Easing Back In

I haven't posted anything new in two weeks. Main reason is that I have some, uh, rage-inspiring events going on in two or three areas and I was not sure that I could keep it from bleeding over onto the blog. While blogs are a pretty good place to lodge a rant, I've found myself meditating on the correct and professional protocol for expressing criticism and/or skepticism when one is blogging on professional endeavors, standards, and OAAs (operations, actions, and activities).
First, as I stated on the very first posts of this and the team blogs, OPSEC is the primary consideration of any posting. Second, if a post has to do with events impacting me or the team, I've kind of taken the tack of "if you can't wring the emotionalism from the post, don't post." Finally, there is what I've been coming to think of as the "due diligence and notification" policy.
Long ago, when I was a very junior staff officer, my commander taught me that you don't blow someone out of the water in a public venue without going to him one-on-one to give him the opportunity to change his wayward behavior. Before announcing at a Command & Staff meeting "I couldn't accomplish my task because I didn't get input from Staff Officer X," you give Staff Officer X the courtesy of telling him privately--and in person, if at all possible--you are fucked up, and if you stay fucked up and refuse to do what the Army is paying you to do (i.e., your job), especially with regard to how it impacts my own duty performance, I'm going to brief it to the boss and let the chips fall where they may. Once you reach that point in your professional relationship with another officer then, as GEN Gary Luck once quipped, "a dime dropped is a dime well spent."
Blogging while deployed, though, is a little different. One is wholly consumed by the daily execution of OAA, and commenting on the always-ugly matriculation of plans into actions on the ground is often inappropriate. I have a very limited optic here, and am not always privy to the analysis and considerations that yield the decisions that are handed down, so better not to post.
So, anyway, with a little effort on finding subject matter that doesn't make me grind my teeth, I'll try to post more frequently (which, given my post-tempo over the last two weeks, shouldn't be too difficult).