Transcripts For WUSA This Week In Defense 20131124

Welcome this week in defense news. Im vago muradian. Imagine an infrared camera on your smart phone that allows you to see in the dark. We will get a sneak peek from the company that is developing the technology. A program that honors veterans at the twilight of their lives. But first, a special treat as we approach black friday and the start of the Holiday Shopping season. Military times scout editor rob curtis joins us in the studio to share his top picks for your holiday trooper this season. Rob, welcome back to the show. Thanks, vago. Lets start. Have you an assortment of gear that folks should be looking at. I want to bring one thing up here which is a garmen gps watch. That thing is brand new. A garmen tactics watch. It is new in the last couple of weeks. No one has seen it yet. It is a really cool watch that has all of the features that you would expect from a standard gps and all shrunk down into a wrist watch form and what is interesting about this, it is a branch of the phoenix line that they have had out for about a year now and they hardened the watch. Blacked it out. It is called murdered out. And it has that cool inverse lcd monitor. And they have actually taken that watch and put a real crystal in the front, and prior versions had lack of which were not nearly as durable in terms of impact resistance. And what kind of price point . That is about 450. But i mean it combines all of the function nality of a gps and all of the other functions that you would get. It is an abc watch. It is also which is altitude, barometer, compass watch. Yes. And it has jump master functions. And beach tide tables and things like that. Guys that are moving over the beach, probably would be very excited to have that. And going to the next item, it is going to be a bottle. Yes. That is the liberty bottle. We rehearsed this a little bit. So what is different about this bottle. What is cool about it . That bottle is pretty cool. If you look at it, you can see the entire decoration of independence is printed across the outside of the bottle. The one thing i should mentioned everything here forward is produced in the United States. All of these gifts are great items for patriots. So if you look closely, yes, it is a beautiful bottle. That thing is produced in the United States. And if you open it up and look inside, it is lined. So that youre not going to get any bpa and it doesnt hold flavor. And it is an exceptionally nice water bottle. Well done. Lets take a look at the stash and now talk to me about stubble and stubble and stash. This stuff was created by a former marine who had a beard on deployment but he wanted it to be nice and soft and supple. Apparently some of these guys can have beards. And even if you cant have a beard, you want your skin to be nice and soft when you face the enemy. Everybody wants to be an operator, rob. Yes, vago. So this stuff has a whole blend of, you know, it is all organic, and i dont know even know what is in here. And if you can read that. How much is that . 35. All made in america. The portion of the proceeds are given to a special operations front. And lets talk a little bit about this. A beautiful gift box. This is for folks dogs, right . This is an interesting item. I have actually used it on our dog at home. It is called snout soother. Yes. And this stuff is actually really good. If you have a military working dog, we have emails from folks down range who have used this stuff, to help their dogs noses. Especially overseas, in the desert, they get a lot of cracking. Trying to figure it out. It soothes the snout. And people are putting it on the pads of their feet as well and has oils and waxes and stuff that really helps the animals. It makes them a lot more comfortable. That is outstanding. So now lets look at this. This handsome pelican case right here. Youve got muzzle shot . Yes. And these are shot glasses. Pretty much the coolest shot glasses you can get right now i would say. They are made out of aluminum. And theyre based on the a2 flash fighter and 34, 35 a piece and you can get them in the case. And if are you in the field and dont want to break the shot glass, this is the way to go. Definitely and you can get a tapered one. A molly compatible pouch, too. That is great. Obviously you want to be drinking in the field. And had is the gear scout logo . They can laser engrave it for you as well. Outstanding. Lets talk a little bit about these, the rock xot fat grid. These are for fitness guys. Very few items like this out there. You have a two inch grip. And made out of wood. It is really comfortable. What you can do with those, you can start doing pullups with those things. And they swivel. So it makes your workout a lot harder. You can get really pumped, it real i had helps pump up your forearm. And how much are these . Those are 100. If you look at it, that is, you know, highly machined aluminum, and there are some pieces in there that are pretty cool, like there is antispin features in there. There is rubber on the inside of it. Yes. And you can use this for a whole variety of different exercises. Not exclusively for the forearm. Exactly, kettle bells or anything. And you just need a small line and you can hang those things. And thats the small line here as you can see, in order to rig it up. Yes. Lets talk also about this bag. This is kind of a really neat bag. You actually have one. So you use it in the office. Which has gotten some attention. Yes, this is combat flip flops, it is a company out of washington state, and they make these things up there, called the claymore bag, it is based on the old claymore mines. Exactly. And if you open it up, you will see that there is some attach mat points and velcro and all kinds of cool stuff, to protect an ipad, phone, sunglasses and you can customize that bag as well. This one is the unpadded one, correct . Well, they are actually going to be producing padded inserts that will snap in there. And what is the price range of this . That is about 85. That is before 85. Do we know how much this insert is going to go for . Were not sure yet. 20, 25 Something Like that. For the watch, were looking at 450. 450. The subtle stash. That is 35. 34. And that snout soother . It is 15. And then the independent bottles . 1776 bottle is 19. They come in a slightly larger version as well for 2. 2. 22. Shot glasses. 35. Dollar 35 a piece. And the grip here. For the workout. We appreciate it. Coming up, putting Night Vision Technology on your smart phone. Youre watching this week in defense news. Theres only so much you can do to prepare for an allout assault like that. We hunkered down, we braced ourselves. We just didnt have the numbers on the ground. What did we do . We used our naedvy feral cashrewards card to fly in reinforcements. Nana. Hoooaah alright nana 4 million members. 4 million stories. Navy federal credit union. Clear systems is one of of the leading makers of thermal imaging and infrared technologies in the world and it has seen tremendous growth over the last dozen years thanks to the iraq and afghanistan wars but the company also has a booming commercial business with products that serve utility company, First Responders and mare nares and even the automotive industry. I recently met with the president and ceo, andy teach, at the association of the United States armys annual meeting and asked him to explain the companys Growth Strategy as the defense side of its business cools. Wole, it is really two pronged here. One is to leverage the development that we have had in the commercial business, continue to leverage those into the military space. We do that under our cdnq model, commercially qualified. And we can use the commercial business and develop lower cost technologies to be deployed into the military space. Our military uses are all telling us the same thing. An increased threat out there. Fewer people to monitor those threats. And looking for more bang for the buck and fundamentally our cdnq model fuels that and answers that question for them. From a military standpoint with what are the sort of bangs that you are trying to appeal to the customer . It is all about situational awareness. It is using the technology that we have, thermal imaging, it is a Cornerstone Technology for us, and we are also involved in other areas of cvr detection and involved in radar and involved in sonar. And tying those technologies together, in a Cost Effective Value Proposition for our military users, so that they can answer that question, that they all want to answer, is what is out there . Right. I am an avid boater. And i know you guys have had commercial products and i borrowed one of the old military scopes that we had and i took it out. And one night we were out and it was spectacular. And i was in west marine and we saw that the units were a lot more expensive. Around 2,000 or so. And how soon before you are are shrinking this to the point where it is a couple hundred dollars, and a much more affordable purchase, or even putting it, you know, on to a cell phone one of these days . Well, it is interesting that you ask that. Did you like how i cued that one up . That was very nice. We have done some work actually in that area. This is an iphone sled we call it. So this is an iphone with a thermal imager and were looking at you vago, in infrared. And the way this works doubtless an improvement from what im looking like on camera. This uses our quirk core. Which is our smallest and lightest thermal core. It is about a three quarter of an inch cue. It is a prototype. Yes, it is. This was developed using our core, it is a Technology Demonstrator to illustrate that can be done in terms of size, weight and power optimization. Were very focused on swap at the company, and this, it really brings it to a whole new level, because we can see a very clear thermal image of you here, operating in the sled and fundamentally what the sled is, it is an iphone connected into this chassis here. And that what youre seeing, it is an arms export limitation on it. Yes. It gives it that little bit of latency that woe saw in the image. Yes. Exactly. Is this what the future of infrared technology is going to look like . The future of infrared technology will have two components. The number one is infrared everywhere. It will be ubiquitous. It will be in every day life, could being and driving your car and Security Systems and boating as you mentioned. And it is an awareness enhancer. But the second thing is you are going to see swap, which is smaller size weight and power reductions and cost reductions. Those are the things that are going to drive the Technology Going forward. But they are also going to drive a change i think in how we fight war, isnt it . That has been an Historic Technology for the United States but as it proliferates, it