Feb 12, 2021
BISMARCK A North Dakota Army National Guard unit has received an alert for possible mobilization. If ordered to mobilize, the Grand Forks-based 1st Battalion, 188th Air Defense Artillery Regiment (1-188th ADA) would leave for duty in the National Capitol Region (NCR) early- to mid-summer 2021.
The unit is headquartered in Grand Forks with subordinate units in Fargo and Bismarck and has about 225 Soldiers assigned. If ordered to mobilize, the unit would collaborate with other Department of Defense agencies as part of the integrated air defense system designed to protect NCR airspace. The length of their mission is expected to be about one year and would be consistent with typical U.S. Army ADA missions and tasks associated with aerial surveillance and protection of facilities and personnel from air attack.
Quick Hits The
Chief Data Officers Council launched a new website and published a report to Congress on CDO activities. The CDO Council was mandated by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act. With multiple winter weather events hitting in the National Capitol region this week, the Office of Personnel Managementreminded agency heads about the importance of communicating emergency situations to employees even amid the current maximum telework posture required under the COVID-19 pandemic.
Posted by FCW Staff on Feb 12, 2021 at
2:32 AM
Published February 4, 2021, 1:00 PM
There’ll be no argument when I say that 2020 was a very extraordinary year. Extraordinary for the wrong reasons; but insofar as it’s being unusual, I’m certain most will agree with me. For hospitals, medical centers, and the health care professionals and workers; they were the battlefront, the trenches, the front-liners of our war against the COVID pandemic that gripped almost all corners of the world.
At the center of our COVID response, avoiding nosocomial infections, while still attending to cases of a non-COVID nature; The Medical City was often stretched to breaking point. But thanks to a dynamic and unique service philosophy, and the responsive leadership of its current President and CEO, Dr. Eugenio F. Ramos, The Medical City more than lived up to its slogan and value proposition of ‘Where Patients Are Partners’.
I have fond memories of my ninth-grade civics class at Belen Junior High school taught by the late Boleslo Lovato, former mayor of Belen, back in my school year of 1980-81.
Civics was a required course then and it was a useful course for me to learn not only how federal and state governments work but also how local government and quasi-governmental agencies work, too.
One of the foundational lessons was the three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. Understanding the difference is fundamental to understanding government.
Before I took that class, I had the opportunity to serve as an honorary page at the New Mexico Legislature and, as a Cub Scout. I was able to meet then Gov. Jerry Apodaca in his office. Both of those experiences gave me some small insight into the legislative and executive branches of government when Mr. Lovato taught us civics a few years later.