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Vietnam Vet & author Dick Pirozzolo says vets are good hires

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November 11, Veterans Day is set aside to honor those of us who served in the armed forces. There may be parades, flag waving, speeches, ceremonies dedicated to American military people and there’ll even be free pizza and coffee at chain restaurants.

As well as the occasional: “Thank you for your service,” from fellow Americans.

In addition to the niceties, I can’t think of a better way to honor and thank our veterans, than to make sure they come home to a job that recognizes the skills they acquired in the military. Things have changed for the better. When Vietnam veterans returned, we met resistance from potential employers who wrongly claimed military people are too regimented, unfamiliar with latest civilian technology, and can’t think for themselves. Sometimes, opposition to the war resulted in opposition to veterans.

There were also creative ways of calling vets “losers” back then. In one case, a reporter for The Boston Herald wrote that she went to the Pine Street Inn – a Boston homeless shelter — to get “the veterans’ point of view.” Never mind that John Kerry and the CEO of State Street Bank were veterans, who were hardly residing at the Pine Street Inn.

During a job interview, a potential employer discounted my entire military experience by asking: “Don’t you feel your career doesn’t really start until after the service?”

It was as though my four years in the U.S. Air Force didn’t exist. Fortunately, I learned my craft, public relations and journalism, in the Air Force through formal schooling, at the Defense Information School (DINFOS), and on-the-job training. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette recognized my capability and hired me right away. A year later the late Jack Star, a former McGraw Hill foreign correspondent, who headed up PR at Boston University, hired me for the international media relations skills I had acquired as an Air Force press officer in Saigon.

Though specific job skills are important, veterans come home with general leadership and management skills, and other qualities that are a huge benefit to civilian employers.

Leadership. Whether officer or enlisted, the military does not hold back when it comes to putting you in charge and, often in situations that are way above the job description. To be sure, I made plenty of mistakes when I was a second lieutenant, but the most valuable lessons I learned was to listen and learn from the enlisted folks who had years of experience and technical skills far superior to mine.

Military people take an oath. Most folks don’t go around thinking about the oath they took when the signed up, but it underscores commitment. In a nutshell, once a soldier signs up, he or she can’t say, “I quit” and walk out on the boss or colleagues.

Diversity and equal rights. The armed forces are not without problems when it comes to gender and race and, in most cases, commanders deal with sexual misconduct and discrimination quickly and definitively. Despite the occasional scandal, which are not to be minimized, the military has been out in front on race relations that began with the full integration of our armed forces after World War II and ongoing efforts since then that include the integration of the LGBT community into the military.

Simply put, rank matters. Race and sex do not. No one tells the female lieutenant to make coffee or the African-American captain to make photocopies!

The ability to improvise. When a four-man squad goes on patrol, there may be command and control from headquarters, but the squad leader, probably a young 20ish soldier, will make hundreds of life-and-death decisions to complete the mission and return everyone safely.

Completed staff work “Hey boss what do you want me to do now?” Putting the monkey on the boss’s back is no-no in the military as the armed forces adhere to the doctrine of completed staff work with all projects and challenges.

When a team has a job to do, the job is completed totally before presenting the results to the manager who delegated the responsibility. Of course, not every project goes according to plan and obstacles come up. In those cases, the presentation has to be sufficiently complete so that, if more information is needed, all a supervisor has to do is sign a request.

One of the hard-and-fast rules team members learn is they cannot go directly to their supervisor to get partial approval, or to lobby for their own solution to a problem independently. This cuts down on a lot of office politicking and backbiting.

Chain of command. This might be anathema to a lot of current management thinking, but the principle avoids a lot of ill will. In the military trying to curry favor with one’s boss’s boss usually ends badly.

Likewise, the military insists that when you give an order it comes from you no matter where it originated. Military folks don’t give whinny orders like: “I wouldn’t make you do this, because I’m nice, and I want you to like me, but the big boss insists soooo ….”

Empathy. The military is often a matter of life and death and people can be together 24/7 where the division between work and off-duty life does not exist. I was always in awe of leaders who could navigate the murky waters of their people’s personal and family issues, while staying focused on the mission. It’s a complex skill that is well taught in the military and applicable to civilian employment.

