searching for housing early. Find out as much as possible about the prospective landlord and property before signing a lease. Sit down and talk to the landlord, check with the housing office to see if any complaints have been filed against him or her, and talk to fellow Soldiers and current residents to find out if this landlord is one who can be trusted.

At 35, and 17 years into my career in the Canadian Forces, I consider myself fortunate to be attending Intermediate Level Education at the Command and General Staff School here in Fort Leavenworth, smack dab in the middle of the United States of America.
I am not alone in counting my blessings. At any given time, there are approximately 135 international military students stationed at Fort Leavenworth at CGSS and the School of Advanced Military Studies. Each of us is richer for the experience and will leave the United States with a greater understanding of American society, culture and politics, and having made many great friends.

What should consumers do if they feel a local business is dishonest with them? How can they file a complaint against that business?
Most large and small businesses operate their business with honesty and integrity. There are exceptions, however, and because service members and their families are frequently the target of consumer offers, it is important to know what they can do if they feel they have been cheated.

To the incoming Intermediate Level Education class 2012-02 — let me start by congratulating you on your career thus far and welcoming you to ILE.
Next, let me dispel any rumors you may have heard that Army ILE is a two-month course taught over a 10-month period.
The best year of your life is what you make of it.

The origin of the nation’s state National Guard organizations sprang from the forming of militia in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th century.
The Massachusetts colony was founded in 1630. At that time, more than 5,000 men, women, and children had made the two-month voyage to the New World, leaving the relative comfort and safety of England behind in an effort to break free of religious intolerance, and to manage their communities the way they saw fit.

The Mission Command Battle Lab kicked off the fiscal year 2012 experimentation campaign Nov. 15-17 with the Engagement Experiment, the first event in a series along the “Army of 2020” line of effort.
This experiment was a discovery learning event focused on the Army’s requirements to shape and deter (joint phases 0 and I). This effort educated the community of practice on the diplomatic, information, military and economic required capabilities and interdependencies in phases 0/I and produced a product that informs stakeholders and senior leaders on the whole of government’s ability to set the theater.
The Army Capabilities Integration Center has designated the MCBL to lead its FY12 experimentation campaign. The campaign consists of a series of six seminars, conferences, and human-in-the-loop simulation-driven experiments designed to address designated learning objectives and provide a forum for proponent battle labs to inform learning demands.

One of the world’s greatest leaders was a gate guard who worked at the main gate of Fort Benning, Ga. What made Mr. McCoy so great was that he knew his job was more than checking ID cards. With his awesome attitude, he conveyed that he cared to every person passing through his lane.
Somehow he succeeded in making a difference just through his genuine message of “Welcome Home!” I talked with many people who came into contact with him — Soldiers, parents visiting their Soldiers, civilians going to work, and visiting retirees who were stationed at Fort Benning years ago; and all agreed — he made a difference.

On Sept. 19, the 2011 Combined Federal Campaign kicked off to a small crowd of military leaders and federal employees at Trails West Golf Course.
Some in the audience were faced with tough economic decisions, which affect our installation and many of our federal employees.
Fort Leavenworth officials set a goal of six weeks to raise $300,000 for the 2011 Combined Federal Campaign. Contributors in the community did it in four. With pledges still coming in, the generosity of our federal employees is humbling.

The U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Center has begun the revision process of Army Field Manual 3-24, “Counterinsurgency.” First published in December 2006, it is perhaps one of the most widely read and followed field manuals in history.
FM 3-24 has its critics and its apologists, but nevertheless, U.S. Army forces depend on it to guide planning and operations for on-going deployments worldwide. At the core of the manual are enduring principles and fundamentals based on history and lessons from contemporary operations. This revision will attempt to adapt applicable lessons from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and other counterinsurgency and irregular conflicts worldwide to inform the writing team and contributing agencies and stakeholders.

The topic of the third annual U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Foundation Ethics Symposium, conducted from Nov. 7-10 at Fort Leavenworth, was “Applying the Professional Military Ethic Across the Spectrum of Operations.”
Panelists and presenters consisted primarily of leaders from academic and military backgrounds and focused on the underlying role of ethics across the profession of military service. While the backgrounds and beliefs of presenters varied, a few common themes of the conference were evident. These themes included the desire to do what is right and the importance of ethics-based decisions.

“Living with animals can be a wonderful experience, especially if we choose to learn the valuable lessons animals teach through their natural enthusiasm, grace, resourcefulness, affection and forgiveness.” — Dr. Richard H. Pitcairn, Veterinarian.
As your newest veterinarian at Fort Leavenworth, I wrote this article to introduce myself and also to address a safety issue that we have encountered at the clinic recently.
 

The nation’s oldest regional Veterans Day observance will begin in downtown Leavenworth at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 11. This year’s parade theme is “America — Thanks to Veterans.”
The parade route will be 4th and Cherokee street east to Esplanade, north to Delaware, west to 7th Street, south to Cherokee, east on Cherokee to 5th Street where the parade will disband. The line of parade will start with bagpiper Dale Cleland and the 15th Military Police Brigade Color Guard.

Although November was not designated as National American Indian Heritage Month until 1990, I grew up knowing about my Indian heritage by hearing stories from my mother, who was born to a French woman from Quimper and an Indian descended from Chief Black Hawk.
I and my Sac and Fox cousins didn’t play cowboys and Indians growing up. We played at “taking back our land and restoring our nation.” We imitated our ancestor who tried to do that in 1832, giving the future President Abraham Lincoln his only battle experience during the Black Hawk War.
We knew we were playing, however, because like so many of those who had gone before us, not only had the names of Indian places and people become destinations and football team names, the people had become assimilated, too.

As soon as she caught the first glimpses of fire trucks, yellow police tape and mass commotion early on a Monday morning in August, Erika Brooks began to realize her duties as the team leader for a Mobile Education Training Team in Kaiserslautern, Germany, would drastically change.
Brooks and three fellow instructors, Lyle Adams, Mike Bell and Dr. Bob Brunk, had arrived the day before to teach the Civilian Education System’s two-week Basic Course to 32 Department of Army civilian students from throughout Germany.

Between late September and early October, the School of Advanced Military Studies conducted off-site activities to give students first-hand experience visualizing operational art.
Class 2012-01 first went to Vicksburg, Miss., to study Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to capture the city. Located high atop the bluffs on the eastern side of the Mississippi River, the city of Vicksburg provided Gen. John Pemberton’s Confederate forces with the perfect bastion to control river traffic.

The public has an opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring medications for disposal from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 29 to the front lobby of the Post Exchange. The service, provided by the Fort Leavenworth Army Substance Abuse Program and the Drug Enforcement Administration, is free and anonymous, no questions asked.
Last April, Americans turned in 376,593 pounds —188 tons — of prescription drugs at nearly 5,400 sites operated by the DEA and more than 3,000 state and local law enforcement partners.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the United States are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs.