Feedback contains information on updates and some background information that might be of interest to some readers. It also has comments from web site readers that might have wider interest than just to me. To that end, and to possibly prevent having to respond to the same questions and comments again and again, this page provides responses that answer some of your questions, even some you've not yet asked. Be forewarned that I write for enjoyment as well as for enlightenment, and hope that you'll appreciate my humor. If not, then send me a comment and maybe I'll post it here. Or maybe not.

As with other areas where I post items of interest, I'll include dates and have the newest first so you don't have to go scrolling through a lot of "old news" (is that an oxymoron?). To speed up page loading, entries have been divided by year, with larger years' entries split.

Jack Terwiel     

2002	2003	2004	2005: Jan-Jun  Jul-Dec
2006: Jan-Jun  Jul-Dec	2007: Jan-Jun  Jul-Dec	2008: Jan-Jun  Jul-Dec	2009:  Jan-Jun  Jul-Dec

June 20, 2009 – Changes Coming to Newsletter and Web Site
I recently received direction from the Area XIV (Pacific Region) Representative to the Chief of Staff Air Force Retiree Council that my activities have not been in compliance with Air Force Instruction 36-3106. Specifically, the AFI directs that each newsletter must be reviewed by the Judge Advocate (JA) office (aka the Legal Office) and the Public Affairs (PA) office. In addition, and though not specifically addressed in the AFI, the representative's instruction includes that each update to the web site must also be reviewed by the JA and the PA.

What does this mean to readers of the newsletter and visitors to the web site? Let me explain by describing the current process. I produce the monthly newsletter based primarily on inputs from e-mails I receive from the various military-related organizations such as the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), National Association of Uniformed Services (NAUS) and The Retired Enlisted Association (TREA). I create the newsletter selecting items of interest to Korea retirees that I find in those e-mails saved throughout the month. Most of these organizations send their e-mails on Friday, so I start working on the newsletter on the last Saturday of the month. When the newsletter is completed to my satisfaction, I send it to a trusted friend who reviews it and reports back to me the errors (typographical or content) that I then correct. If I have to wait a few days before the new month begins, I continue to check other sources for items that might be suitable to add, or changes that affect included items.

My goal has been to send out the newsletter as close as possible to the beginning of the month, but no later than the fifth day of the month. Some of the information is time-sensitive (scheduled activities, for example) so I want to get it to you as soon as I can.

When I send the newsletter, I must monitor sending from beginning to end. Because of a number of factors, the sending process might suddenly stop and that requires a manual restart. The full process from beginning to end takes 4-6 hours during which time I need to be nearby the computer to ensure the process continues until all subscribers receive their newsletter. Because of the time required for this stop-start process, I try to send the newsletter on a weekend so it doesn't add the additional hours to those weekday hours I already spend in one office or the other.

With the requirement now for the newsletter to be reviewed and approved by two offices, production and dissemination has been taken out of my hands. Therefore, subscribers can no longer be assured the newsletter will arrive within the first five days of the month. Until responses have been received from both offices, the newsletter will not be sent to subscribers or posted to the web site.

And one last note regarding newsletters: On the web site you will see that a Korean-language newsletter is produced for widows and posted in both English and Korean. It has also been identified as requiring review by the JA and PA. Because this newsletter is a product of my wife's translation and simplification of my draft so the Korean widows who receive it will understand it, I foresee significant problems getting it through the vetting process. As a result, we are discontining the widow newsletter as a product of the Retiree Activities Office. I will use vacation time at the end of July to remove it from the web site and redesign the home page to fill the vacated space. As for getting the news out to the widows, it will be converted to a personal letter from my wife and sent only through the Korean postal system to those for whom we have a home address or other non-APO mailing address. This avoids use of the postage-free military postal system (MPS).

Web site: Based on the additional requirement that all updates to the web site must be reviewed by the JA and PA, the updating process is being complicated by the need to have two versions of every page identified for update on the web site. One version is the current one that you see. The other will be a copy of the current page that I have modified or added. That version can only be accessed by those in the JA and PA offices who receive the specific link to the web site location. Once the two offices have reviewed the proposed changes to each of the updated pages, and after both have responded to me with their approval, I can post the updated information for public access. If changes are directed, then I must implement and recycle the review process by both offices before the update can be posted for public access.

To answer the question you might have: After the AFI 36-3106 notification, I visited the legal office and explained that all newsletter and web site activity is done at home and at my own expense, and on my own time outside of the on-base Retiree Activities Office and off-base Military Retiree Assistance Office. The lawyer explained that the AFI specifies mandatory compliance and it applies to activities conducted both on-base and off-base.

