At the dinner I was struck by the thought and later reflected that government agencies are “experiments” that change over time. The fact that members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) attended the event is a testament to the dynamic change the U.S. government has gone through in a very short timeframe to meet the current and future needs of this great nation. The OSS had a short life span that has left a large impact on both intelligence and military communities. Briefly stated, In 1942 the Coordinator of Information became the OSS. President Truman dismantled the OSS in 1945 with the close of World War II. Additional information can be found by going to the OSS Society's website: http://www.osssociety.org/. The OSS chose the spearhead as its symbol stemming from founder Major General Donovan’s vision for that office to be the tip of the spear. The OSS is the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency and Special Operation Forces: Rangers, Force Recon, Delta Force, Green Berets and Navy Seals— to name a few.
What I took away from the evening is not only do IT solutions need to support our customers’ missions today and tomorrow, but they also need to be an enabler for these experiments to change if and when the world needs them to change.
“We were not afraid to make mistakes because we’re not afraid to try things that had not been tried before.”
“You can’t succeed without taking chances.”
- Major General William J. Donovan, OSS Founder
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