LightNews LightNews
dlorenz555.bsky.social
@dlorenz555.bsky.social
20 followers 130 following 4 posts
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted
iwashyna.bsky.social
Over on LinkedIn, the head of the Executive Secretariat of the NIH -- a central part of NIH leadership 🧪🩺-- resigned with a lettter worth reading

www.linkedin.com/posts/nathan...
February 18, 2024 TO: Dr. Matthew Memoli, Acting Director, NIH CC: John Burklow, Chief of Staff, NIH Julie Berko, Director, OHR, NIH FROM: Nathaniel James Brought, Director, ES, NIH SUBJECT: Resignation Dear Dr. Memoli, On July 3, 2001, I stepped off a bus on Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot Perris Island. Scared out of my mind, I stood on a pair of freshly painted yellow footprints, raised my right hand, and recited the oath of enlistment: I, Nathaniel James Brought, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. For the last 23 years, 7 months, and 15 days, I like to believe I have faithfully carried out the duties of each office to which I've been appointed in my military and civilian service to this nation. That Service has taken me from the Marine Corps to 3 different federal departments, spanned 3 continents, included service in one war zone, and has included: • For the Marine Corps and the National Security Agency, I worked on intelligence operations at the highest classification levels using bleeding edge intelligence tools to ensure America's special operators put boots-to-asses on America's enemies overseas (including commendations crediting my work for the kill or capture of dozens of terrorists), ensuring America's policy makers were able to track the movement of dangerous dual nuclear technology across international borders, and monitored the flow of terrorist financing across the international banking system. • Utilized information from all-source intelligence to ensure the continued security of America's homeland from international and domestic threats. • Worked with some of the finest lawyers in the world to ensure America's security operations were effective, while upholding the rights of all those who interacted with them. • Ensuring that America's rural communities had access to programs like rural development loans, farm aid, and that America's children wouldn't be hungry as they sat in their classrooms and tried to learn. • Most recently, and frankly most dear to my heart, working with each of you here at the National Institutes of Health to advance the future of science and medicine. Not for Americans. Not for any one group of people. But for ALL of humanity. I am unbelievably proud to be able to say that there are Americans who are alive, and terrorists who are not, because of the work I've done to serve this nation. I am proud to say that my service to this country has allowed me to ensure that my children have never faced the struggles of poverty that I grew up with. That service didn't begin because of some great altruistic impulse or drive. I didn't grow up saying "I want to do the great work that needs to be done to weave the fabric of America and ensure her people are not only safe, but healthy." Frankly, that service began because I was poor, and I was inspired. I grew up as a free lunch kid who lived in project housing. It was my fellow Americans who made sure I wasn't hungry in class and that I had enough food to excel academically the way I did. It was Americans who had more than we did that made sure I had good schools to attend where I could learn things that expanded my mind. As I approached the end of high school, I dreamed of going to college and figuring out how to make a living that would allow me to do more tha… to go to college. I knew my grades weren't good enough to compete for scholarships with kids who were as smart as me but also had private tutors and didn't have to work after class to be able to drive their brand-new cars to our school each day. So, I gave up. I nearly failed my senior year of high school with an attendance failure, even though I only needed two classes to graduate. I didn't see the point. What was the point of learning calculus? So it would be that much harder when my dream of being a brain surgeon died not because I was incapable, but because I didn't have the means to make it come true? I resigned myself to being one of the working poor. I resigned myself to needing a spinal fusion before I was 50, like my father, because he literally broke his back trying to make his dreams come true. The example of my father didn't inspire me at that time. It reminded me of the futility of trying to escape the rung of the social ladder I had been born onto. No matter how smart or "gifted and talented" I may have been, I saw no path that led me to a place where I could realize my potential. So, instead I accepted that it would be wasted. Ultimately, the reason I find myself here today, rather than in the place I saw as my only end, is because of another young man who committed to serving his country. Shamefully, I do not remember his name, but there was a young corporal from the United States Marine Corps who had been assigned as a recruiter in Reading, Pennsylvania at that time. This man spoke to me about my plans for my future during lunch one day at school. I told him I planned to do what my father had done. Work hard jobs until my body broke down, maybe start a struggling business, and try to do what I could to stay above the poverty line and off welfare. I told him I hoped to be successful enough that my kids never had to watch me use food stamps at the grocery store. It had been hard to watch my mom go through that. How sad is that? I was a smart young 18-…
February 20, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted
jimlaporta.bsky.social
#BREAKING U.S. Army identifies the third soldier killed in the Blackhawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29. Capt. Rebecca Lobach served as a aviation officer.
February 1, 2025 at 10:11 PM