John T. Reed’s news blog

This is an article I contributed to my West Point class of 1968 40th reunion memory book in 2008..The Class of the Gulf of TonkinJack ReedIn this book and at West Point in September, 2008, we commemorate our graduation 40 years ago. We do, indeed, have thousands of shared memories from the common experience of being cadets. But in a spiritual sense, we are probably more united today by another day four years earlier than our graduation. On July 1st, 1964, we did a magnificent and noble thing. We entered West Point.On that day, we all had the same goals:...

The new Harvard coach lost his first Ivy game this season. Brown scored the winning points in the last seconds of the game. The Harvard coach apologized to his players, “There shouldn’t have been any time left on that clock for [Brown] to go down and score. That’s on me.” . He also had a bad long snap on a FG which recover of which by Brown set up the winning score. I strongly suspect that the catch does not know that long snappers need at least 1,200 practice snaps before the first game. This was the second game of...

My Ranger buddy-best Man wants to know if today’ Bills-Texans game was a clock management screw-up. . Tie game with :32 left. Bills three incompletions in a row—which stops the clock after each. They then punted out of their own end zone. Texans then took over with :07 left and kicked the game-winning field goal. . First I look to the first quarter to see if the Texas scored late in the second quarter against a leading Bills team. . https://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay/_/gameId/401671859 . No, The Bills only led at 6:27 left in the first quarter. They should not have have managed...

Cal could have easily defeated #8 Miami last night. But they violated my clock rule that says when your win probability exceeds 50%, you should be in a maximum slowdown. That means wait until :01 left on the play clock to snap the ball when the game clock is running and to stay inbounds. Don't call timeout, but if you must, do so when the play clock gets down to :01. And other correct actions or inactions..Miami took the lead at :26 left in the game. You can run :25 off the clock between the whistle and the snap on every play...

Another emergency advice I have given is to have a campers water filter. These are used by campers to convert unsafe stream water into safe-to-drink water. Boiling kills micro-organisms but it does no prevent you from imbibing unhealthy chemicals or particulate matter. Boiling also requires a heat source which may also be lost in emergencies like a hurricane or flood..Camper filters protect from both micro-organisms and chemicals and particulate matter..When I was in the Army, we carried iodine tablets that we were supposed to drop into a canteen full of stream or pond water then shake. It made the water...