Scholarships for Service Class of 2009

The Bisbee Project is proud to announce our Scholarships for Service Class of 2009.

Scholarships for Service awards recognize graduating high school seniors from the Central PA area who are pursuing a career in service by enrolling in Army, Navy, or Air Force ROTC, attending one of our nation's service academies, or entering service in a local, state or federal government agency upon graduation.

Recipients must exhibit qualities of outstanding leadership potential and academic achievement and demonstrate an exceptional interest in service. Awardees receive a cash award to help them with the expenses of college life. This is the third year of the Scholarships for Service program, and we're always amazed at and inspired by the quality of applicants. Congratulations, Class of 2009!

Everett Benson
Bellefonte Area High School

Gage Cooper
Bald Eagle Area High School

Drake Cooper
Bald Eagle Area High School

Conor Dougherty
Central Columbia High School

Madeline Ede
Selinsgrove Area High School

Sergei Ismailoff
Gettysburg Area High School

Katelyn Kelly
State College Area High School

Zach Morrell
Lewisburg Area High School

Jacob Treon
Danville Area High School

Investing in Iraq's future

Here's a recent WSJ editorial from counterinsurgency guru John Nagl and Dan Rice, a colleague from Iraq. Economic development in Iraq is the way to secure the security gains earned there; the authors propose an enterprise fund to help Iraqi businesses grow.

A Jump Start For Iraq’s Private Sector
WSJ July 7, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Now that we’ve withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraqi cities, American strategy must shift its emphasis from combat to post-conflict operations. As in post World War II Germany and Japan, economic development through employment is key to maintaining stability.

Yet current development programs in Iraq -- like the Commanders’ Emergency Response Fund, which lets senior military officials spend money on “urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction” projects -- focus largely on short-term job creation, not on sustainable economic development that reduces unemployment in the long term. A more appropriate weapon would be an enterprise fund to help Iraqis invest in long-term growth.

American counterinsurgency doctrine recommends that the majority of effort be spent on economic development and governance, not on direct combat operations. To date, however, we have not followed our own advice: The U.S. still spends more than 90% of its investment dollars in Iraq on troops, equipment, weapons and logistics.

True, as security has dramatically improved, U.S. commanders on the ground have expended more than $4 billion in emergency response funds to provide Iraqis with jobs such as street cleaning, repair and garbage collection, and on essential services such as medical care and water treatment. But this pot of money was never intended to create long-term jobs, and commanders are restricted from investing the funds in private-sector enterprises.

Most of Iraq’s businesses were formerly state-owned enterprises. But we have dealt with this problem before. After the fall of communism in 1989, the U.S. helped Eastern European and Russian state-owned enterprises transition to the demands of a free-market economy. Ten enterprise funds were created in 10 different countries for a total of $1.3 billion. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) made loans to private-sector fund managers who invested the funds in small to medium-sized businesses. In essence the U.S. government became a very large limited partner in a private-equity fund to create sustainable jobs. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Europe has a prosperous private sector in no small part because of the impact of these enterprise funds.

Private capital is already at work in Iraq, demonstrating the validity of this model both for economic development and for increasing employment. For example, Iraq currently imports over $100 million of tomato paste from its neighbors every year, despite the fact that it has enormous agricultural potential in the irrigated farmland between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Until recently, Iraqi farmers had no incentive to grow tomatoes on a commercial scale because there were no tomato-paste processing plants within reasonable transportation distances. In 2008, a private-equity fund invested in the Harir Tomato Paste and Juice processing facility, which had been defunct since the invasion in 2003. With only one Western employee and 200 direct Iraqi employees, the Harir plant is now profitable and has given thousands of Iraqi farmers a market for their produce.

This model could be replicated in factories throughout Iraq in multiple industries if an enterprise fund is approved by Congress. We suggest a $250 million Iraq enterprise fund. While this would only account for one-third of 1% of annual U.S. spending in Iraq, it would have an important amount of financial leverage; the sum could open 10 $25 million enterprises strategically located throughout the country. Instead of spending billions of taxpayer dollars for short-term programs, the enterprise funds could create long-term growth and employment in Iraq while giving U.S. taxpayers a return on their investment in the form of a share of profits going back to the USAID -- while appreciably diminishing support for the insurgency.
As we withdraw from Iraq’s cities we must seek to replace our bases with businesses. An enterprise fund for Iraq is a good way to start the process of achieving victory through economic development.