is a game changer. It is a game changer. And it will be ubiquitous. But the u. S. Keeps its edge. Just like any other technology, there will be levels of precision and sensitivity that we will continue to drive to have the edge. I want to ask you, one of the things that you guys have prided yourself on is developing your own technology that you dont take any Government Development money, and you sell even to prime contractors basessed based on a fixed price basis. And is that changing . In fact were leaning harder on that strategy. We call it cdnq and we have 10 of our revenue used for research and development and we have control over the developmentment and we are able to develop technology with a much broader case with higher volumes resulting in lower costs and higher quality. And one last quick question, you guys have had to put two profit warnings out. You guys have been historically successful. And what some of the questions, some of the questions on the street, how did they miss . What are you doing internally to make sure in the future you have a better sense of where the business is going particularly on the defense side . It is really about more diligence on looking at what the pipeline looks like. We look carefully at our backlog. Look at our order pipeline. Look at the kind of programs and product opportunities that were chasing. And probably be a little bit more conservative. And for what it is worth, at least one of of the guys said at least we know before it happened as opposed to after. Andy, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. The iphone sled is under Customer Review and there is no release date yet but we will keep you posted. Up next a unique way to honor veterans. Stay tuned. One out of four americans dying today is a veteran and now one organization we honor veterans is working directly with hospice and other Community Health care providers to help ensure veteranses nearing the ends of their lives receive the honor and dignity they receive. We honor veterans was launched in 2010 as a collaboration between the national hos piv and Palliative Care organization and the department of veterans affair. Joining us is don shoe maker, president and ceo of the National Hospice and Palliative Care organization. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Tell us a little bit about how this idea came about. We are in constant dialogue with the Veterans Administration over the years, there are many people who are needing care and service for veterans and hospice and we are doing a pretty good job of providing support and care and we were recognizing that sometimes when a veteran came to us, that veteran was bringing with him a whole unique set of needs that many hospice orchs were not prepared to meet organizations were not prepared to meet. So the organization said they wanted to help with the hospices to incorporate more veteran Sensitive Information to the Care Planning and to pay more attention to what veterans actually need. Many of them bring different sets of issues to the table. For example. You know, i have worked now with this project, going on three or four years and i have talked with many veterans about this and one that sticks out to me was a gentleman who said to me, i myself will need grief and bereavement support because i have not dealt with the number of men that i have killed. Very, very overwhelming and compelling statement and quite frankly not many people can understand that. So we were able to hook him up with a bereavement support program, not for his dying but the grief that he felt that he carried with him for many, many years. Is that, you know, youre a clinical psychologist, and in your experience, is that sort of a big part of this, where theyre grieving not only for those who may have been killed but also their past friendships, mates. Absolutely. They carry with them all of the individuals that they served with many years and they remember them so carefully and so artfully. And there is a lot of need to sort of remember and talk about those as people are moving toward dying. When anybody is dying, there is a lot of conversation that takes place about your past but for the veterans i dont think were strong as eliciting appropriate feedback in terms of what they needed. This project has helped tremendously to do that. Do you see a palpable sense of relief through that process . Absolutely. Such tremendous relief. They recognize, oh, a, this is my last shot and b, this is the person who is going to be really interested in hearing what i have to say. Sometimes it is very difficult to have these conversations with your loved ones. But a stranger who is skilled and knowledgeable in bereavement can be very, very useful. Is there a way to, i just say this, because i love history, but is there a way or is some of this stuff documented where there are some revelations and interesting things that could be historically significant . There is quite a bit of literature out there that does take a look at the impact of war on long term survive ability and psychological care. And we are putting out major information, to the field, to the country, about why it is so important, you know, 2,000 veterans dying every day, that is a lot of people who need care and support. Lets go to the question when a veteran passes at a hospice or a facility elsewhere, you guys work to honor them. What is it exactly that you do . Before the