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MILITARY MATTERS
Newsletter #43
2/17/00
Howdy all, and welcome to the 44rd edition of Military Matters, the newsletter for About.com's U.S. Military Information Page. If you need information about anything concerning the Military, please try http://usmilitary.about.com. If you know anyone who is interested in military matters, please feel free to email them a copy of this newsletter.
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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Cheap Travel for Military Active Duty and Retired. How you can save a significant amount of money by staying in military billeting on your vacations.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/weekly/aa021600a.htm
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Last Poll: Do You Think Vietnam is Doing Everything it can to Help Locate American Remains? 79 Percent of you say "No."
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1153.1
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This Issue's Poll: Should the President order the Arrest of the Vieques Protesters?
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1199.1
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NEWS AND COMMENTARY:
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Army says it was only 1/2 at Fault: An Army investigation into a Jan. 26 artillery accident at Fort Hood, Texas, has concluded that range control officials did not respond appropriately when local civilians called to complain that their properties were being shelled by a 155 mm howitzer. But Army officials were hesitant to accept complete responsibility for the potentially tragic mistake. Officials cited "conflicting information" as the reason why firing batteries in the field were not ordered to cease live-fire operations after the frantic calls came in.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1200.1
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U.S. Asks Japan not to Cut Support Payments: TOKYO - Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called on the Japanese government yesterday to reconsider a proposal to reduce its financial support for American troops in Japan. Talbott held two days of talks here after a move by Japanese officials last month to cut support payments to the United States to cover the costs incurred by U.S. military forces in Japan, for labor, utilities, facilities, maintenance and training.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1193.1
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Gulf War Vet Enters TV-Arranged Marriage: The lucky bride who got to marry a multi-millionaire on National TV, turned out to be Darva Conger, 34, an emergency room nurse from Santa Monica, California, who served in the Gulf War. As the four runners-up in white were escorted offstage, Rockwell proposed to Conger on bended knee. Then after a commercial break, the couple exchanged wedding vows and set off on their honeymoon.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1203.1
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Security Backlog is "Astounding": The Defense Department is struggling with a backlog of more than 500,000 security-clearance investigations that is costing defense contractors millions of dollars that are being passed on to taxpayers. The problem was outlined Wednesday during a House subcommittee hearing on background checks that are made by the Defense Security Service on employees of defense contractors. USA Today reported Thursday that Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said the problem "boggles the mind."
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1188.1
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Pilot Shortage on Road to Recovery: The Air Force is on the road to recovery from the combat strains of Kosovo and a recruiting and retention crisis last year that led officials to predict a shortage of more than 1,200 pilots this year, Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters told reporters in Seattle yesterday.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1187.1
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Fight over Vieques Continues: WASHINGTON -- Residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques say they will continue acting as human shields to try to stop the Navy from dropping unarmed bombs on a military training ground. A delegation of protesters met with lawmakers Wednesday and protested outside the White House. They charged that President Clinton's order last month to allow the Navy to resume dropping dummy bombs in Puerto Rico demonstrates a cavalier and undemocratic disregard for residents who want the military to leave immediately.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1184.1
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AF Wants More Recruiters: SAN ANTONIO -- After relying on fewer than 1,000 recruiters to meet its enlisted accession needs for the past several years, the Air Force is admitting it doesn't have enough troops on the street to support the mission.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1181.1
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Naval Academy to Graduate More Marines: Thanks to a larger crop of first-class midshipmen, the Naval Academy this year will funnel eight more Marine second lieutenants to the fleet compared with the Class of 1999. With 935 seniors expected to graduate -- 56 more than last year -- the 156 second lieutenants represent the same 16.67 percent the Corps has netted from every Naval Academy class since 1973.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1175.1
