California dreamin'.

My Orange County antenna site has picked up medium-strength signals that Deborah Castleman would like to replace Emmett Paige Jr. as ASD/C3I. Castleman served as a DASD/C3I to Paige before resigning to help design and develop an electric car. Now I hear she's charged up by the results of the last election which some insiders believe will lead to more politically connected women stepping into DOD jobs previously occupied by men. Playing the Republican card. My Tysons Corner mobile unit has picked up reports that Duane Andrews who preceded Paige as ASD/C3I would like to return to the Pentagon as deputy secretary of Defense replacing John White. This scenario works some folks say if Clinton taps a Republican as SecDef. I also hear that if Andrews does get the nod former CIM czar Paul Strassmann may end up as ASD/C3I. This would give Andrews and Strassmann yet another chance to purge DOD of duplicative information systems which seem to have the resiliency of crabgrass. Paige back to OAO. Paige has made his resignation official and plans to return to OAO Corp. from whence he came -saving industry from an unseemly bidding war for his talents. Breaking the grunt barrier. During a recent Hawaii and California reporting swing the Interceptor picked up scuttlebutt that Col. Dave Chadwick who ran MCTSSA at Camp Pendleton and served as the JWID `95 honcho stands a good chance of becoming the first career communicator to wear a star. The Marines like to hand out stars only to grunts and aviators but I hear that Chadwick now at HQMC could become the first Marine communicator BG - and pick up the service's CIO slot to boot. All the old 2531s here at FCW including the Interceptor can hardly wait. CACWOO forever. My E-ring antenna site has heard that former ISSAA head Dave Borland - now Army deputy DISC4 - complained to Cecom about the unfortunate acronym that command stuck on ISSAA when it took over the unit and renamed it Cecom Acquisition Center Washington Operations Office or CACWOO. Despite Borland's protest I hear Cecom has no intention of changing the name which will lead to a CACWOO here a CACWOO there and a CACWOO everywhere in the pages of this newspaper. PC-2 delays. Speaking of CACWOO director Kevin Carroll said the Telstar protest against the Army PC-2 contract could delay final award until January of next year that's how long the GAO protest clock runs. But Carroll said this should cause no "inconvenience" for Army buyers because the PC-1 contracts held by Sysorex and EDS run until the end of January. More bucks for Army cellular. Strong signals from Fort Gordon indicate that the Signal Command wants more dedicated bucks for cellular/PCs for both battlefield WIN systems and ACUS. With a commitment like that the Army should get a lot of one-penny cell phones.