Shout out to my friend and coach, Sabrina Blase. Whom I acknowledge in my book. Yesterday, she started me on a 30-day challenge to post daily. I’m going to share something useful from the book, or about it. I’ll be posting to Instagram (IG), primarily. Follow me on the IG link here, or at http://www.instagram.com/bdelrosa81.

Work with me. I understand how to use Facebook, and LinkedIn, but IG is a bit different. I posted a short 15-second video today about why you should write your book – for who you become in the process. I don’t know if I posted it correctly. So… Learning.

Rules of inference and symbolic logic.

Take, for example, the following argument with 1 as the original premise, and 2 through 5 as rules of inference:

1. A
2. A or ~B · addition
3. ~B or A · commutative
4. ~(~B) → A · material implication
5. Therefore, B → A · double negation

Now replace A and B with the following statements: A = apples taste delicious, and B = Batman exists. Let’s translate the above argument:

1. Apples taste delicious
2. Either apples taste delicious, or it’s not the case that Batman exists
3. Either it’s not the case that Batman exists, or apples taste delicious
4. If it’s not not the case that Batman exists, then apples taste delicious
5. Therefore, if Batman exists, then apples taste delicious

It makes no sense. But it follows the rules of logic.

Yes. A 15-year-old girl should carry anything permissible and that she feels confident using. I’ll guess that at 15, her options probably range from a pocket knife to collapsible baton or pepper spray.

Of course, permissible limits to where she is and what rules apply. If she’s going to say that criminals don’t follow the rules because they’re criminals and will carry whatever they want anyway, I agree. She’ll just have to weigh the risk-reward of her situation between protection against violence versus protection against legal action.

In addition to carrying a weapon, she should realize that everything is a weapon. She should carry several friends with her, a cell phone, sobriety, awareness, alertness, mindfulness of likely threats, backup transportation, a quick exit plan, several contingency plans, a well-rehearsed set of responses to the threats she’ll most likely face, and her dad and his friends carrying weapons.

It sounds overboard, but hey, I have a 15-year old daughter. I want her to have every advantage in coming back home to me. If she’s not allowed to carry a weapon, I’ll carry it for her. And if I’m not allowed, a real dad would carry anyway to do everything he can to protect her.

Depends on the route, but at least a few years while you complete (or get close enough to) a bachelor’s degree. I’d say it depends on whether you’re active or reserve, whether by an officer you mean W-grade or O-grade and on which of the four officer programs if you mean O-grade.

Generally speaking, if you’re on active duty, either the military will send you to college, or you’ll finish it on your own. If the military sends you through some commissioning program like ROTC, awesome. But then you owe some years after that.

If you finish a four-year college degree yourself, it’ll cost you money and sleep, and you’ll still need to complete the equivalent of OCS.

Whether active or reserve

I’ll presume that you’re starting from basic and not entering the military (as some do) later in life and with an advanced degree, but who just want to do their time. I’ve known of Soldiers in the Army (for example) with law degrees, medical degrees, other doctorate-level certification, who said, “Forget all that. I want to be a Private (E-1).” Oh, they exist.

If you just graduated high school and have successfully entered the military at Private (E-1), then congratulations. You made it. If you’re on active duty, good luck. It’ll be difficult but not impossible to complete a four-year degree while juggling your workload.

I did so as an active duty U.S. Marine, enlisted, Sergeant (E-5). I don’t believe I could’ve finished without stopping while as a junior enlisted Marine.

If you’re in the reserves, I think you’d have an easier time. But that depends on what you’re doing when you’re not drilling or conducting annual training (AT).

There exist four types of commissioning programs, which I’ll get to below. One type is a direct commission, which usually means doctors or lawyers. Direct commission means no equivalent of boot camp to commission. In the Army Reserves and Guard, one can direct commission from enlisted to officer without being a doctor or lawyer.

Whether W-grade or O-grade

There exists a high school to flight school program, that will, if you succeed, bring you into the Army as a Warrant Officer (W-1) and a helicopter pilot. I think it sounds awesome.

But if you’re already an E-1, it’ll take some years to go Warrant Officer, and it depends on the job. Most military jobs require between 4 years to 8 years to go Warrant. I knew a Specialist (E-4) who got accepted into flight school on his second application, and he was only in year three of his military career.