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Marines Want More Money: The Marine budget for fiscal 2001 falls $1.4 billion short of where the Corps would like to be in the coming year, failing to cover a litany of maintenance and modernization projects planned for the coming years. In a Feb. 8 letter to Rep. Floyd Spence, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Marine Commandant Gen. James L. Jones outlined the shortfalls that he hopes Congress will fill with supplemental funding.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1174.1
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Singlaub Sues CNN: ARLINGTON, Va. -- Retired Maj. Gen. John Singlaub wants you to know he is not a war criminal. The former special forces commander said he did not use banned chemical weapons during the Vietnam War, nor did he carpet-bomb his own men, as alleged in reports by the Cable News Network (CNN) two years ago. He wants you to appreciate his sincerity, his frustration and humiliation at the hands of the national news media -- and he wants you to understand why he's now suing CNN, Time Inc., Time-Warner and two journalists.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1172.1
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Vietnam War Protester Arrested: ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- After 28 years of evading a five-year sentence for slinging cherry bombs at firefighters and policemen during the 1970 anti-war riots at Washington University, Howard Mechanic was arrested Thursday afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1171.1
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Recruiters Bring Out Big Guns: WASHINGTON - Hot rods, Madison Avenue makeovers, Hollywood stars, and five-figure bonuses. Those are some of the weapons the armed services are employing to win over the hearts and minds of enough new recruits to fill their ranks.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1169.1
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Yugoslavia Claims NATO Invades Airspace: BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- NATO aircraft violated Yugoslavia's airspace on at least two occasions this month, causing the closure of the country's third largest civilian airport, the traffic minister said Wednesday. "NATO committed a flagrant violation of Yugoslav airspace and acted against international flight regulations," said Dejan Drobnjakovic, from the federal traffic ministry. "It also jeopardized civilian flights."
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1197.1
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Chaos in Kosovo: Peacekeeping forces may have a difficult time reaching their goal of rebuilding Kosovo, according to Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. Roberts recently returned from a trip that included stops in Tunisia, Morocco, Italy and Kosovo.Roberts said current peacekeeping forces in Kosovo spend most of their time protecting Albanians from Albanian crimes and guarding orthodox churches. "There's no constitution, no law, nobody has any papers, nobody has any drivers license, there are no judges, there are no police, there's no garbage collection. I mean, it's incredible," Roberts said.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1192.1
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Russians, Chechens, Continue Fight: NAZRAN, Russia -- Russian warplanes and artillery battered Chechen rebel strongholds today in southern Chechnya, striking in the mountains to uproot separatist fighters from their hide-outs. The military said troops were meeting ``serious resistance'' from militants in the Vedeno gorge and around the settlements of Shatoi and Itum-Kale in the Argun gorge.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1189.1
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UN Forces to Africa: Next week, the Security Council is almost certain to approve a long-delayed second step to cool the Congo conflict - sending 500 military observers and over 5,000 logistics and security personnel to support them. The vote is expected Wednesday. The U.S.-sponsored resolution calls for observers to monitor implementation and lay the groundwork for possible deployment of a much larger UN peacekeeping force, which is called for in the Lusaka agreement.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1186.1
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Chechens buy Weapons from Enemies: As in the last war, Russian soldiers are selling their hardware to Chechen middlemen or known rebel fighters. "They won't sell their own Kalashnikov (automatic rifle) because it is registered to them by number and can be traced," Hussein, a Chechen rebel said. "But they will sell the Kalashnikovs of their dead comrades. And they sell other weapons belonging to the units." The prices, according to Hussein, are ridiculously low. Grenade launchers and bazookas that can knock out tanks and armored-personnel carriers go for as little as $8. Some items can be bought for bottles of vodka.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1185.1
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Airpower Key to Columbia War: Military analysts believe air power could be crucial to turning the tide in Colombia's long-running civil conflict -- a factor that might discourage the large-scale attacks that rebels began mounting successfully in the mid-1990s. The new U.S. plan before Congress includes 30 Black Hawk and 33 Huey helicopters, an RG-8A reconnaissance plane, air base and radar enhancements and further upgrades to add night-vision systems to aging planes.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1168.1
