DEFCON

This struck me as interesting today during my lunch-time reading.

So often we hear the term “DEFCON”, mostly in the entertainment media but occasionally in the news. I realized I never knew exactly what it defined. I knew it was a kind of “battle-readiness,” but what do the levels signify, and what is the highest level we’ve ever reached?

Turns out there are five levels, ranging from normal readiness, DEFCON5, up to maximum readiness (i.e., nuclear war is gonna happen), DEFCON1. “DEFCON” is militaryspeak for “defense readiness condition.” Way back in November of 1959 this system replaced a more complicated matrix of three readiness levels, Normal, Increased, and Maximum, each of which were further subdivided into eight further conditions. Developed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, it is controlled by the President and the Secretary of State, through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Thankfully, we have never been at DEFCON1.

Three times US forces rose up to DEFCON3. (At level 3, the Air Force can mobilize in 15 minutes.)

The first time was during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel. Nineteen days after the initial outbreak of hostilities, in fact. The fear was that the Soviet Union would enter the fray. They did not, and three weeks later readiness was lowered.

The second occurred in August of 1976, after two US soldiers were killed by North Korean forces. The US and South Korea retaliated and North Korea backed down. The initial incident is known as the Korean Axe Murder Incident and the response is Operation Paul Bunyan. It’s incredibly interesting and incredibly surreal, as most North Korean stuff is. I encourage you to google it.

The third time we went to DEFCON3 was the three days period following the September 11 attacks.

Twice US forces have been escalated to DEFCON2.

The first time happened on Day 8 of the twelve-day Cuban Missile Crisis (October of 1962). The US Strategic Air Command went to DEFCON2 while all other armed forces remained at DEFCON3.

The other time was during the initial phases of Operation Desert Storm, January 15, 1991.

Now, all this DEFCON stuff got me thinking.

What is Hopper’s own defense readiness condition? My own personal DEFCON?

Well, being an introvert, every time I step out my front door I go to DEFCON4. I’m only at 5 when I’m engrossed in a good book, pecking away on the laptop at my desk, or sound asleep.

What gets me to DEFCON3? Hmmm. Toilet bowl clogging. Cocktail parties. Garbage truck beeping outside at 6 am while I’m still in bed instead of the usual 8 am drive-by. Discovering my youngest ate the last bit of ice cream as I’m creeping into the kitchen late at night in my pajamas. Any time my oldest daughter talks “boys.”

Tax Season keeps me maintaining a multi-day DEFCON3 level of alertness. This is why I’m so exhausted from late January to the middle of April. I even went to DEFCON2 late March when an angry and bitter divorced woman showed up to have me do her deceased father’s multistate estate return after mysteriously disappearing from appointment calendars of everyone else in the office.

I also go to DEFCON2 around the third week of every month, when the wife’s credit card statements appear in my mailbox.

DEFCON1? Thankfully, I don’t think I’ve reached that condition of battle-field readiness.

Actually, on second thought, I have.

Four years ago today some jerk boss at Honda laid me off. On the ride home I went into DEFCON1 and soon overhauled my life in a multitude of ways. Finished my book and self-published it, got out of the car business and into the care business, started that tax thing on the side for extra cash and something to fall back on, re-built long-unused muscles on my body (currently buried under some fat, but the fat’ll come off), and got a whole heckuva lot healthier in other ways.

Maybe just to do some tweaking around here I’ll go up to 2 for the next couple of days …