Dr. Nagl is the president of the Center for a New American Security. Mr. Rice is a partner and co-founder of The Marshall Fund. Both are graduates of West Point who have served in Iraq.

Profile in Service: JAMIE MILLER

JAMIE MILLER

James (Jamie) Miller was born in Cape Town, South Africa and immigrated to the U.S. when he was 18 months old. He grew up in the small town of Guilford, Connecticut, which he proudly represented in 1989 as captain of their State championship-winning soccer team. After Guilford High School, Jamie went to Harvard University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in History and Literature in 1995. Immediately after graduating, Jamie joined The City School in Boston; having focused his college extra-curricular activities on working with the homeless, he taught high school students about the history of homelessness and poverty in the United States.

In 1996, Jamie won the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholarship, founded to honor the last living relative of John Harvard (the University's namesake), which placed him for a year in John Harvard's former suite at Cambridge University. He received a Master's degree in International Relations from Cambridge, and stayed on to study for his Ph.D in History. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

While completing his doctoral dissertation in 2001, Jamie became a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Bard College in New York. He also served as Deputy Director of the Bard College Program on Globalization in Manhattan.

In 2003, Jamie became an American diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. He has served so far in our Embassies in Tel Aviv, Tripoli and Baghdad, and is currently serving in Paris. In Tel Aviv and Tripoli, Jamie worked on human rights and trafficking in persons. In Baghdad, Jamie served as the Embassy's lead officer on the province of Baghdad; in this capacity, he worked very closely with the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction Team, supporting their efforts to rebuild Iraq's capital during the troop surge of 2007 - 2008.

Jamie is shown above receiving an award from the Iraqi National Security Advisor's office for his work on a joint Iraqi/American anti-corruption program, and while conducting diplomacy with Iraqi officials at the Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad.

Scholarship for Service: SERGEI ISMAILOFF

2009 Scholarship for Service award
Sergei Ismailoff
Gettysburg Area High School

This week we kicked off scholarship season with a visit to Gettysburg Area High School's Academic Awards Program on Tuesday night. We presented the first of this year's Scholarship for Service awards to graduating senior Sergei Ismailoff of Gettysburg, PA.

Sergei has been a key member of Gettysburg's JROTC program, serving as Battalion XO this year. He also competed on the unit's Ranger Challenge team, an elite skills and stamina competition that ROTC groups train for rigorously throughout the school year. Sergei is a soccer player, plays trumpet and is an Eagle Scout. He is headed to Penn State in the fall to study information technology and hopes to continue service by pursuing a scholarship with Navy ROTC.

The Bisbee Project is proud to introduce Sergei as one of our Class of 2009 Scholarships for Service awardees and we wish him the best of luck in the future!

Update from Afghanistan: Memorial Day

Our Memorial Day message this year is brought to you by Profile in Service Michael Baumgartner, whose monthly messages from Afghanistan I re-post here at The Bisbee Project. Instead of his usual commentary on the state of counternarcotics in Afghanistan, Michael offers a Memorial Day tribute to two of our fallen colleagues. Steve Farley was killed in Baghdad last year, and Terry Barnich died in an attack in Baghdad on Monday. We offer our condolences to those touched by these losses, and our solemn remembrances to the many, many Americans who have fallen in the line of duty in service to their nation.

May Greetings from Helmand,
I hope this message finds you having a blessed and reflective Memorial week. As with last year in Iraq, I’ve found that being in the proximity of our brave men and women in uniform helps add a greater level of appreciation for this special day, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifices to make our country so exceptional.