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Two More Overseas Bases will Close: U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced February 15 that Headquarters U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) will cease operations in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, and Headquarters U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) will cease operations at the Soesterberg Collocated Operating Base in the Netherlands.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1191.1
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Pentagon Critiques Kosovo War: U.S. forces in Kosovo were hampered by too few bases, overloaded computers, confused procedures, poor preparation for deployments and other obstacles, the Pentagon says in a new self-critical review.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1176.1
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Bates to Receive Article 15: DOVER, Del -- The Air Force says it won't court-martial a major who questioned the safety of the military's anthrax vaccine and refused the mandatory injections. Maj. Sonnie Bates, a 14-year, decorated pilot, was believed to have been the highest-ranking Air Force officer on track to face a court-martial for refusing the anthrax vaccine. Instead, Bates has agreed to an administrative hearing by his commander at Dover Air Force Base that could result in sanctions ranging from a loss of pay to 30 days arrest.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1195.1
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Was Navy Skipper a Scapegoat?: The same Navy investigation into the 1999 collision of the destroyer Arthur W. Radford and a Saudi cargo ship that served as an indictment of the Radford's former commander contains dozens of errors in fact, according to attorneys for the former destroyer commander. They say errors in the Judge Advocate General Manual, or JAGMAN, report, underscore their case that former Radford skipper Cmdr. Daniel W. Chang was made the scapegoat for the collision.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1178.1
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Pay - How Much is Enough?: The pay you're taking home today reflects the biggest military compensation boost in 18 years. The service leaders who delivered the 4.8 percent raise and other benefits hope that now they will hit pay dirt and keep you in uniform. So -- is it enough?
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1202.1
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Army Troops Dig their new Digs: FORT RILEY, KS -- The Army is changing the way troops are housed, the big difference being privacy. In their new home, each soldier gets a private room and will share a bathroom, a microwave and a refrigerator with one other soldier who lives in an adjoining room.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1196.1
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Automatic Promotions to E-5: Fire support specialists, M1 tank mechanics and intelligence analysts are just some of the jobs that will now give sergeants' stripes to qualified corporals. The Army has updated the special program that features automatic advancements to sergeant for promotable corporals and specialists who re-enlist and reclassify for duty in one of 19 critically short-handed military occupational specialties.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1180.1
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Policy Shortens Trip to Senior Chief: The path from chief to senior chief just got one year shorter -- on paper at least. Under a new Coast Guard policy, an E-7 needs only 24 months in rating to advance to E-8, down from 36 months under the old rules. But Coast Guard administrators say the net effect -- three years' experience -- will still be the same.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1177.1
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Lawmakers Say 2001 Defense Budget Not Enough: President Clinton's proposed $15 billion increase in defense spending is significant, but it is not nearly enough to pay for the growing list of programs that members of Congress want to add to the fiscal 2001 defense budget.Key leaders of the House and Senate armed services and budget committees agree that an increase is needed in the $305.4 billion defense budget Clinton requested. How much of a hike has not been settled, but aides said a boost of more than $10 billion is possible.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1201.1
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Congress Assails Anthrax Program: WASHINGTON, D.C. The Pentagon's program to inoculate 2.4 million military personnel against anthrax as protection against biological warfare is based on "dangerously narrow scientific" evidence and should be suspended, a House panel has concluded.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1194.1
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House Attacks Columbia Plan: Members of Congress opened fire on the Clinton administration's $1.6 billion anti-drug plan for Colombia yesterday, with wide-ranging concerns that it is too little, too much, too late, too ambitious and not ambitious enough.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1179.1
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How will the Next President Handle Saddam?: American elections are not won by foreign-policy debates, and the four leading presidential candidates - Gore, Bradley, Bush and McCain - have had much more to say about taxes and campaign reform than about how they would handle such rogue regional regimes as exist in Libya, North Korea, and Iraq. Iraq's is one that could bite the new president, whoever he may be, soon after he takes office.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1173.1