If you mean O-1/O-1E (Second Lieutenant or Ensign), it’ll take a few years. Depending on current policy and the commissioning program, you don’t have to have a bachelor’s degree. You can commission with an associate degree, but with those programs, the rule is that you must soon finish a bachelor’s degree.

Four commissioning programs

There exist many different names and different programs, and they vary per branch. Generally, there exist four categories of commissioning programs: direct commission, Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), Officer Candidate School (OCS), and the five service academies (West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs, New London, and Kings Point).

Direct commission

Usually for doctors or lawyers, but open to other jobs in the Reserves or Guard. There have also existed (although very rare) battlefield commissions, where enlisted members have been commissioned on the spot.

ROTC

Many four-year colleges offer the program. You’re probably better off attending ROTC before joining the military.

If you just arrived at your unit and serve on active duty, your unit will seem reluctant to release you to attend an ROTC program, such as Green to Gold in the Army, but it could be an option. By the way, once there, you could possibly ride ROTC out through a master’s degree.

I remember that the Marine Corps had a few programs available to active duty Marines, such as MECEP, which serve as the equivalent of ROTC programs. The Marine Corps makes it tougher for Marines to commission than for civilians off the street. Why? Don’t know. So I commissioned into the Army. I get paid the same.

OCS

This is the route I took. The Air Force calls it Officer Training School (OTS). You typically already need at least a bachelor’s degree to attend. It’s officer boot camp.

Service academies

There exist five of them. You can attend any academy to commission into any service branch, but typically each academy leads into one branch; e.g., West Point into the Army.

If you’re already an E-1, you’ll need to jump through hoops to attend, and probably even more so than you had applied as a civilian.

I hope that answers your question. Good luck, brother.

I’ve started using Udimi and it has helped, a lot. It’s a bit of a shortcut in advertising. This is how user-friendly the site is:

1. Find a solo ad provider
2. Give him the link you want to promote

A solo ad is an email promotion. So, a solo ad provider, or seller, is an email marketer. But you’re not paying per email; clearly, because that would be too easy to screw you over with, by just blasting out junk.

You’re paying for high quality clicks to the link you want to promote. You also don’t have to write the email (ad copy) yourself if you don’t want to. You may simply send the link and leave the ad copy to the seller. The better sellers have higher success rates.

You can filter the sellers by how successful they are. The Udimi platform also has a built-in tracking system to allow you to follow along with your seller’s progress.

If you choose a good product to promote, it’ll convert well. I added a link to the sidebar as well as here: Udimi.com (my affiliate link).

Good hunting,

Brian

That being a liaison officer (and brown) at a U.S. Embassy is awesome!

The embassy

My job at that time required that I correspond with the host-nation military to authorize U.S. cargo through the country. Man… these guys never responded to my memos. Not once. Ever! I sent emails and faxed. Did I call? A few times in the beginning, but what for? No one ever picked up anyway.

I could’ve failed to apprise them of incoming cargo, and it probably would’ve gone through anyway. Because it’s America.

Here’s a rule of thumb that veterans secretly carry: The further away from the flagpole, the better. Or as the saying goes, “Cat’s away, mice will play.” And we played!

I didn’t wear my uniform once while there. I’d show up to work later and later, then leave earlier and earlier. I went from suit-and-tie, to no suit, to no tie. And I drove all over the place. I had this apartment that could fit like three families. It was huge.

I did all my work. I just didn’t bother volunteering for more. I had to check into a meeting via video teleconference once a week with my parent unit. I always said that the camera was broken so that I could sleep during the meeting.

Being brown

The security briefs would say to avoid talking to the locals. Eh. Apparently, they didn’t believe I was American anyway. And if you claim to be Canadian, it’s like being American but not as contentious.

But I didn’t even need to do that much. My family background is Spanish-Filipino, and I speak both languages (moderately well). In the Middle East, Filipinos are slave labor. They didn’t see me as worth anything anyway. And so, it was like I was too worthless to become a target.

In the U.S., if someone asks me, “Where are you from?”, he means, “Why are you not black or white?” Or, “What country are you from? Not what state.” Because apparently being brown disqualifies me from being American.

The funny thing is, the rest of the world seems to believe that, too.