Bless the Armystrictly editorial

February 22, 2007

Am I really saying bless the Army? Several generations of Annapolis graduates in the family turn in their respective graves, them that can turn. Shouldn't that be sink, they ask (soft voices do not run in the fam)? No, dear departed good ones, not this time. I invoke the blessing because the poor benighted Army seems to need it.

An explanation for the record is warranted. At long last I am seriously at work on the annual disaster assistance medicine project. Last year was weapons of mass destruction. This year is high-yield explosives and chemical agents. So, here I am finally focusing on it and letting other projects run —or spin their wheels, as the case may be— in the background.

Having switched from cyanides to riot control agents, I face a long string of reference list entries. Most are fact sheets and include URLs, which are always helpful, because they enable one to check for necessary details that the author almost without exception never supplies.

sidebar :: why god created editors :: end sidebar

We (that's me) end up sending an email to ask about what the USACHPPM prefers the citation to read. USACHPPM writes back. That, as it turns out, is why I said bless the Army. I wrote the Army. The Army wrote back. Fancy that.

That said, I note for the record (hence the real reason for this entry) that the Army (hence the need to bless the Army to invoke assistance for it) don't know squat about citation styles. The world makes a point of disregarding GPO, pls to note. Don't tell the government, but it's so. USACHPPM, by the way, is written in full United States Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.

And I complain about the social sciences?