Many of you have read the headline this weekend (and the article is posted below). “NC Jihadists found Guilty!” They were targeting Marine spouses and families.

This is not the first time families were targeted. This won’t be the last. We can never assume that we are not at risk just because we are in the United States or in another Country in garrison. This doesn’t mean we should be paranoid, but we should always be mindful and careful — in our neighborhoods (and yes even on military installations as some are easy to access), our emails, Facebook, twitter, blogs, and even what you say in the grocery line. Stay alert and don’t take your safety for granted because your husband is a member of the US Armed Forces!

I have written several articles here on You Served about the importance of OpSec and possible dangers. Here are a few of them that may be of help. Please share them and never be afraid to say something to a spouse who is not adhering to Operational Security (OpSec) or Personal Security (PerSec):

You have every right and a responsibility to your family and your spouse to keep them safe. Anyone being reckless is not only being reckless with her own family, but with yours as well.

OpSec, Facebook, Twitter, etc… why it matters
Smart Phones and OpSec Concerns
Homefront OpSec
The Op in OpSec doesn’t stand for Optional!

Guilty: North Carolina Jihadists Who Targeted Marine Corps Wives And Children

Three members of a home-grown terror ring who conspired to attack the Quantico U.S. Marine Corps base and foreign targets were sentenced Friday to between 15 and 45 years in federal prison.

Hysen Sherifi, 27, will serve 45 years in prison; Ziyad Yaghi, 23, got nearly 32 years; and Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 24, was sentenced to 15 years. They faced the possibility of life in prison. Each said they would appeal their convictions and claimed innocence. Dozens of members of Raleigh’s Muslim community made the five-hour round-trip to coastal New Bern to witness the hearing for the men who supporters believe were unjustly convicted.

Defense attorneys argued for lesser sentences since the men were convicted of discussing terrorism rather than committing terrorist acts.

“I believe I am innocent. There was no conspiracy,” said Serifi, who called his guilty verdict unfair and prosecutors tyrants.

But U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan said the men went beyond talk to planning violence.

Yaghi was a “self-starter” in pursuing holy war against those deemed un-Islamic and brought several potential jihadi recruits to ringleader Daniel Patrick Boyd, whose rural Johnston County home was a warehouse of weapons, Flanagan said. Yaghi traveled to Jordan and Israel to look for avenues to join other militants and to scout targets for an attack. READ MORE

Many of you remember Troy from the Hike for Heroes, or Drum Hike  that spanned across the US last year to raise money for military members and their families. The Hike continues to this day.

Take a look at what he’s raising money for this time. Donate if you can, and pass the link on to as many people as you can.

Active Heroes is a non-profit charity whose mission is to further spread word that our military heroes are fighting just as hard at home as they are overseas. With great programs like Hike for Heroes, Active Heroes has helped thousands of military families since 2009. Now in 2012 we are conducting Hike for Heroes relays in cities across America, Charity hikes at National parks and encouraging you all to set up a fundraising page and get ACTIVE. Whether you run, walk, hike, race, or ride you can help out. Simply hit the “Start fundraising” button and join your city’s effort or join a special program and start promoting your page on social media and emails to help. “Be a hero, help a hero!”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE AND CONTRIBUTE

Even though our government can not seem to live within its means, we certainly can! Money troubles are very high on the list of  marital problems. So, why allow financial problems to control you? You are in charge and it’s very possible to take even tough situations and turn them around. It takes time, hard work and sacrifice, but as military families those are skills and abilities we have in plenty!

Here are 5 good resolutions to consider:

Five Financial Goals for the New Year
By Miriam Caldwell, About.com Guide
EXCERPT

SOURCE LINK

Due to an overall increase in the cost of housing, military Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) rates across the country increased an average of 2 percent over last year’s rates. Some locations will see an increase of as much as 40 percent (Minot, ND). The national-average increase of 2 percent can be tied to several factors including local costs for rent, utilities, housing shortages, and local economic pressures. To check out the 2012 BAH rates for your local area, please go to: http://www.military.com/benefits/content/military-pay/basic-allowance-for-housing/basic-allowance-for-housing-rates.html . To learn how these increases will also affect Post-9/11 GI Bill housing stipends, please click: http://www.military.com/education/content/gi-bill/2012-housing-stipend-faqs.html

Today is the final day of the Cooking with the Troops fundraiser. They do some amazing events. And this is one that up in the queue for next year:

I imagine that few who read this will not know the name Richard D. “Dick” Winters. While the movie Band of Brothers made him famous, he was already well known within the military community for his outstanding leadership. His accomplishments make him an excellent exemplar for all the outstanding leadership shown on D-Day and beyond by those who led men in combat, which is the basis for the Richard D. Winters Leadership Project of the WWII Foundation.

As part of this effort, a statue of Dick Winters is being dedicated on 6 June 2012 in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Normandy, with a reception afterwards at the Utah Beach Museum. It is an honor and a pleasure to tell you that Cooking with the Troops will be providing the refreshments at the reception. Our goal is not just to provide tasty and appropriate food and drink to those attending, but to involve as many veterans-to-chefs and troops/vets interested in culinary/hospitality careers as possible.

Please consider donating.

I found the following article at Hotel News Resource and thought it was interesting. Has the economy forced you to change your Thanksgiving plans? How about Christmas? Is it affecting your ability to purchase what you normally would purchase this time of year, or is it affecting your travel (or both?)

