Archived Military Matters
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MILITARY MATTERS
Newsletter #58
5/16/00
Howdy all, and welcome to the 58th 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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BACK-ISSUES: Back-issues of Military Matters are now available to read online at:
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/newsletters/blnewsletters.htm
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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Surviving Boot Camp (Part IV) -- Latest of a multipart series focussing on military boot camps. In this part, all about Navy Boot Camp in Great Lakes.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/weekly/aa051500a.htm
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Previous Poll: Should military members, undergoing alcohol rehabilitation treatment, be ordered to attend AA Meetings? 41 percent said; (A) Yes; 59 percent said; (B) No
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/polls/blaa.htm
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This Issue's Poll: Should the Military focus on the development of "pilotless" aircraft? (A) Yes - Such aircraft would be able to perform dramatically better than current aircraft; (B) No - An onboard pilot is necessary for critical decisions; (C) Only for recon purposes (current practice).
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/polls/blpilotless.htm
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NEWS AND COMMENTARY:
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Still a lot of Groping Going on: Anyone who's recently served in our armed forces knows that in-ranks groping is as common in today's military as gunpowder was in Ike's Army. Let's face it, recruits to colonels have groped, grope or are thinking about groping. In the past 25 years, more money, more time and more energy have been devoted to anti-grope training than Ike used getting ready for D-Day. Yet despite the scores of thou-shalt-not-grope regs, endless anti-grope lectures and threats galore that anything other than Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell groping will be punished by firing squads, there's still a lot of groping going down. The one-grope-and-you're-dead campaign has clearly failed.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2322.1
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Guard Units hit the Streets in Chem/Bio Expercise: RENSSELAER COUNTY, N.Y. -- Weapons of mass destruction can be as big as the bombs that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. Or they can be small enough to fit in a jar that sits snugly inside a briefcase. That's what volunteer firefighters from Nassau, N.Y., learned during an April 25 exercise with a New York National Guard team trained to ferret out nuclear, chemical and biological agents and dispose of them. The exercise fulfilled its purpose: to cultivate teamwork and familiarize local authorities with all the assets the state has to offer in the event of a large-scale civilian disaster.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2311.1
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Too Many A-10 Pilots: Don't tell Col. Joe Wood there is a pilot shortage. "Pilot overmanning is our No. 1 challenge right now," said Wood, commander of the 23rd Fighter Group at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. The 23rd flies the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the only airframe for which the Air Force has more pilots than pilot slots. Overall A-10 pilot manning is 112 percent, said Maj. Swede Johnson, a staff member at the Air Combat Command headquarters' rated officer management section. At Pope, the A-10 pilot manning is about 125 percent, Wood said. Other Air Force fighters are manned at about 100 percent.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2309.1
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Guard/Reserve fight to keep Prior Active Duty: It's a tough nut for Master Sgt. Vincent Meyer to crack: Persuading an enlisted airman leaving the Air Force for a higher-paying civilian job to join the Air Force Reserve. "His supervisor said, 'This is a good guy. If you can get him, get him,' " said Meyer, a Reserve in-service recruiter at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. "I know this guy's going to be a hard sell. I just haven't figured it out yet." These days, Meyer is spending a lot of time on "hard sells," as are fellow recruiters across the Reserve and Air National Guard. "I would say we are bringing in fewer [recruits] than we have in the past, and those we have been bringing in, it's harder," said Lt. Col. Marilyn Rios, chief of recruiting and retention for the Air Guard.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2307.1
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Best Ranger Competition: FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Second Lt. Rick Ahern was sure his muscles had reached their limits as he struggled toward the distant shoreline. Just minutes before, he and his teammate, 2nd Lt. Marc Messerschmitt, helo-casted out of a hovering Black Hawk to begin a 450-meter swim, pulling a poncho raft with more than 150 pounds of gear behind them. "Gut check! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Come on, you guys!" Ahern's wife, Rita, shouted from shore. The two were fighting to hold on to their narrow lead in the Army's 18th annual Best Ranger Competition April 28-30. The final day of the 72-hour course saw Ahern and Messerschmitt in first place after winning the all-night land navigation event and the Darby Queen -- a grueling obstacle course stretching across 2,000 meters, a mile- and-a-quarter of rough terrain.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2302.1