In particular, I’ve dedicated my Memorial week reflections to two special Americans I knew from Iraq. The first is Steve Farley -- a Great American who was killed last year in Sadr City. I met Steve a almost a year ago and although I only spent a few hours with him, was amazed and heartened by his enthusiasm and dedication to helping America make Iraq a better place. The day I met him I had a bit of a rough morning as I had watched an MRAP truck in front of me take a roadside bomb and then burn down as we went through Baghdad, and I was honestly a bit depressed when I met Steve a while later. He quickly picked up my spirits and it was impossible not to be motivated by his sunny demeanor as we hung out in that crappy Sadr City JSS for the afternoon. He took me on a short walk ‘outside the wire’ and then had me watch how Iraqis who had property destroyed by the US military during the heavy fighting going on against JAM insurgents during that time had their claims processed by some young Army officers. It was really neat to watch, and I thought demonstrated the benevolence of America in a very difficult situation. After that, we talked about how to better get the central Iraqi government to coordinate and provide services to Sadr City as part of the Baghdad Security Plan.

The most amazing thing about Steve was that he was so dedicated to helping Iraq that after already serving a year in uniform in Baghdad, he stayed home in Oklahoma for all of a week or so before he came back as a civilian with the State Department. I remember that evening I met him telling some of my friends on Baghdad PRT about this amazing guy I had met – he really was.

About two weeks after I met him, Steve was killed by a suicide bomb while trying to help out at a Sadr City district council meeting. I’m sure he was at that meeting in part to try and get the bombed up sewer and water systems fixed (literally rivers of sewage were flowing in the streets after the fighting) and the people there some clean drinking water.

The other Great American I’ve been thinking about is Terry Barnich, a guy who used to work down the hall from me at the Embassy in Baghdad. I’ve just learned that Terry was killed in Baghdad yesterday (25 May). Terry worked in the State Department office that tried to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure and apparently was in a convoy that took an IED. Details of the attack are beginning to emerge. [Here is a Chicago Tribune story. DB]

Terry and I weren’t close friends, but we’d get a coffee occasionally and I always thought he did great work and was a good guy – the kind guy you definitely would have made an effort to get a drink with if you happened to both be passing through the same town.

Terry once saw me trying to take pictures around the Embassy with my small camera and offered to let me use his pretty high tech camera. His camera was a lot better and I thought it would be fun to try it out for the day. When I put the pic on my computer, I found that his camera’s memory chip still had a bunch of his pictures on it, and so when I downloaded the pictures I took, I ended up with a bunch of his too.

This evening I’ve been looking at a hundred or so random pics I have of Terry on my computer. He and his family in Glacier national park, in Rome, whitewater rafting, making funny faces and poses, etc. – the kind of stuff one does on holiday, lots of smiles and hugs. I always meant to delete those picture before, but never got around to it. Obviously very sad and surreal to see them today. I had never really paid attention to those photos; hard not to today.

The insurgents and terrorists who want to try to keep America from helping Iraq be a better place hit their marks with Steve and Terry. These two patriots were dedicated to helping the Iraqi people and did so much to help them. Please celebrate their sacrifice and include them in your Memorial week thoughts as we honor those who’ve made our nation so wonderful.

Pray for Peace in Afghanistan and Iraq,

-Michael J. Baumgartner

Job hunting? Use social networks to make crucial connections

A Penn colleague of mine, Brennan Carlson, is featured in this Computerworld article. Brennan's tech savvy is out of this world, and his advice here is right on the money.

Job hunting? Use social networks to make crucial connections

Posted using ShareThis

Dropping in on Philipsburg, PA

Continuing our tour of service groups located in the communities of Central Pennsylvania, we stopped by for a luncheon meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Philipsburg, PA last week. Nestled into the Moshannon Valley a few miles west of State College, Philipsburg has a history that dates to its founding as a frontier settlement in 1797. Even following the well-worn path of US 322, one still gets a sense of the wildness that must have greeted the area's original Indian inhabitants and early Pennsylvania settlers.

Steve and I have spoken about The Bisbee Project at a number of venues, and when I speak I generally relate our efforts to support local activism with my experiences in Baghdad during the "surge." It's really not as far a stretch as it may sound. While the security aspects of the surge, including the increase in combat power committed to Baghdad, have often been stressed, a lesser-known story involves the degree to which the successes of the surge were a result of local Iraqi leaders and mid-level government officials stepping forward to get their communities back on the right track.