These changes add additional steps that will take more of my time. With the changes, I want to reemphasize my commitment to the Korea-wide retiree community. At this overseas location, the retirees and widows don't have easy access to assistance that's readily available in the U.S. Dealing with government offices in the U.S. by telephone is expensive, and widows have the additional obstacle of language in trying to deal with those offices. With the experience and contacts I have gained over the years, I've learned how to solve their problems. So my primary responsibility remains to help the retirees and widows to ensure that they are receiving and will continue to receive all the benefits to which they are entitled. They entrust this responsibility to me and give me all of their personal information to help them to live with dignity. Much of what I do has been categorized as 'personal services' by some. That's exactly correct because I am able to do for them what they find very difficult or impossible to do for themselves.

As a result of this commitment I have made to individuals living here, any of the changes noted above that might negatively impact my primary responsibility will be reduced, or cut out and turned over to someone willing to pick it up. I turned over the Osan quarterly Retiree Appreciation Day responsibility to another retiree who was willing to help. I will do it with the other tasks if necessary, but only if meeting the AFI 36-3106 requirement prevents me from fulfilling what I envision as my first responsibility — to you, your family and your survivors.

May 17, 2009 – Retiree Councils' Reports; Morning Calm Retiree Corner; Spring Has Spring
Retiree Councils' Reports: Reports on the Air Force, Army and Navy Retiree Councils' annual meetings have been provided to me. The listing of issues reported out of the Air Force Retiree Council meeting can be seen here. The report on the Army Retiree Council meeting can be seen here. The listing of Navy and Marine Corps issues reported out of the Navy Retiree Council meeting can be seen here.

Morning Calm Retiree Corner: By now, the Korea retiree community has had the opportunity to see several of the 'Retiree Corner' columns in the Morning Calm. I hope that these are informative, especially to those retirees who don't use a computer and don't have access to this retiree web site. As I stated in the April 18 entry below, if you have an idea for a column, please send an e-mail to Jack Terwiel at mrao@rao-osan.com.

Spring Has Sprung: I've been wandering around Osan on the weekends when the weather permits to take photos of non-controversial subjects. One of the prettier sights is this flowering fruit tree on Hill 170. Near an airmen's dormitory is this lilac bush. When I was young, I remember a song with the words, "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch." Well, I found a corollary on Hill 180 with this lonely dandelion. I don't know the name of the flowers, but they're on the hill going up towards the main gate, first near the youth center and the larger patch below the senior officers housing.

April 18, 2009 – Morning Calm Column; Security Concern; More on Osan AB RAD
Morning Calm Column: At the request of the USFK Retiree Council, a new Morning Calm column directed at the Korea retiree community has been proposed. The first column is being submitted and will be published in the next issue, assuming that space will be available for the column. Columns will be submitted weekly, but publication will depend on whether space is available. Command information will always have a higher priority. If you have an idea for a column, please send an e-mail to Jack Terwiel at mrao@rao-osan.com.

Security Concern: Last week I reported on an OPSEC concern about construction photos of certain military buildings. Because the type of buildings cited was so varied, I removed all construction photos of military buildings in response. This week, some senior officer housing photos have been removed for the same reason. Other family housing and dormitory photos will remain and will continue to be updated — at least for now. Future photos around Osan AB will be limited.

Osan AB Retiree Appreciation Day Photos and Prizes: As reported last week, the Osan AB Challenger Club hosted the quarterly Retiree Appreciation Day on Apr 11. The RAD had a moderately good attendance as shown in this panoramic photo, and the back row. Briefings were given by Mr. Al McFarland of the Yongsan Mortuary who briefed on categories of mortuary services. A briefing on ID cards was provided by three members of the Osan Customer Service Section of the Military Personnel Flight. Following the briefings, drawing were held for prizes. Prizes consisted of: 10 Free Lunch Combos from the AAFES Food Court, 3 AAFES Coupon Booklets and 1 $25 AAFES Gift Card donated by Osan Main Exchange; 4 $25 AAFES Gift Cards donated by Ron Holcomb, Manager of the USAG Humphrey USA Federal Credit Union; and 3 Free Sunday Brunch Coupons at the Osan Officers Club from an anonymous donor. Here's one winner receiving his prize.

