View from the Chair

Recognizing the Sacrifices of American Heroes

San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of ASIS had an absolutely splendid turnout for Law Enforcement Appreciation Day.  Over 185 attendees.  This ASIS event is back on track.  Brad Minnis gave a moving tribute to police officers.  The statistics Brad provided were sobering.  It serves my heart good to know there are still brave and loyal souls willing to do the right thing by their communities and their country.  God bless! 

April’s monthly meeting is being hosted by Adobe Systems in their polished steel and glass downtown digs.  The facilities are splendid and I am so looking forward to the topic “Mitigating the Effects of Terrorist Attacks on Buildings through Blast Engineering.”   

When I spoke with Hinman Consulting Engineers, our guest speakers for April’s meeting, they informed me that many people were unaware that there are engineering firms that specialize in “blast” engineering, the design of blast-resistant buildings.  

Eve Hinman, president of Hinman Consulting Engineers, became one of the first structural engineers in the U.S. to take on this highly specialized structural design work, blast engineering.  That was in 1983 and she has since consulted extensively to the federal and state governments on protecting courthouses, embassies, office buildings, and other structures against terrorist attack.

Ms. Hinman also co-authored the book Lessons from the Oklahoma City Bombing:  Defensive Design Techniques with David Hammond, ASCE Press, New York, NY, 1997.  Eve was granted access to the Oklahoma bombing site to conduct a survey of the damage patterns and evaluate the various building failures.  The results of her survey and more of her ideas can be found in her book.

Clearly qualified on this topic, Hinman Consulting Engineers’ presentation is a must see.

 
An interesting thing happened to me when I was doing a little research for this “View.”  I discovered it is very difficult to answer the simple question “how many American troops have died in Afghanistan since our War on Terrorism began?”  I won’t say which search engines I used, but I still do not have an answer.  Due to our technological advances, I believe the number is very low, single digit, but cannot get that simple answer.  I am sure many of my readers know the answer. 

What was most interesting is, I was directed to Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles, Civilian Afghani casualties, American Talibans, and other topics, but no clear answer on my simple question of how many American Troops have died.  It must be somewhere and I thought it would be easy to find.

My point is America is at War but our headlines don’t always reflect that.  I don’t ever want to forget that someone’s brother, father, son or other loved one is crawling around caves in God knows where looking for Taliban members and other terrorists or any information leading to their whereabouts. 

Our Troops don’t know me personally, but they are willing to go to the ends of the Earth and pay the ultimate price, death, to uphold my rights to Freedom, Liberty, and Justice.  I don’t ever want to forget what they and their families are giving me and for this I am grateful. 

For All of Our Troops in this War on Terrorism and Our Veterans, Thank you for Upholding and Fighting for the Ideals of this Great Nation. 

God bless our Troops and may they come home quickly and safely.

Thank you,
Connie Vaughn
chair@sfasis.org
SFBAC ASIS Chapter Chair