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McCain Attacked on Vet Issues: NEWBERRY, S.C. -- John McCain, a former Navy aviator whose adult life was forged in the seven years he spent in North Vietnamese prison camps, finds himself up against a small but increasingly vocal group of activists questioning his service history and his dedication to veterans causes.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1170.1
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New F-18 E/F Ready for Purchase: WASHINGTON - The Navy said Tuesday that its new F-18E/F "Super Hornet" attack jet had passed flight tests with the highest marks and that the fighter, built by Boeing Co., would be ready for deployment in two years. The Navy plans to spend $45 billion to buy 548 of the upgraded version of older F-18s over the next decade, although full-scale production must await final approval by Defense Secretary William Cohen and Congress, perhaps later this year.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1198.1
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Two AF Jets Crash: YUMA, Ariz. -- Two Air Force F-16 fighter jets from military bases in Arizona and Georgia crashed during training exercises, but the pilots in both managed to eject safely. The accidents involving the $20 million aircraft occurred Wednesday. Both were under investigation.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1190.1
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Special Ops Wants Stealth: The Air Force Special Operations Command wants to trade its propeller-driven AC-130 gunships and MC-130 Combat Talons for a fleet of stealthy jets. Today's special operations aircraft are versions of C-130 Hercules and helicopters whose basic design hasn't changed much since the Vietnam War. But by 2015, the skies over enemy territory will be too dangerous for propeller-driven planes, said Lt. Col. John Geis, chief of the command's long-range planning department.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1183.1
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Aircraft Bulders want Smaller Changes: While Air Force Special Operations Command is looking at stealth jet aircraft for its long-term future, aircraft builders are proposing more modest advances for the next generation of transports.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1182.1
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Bag within a Bag: WASHINGTON -- The problem with military sleeping bags was you were either cold or carrying too much. And let's face it, as a service member you may end up anywhere in the world, so your supply personnel had to stock sleeping bags covering all climes. But no more. The U.S. Army Soldier Biologic and Chemical Command has developed a modular sleeping bag system that adapts to any number of climates. It's based on layering, or as the Army calls it, the "bag-within-a-bag" concept.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=1167.1
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LINK OF THE WEEK: Need a map with all the U.S. Military Instalaltions on it? Want Detailed Space-A Travel Information? How about an a Road Atlas for Military Travel Throughout Europe? Check out Military Living Publications.
http://www.militaryliving.com
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CHAT: Dennis Fauchier (DennisHOST) will be hosting General Military Chats every Saturday from 6:00 PM (EST) to 7:00 PM (EST) and every Wednesday from 12:00 PM (EST) to 1:00 PM (EST). Edward Hanrahan (AssassinHOST) will host every Saturday night from 9:00 PM (EST) to 1:00 AM (EST).
http://usmilitary.about.com/mpchat.htm
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MILITARY HUMOR: A bartender is sitting behind the bar on a typical day, when the door bursts open and in come four exuberant Marines. They come to the bar and order five bottles of beer and ten glasses.
They take their order over and sit down at a large table. The caps are popped, the glasses are filled and they begin toasting and chanting, "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!" Soon three more Marines arrive, take up their drinks and the chanting grows, "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!" Two more Marines show up and soon their voices are are joined in raising the roof, "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!" Finally the tenth Marine comes in with a picture under his arm, he walks over to the table, and sets the picture in the middle and the table erupts.
Up jump the others, they begin dancing around the table, exchanging high-fives, all the while chanting, "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!" The bartender can't contain his curiosity any longer, so he walks over to the table. There in the center is a beautifully framed child's puzzle of the cookie monster.
When the frenzy dies down a little bit the bartender asks one of the Marines, "Whats all the chanting and celebration about?"
The Marine who brought in the picture pipes in, "Everyone thinks that Marines are dumb and they make fun of us. So, we decided to set the record straight. Ten of us got together, bought this puzzle and put it together. The side of the box said 2-4 years, but we put it together in 51 days."
For more military humor, check out the Military Humor Netlink on the About.com U.S. Military Site at
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With those words of wisdom, I once again leave you.,
Rod Powers
About.com's U.S. Military Information Site