The Marines often teach leadership through what are called sea stories that underscore the risky decisions and dilemmas one must face in combat such as: do you risk two Marines’ lives to bring back few cases of cold Coke to improve everyone’s morale or do you not take the chance? The outcome is not nearly as important as opening debate on the leaders’ decision-making process.

Honesty. “I will not lie cheat or steal or tolerate anyone among us who does.” We’ve all heard the mantra, but what it means is that military people learn to both delegate and trust the people who work for them without reservation. If someone says, “I counted all the M-16s and there are 46 of them,” you can, without checking up, sign a document confidently endorsing the count.

Learning in public. From basic to advanced training fellow students may compete for class rank, but they pull everyone up with them. Then the whole team wins.

Can-do spirit. Military folks believe they can achieve anything. After returning from Vietnam, I served with the 253 Combat Communication Group in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. We could install all the navigation, air traffic control and communication needed for a temporary airfield, while the Navy Seabees, built the runway and erected tents for the whole lot of us. Done quickly and as a matter of routine.

And consider going the extra mile. I’m still in awe of Mike Cotton, who created the China Beach Surf Club in the midst of the Vietnam war so that airmen and soldiers could get a taste of home when they were off duty.

Dick Pirozzolo is a Vietnam veteran and  coauthor, with Michael Morris of “Escape from Saigon – a Novel” (Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2017). He is also managing director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations and a member of the Harris Communications Group, which publishes New Cambridge Observer 



Human controls, standards needed for artificial intelligence, experts say

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Artificial intelligence is likely to transform the public sector by automating many government tasks—including making combat decisions. But, according to experts at a recent symposium held  at Harvard University, this “over-the-horizon” technology can only guide and inform government leaders. There will always be a need for human decision making—and for clear ethical standards to prevent harmful intentions.

At the September 20 conference, “AI-Government and AI Arms Races and Norms,” organized by the Michael Dukakis Institute (MDI), Professor Marc Rotenberg underscored the growing gap between informed government decision-making and the reality of our technology-driven world. “Governments may ultimately lose control of these systems if they don’t take action,” he told some 60 attendees.

Rosenberg, who teaches at Georgetown University Law School, is President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and a member of the AI World Society Standards and Practice Committee,

Prof. Matthias Scheutz, Director of the Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory at Tufts University, said the greatest risk caused by AI and robotics technologies is when unconstrained machine learning is out of control. This can happen when AI systems acquire knowledge and start to pursue goals that were not intended by their human designers, he said. For example, “If an AI program operating the power grid decides to cut off energy in certain areas for better power utilization overall, it will leave millions of people without electricity, which consequently turns out to be an AI accidental failure.”

Scheutz also said that common preventive solutions inside and outside the system are largely insufficient to safeguard AI and robotics technologies. Even with “emergency buttons,” the system itself might finally set its own goal to prevent a shutdown previously set up by humans.

The best way to safeguard AI systems is to build ethical provisions directly into the learning, reasoning, recognition and other algorithms. In his presentation, he demonstrated “ethical testing” to catch and handle ethical violations.

Here’s a link to video of Scheutz’s talk. https://youtu.be/66EeYzkTxwA

Prof. Joseph Nye, emeritus of Harvard University, who created the concept of “Soft Power” diplomacy, focused on the expansion of Chinese firms in the US market and their ambition to surpass the US in AI. Nye said the notion of an AI arms race and geopolitical competition in AI can have profound effects on our society. However, he added, predictions that China will overtake the US in AI by 2030 are “uncertain” and “indeterminate” because China’s only advantage is having more data and little concern about privacy.

Nye also point out that as people unleash AI, which is leading to warfare and autonomous offensives, we should have treaties in place to control the technology, managed perhaps by international institutions that will monitor AI programs in various countries.

During the symposium, Tuan Nguyen and Michael Dukakis, cofounders of the Michael Dukakis Institute (MDI), announced MDI’s cooperation with AI World–the industry’s largest conference and expo covering the business and technology of enterprise AI, to be held in Boston December 3-5, 2018.

Nguyen said, “Our cooperation marks the determination between two organizations toward achieving the goal of developing, measuring, and tracking the progress of ethical AI policy-making and solution adoption by governments and corporations.” Nguyen also introduced Eliot Weinman – Chairman of AI World Conference and Expo as a new member of AIWS Standards and Practice Committee.