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Pilotless Planes Could Change Warfare: WASHINGTON -- From the moment they climbed into the first cockpits nearly a century ago, military pilots have been the daring heroes of air warfare. But inside a St. Louis aerospace plant called the Phantom Works, engineers are assembling the prototype of an aircraft that could revolutionize air-to-ground combat -- and eventually displace the pilots who conduct it. The new Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle is a 26-foot-long, blunt-nosed plane that looks something like a horseshoe crab with wings. According to its advocates, it can be operated at far less cost and, in some respects, far greater efficiency than piloted planes. Another key selling point: It will reduce, and perhaps one day eliminate, the risk of American pilots being captured or injured, both of which have become increasingly unacceptable to American war planners and presidents.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2349.1
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US Rockets to use Russian Engines: CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - In another symbolic farewell to the Cold War, the rocket that served as America's first intercontinental ballistic missile and carried John Glenn into orbit is set to lift off with an engine from the former foe. Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Atlas III will be the first "Made-in-the-USA'' rocket to use Russian propulsion. Launch was scheduled for early this evening, though rain and even thunderstorms could interfere. U.S. and Russian engineers behind the mission applaud this blasting away of barriers on the final frontier. "All this should have happened much earlier,'' said Vladimir Chvanov, first deputy general director at NPO Energomash, the engine maker. Even crusty old-timers approve of the match.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2348.1
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Air Force Launches Satellite after three Failures: CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Air Force yesterday launched a critically needed defense warning satellite after three consecutive failures of the troubled Titan 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral. "It's got to be the most beautiful sight I've seen in 16 years in this business," said Maj. Todd Ganger, deputy chief for missile warnings at the U.S. Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. The Air Force and contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin were criticized harshly by Congress after $3 billion in rocket losses, including a Milstar military communications satellite, a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office and a previous Defense Support Program satellite.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2288.1
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Smoke Free Effects on Business: Defense Secretary William Cohen has issued an order to make bowling alleys, clubs and other base recreation facilities smoke free by December 2002. But breathing clean air may come at a price if smokers decide in large numbers to take their business elsewhere. Fred S. Kinzer, manager of the bowling alley at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., knows first-hand the potential effect of a smoke-free policy. Business dropped off dramatically after the base commander prohibited smoking in the base's bowling alley and officers and enlisted clubs beginning in October 1998. In the first year, alcohol sales -- the alley's main source of income -- dropped 34 percent. Sales still are down 31 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2000, Kinzer said. But Kinzer manages to keep profits up. His solution: Raise prices on soda and food. "Same as your [movie] theaters. They charge you a fortune for popcorn and sodas," he said.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2312.1
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Homosexual Midshipman Ordered to Repay for Academy Education: A high-ranking midshipman who resigned from the U.S. Naval Academy after he was accused of homosexual activity has been ordered to repay the government nearly $67,000 for his education, despite a review board's finding that he is being treated unjustly compared with others kicked out for cheating and drug use.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2327.1
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Marine Reserves Considering Up-or-Out Policy: Slow promotions for staff NCOs are forcing the Marine Corps Reserve to consider shifting to an up-or-out policy for drilling reservists. Staff noncommissioned officers could face transfer to the Individual Ready Reserve after being passed over twice for promotion. And Marines who don't complete required professional military education coursework also could be bounced from their Selected Reserve billets.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2297.1
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US Halts Bomb Exercise after S. Koreans Complain: SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The U.S. Air Force canceled its routine bombing exercise on an offshore target off South Korea's west coast Monday after residents complained, Seoul's Defense Ministry said. On May 8, a U.S. Air Force fighter jet dropped six bombs on Koon-Ni Range near the west coast village of Mae Hyang, 50 miles south of Seoul. Villagers said six people were slightly injured after the impact cracked walls and broke hundreds of windows. They have demanded compensation and the relocation of the range.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2353.1
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Gulf War General Under Fire: WASHINGTON One of the top American commanders in the Persian Gulf war came under investigation after a member of his unit complained that his troops had pummeled retreating Iraqi forces in an unprovoked attack two days after a cease-fire went into effect. Military investigators, who fielded the anonymous complaint and completed a secret report in 1991, exonerated Barry McCaffrey, now a retired four-star Army general and President Clinton's top drug-control official. But questions about the attack have been revived by a report appearing in The New Yorker magazine on Monday that quotes senior Army officers, including an officer who fought alongside McCaffrey, as saying the attack was unjustified.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2347.1
