Life is a journey 生命是一场修行: April 2022

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Rethink about Logistics - In the war context

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Army logistics engineer is not a totally new term to me.

They are featured in some war games.

And one of my former colleagues in consulting is a retired Army logistics engineer. She is a mother of two and had done 3 tours in Iraq before retirement.

But what they do and how valuable they are always seems blurry to me.

In games, I almost always prioritize combat troops and weapons production over infrastructure, fortress etc

When my former colleague tried to describe to me what they did in Iraq and why that mattered, I left with the impression (I probably refused to take in the full story like I used to do in my younger days) that they built houses for the soldiers to stay and improved roads for arm trucks. And they were never close to front-line. Apparently, those “dangerous” jobs were outsourced to contractors.

But reading is as powerful in making arrogant fuckers like me realize their stupidity, as in making a country great.

In the third book of the “Pacific War Trilogy”, I was really impressed by what logistics did to advance the front-line and save lives in taking the island of Peleliu.

It was one of the bloodiest battle in Pacific War, with 11k Jap troops eliminated and ~10k casualties of Americans.

The casualties of Americans came, with the strong support from a gigantic and battle-tested fleet and total air dominance. They could pretty much hit anyplace in the island with large-caliber ship canons and the lethal “Hell Cat” fighters piloted by experienced veterans.

But Japs, for the first time, decided to hide in their caves connected by a broad network of underground tunnels and wait for the Americans to come to their killing ground which they had prepared for years.

The Marines, being the attacking force leading the way, suffered heavy losses (~40%). They did not have time for “big construction projects” and the ground was simply too hard to dig trenches.

When the Marines had to pull out, a small area of the island was still occupied by Japs.

The Army took over and this time, they had enough time to take it slow.

And they showed the true power of logistics.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

They built a road to move the tanks, trucks, brodozer and heavy artillery.

They built countless sandbags walls to provide cover for the soldiers since the rocks were too hard to dig. These sandbags were filled with sand on the beach and then transported to front line.

They even built a “cable car” track to transport the sandbags to the hills.

They installed lights across the front-line to prevent Jap counter attacks during the night.

They built a pipeline to flow the fuel directly from the beach to front-line, so that soldiers could fill Jap caves with fuel and then lit it up.

…

With all these heavy investment of manpower, resources, Americans were able to clear the resistance.

I can only imagine if not for these, how many more Americans would need to die and how much longer the battle would take…

Sometimes, slow is fast.

There is a reason for everything. The fact that logistics is getting more attention is no difference.

Till next time!

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Monthly Net-Worth Update — Apr 2022

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

1/3 of 2022 has already passed. A lot has happened…The rest of the year still has much to look forward to.

Below is another summary of our Net-worth.

Net-Worth increase from last month: -6K SGD, -0KG Gold

Stock portfolio once again erased our household income and more for this month. It is depressing to look at the market. So I have not been looking.

As for Gold, the price dropped just enough to maintain last month’s weight. So we have 0 change in terms of weight of gold.

Investment: -16.7% annualized return, incl. dividend

The record has been broken again, both in terms of return rate and definitely in terms of absolute value.

Given the fact that I have been in the market for about 4 years, I have lost well over 50% of my invested capital.

I am ready to make up for the loss through hard work for the coming years.

Till next time!

Sunday, April 24, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk16 2022

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

Have a good week ahead!

Till next time!

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Leaders continue on, knowing that they will be wronged

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

My journey to finishing “The Pacific War Trilogy” continues. I am at 10% of the third book, on track to completing it in H1 this year.

Today I would like to share with you another take-away.

Let’s begin.

Douglas MacArthur gained favor of almost all American people due to his strategy towards the media during the war.

He had been leveraging his popularity to request for more power and more support to his strategy.

He requested to command all forces, air, land and sea, in the Pacific War Theater.

He requested to recover Philippines before attacking Japan in its inner defense circle, even though this might delay the war by up to 6 months.

Some top generals believed that he valued his own commitment to “Return to Philippines” more than winning the war, which was the end goal.

Of course, he was not getting what he wanted, because luckily people with higher ranks were rationale and had the right attitude.

Then, people believed he would participate in the presidential election against Roosevelt.

Even though he would have had no chance anyway, this incident gave his supporters an opportunity to accuse Roosevelt and other people at the top for letting political opinions interfere with the War strategy.

Putting it bluntly, MacArthur’s requests were not granted because he was a potential opponent in the election.

And just then, big strategic decisions needed to be made.

With a series of victories in the Pacific against the Japanese, Allies needed to fix their strategy to keep the momentum.

And it was clear that they needed to attack the Japs in its inner circle of defense, and not Philippines, Japs’ well-fortified outer defense.

And the decision was not to be delayed.

But the shadow of accuse would not disappear. The only way to avoid it would be to give MacArthur what he wanted and risk tens of thousands more of American lives.

The fact was that the US leadership made the right decision, knowing that they would be wronged by some people.

That is real courage and sacrifice! That is real leadership!

Also, people will eventually learn the truth.

MacArthur was so favored during the war and even after the war by the public.

Then Korea war happened. MacArthur finally tasted the bitterness of his arrogance.

And present day, people increasingly learned his mistakes during the war, especially his inability to avoid “Another Pearl Harbor”, where majority of US air forces in Philippines were also destroyed on the ground by Japanese air raid, after “Pearl Harbor” with ample time for him to react. It was reported that his air-force generals requested repeatedly for his orders and he just ignored all of them.