 

EXCERPT
SOURCE LINK

Military Families Scaling Back Thanksgiving Plans Due To Economy

2011-11-17

Military families are putting their Thanksgiving celebrations on a diet again this year, continuing a frugal trend fed by the economic downturn.

Recent survey findings from the First Command Financial Behaviors Index® reveal that half of middle-class military families (senior NCOs and commissioned officers in pay grades E-6 and above with household incomes of at least $50,000) are changing their Thanksgiving plans this year as a result of the economy. Active duty families will be cutting back in a variety of ways, including:

• Reducing travel (26 percent)
• Dining with immediate family members only (22 percent)
• Spending less on food (16 percent)
• Spending less on decorations (13 percent)
• Sticking to a set budget (12 percent)

Roughly half of middle-class families in the general population also expect to cut back for Thanksgiving, and they’ll be relying on the same cost-cutting behaviors targeted by military households. The biggest difference in frugal strategies appears to be in travel plans. Reducing travel is a cost-cutting plan for 26 percent of military families versus 18 percent of families in the general population. And among those families planning to reduce travel, military consumers are much more likely to stay home (56 percent versus 39 percent in the general population).

“The economic turmoil of recent years has changed the way middle-class Americans celebrate Thanksgiving,” said Scott Spiker, CEO of First Command Financial Services, Inc. “Perhaps the biggest change is that the holiday is becoming a more family-oriented event. Half of men and women in uniform who plan to dine only with immediate family members have done so for at least three years. The trend runs even deeper in the general population, where almost two thirds of consumers have made dining with immediate family their new tradition. The result is an intimate, closer-to-home Thanksgiving celebration.”

SOURCE LINK

Cooking with the Troops has a roundup of the event in NYC at the NASDAQ. Please pay attention to the photos because you will see what they do. Chefs and smiling uniformed men and women. It is a great thing!

All charities need donations to keep running and this one is no exception. They need donations, big and small (even $5 will help keep things going!!) to keep sharing food, culinary career help, healthy eating/cooking training, and cooking equipment! Everyone has to eat and doing it either for free at one of the CWtT events or learning how to create a nutritious meal at home for your family is a good thing.

Things are very tight financially across the nation, but if each of you readers donated just a little bit, it would keep the awesome momentum going and fund some upcoming events! By the way, CWtT is also looking for administrative help in several positions. If you are one to volunteer your time and energy and skills to a great organization, please contact Blake at the email on that post and talk to him about helping out!

You can see it in the faces of Afghan youth. I can’t help but wonder if these kids will forget these tender moments of trust when dealing with our troops. I hope that 10-15 years from now they remember the true intent, heart, and mission of our troops here to secure a better life for them.

Staff Sgt. Joshua W. Ginn, medic, Regional Command (South) protective service detail, 82nd Airborne Division, doubles as an armrest for an Afghan boy during a mission Nov. 2. Ginn and his team routinely escort the leadership of RC(S) to various locations within the region for meetings with Afghan leaders, securing the routes they travel on and the locations of the meetings. During these missions, the team has frequent interactions with Afghan military, police and civilians, particularly children. Photo by SGT Amanda Hils.

Topic: “Blogging Through Loss”

This panel is going to be tough to live blog. Watch for the video, it will be worth it.

Topic:  “SEO for Specialty Content”

Ready for Panel 2? We’ll keep the liveblog style of post so refresh on occasion for updated content.

SEO is important for blogging. We go up against many different sources that have a lot more money to throw at advertising. We have to back up our awesome content with strategies to increase traffic.

Shout out to Maj Pain and Blackfive on the slides!

First topic is about users. Look at the top titles that send traffic to your site and also key words. Also look at SEM Rush to gain more ideas of what is being searched. Dumping these results into Adwords will give more insight into what people are looking for in search engines. A good idea would to make your blog post and tags use the most searched words.

Addict-o-matic will show what’s on Twitter, Ask.com, WordPress, and many other sites. Google Insights will also show the history of topics to give an idea if what is being searched. Using the historic data of Google Insights and Addict-o-matic will let you know the likelihood of your post to be picked up by Google (I’m going to use Google as a reference to any search engine) and ranked high. Another tool is Scribe SEO. Scribe has in you input data about the post (title, body, etc) and will then let you know how relevant that post is to a keyword you want Google to give you a high ranking.

Content linking back to content makes a difference. If you’ve talked about a topic in the past, mention in the current post. Not every user visiting your blog has a regular reader. Refer them to your past articles.

Don’t go to a blog looking to post links in your comments. Build a relationship with that blog and then drop a link to your blog. You’re adding to that community as along as you keep it relevant.

Google Alerts is another great tool to know who is saying what about a topic. You can watch as people mention topics you write about and then build a relationship to pitch it to other blogs. Building a relationship with that blog will help.

Another tool is Timely to help schedule Tweets. Inputting a tweet will help you time your tweet based on the best time of day to push that content based on replies, mentions, retweets, etc.

Promote your content using Twitter. There are many tools that can push your newest blog post. Not everyone is a power user, so you may need to mention your newest information several times a day. Use different methods to promote that information as well. Reword, mix it up a bit to not annoy those power users.

So I just realized that Ewan Spence is in this panel. CJ and I interviewed him at BWE Vegas in 2008! I got totally distracted from the panel because I recognized him. Back to paying attention.

Another tool suggestion. Tynt looks back before the big social networking when we emailed things we wanted to share. Installing tynt will create links to your site when someone uses the good ole copy+paste share method.

Questions and answers are moving a bit fast for me to be able to put here. Video will come at some point as long as the camera kept recording. It’s at the other end of the table from me.