April 12, 2009 – Osan AB RAD; Security Concern
Osan AB Retiree Appreciation Day: The Osan AB Challenger Club hosted the quarterly Retiree Appreciation Day on Apr 11. The event, now organized by Chuck Mike Connolly (sorry, Mike), had guest speaker Al McFarland of the Yongsan Mortuary to talk about the different categories of service provided depending on status (e.g., active duty, civil service, contractor, retiree). Three members of the Osan AB Customer Service Section also attended to provide a presentation on new rules regarding proof of eligiblity to obtain ID cards for retirees and their dependents and survivors. There were many prizes presented in drawing and I expect to provide photos and details in a later posting.

Security Concern: If you've visited the Construction Projects Menu recently, you'll find that the military building photos are no longer accessible. The photos have been determined to provide information that may be a security concern as revealing too much information about critical assets. I will be pursuing specific guidelines for the other photo presentations and getting details on what is acceptable for public access.

For now, I'm withholding posting of any new photos of Osan AB until the guidelines are provided.

March 8, 2009 – Newsletter Mailing List
Newsletter Mailing List: As promised, the final cleanup of the newsletter mailing list was completed on March 1 to remove 'undeliverable' e-mail addresses. The March newsletter was then sent — and three new undeliverable notifications came back. So the list is very dynamic, and I'll try to keep it that way.

Another U-2 Flyover: While walking on Hill 170 yesterday, a U-2 in a maintenance flight passed directly overhead.

Does It Work?: On the same walk, I found a car whose owner apparently got really upset with Korean horn blowers. If you hesitate more than a fraction of a second when then light changes to green, it's likely that an impatient driver behind is already on his horn. The driver of this car may have found the solution. Even if it's not hooked up, it probably intimidates them. It's nice to finally see someone who acted on an idea many of us probably have had.

February 15, 2009 – Widow Newsletter; Newsletter Mailing List Review
Widow Newsletter: The widow newsletter posted today was actually mailed to the widows in Korea 10 days ago. I was waiting for some late updates on widow benefits and that delayed completion of the letter past my self-imposed deadline of January. But it got sent and now you can see it on-line.

Newsletter Mailing List Review: The retiree e-mail newsletter software upgrade installation was completed on Feb 10 and a test newsletter was sent on Feb 11. A delay in upgrade completion was caused by the lack of a '#'. Easy solution, you say. But knowing where to put it and why it's there is the reason I get paid the big bucks ... uhhh ... no, that's not right. It's why I enjoy the challenge of doing the web site and the newsletters.

Anyway, after sending out the test newsletter, the usual 60-70 notifications of undeliverable newsletters started arriving. The time had come to clean up the mailing list. I took pains to review the e-mail addresses to delete and looked for possible errors (found two, 'gobal' instead of 'global' and 'exxcite' instead of 'excite') and sent e-mails to those, as well as to the group who had signed up but not confirmed their subscription. That's all done now and you can see from today's What's New that I'm catching up on the other stuff that's been kind of ignored.

February 7, 2009 – Snowplow Assault; Upgrade Newsletter Mailing Software
After the snow melted, some interesting sights were uncovered. One was this car parked near the officers dorm on Hill 180. Obviously, the snow plow had cleared the road onto the car.

After the newsletter mailing problem (caused when the web hosting service changed passwords and I missed the notification), I decided it was time to upgrade the software to the latest version. So there may be a quiet time as far as web site updates until I have that working satisfactorily. I may have to send out a test message to newsletter subscribers to ensure it's working properly. If I do, I'll try to have some information of interest in that message.

January 11, 2009 – Osan AB Retiree Appreciation Day
The quarterly Osan Air Base Retiree Appreciation Day was hosted by the Challenger Club on January 10. Jack Terwiel gave a briefing to update the retiree community with news of interest to them. At the end of the briefing Jack announced that his workload had increased to the point that it was difficult to continue organizing the quarterly RAD. He introduced Mike Connolly, the Chairman of the Osan Retiree Council that's being organized and announced that Mike will take over planning, preparing for and conducting future RADs.

The briefing that Jack presented can be downloaded here (PPT format, 105KB). After the briefing, Jack took pictures and assembled a slide show that you can view here. Jack will continue to participate in the RAD as a retiree participant, and occasionally will present a briefing.

The RAD was moved from December to January due to a conflict with Christmas activities schedule. As a result, the quarterly RAD schedule is now permanently changed so that it will be held on the second Saturday in Jan, Apr, Jul and Oct.

