Shortbursts: civ-mil relations, women in the drone industry, article honored, Coach K, LENS 2021, LENS Scholar valedictorian, and more!
“Shorbursts” is a Lawfire®occasional feature that aims to give you a quick volley of info on a number of items:
Civil-Military Re
lations podcast: I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion about civil-military relations on the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense 2020 podcast series hosted by Dr. Kathleen Hicks, and including Dr. Alice Hunt Friend and Phil Carter. Though we have different perspectives on some aspects of civil-military relations, I was honored to be included in this superb group (we were all in the Pentagon at more or less the same time back in the day!).
Mr. Carter
I urge you to listen to “Civil-Military Relations, Part 1: The 2020 Legacy” which is available now (Part II should be available on Monday, July 20). Again, just click here.
Col. Zoldi
Women in the drone industry. One of the fastest growing areas of the law has to do with the domestic operation of drones, and popular LENS Conference speaker Dawn Zoldi is one of the nation’s top experts. She recently participated in a panel discussion about “Celebrating and Expanding the Involvement of Women in the Drone Industry”.
Dawn is a retired Air Force JAG colonel, and a fellow Villanova Law grad!! We were a “few” years apart! :-) The video found here has lots of interesting insights from her and the other panelists.
Article honored: Some great news! 2019 Duke Law grad Hensey Fenton III advises that the essay he wrote for Law of Armed Conflict that later became his Note, “Proportionality and its Applicability in the Realm of Cyber-Attacks,” was included in Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal’s Fifty-First Selected Bibliography on Computers, a compilation of the most important and timely articles on computers, technology and the law.
A fun fact: Hensey and I were both rugby players at one time (decades apart!!!) Those who know us might say “that explains a lot!” :-)
Coach K Speaks: Here’s a new video for Hiring America by Coach K about those who serve and have served in the armed forces. He talks about his own experience in the military and how it’s aided him during his coaching career. Very much worth a ‘watch’: “Coach K Gives Advice to Veterans and Current Service Members”
LENS Conference: We still have LENS 2021 scheduled for 26-27 February 2021. Obviously, the situation with the pandemic will dictate how the conference might proceed, so stay tuned.
Bruce Curran
Sadly, we lost Bruce Curran at the end of June. Bruce, an Air Force veteran, was a fixture at the LENS conferences of the past several years. His wit and insights will be sorely missed, and we express our deepest sympathies to his friends and family.
LENS Scholar becomes West Point Valedictorian! Col Shane Reeves, head of the Department of Law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, advises that 2019 LENS Scholar Gavin McAuliffe, a Law and Legal Studies major, was selected as the valedictorian for the Class of 2020, which means he had the highest grades in a class of 1107. Way to go Gavin!!!
More big news!!! Lawfire®readers may recall this post from 2017 when Captain Greg Speirs, an Air Force JAG, won the “Colonel Tom Krauska Award for Outstanding Service as an Active Duty Military Lawyer Stationed in Texas.” That was big news, but we have bigger news today!
Greg Speirs at his commissioning in December 2014.
A bit of background: Greg has a tight connection with LENS even though he is actually a 2014 graduate of North Carolina Central University School of Law. Through the inter-institutional registration program with NCCU, he took every national/international security law course available here at Duke Law. I had the honor of commissioning Greg into the Air Force.
Greg has recently been selected for promotion, but here’s the more important announcement:
“Major Brittany Speirs and Captain Gregory Speirs married in Davenport, CA on July 6th 2020. While they planned to marry earlier this year, coronavirus forced them to postpone their wedding with family and friends (twice) until next year. They decided to run to the coast with an officiant and photographer! Brittany is a Circuit Defense Counsel for the Central Circuit, stationed at Travis AFB, CA. Greg is the Wing Legal Advisor for the 621st Contingency Response Wing, also stationed at Travis.”
Congratulations to a fantastic couple!
Stay safe, but keep your mind active!
The pandemic has made it a tough summer, but keep looking for ways to get the most out of the season. Perhaps worth another look? Your 2020 summer reading and listening list! (And it’s curated for those who may be new to the national security enterprise!)
