{"id":3006,"date":"2020-01-30T12:40:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T17:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/?p=3006"},"modified":"2020-01-30T12:40:58","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T17:40:58","slug":"grief-condition-three-griefcon-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/grief-condition-three-griefcon-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Grief Condition Three (GRIEFCON 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. military uses the &#8220;Defense Condition&#8221; graduated scale to describe our readiness to fight a nuclear war. The DEFCON scale became an integral part of my everyday life when I was an Emergency Actions officer at U.S. Strategic Command, as part of the 55th Mobile Command and Control Squadron at Offutt AFB, Nebraska.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, <strong>I wondered whether a &#8220;Grief Condition&#8221; &#8212; GRIEFCON &#8212; graduated scale might serve to describe the state of my grief on a day-to-day basis.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The DEFCON scale is a five-point scale as follows (from Wikipedia):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>DEFCON 5: Normal readiness (lowest state)<\/li>\n<li>DEFCON 4: Above normal readiness (increased intelligence &amp; security)<\/li>\n<li>DEFCON 3: Air Force ready to mobilize in 15 minutes (increased force readiness)<\/li>\n<li>DEFCON 2: Armed forces ready to deploy &amp; engage in &lt; 6 hours (next step to nuclear war)<\/li>\n<li>DEFCON 1: Maximum readiness (nuclear war is imminent) or immediate response (nuclear war has already started)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/pix\/blog\/2020\/FamilyChristmas1999v4.jpg\" alt=\" \" width=\"650\" height=\"942\" \/><br \/>\n<span class=\"imagecaption\" style=\"font-size: 65%;\"><em>Our family posing with the kind of truck I drove as part of the 55 MCCS, where the DEFCON scale was a critical part of my work. (Offutt AFB, 1994)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>My GRIEFCON scale would run in a similar fashion. Here&#8217;s my first cut:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>GRIEFCON 5: &#8220;Normal&#8221; life, with grief (rare tears, prompted by especially poignant reminders or memories)<\/li>\n<li>GRIEFCON 4: &#8220;Normal&#8221; grief, with life (unexpected tears, at ordinarily benign reminders)<\/li>\n<li>GRIEFCON 3: Significant grief (occasional tears, at even happy reminders)<\/li>\n<li>GRIEFCON 2: Overwhelming grief (frequent tears, with little prompting)<\/li>\n<li>GRIEFCON 1: Maximum grief (nearly constant tears, brought on by nothing)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And at the last, beyond GRIEFCON 1, would be nuclear grief: total war with myself, characterized by constant tears with crushing sadness.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not a perfect model, of course, and it could bear some adjustment &#8212; but it&#8217;s a starting point.<\/p>\n<p>And, as the title says, today I&#8217;m in GRIEFCON 3. 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style=\"color:#444;text-decoration:none;font-size:8px;margin-left:5px;vertical-align:10px;white-space:nowrap\"><span>by <\/span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline;margin:0;padding:0;width:16px;height:16px\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"feather\" src=\"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/icon.png\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. military uses the &#8220;Defense Condition&#8221; graduated scale to describe our readiness to fight a nuclear war. The DEFCON scale became an integral part of my everyday life when I was an Emergency Actions officer at U.S. Strategic Command, as part of the 55th Mobile Command and Control Squadron \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/grief-condition-three-griefcon-3\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[403,458,457],"class_list":["post-3006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-musings","tag-family","tag-grief","tag-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}