Any one SSBN Captain is sufficient.

A tangent, but has anyone read any of the Out of the Ashes books by William Johnstone? I was forced to read one in a political science course in college... pretty radical, but interesting read

Yes. One whose first big hit, The Hunt for Red October, established him as an author who did meticulous research.

Debt of Honor - which many cited on 9/11 as presaging the attacks - was published in 1994.

I haven't read any of his books since 9/11, but am going to take a look now at what he's published since then.

He lives in Maryland and so is in proximity to a lot of military experts and intelligence analysts.

Clancy researches almost everything he writes-I recall reading a bio of his life, and how he spent time with sub crews, special ops folks, spies, etc, to get their take on life, so he could write as realistically as possible.

An e-mail today from the DC Alert system. Thankfully, they've gotten better about letting residents know about these practice sessions.


NORAD excercise

North American Aerospace Defense Command will conduct exercise flights Oct. 3 in the skies over the National Capital Region (Washington, D.C.). The flights will take place in the late morning and early afternoon and people can expect to hear and see NORAD fighter aircraft as they practice their intercept and identification procedures.

I doubt very much that such an attack would paralyze our ops. POTUS and VPOTUS are only the top dogs that issue orders, but orders can come at several levels below them. No one is going to just sit around and wait for someone at the new top echelon to hand down directives. Military ops get their marching orders from executive staff, and don't need Pentagon to give them the go ahead on such things as defensive adjustments and activations, launches, counterattacks, patrol mods etc. Tac Ops don't suddenly stop just because the top dog gets eliminated, we don't have that sort of command and control structure.

Likewise, most of the commerce and civilian ops would continue to be governed at the local level. Intrastate and interstate commerce/transport would continue to be run by the state governments and local municipalities. Some mass transit might be affected, and utility controls might be adjusted from the federal level, but again, this doesn't require top level executive management. Plans are already in place to deal with such contingencies, so decision making can stay at a lower, more regional and responsive level.

An attack on DC would not put us in the sort of paralyzing chaos that puts our country in jeopardy. It would create some problems, but we can't be shut down that easily.

There will have to be some adjustments made eventually, but the nature of our society pretty much negates the intended immediate affects of an attack on our central government.

I Finally got a chance to watch this uninterrupted this morning. Good grief, what sober television to watch at 0500 on a Monday.

In a strange twist I also watched the latest Surviving Disaster epi yesterday which dealt with the same subject.

While there is so much in both shows to digest and consider, what I can control is what I can do to be ready, the govt and 1st responders will work off their plans and me and my family must work off ours.

Based off our families home and travel patterns during a week in my city, and the official estimates of about 20 minutes from blast to fallout (radiation concerns)I am going to just add a couple of more items to our vehicles BOBs which are multi use:

More N95 respirator masks
More food for the baby and boy.
A bit more water for washing off.

The threat is what it is. Water and food won't go to waste. Even just helping a stranded driver or cyclist in everyday situations around town.

Something I had not considered but its not a bad idea, is that my wife uses a large off roading stroller, it's always in the car and she can put more gear in that and less off her back.

Plus my 6 YO is now certainly old enough to carry his own BOB up to about ten pounds.

I read your post and smiled, then noticed your location and doubled it.

Free people are drawn together by attacks on their country. Burning London as a way to break the spirit of the British was a bad plan, as was attacking Pearl Harbor and the attacks of 9/11. For good or bad, we're brought together and inspired to great violence when annoyed. We also carry on.

Our biggest dangers are the same as they were 200 years ago - not from other nations, but by those who would trade a bit of liberty for a bit of security, to paraphrase somebody a lot smarter than I.

It may be more accurate to say, "people are drawn together by attacks on their country." Makes sense if you think about it. For example, lets say we're living under a dictatorship. Even though it would suck, I doubt people would respond positively to an attack by say, Mexico or Canada.

Dictatorships tend to be "economical" with what they tell their citizens. The response of the citizens (or should that be heliot's?)would be aggressive but would probably stop after the dictatorship is overthrown and they get the opportunity to compare the conduct of the "aggressor" to that of the dictatorship.