Also the fact that he accepted 500K USD from the Philippines president, which is equivalent to 8 Million USD today, was compared to Eisenhower who rejected the offer from the same president.

It is almost impossible to hide the truth forever, especially so in the current age.

People will get their “justice”.

Till next time!

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Moon and Stars

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Over the long weekend, we went to the Sentosa beach. The kids were so happy and we stayed late.

And then when I lifted my head, I saw the big and bright full moon.

It was heartening to see that.

And then when I turned to the other half of the sky, I saw the sky full of stars.

(Do not ask me for the pictures. The lousy iPhone is not up for the job. This is when I really miss Huawei Phones.)

That was even more heartening to me.

From where we live, we can see the moon when we look out of the window.

But stars?

I could not remember the last time I saw stars, let alone a sky full of them.

Normally, when I see some light in the sky, I could not tell whether that is a plane or a star…

Seeing the stars just gave me a strange feeling.

We should be able to see this more often and be reminded how vast the universe is and what life is really about.

Also, I need to take my family out more.

With Covid fading, that is to be expected!

Till next time!

Sunday, April 17, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk15 2022

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

Have a good week ahead!

Till next time!VV

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Result Oriented — Not moving forward is a waste of time

Photo by Jenny Hill on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

I say I am result oriented in almost all interviews. But I never knew what it really meant.

Recently, my understanding got into a deeper level, under the pressure of work.

Result oriented means getting things done no matter the cost.

This means Not moving forward effectively is a waste of time.

To me, among many things, it means leaving behind all “enjoying” or “self-appreciating”aspects of work.

Sometimes, my interests would push me off the tangent to look at something not directly related to work at hand. I need to stop that.

Sometimes, I stop to appreciate my work, be it a great slide, a smart idea, or just some words I said. I need to stop that.

Sometimes, I got into tasks that are not important and spent too much time on it, just for “completeness” or “perfection”. I need to stop that.

Sometimes, my mind is absent on a task, even though I am physically on that task. I need to stop that.

But worse of all, sometimes, I convince myself I have enough time to do this slowly and I can afford to invest my spare time into work. I need to stop that.

It is critical to get rest and recharge if I am to stay for the long term. Or at least, that time can be spent on more important tasks.

Learning new things and skills is more important than getting the minor formatting correct
Thinking about what else we can do to further our proposal is more important than thinking back and forth on whether a slide should be included or not
Talking to people is more important than getting some unimportant work done. They are best left undone anyway.

…..

So be result-oriented means getting things done!

Done, not necessarily perfectly, not necessarily using up all the time I can squeeze out, not necessarily on paper, not necessarily making myself feel good.

Think about the end goal and go directly at it. And then get some rest and recharge, or continue the next task or learn new things which will be invaluable in the future for me.

Till next time!

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Growth is all that matters

Photo by Richard R. Schünemann on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

I continue reading the “Trilogy of the Pacific War” and have finished more than half of it.

I believe I will be able to finish it in H1 this year as targeted.

Today I come with another take-away— Growth is all that matters.

For the navy, the transition took a long while from “Battleships-dominated” theory to “Aircraft carrier centered” warfare.

When the Americans initially tried to hit ships in the open sea with air attack in 1942, the efficiency were extremely low and all sorts of incredible mistakes were made. There were countless descriptions in the book:

Spy planes mis-communicated the critical intel, leading the whole air squadron to attack less significant targets while leaving the fleet vulnerable
Attack squadrons could not find enemy fleet somehow, even though the correct coordinates were communicated to them
Radio did not work, so the commander dare not give orders to the squadrons in the air, worrying that this would confuse pilots to death
Planes could not find their carriers, or even tried to land on enemy carriers
Tons of bombs dropped without hitting a single target
Pilots risked their lives to release torpedoes that did not work
US air squadrons could not even form formation in the air and execute coordinated attacks
… …

But only one year later, in 1943/1944, similar descriptions started to disappear and were replaced with only simple terms of how many ships were sunk and how many planes were lost.

No more drama in the attack. Luck was no longer a factor. Ships expected to be hit when they saw enemy planes…

This showed that the US fleet had increased their air attack capabilities in the open sea.

And only then it could be said that aircraft carriers had become a dominating factor in the naval warfare.

Of course, the learning journey came with its own costs — ships that were sunk, planes that were destroyed, crews that were killed…

But that was the only way.

On the other hand, the British, as the traditional naval superpower of the world, was completed missing in this journey.

So they dominated nothing after the war and were never again a superpower.

As long as we stay in the game and keep growing, we will not be obsolete.

Otherwise, just look at the British today and think about “The No More empire on which the sun never sets”.

Till next time!

Sunday, April 10, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk14 2022

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

Have a good week ahead!

Till next time!

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Retrospective

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Battle of Mid-way, where 4 major Japanese carriers and 1 US carrier were sunk, is the turning point of the Pacific War.

We all know that now.

But back then, people probably did not realize its full significance, apart from the fact that it was a great victory for the US.

How could they?

It was still a long way before it became clear that US would win.

After that, the war only got tougher and bloodier for both sides.

Even with the industry capabilities of US, there was only one US Carrier left in the while pacific at one point, after 3 were sunk or disabled by sub-marines or air attacks.

…