Conference details are published in the current issue of AIWS Weekly.
–Dick Pirozzolo

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR, content and digital marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.

Dick Pirozzolo is a member of the Group; the Michael Dukakis Institute, formed by Boston Global Forum, is his client. 



Dick Pirozzolo Review: Power, Strategy, the US and the South China Sea

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“We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt.’’
—Steve Bannon, former Trump policy advisor.

Great Powers, Grand Strategies, a new  book edited by policy expert Anders Corr, PhD, urges that the United States play a diplomatic role in the Pacific and project naval power as a stalwart against China’s efforts to expand that nation’s influence worldwide. 

The South China Sea has been a churning cauldron of controversy over Paracel and Spratly Islands  since the third century BC, when what is now the Peoples Republic of China claimed the islands for themselves.

In recent times, armed battles between China and other claimants of the islands and surrounding waterways have become concerning—particularly when it comes to the new role Vietnam is playing as a U.S. ally in the effort to maintain the balance of power in the region.

The region has been largely ignored by the US, which tends to focus on the Middle East.  Of late, the White House has been pressuring China to tamp down North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, making it difficult to confront Xi, the Chinese leader, over his aspirations in Southeast Asia.

Six months ago, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon stated bluntly in an interview. ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt.’’

Amidst the controversy, which has sparked deadly conflict between Chinese warships and Philippine and Vietnamese commercial and military vessels, comes Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea, a book to be released on January 15 by the Naval Institute Press. 

The volume, written by a group of foreign policy and diplomacy authorities and edited by Corr,  examines China’s desire to project its power in this vital region for shipping, fishing, and oil exploration as part of a strategy aimed at projecting power and influence worldwide. Corr is founder and CEO of Corr Analytics in New York, which helps governments and businesses evaluate strategic and international political risks as part of their decision-making process. 

In the book, Corr maintains that Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and other Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with a stake in maintaining peaceful, multifaceted trade relations with China are being blackmailed by China’s overreach, while  the United States needs to  maintain its Naval presence in the Pacific or cede American influence and power to China.

  “This book is the first to focus on major power grand strategies including economic, diplomatic, and military strategies, and their interrelationships so that we can explore how global actors are, on the one hand, contributing to the solution and, on the other hand, perpetuating conflict,” he explains.

Anders Corr, PhD

 Corr cites China’s actions as ample reason for the US Navy to maintain its cautionary presence in the Pacific, which he regards as, “part of a global system of defense of not only the United States but its allies and values, which include international law, democracy, and human rights. To criticize the United States deployment in the Pacific as offensive without geographic context ignores the global picture and principles the United States is defending.

 Corr calls into question China’s disputed claims to the Spratly Islands and sea lanes in the South China Sea and its maneuvering to control the territory militarily. After having established its boot print in theglobal system of defense of not only the United States but its allies and values, which include international law, democracy, and human rights. To criticize the United States deployment in the Pacific as offensive without geographic context ignores the global picture and principles the United States is defending.

 “Viewing China’s presence in the South China Sea as defensive against U.S. forward deployment ignores China’s similar offensive actions in the East China Sea and Himalayan region of India, ” Corr adds. He decries China’s suppression of democracy, human rights, and international law in Asia and abroad and its efforts to remake global governance to its own advantage rather than on principles of democracy, stating, “China’s South China Sea actions are offensive when viewed in this global context.”

The volume assembles the thinking of foreign policy authorities Bill Hayton, Gordon Chang, Bernard Cole, James Fanell, and others who examine the conflict in the context of a global big picture.

As editor, Corr juxtaposes the grand strategies of the great powers to determine the likely outcomes of the dispute, and suggests ways to defuse tensions that are likely to spill over to other regions.

 Corr has visited all South China Sea claimant countries, undertaking research in Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei. He has also conducted analysis for USPACOM, CENTCOM, and NATO, including work in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

[Great Powers, Grand Strategies, China & the Asia Pacific ( Naval Institute Press, January 15, 2018.   336 pp, Hardcover & eBook $34.95, ISBN: 978-1-68247-235-4]

Dick Pirozzolo is managing director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations, an international corporate communications firm based in Boston. He coauthored “Escape from Saigon, a novel focusing on the last month of Vietnam War, in 1975.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winningconten digital marketing and content strategy firm based in Cambridge, MA–of which Pirozzolo is a member.