The HMA GUY Journal

This article was originally posted as a response to Paul Riddell's article at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sclerotic_rings/457928.html .

This article qouted an article that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/May/19/ln/ln25a.html .

Paul,

As much as I have admired your writing over the years, I believe you have fallen into the logic trap that many people fall into; i.e. "Whatever the Government (particularly this one) does is wrong." Once you fall into that trap, taking articles such as the one written in the Honolulu Advertiser at face value becomes easy and without criticism.

Normally, I skim articles such as those in the Honolulu Advertiser without so much of a murmur. The reporters are not scientists and have not one scintilla of an idea of what they are writing about. They see Government spending and immediately think, "Big budget. Must be those stupid Government idiots. Better write article telling world." It seems that those Government idiots have produced things that went well; things like the F-22, C-17, B-52 (now 32 years old and still flying). And, regardless of what some have written, the Space Shuttle. The various Shuttles have had hundreds of successful missions. The accidents that happened were not because of design, but of bad decisions of people who were not scientists. In any case, all these program went "over budget."

Now, back to the matter at hand. This article was so filled with egrecious errors of fact as to make reciting them tedious and without purpose. Just to cherry pick some of the errors, I would start with the period of the program. Airborne Laser (ABL) has been a twenty year program, not an eight year program. The current contract phase is for eight years. Is it costing $3.1 billion? Yea, so? When dealing with Congress, money is requested, allocated, then spent. You request 3.1, you get 2.

Leaving money for a moment, what is being requesting, contrary to the article, is not more money to bring anything "up to spec," but allocation funds to complete the contract phase. Simply put, Congress never allocated the complete contract value.

I have been in the defense business, on both sides of the Government/Contractor fence, a very long time and have seen a lot of strange things. However, the one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the inherent stupidity and general shortsightedness of your average reporter. The reporter shows up on your front porch, "Tell me the truth." You tell him the truth and he goes and writes what he damn well wanted to in the first place.

Geez, it is enough to make a grown man wanna cry.