I’ll have a full posting about it Monday, when I get a chance to write it up.<\/p>\n
But, I owe you at least a quick explanation. I just got off the phone with the communications director for the USO, a lovely lady with whom I had a wonderful conversation. The gist is that (as expected) the whole thing was largely miscommunication. I let her know that we all figured that, but our biggest concern was the lack of response to the 5 emails. She stressed quite vocally that she understood why this angered us and that our anger was rational within the context of what happened. Because she’s WAY better at PR than I will ever be, she managed to convey empathy without ever once assigning blame to anyone, except the system generally. She expressed her thanks for what milbloggers do, and for helping to explore the problems that can arise in this regard.<\/p>\n
My takeaway….the initial director sent out an email that was horribly written (“blog” instead of “post”, the “further action” nonsense etc), and compounded that by not responding to us, which sent this into the stratosphere. They intended well, but it was horribly played, and when it started to turn south, for some reason they figured a “see no evil, respond to no evil” approach that made it worse. And it might not even have been a “they”, but just one person.<\/p>\n
Again, I will have more on Monday or so, but wanted to update you.<\/p>\n
(Actually, I am headed to DC to interview Ollie North on Monday and Tuesday, but I will try to get an update for you guys.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"