One of the key episodes that I relate involves our efforts to combat the black market oil economy in Baghdad. In mid-2007, we recognized that a militia-run "extra-government" existed in Baghdad. Running parallel to the legitimate government institutions responsible for providing services to Baghdad's residents was a network of alternative institutions subverting government resources to serve criminal and militant ends -- whether offering services to a select loyal constituency, or to the highest bidder. One of the most pervasive, and profitable, networks dealt in the corruption of the oil products distribution system.

The Iraqi state has a system by which it provides oil products (gasoline for cars, kerosene for heating, propane for cooking, etc.) at a very low subsidized rate to its citizens. But to run such a system, you need strong government controls. Without those controls, corrupt officials on the inside and criminal networks on the outside have a huge opportunity to divert wholesale products to a retail black market. Citizens are often willing to part with a little more cash than to ask too many questions about where the oil they are buying came from.

A real success story of the surge came during the fall and winter of 2007/08, when a team of Iraqi government officials at the local, municipal, provincial and national level came together and coordinated an effort to deliver oil products at the official government rate to several Baghdad neighborhoods. This coordination reached across multiple civilian and security agencies and took place among individuals of many different political backgrounds. Success at this effort created a boost in confidence in the Iraqi government at a critical time, and established important precedents for inter-agency coordination within the Iraqi government.

There are lessons to be drawn from Baghdad during the surge, and these lessons are meaningful to the communities of Central Pennsylvania. While it is common to reflect on the great leaders and grand strategies of a moment in history, it is important to recognize the rarely-noticed decisions and actions of committed individuals at the local level -- individuals who take an active part in strengthening their communities. This is the message I brought to the Kiwanis Club of Philipsburg, and this is the message of The Bisbee Project.

Our thanks go out to Emily Getti-Doyle and the rest of the Philipsburg Kiwanis for a great afternoon, and we hope that O/P Senior Prom goes well! We would also like to take a moment to recognize Merle Butterworth, pictured here. Long before serving as a Kiwanis member, he served in the 3rd Army Division, taking part in the Battle of the Bulge during his three years in the European theater of WWII. To Merle and the generations who served before us, your example will never fail to inspire. Thank you.

The view from Tyrone, PA

If you've never driven the section of Route 99 between State College and Altoona, PA in the early morning hours, you've missed some of the most beautiful scenery in Pennsylvania. Nestled into a ridgeline that creases down the center of the state, 99 winds south towards the turnpike while presenting commanding views of the hills and valleys that roll out to the west as far as the morning mist allows you to see.

About 15 miles to the north of Altoona lies the town of Tyrone, PA, an important community in the history of Pennsylvania's coal economy and home to the always popular Gardner's Candies. Steve and I dropped in to Joe's Place on Old 220 to visit with the Tyrone Kiwanis Club during one of their regular breakfast meetings. Steve talked about our ongoing efforts to build connections with service-oriented groups, like Kiwanis clubs, across the central PA area.

Steve explained part of the rationale of The Bisbee Project's Scholarships for Service program that I think is important to reiterate here. High school graduation season is approaching, and we make every effort to attend every ceremony where our scholarships are awarded. We think it is extremely important to recognize the young people who have decided to pursue careers in service in front of their peers, and make note of how crucial getting good people into positions of responsibility is for our society.

The recent NFL draft drives home a few points about what our society values, in our view. Now, we love pro football as much as anybody, but it is striking when you sit back and think about how much attention is paid to the development of our athletes -- and how haphazard is our society's approach to developing its public servants. For days we are glued to our TV sets watching the draft, and now many of us know exactly where last year's college football stars are playing in the next NFL season. But how many of us can name a single brigade or division commander serving in Iraq or Afghanistan? We can easily list off the names of the top three wide receivers or defensive ends snapped up with multi-million dollar contracts, but do we know who's running for our local school board in this spring's primary? Just something worth thinking about...

We want to thank Bill Ellenberger and the rest of the Kiwanis members for welcoming us to Tyrone. Community service may not be as glamourous as the NFL, but it certainly is essential. Thanks to everybody out there who understands where our real priorities are.

From the WSJ Opinion page (April 8)


Harvard and the Marines
Why not give our officers the best education?


