I wrote segment 2 today before the memorial service at Fort Hood. Watching, I was struck by how much what I was seeing was a validation of what I had written. A lot of you who are current or ex-military people may have seen what I saw. If you’re a civilian event planner or security expert you may have also seen what others may not.

For the benefit of those others, I want to comment on some things you may not have recognized as you watched the ceremony in front of the Three Corps Headquarters building. Bottom line up front, you saw the end result of what must have been a jump through hoops, multiple day all nighter to make that event come together.

Let’s start with the enclosed area the ceremony was held in. There was no theater at Fort Hood big enough to accommodate the event, so an outdoor venue had to be created. For security’s sake, a controlled area had to be created. (God only knows the security threats the Secret Service was concerned with. Could someone have tried to roll up in a pick up truck just off post, set up a mortar and start lobbing rounds in? Could there have been a long range sniper they needed to screen off? Was there a threat of some rogue militia group mounting a full scale assault on the ceremony? I wonder how easy it was to get on and off post before, during and after the ceremony.)

Remember all those metal shipping containers ringing the area? Where did they come from? Finding enough of those must have been fun. Those metal sides are not armored plated. Were they purely there to obstruct line of sight? Or did the outside walls on the inside have to be lined with sandbags? They were stacked very precisely one on top of the other, end to end. I wonder how many 5 Ton Wrecker vehicles or other vehicles with a boom were needed to achieve that feat. I wonder how many trucks were needed to transport them there?

What about all those chairs inside the temporary theater? Do you think somebody just pushed a button and they appeared? Where did they get the chairs in the first place? Who was doing without their chairs? Who accounted for all those chairs? And how do you make sure you get your chairs back? Jeez, what a cluster you-know-what that must have been. Glad I wasn’t the project officer.

During the ceremony, you got treated to one of the best military bands in the world, the First Cavalry Division’s. If you want to be in a band, you have to aspire to be in First Cav’s so you can play "Gerry Owen". And if you don’t know the tune to "Gerry Owen", then you ain’t nothing but a damn communist. (Here’s a link with a midi file so you can listen to it. www.contemplator.com/ireland/gowen.html ) But I digress.

I talked about a bunch of big stuff. What about the little stuff? What about the Master Sergeant who sang "Amazing Grace"? Did you see her pull out the little box to stand on while she sang (so she could reach the microphones) and then push the box out of the way once she was done?

At this point, you may be saying, "Gee, Larry, don’t you have any feelings for those people who died?" Well, of course I do, even my ENTJ self.

But my trained professional self sees a lot of effort requiring a lot of people to be diverted from their primary tasks. Was it worth it? Probably, but after you read the second segment, you may have some different thoughts.

The tragedy at Fort Hood points up one of the difficulties of being President of the United States. This is a truly universal, non-partisan difficulty.

The difficulty I’m talking about is maintaining focus on your agenda.

One of the revelations you can have by reading Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is learning about the 4 quadrants of activity in everyone’s life. The quadrants are based on whether the activities are urgent or not urgent; or important or not important. Time is a finite resource in human life. Each of us only gets 24 hours per day. If you want to have a life that is satisfying to you, then you must focus on the things you consider to be both urgent and important. Having that kind of focus means you must suppress the things that seem urgent, but are not important.

If you’re in charge of a private enterprise, then you have much . . .

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