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Thursday, November 17, 2005

For staff weenies everywhere... 
The Crash of the Powerpoint Briefing


The Crash of the PowerPoint Briefing


 *Sung to the tune of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"


The legend lives on from the Fifth Corps on down,
of the thirty meg PowerPoint briefing.
The software its said never gives up its dead,
when the God of Electrons grows angry.
With officers galore, maybe a hundred or more,
it was said that no one could outbrief them.
The good ACE and crew was a bone to be chewed,
when the God of Electrons came calling.

The ACE was the pride of the German countryside,
when they left Wuerzberg bound for Tuzla.
As MI units go, they were bigger than most,
with a battle captain well seasoned.
Major Holden in lead, quite a large man indeed,
and a master with mouse and a laptop.
In charge of the ACE, he set a fast pace,
and demanded his graphics and bitmaps.

The fingers on keyboards made a tattletale sound,
and the Bubbavision TV only flickered.
The network was taxed, always pushed to its max,
but the Term Shop was bound and determined.
The dawns came late and the sleep had to wait,
with the turnover of April upon them.
When mid-April came, it was analysis time,
or the G-2'd be left with no briefings.

When BUB time came round, LTC Rapp came in,
sayin' "Fellas, the room is a'fillin".
At six PM, the main hard drive crashed,
he said "fellas it's been good to know ya".
SFC Taylor called down, "we got generals coming in"
and the good ACE and crew was in peril.
And later that night while the troops ran in a fright,
came the crash of the PowerPoint briefing.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes,
when the briefings turn minutes to hours?
The G-2, they say, would've made Colonel that day,
if he'd put ten less meg on the hard drive.
He might have compressed, or he might have zipped files,
He might have enlarged his server.
But all that remains is the faces and names,
of the spouses, the sons and the daughters.

In a musty old tent in Tuzla they prayed,
In the room that houses the Great Bubba.
The churchbell chimed til it rang twenty-nine times,
for each meg in the PowerPoint briefing.
The legend lives on from the Fifth Corps on down,
of the thirty meg PowerPoint briefing.
The software they said, never gives up her dead,
when the God of Electrons grows hungry.


Written By:  CPT Joe Paschall, USMC, JAC LNO to Task Force Eagle’s ACE, 18 Apr 97

Comments:
Not only is this cute, but I can attest that from personal observation the V Corps staff hasn't learned much. It's also a bit old. Cpt. Paschal is now a LTC, an IO officer for one of the MEFs, and has a recently-published article in the Field Artillery Journal. And I think Rapp made Colonel anyway.
 
Ha! Love it.
 
Oh, that's good. That's very good.
 
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