January 3, 2009 – What's New Archive; Korean Gravesite on Hill 170; Park the Car
What's New Archive: As noted in today's What's New scrolling update, there's now a What's New Archive. All 40 months of files for this version of What's New from October 2005 to January 2009 have been made accessible from a menu at the bottom of the What's New scroll. Each of the files has the same archive access menu, and each will be updated monthly as new months are added using a program called Wild Edit that allows me to update multiple files with a single command. Otherwise, it would be too labor-intensive to keep all the files updated each month.

There are some shortcomings in adding archival access several years after the files were created. Sometimes you'll go to one of the older files and get a file error that the file cannot be located. That's because it was temporary information that had been deleted. Other links, such on as the construction photo pages, will not take you to the date, but only to the top of the file. Where there are multiple categories in a file (such as the Enlisted Dorms), it will take you to the top of the category. You'll have to scroll down to the date you want to see. Feedback links should take you directly to the information you're seeking because the Feedback entries are date-coded.

I'm not sure that the What's New Archive menu has any value to anyone, but the old way of going back month by month was too painful for anyone so inclined. If nothing else, it was fun for me to solve the challenge of accessing the old files that were otherwise just using up disk space. Also, mental exercise is as important as physical exercise – use it or lose it.

(By the way, I'm considering at some future time to upload the original version of What's New and the second version just to let newbies see how well the current What's New program operates compared to what came before. Do you remember the yellow and black ones?)

Newly-Identified Korean Grave Site: As I was walking on Hill 170 yesterday, I came across this addition. Further inspection revealed that it is being installed to protect a Korean gravesite.

Park the Car: I was finally able to locate a garage in which I can park my car. It's very roomy and pretty new.

January 1, 2009 – Web Site Cleanup; Blue Moon Alley Update
Web Site Cleanup: My New Year Resolution was to clean up some problems on the web site. So for the past two days I've been going through, identifying discrepancies and fixing them. As a result, you should see all pages with the XHTML 1.1 icon at the bottom or top. There was only one 'fatality' in this upgrade. Internet Explorer version 7 users will notice that the animations on the home page don't work. They work in IE 6 and IE 8 Beta, as well as in all other browsers. Sorry, IE 7 users. Also, a couple of old slides shows have been added to menus. These were originally carried only in Feedback as temporary interest items, but as I went through them I believe they have more permanency so they're now accessible from a menu, as listed in today's What's New.

Blue Moon Alley: In the last update at Renovations, I said that the workers had connected the residences to gas line. That may have given the impression that we now have city gas available in our homes. That's not quite true. Only a few of residences had the internal connections completed before the workers went home. Due to a labor situation (payroll money was stolen, workers didn't get paid), nothing further has been done to complete the work. Latest word is that they may come back and finish it on Jan 15.

December 27, 2008 – Internet Explorer Resolved; Miscellaneoous Images
Internet Explorer Probem Resolved: As explained in the previous posting below, Internet Explorer has some quirks that cause it to act differently that other browsers. Using a trick I learned to resolve other problems, I applied it to the problems I was having with the home page and left navigation. I applied the fix, which basically says, "if you're IE, do it this way; everybody else do it this way." It worked.

Miscellaneous Images: I took a walk on Saturday and with pretty clear air I was able to take a picture from Hill 170 showing the nearly-empty CE compound and the surrounding Jin-wi and Songtan areas. Near the 51st Fighter Wing headquarters, I found this flower surviving freezing nights.

December 14, 2008 – Update for Internet Explorer Users; Miscellaneoous Images
Update for Internet Explorer Users: I was able to track down some errors that occurred with the code upgrade and I believe these have all be repaired. In some cases, I had to back up to the previous level of code that worked. In other cases, I had to learn some more of IE's quirks. For example, on the Visitor Info page, some of the links started displaying in blue. I learned that IE with the new level code likes to have some commands in a particular sequence, unlike all the other browsers. So that's fixed, too. And tracking fixes is the reason that I'm finally catching up now on posting images from the past two weeks.

Miscellaneous Images: Last Sunday we had our first snow that you could actually see on the ground. You had to look fast because it was gone pretty quickly. But to prove that it happened, here's what it looked like downtown and here's an untouched area on the base. The snow did have a negative effect, as these flowers look traumatized by the snow. But the snow almost makes it feel Christmasy, sort of like the Christmas Tree in front of the base theater that looks like it was donated by Charlie Brown (the "Peanuts" character, not the Songtan Tailor)..

Select from calendar menu near the top for additional Feedback from Jack entries