The SIGNAL Blog

Homefront Help: About Face

October 4, 2012

Rita Boland

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains one of the biggest causes of suffering for troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has launched a Web resource to reach out to people who need help handling the affliction, calling on fellow veterans to lend support. On About Face, visitors can find all the expected basics, such as an explanation of the disorder, contact information for immediate help and links to more information. But the true value of the site is in its collections of videos featuring veterans talking about their struggles and offering words of encouragement to others.

The video testimonials cover many of the topics important to people with PTSD including how it can affect loved ones, what treatment is like and why individuals did not seek help immediately. Many veterans or active-duty military members dealing with this disorder feel alone or nervous that seeking help will reflect poorly on them. Through About Face, they can see how many of their peers experience the same issues and hopefully feel less isolated and uncertain.

Though much of the VA’s efforts focus on the troops returning from current conflicts, the site, and the department’s resources, are for veterans who served in any U.S. operation.

Homefront Help also has a Facebook page where visitors can gather and share information. If you know of a program that is helping service personnel, veterans or their families please submit that information to Rita Boland, SIGNAL’s news editor.

Cool App-titude: PollTracker

October 2, 2012

Rachel Eisenhower

Election day will be here before we know it, and the free PollTracker app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad puts the latest data in the palm of your hand.

PollTracker, created by TPM Media, provides tools to track the 2012 election in real time and presents the results in a graphic interface. From the presidency to seats in Congress, the app content covers every race.

Top features include: a curated list of the latest polls in the nation’s most heated races; swing state averages; breakdowns of key voting blocks; candidate information; historical charting of the race; a search function; and push notifications for new polls.

Forbes named it one of the “5 Essential Mobile Apps for Election Season.”

Download the free app from the iTunes App Store.

These sites are not affiliated with AFCEA or SIGNAL Magazine, and we are not responsible for the content or quality of the products offered. When visiting new websites, please use proper Internet security procedures.

Army Teams With Universities to Advance Unmanned Systems Utility

September 30, 2012

Departments:

Defense

Participants Wanted for 2013 PlugFests

September 28, 2012

Rita Boland

For the September issue of SIGNAL, I wrote an article about a new effort at AFCEA designed to spur innovation and rapid acquisition in defense technology. Dubbed PlugFests, the events are managed by the Rapid Integration Innovation Process (RI2P) special interest group, which is dedicated to showing the value of such events to government and industry.

During 2012, PlugFests took place at AFCEA's TechNet Land Forces conferences as RI2P group members worked to get out the word about their program and demonstrate the importance of the concept. Now, they are seeking new partners to participate in 2013. Personnel are drafting next year’s PlugFests with plans to conduct six to eight of them focused on a variety of themes. Group members are planning to introduce science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities into their future efforts as well. Already they are in discussions with San Diego points of contact to include STEM features at the PlugFest Booth at the AFCEA West show next January.

The group is looking for volunteers to serve as subject matter experts to develop use cases; as technology providers to offer software-based services and hardware solutions to continue to expand the reusable technology stack; and as developer challengers to bridge the gap between subject matter experts and the technology stack in the form of rapid prototype applications.

Northrop Grumman to Provide Handheld Targeting Devices

September 26, 2012

George I. Seffers

Northrop Grumman Guidance and Electronics Co., Apopka, Fla., was awarded a $9,245,586 firm-fixed-price contract for handheld precision targeting device systems. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity.

Departments:

Space Based Infrared System Contract Modified

September 26, 2012

George I. Seffers

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., is being awarded a $54,241,120.00 contract modification for sustainment support for the Space Based Infrared System. The contracting activity is the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

Departments:

Lockheed Martin

SBIRS

Space Based Infrared System

Air Force

contract awards

Samsung Series 7 Slate Selected for Bases Worldwide

September 26, 2012

George I. Seffers

Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Ridgefield Park, N.J., and Intelligent Decisions (ID), Inc., Ashburn, Va., have announced that the Samsung Series 7 Slate has been awarded the network slate tablet category contract under the U.S. Air Force Client Computing and Servers blanket purchase agreement. ID and Samsung will deliver the Samsung Series 7 Slate, the first device selected under the new network tablet category, available for deployment at U.S. Air Force bases worldwide.

Departments:

Cool App-titude: Sesame Street for Military Families

September 18, 2012

Rachel Eisenhower

The free Sesame Street for Military Families app gives service members and their loved ones the resources they need to handle challenging situations, such as deployments and homecomings. The program, developed by Sesame Street for the iPhone and iPad, features videos, articles and parent guides in both English and Spanish. Download it from the iTunes App Store. An Android version is expected in the coming weeks.

Watch a tour of the app here:

Bad Movies and Threats to CONUS

September 17, 2012

By: Joe Mazzafro

I started over Labor Weekend to write about my increasing concern about the escalating number of Green on Blue attacks in Afghanistan during August, and even though they are continuing they seem to have receded in importance relative to raising level of violence in Cairo, the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens (along three other Americans) in our Benghazi Consulate, and anti American demonstrations in 20 other countries all triggered by the offense taken at an amateurish YouTube video that seems to mock the Prophet Muhammad. As with the Danish cartoons from years past, Arab Muslims again seem to be looking for the opportunity to be offended so they can blame the West for what ails their societies. Or perhaps there is latent Arab anger that the US never relented in its efforts to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. Meanwhile unrelated to the YouTube clip (it’s a trailer not movie) titled the “Innocence of Muslims” Assad is ramping up his violence against Syrian rebels offended by his secular dictatorial regime while Israel’s Prime Minister is publicly insisting the US articulate for all to know its conditions for taking military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons development program.

I don’t agree with the view expressed by some that the IC not warning of violent demonstrations at the American Embassy in Cairo or the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi represents an intelligence failure. The political volatility in both Libya and Egypt seems to have been understood and conveyed by the IC; however, at least in Cairo the IC along with the news media continue to be challenged by extracting actionable intelligence from social media.

Data Center Consolidation Allows Agencies to Address the Digital Government Strategy

September 14, 2012

By Paul Christman

Departments:

Defense

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