Pledge: Pres. Gary McCauley
Prayer: Pat Devito
4-Way Test: Pres. Gary McCauley
Brents Card Game Winner: Bob (actually Gail) Antoniac
Raffle: Charlie R, Joan W, Pat D
Happy Bucks
JA was happy for his special guest BG Christine Beeler whom he considers a 3rd daughter; GM: $10 happy for having all his grandkids here; JW, MD: happy for our guests; BO: good experience at DMV; BT: just happy; GA: happy to give back her winnings; CR: the US Olympic team and having his former student here today as our guest speaker; CB: happy to be here and re-connect with family and friends!
Joe introducted our guest, Brig General Christine Beeler, a 2-star general! Christine, a graduate of OS High School Christine attended Boston University where she enrolled in the reserve officer training program. On graduation, she was a 2nd Lieutenant and was quickly promoted to Captain where she joined the aquisition corps - a great position! Christine continued her education and now holds 4 masters degrees.
Christine is thankful for the support of military families allowing them to practice their professions in Connecticut. It helps make life in the military sustainable. There are lots of challenges in the service here and around the world. The army has 130,000 soldiers in 140 countries. 27,500 in the middle east, 10,000 in Afghanistan (but scaling down), 21,000 in the Korean peninsula, and 32,500 in Europe in support of NATO. Working with the other service branches, they help keep conflict "in a box". There are about 1 million service personel associated with the Army including 5,000 in procurement and logistics. 172,000 contractors support the day to day operations.There is a strategic competition with China and Russia that have national security ramifications. Deterence is expensive but the alternative is much more. There is a new domain of activity in todays armed forces - land, sea, air and now space with the creation of the Space Force. There are many satelites from many countries orbiting the earth and they must be monitored. China is very good at counter-intel with the ability to hack into our systems. We are constantly monitoring our server systems through good cyber hygiene.
The military is a great option when you are just starting out. Diversity and inclusion are important and supported by the Army leadership. 17% are women which is challenging because you move around a lot.There are programs available for veterans and medical assistance is available.The Army is key to getting the Covid-19 vaccine distributed with its robust logistics capability. Christine's department procured 700 million doses some of which went to far away places like Africa. The Army is always ready to help when there are major disasters in the US.
Announcements from Gary
Next Wednesday's meeting Aug 11, is lunch at Sal's Pizza & Pasta Restaurant and our guest speaker is State Senator Norm Needleman.
The following meeting, Aug 18, will be held at Cardone & Daughter auto facility. Box lunches need to be ordered so you must sign up.
The Aug 25th meeting is breakfast at the Parthon Diner.
Golf Tournament
Charlie and Brent are meeting with John Jackson of Fox Hopyard tomorrow to hammer out some details. There is still time to get sponsors and golfers. We are currently just short of our goal of 72 golfers. 10 people have signed up to help run the tournament. The tournament happens rain or shine.
Pat Devito did a 23 minute taping with icrvradio.com (Conn. River Valley). The taping will be played 9am Friday and will be available on their archives for 3 months. Pat spoke about Rotary projects, scholarships and the newest planned project the Commodities Exchange.
Our segment airs this Friday at 9am for 30 minutes. It can be accessed in two ways:
- To listen to the actual airing, go to iCRVradio.com and just click on Listen at 9am on Friday, August 6th.
- For most folks, it will be accessed as an archive audio file starting on Monday, August 9 by going to iCRVradio.com, clicking on the menu icon in the upper right corner, then clicking on Programs tab and going down to Feeling Good. The segment will be listed there for three months.