patient, when the patient is admitted there is a new set of paperwork that they engage in which essentially gathers all of the data and information. And they say to the veteran themselves, how is it, what is it that will hip you help you as you go through the process. And some would like to go to dc and go to the world war ii memorial, as an example. Quite a few of the hospices have arranged for that with some of their patients. And there is also some recognition that bringing together the former teammates, or army mates, in conversation, around the dying process is also helpful as well. We try to bring some groups together for this conversation. The hospices around the country, there are many of them, almost 2,000 are very committed to make sure that whatever the patient needs before they die, they get it. It could not just be a memorial visit. He may want to visit a battle field or another place and you make that happen as well . Absolutely. We make that happen as well. Several people went over to normandy, to view the site of the landing. And many of the graves that were there. It was very, very emotional. Very, very touching. And when the veteran passes, what do you do at that moment . We provide bereavement to the family up to a year, 13 months after the patient has died and follow them along making sure theyre doing okay and social workers sometimes help them with paperwork to get filled out with the processing of the death. But it is a message that we carry very strongly, that hospice care is not only about the patient. It is about the patient and the family and loved ones. And you guys though, also my understanding, is you cover the body with a flag. Oh, yes, we do all of that. And cover the body with the flag. And then more attention. There is more when the body is taken out and hospice staff that come and stand there with the family as the patient is taken out of the field. If it is an inpatient facility we do the same thing. One of the big challenges is to obviously fund for any veterans or military Service Organizations and Wounded Warrior program and right now, everybody has an understanding of what the veterans have done, and what services is all about. And what sacrifice is about. And there is also a concern that that, those financial streams are not there in a few years. How are you guys working around that problem, because you know, these veterans are going to be passing away at this rate for a while and korean war vets will followup and then the vietnam generation also. We encourage advertisement very strongly in the community what it is theyre doing and ask for donations to keep the programs up and running. Youre exactly right. The needs will increase exponentially when the baby boom generation comes along. Were encouraging funding opportunities that go beyond the payment theyre getting for providing the medical care. Under medicare and the v. A. , hospices are provides reimbursement for the rising medical services but quite frankly not enough to keep it all going so the Fund Development is quite critical and those programs for strong bereavement support are looking for additional dollars to provide more bereavement. And you obviously need volunteers. Where do they go to sign up . They can go to any web site for volunteers and call our office, the phone number is on the web site and we can hook individual people up in the community up with the hospice programs in their town or community. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Great questions. Coming up, my notebook. Zczczto budget cuts are tough on each of the military services but the impact has been particularly hard on the coast guard. Americas cando multimission maritime force. Ocean traffic is rising as nations scramble to extract as much wealth from the seas as possible and globalization drives increasing seaborne trade. But instead of investing in the coast guard to protect our vast exclusive economic zone, the Obama Administration has cut the services fiveyear modernization budget by a third. Even in tough times, that makes no sense. The administration had already zeroed funding for the last two of eight large cutters the Service Needs to replace the aging ships that have long been the Center Pieces of the force. That funding was ultimately restored but this year, the coast guard acquisition budget was slashed to 1 billion a year. Half of what is needed to recapitalize the fleet. Considering that a single Navy Destroyer would gobble up the coast guards entire budget for new cutters and demand craft and air systems and more, that is simply ridiculous. Each military service has a distinct and important role. T but thguard is sized for the missions it does every day. Not just during crisis. So a failure to invest increases future risk, while immediately undermining vital capabilities like intercepting drugs and migrants, protecting americas maritime resources, and enforcing its laws, and monitoring traffic in our waters and ports. The coast guard has got a big and growing job and must be resourced properly to do it. Thanks for joining us for this week in defense news. Im vago muradian. You can watch this program online, at defense news tv. Com or email me at vago at defense news tv. Com. Ill be back next week at the same time. Until then have a great week, a happy thanksgiving and a very happy hanukkah. The fda has made a full move to advance personalized medicine. What does it mean