By JOSEPH KRISTOL and DANIEL WEST

'ROTC must go because we oppose the policies of the United States and we oppose the military that perpetrates them. The lines are clearly drawn; the time to take sides is now."

It was the spring of 1969, and the leaders of the Harvard chapter of Students for a Democratic Society were (with the above statement issued to the student newspaper) agitating to cleanse their campus of "imperialist exploitation." To opponents of the Vietnam War, members of the military -- even students in the Reserve Officers Training Corps -- embodied the policies they despised.

Forty years ago tomorrow, April 9, 1969, this sentiment culminated in a mob of students storming University Hall. Eager to be at the forefront of radical activism, they turned to violent protest. Arsonists torched a Marine Corps classroom, and the administration buckled. ROTC was purged from campus, symbolically repudiating the Vietnam War.

Today, America congratulates itself for having overcome the knee-jerk radicalism of that era. "Support the troops, oppose the war" is the modern battle cry of the antiwar movement. Americans seem to recognize that those in uniform shouldn't be blamed for policies set by elected officials.

But not at Harvard, where ROTC remains officially unwelcome.

The students of 1969 have become the faculty of 2009, and today students who wish to participate in ROTC are forced to train at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We are pawns in a political chess game. The issue is no longer Vietnam, but President Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that bars gays from openly serving in the military. Because of that policy, the university classifies ROTC as a discriminatory organization and has severed all remnants of support.

So Harvard today happily pays for future bankers to take accounting courses at MIT, but refuses to pay for aspiring military officers who take ROTC courses. Since 1994, anonymous donors have generously picked up the tab, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for Harvard's ROTC students.

Sadly, the number of Harvard students who choose military service has dwindled. Harvard, where ROTC was founded in 1916 and which once boasted over 1,000 participants, is now home to only 29 cadets and midshipmen, spread over four years and four branches of service. Recruitment opportunities are deliberately limited, and the student handbook cautions students against joining ROTC, remarking that the program is "inconsistent with Harvard's values." And cadets begin every semester seeking to avoid the professors known to exhibit hostility toward students who wear their uniform to class.

Rather than embracing the mutually beneficial relationship Harvard might share with the military, the faculty prefers to stand in the way of progress, abdicating its responsibility to contribute to one of our nation's most important institutions. The same Harvard that once produced 10 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and warrior-scholars such as Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, now turns its back on its proud, patriotic history.

But there are reasons to be hopeful that the 40-year exile of ROTC may be drawing to a close. Today, the faculty is out of touch with a student body that is generally supportive of ROTC. The support that both Barack Obama and John McCain expressed during the 2008 presidential campaign for the return of ROTC to elite college campuses showed Harvard's stance to be far from mainstream.

We are also fortunate that Harvard's new president, Drew Faust, has privately praised and met with cadets and midshipmen, and publicly stated her hope that the day ROTC returns to campus is not far off. Though she remains bound by Harvard's discrimination policy, she spoke at last year's commissioning ceremony and expressed her desire to see our numbers grow.

This is encouraging, but it falls short of the appropriate policy: support for the military and those who serve in it, regardless of federal policies. ROTC should be fully and unequivocally welcomed back to Harvard. Accomplishing this would take leadership and courage from President Faust. Perhaps she will be inspired to show this leadership as she joins Gen. David Petraeus in recognizing the ROTC graduates at our commissioning ceremony in June.

Messrs. Kristol and West, seniors at Harvard University, will be commissioned second lieutenants in the United States Marine Corps in June.

Serious Comedy

A shameless plug for Mask and Wig ComFest 2009

Eleven years ago, Mask & Wig established an annual Intercollegiate Comedy Festival to showcase the talent of the nation’s best collegiate sketch comedy troupes. The mission of the festival is not just to put on a hilarious show that cultivates new talent, but also to honor and showcase a well-known comedian. Past hosts include Ana Gasteyer, Bob Saget, Kevin Nealon, Stephen Colbert, Tim Meadows, Gilbert Gottfried, Dan Bakkedahl and Kenan Thompson.

This year's host is Judah Friedlander of NBC's "30 Rock"

Visit www.CollegeComFest.com for more details!

Date:
Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 8:00 PM (ET)

Location:
Zellerbach Theater
3680 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19104