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Clinton in a Showdown over Troops in Kosovo: WASHINGTON - This week could be a decisive one for President Clinton's policy of keeping U.S. troops in Kosovo: Showdowns are likely in the Senate and House that could ultimately force withdrawal of the peacekeepers next year. In the Senate, there will be a tangle over bipartisan language in a routine military construction spending bill that requires the Americans' removal from the breakaway Yugoslav province beginning July 1, 2001, unless Congress votes to keep them there. And there will be a renewed effort by a group of Democrats and Republicans in the House to require the troops' withdrawal unless Clinton certifies that Europeans are delivering promised aid for rebuilding the violence-shattered Balkan enclave. The deadline would be April 1, 2001.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2345.1
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Pentagon Denies Inflating Bomb Damage Reports: WASHINGTON -- (Reuters) The Pentagon and Air Force on Monday denied a report that the U.S. military and NATO vastly inflated bomb damage to Serb armor in the 1999 air war against Belgrade while quashing disappointing results of the strikes. "It is not true," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said, reacting to a Newsweek magazine report that the 78-day spring campaign was very accurate against fixed targets but virtually ineffective against tanks, armored cars and mobile artillery. Newsweek said only 14 Serb Army tanks were verifiably destroyed compared to U.S. and NATO claims of 100 or more.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2291.1
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US will Provide Air Support for Sierra Leone Mission: WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration yesterday decided to assist the UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone by providing air transport for a contingent of Bangladeshi peacekeepers, but there was no discussion of sending U.S. troops to the area. The administration notified UN officials that U.S. Air Force aircraft will fly a battalion of Bangladeshi peacekeepers --roughly 700 to 800 soldiers -- in coming days, said a senior administration official who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity. Officials had said last week they were considering providing similar transport for Indian and Jordanian peacekeepers.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2286.1
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Serb Killing Prompts Kosovo Violence: PRISTINA -- (Reuters) A Serb man who went fishing was found shot dead in eastern Kosovo, prompting other Serbs to block a road, throw rocks and set cars ablaze in protest, the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said on Sunday. The man's body was found near his home village of Klokot, in Kosovo's U.S.-led military sector, on Saturday evening with his fishing rod nearby, a KFOR spokesman said. The independent Serb news agency Beta, quoting Serb sources, said the victim was 67. An angry crowd of around 100 Serbs gathered in the village, blocked a road and threw rocks at passing cars, said Captain Russell Berg, a press officer with the U.S. forces in Kosovo.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2283.1
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US Snubs UN Request for Ground Forces in Sierra Leone: WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration yesterday rebuffed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's plea for a "rapid reaction force" to rescue beleaguered U.N. peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, although the U.S. pledged air transport and other logistical support. In another blow to U.N. efforts to restore peace, bodyguards of rebel leader Foday Sankoh yesterday fired into a rock-throwing crowd of pro-government protesters, killing seven people, wounding 25 and sharply heightening tensions in the capital.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2282.1
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Law would Require High Schools Give Access to Recruiters: WASHINGTON - Alarmed by declining recruitments, the Senate is moving toward requiring public schools to give military recruiters the same access to high schools that colleges and the private sector now enjoy. The Pentagon estimates that approximately 2,000 public high schools have policies that bar military recruiters from one or more of the services. Included in a $310 billion defense bill expected to be debated in the full Senate later this month is a provision designed to help the Pentagon turn around declining enlistments by giving service recruiters more access to high school students.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2336.1
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Navy Medic Pleads Guilty to Murder: CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) -- A Navy medic admitted Thursday that he killed his wife after an argument and conspired with his former girlfriend to conceal her death. Petty Officer 2nd Class David Tate pleaded guilty during a court martial at Camp Pendleton. He faces a military prison sentence of at least 20 years when he is sentenced June 12.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2335.1
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Fort Lewis Soldier Charged with Murder: A Fort Lewis soldier has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of a fellow soldier last month. Spec. Willon B. Brown was charged this week with shooting to death 22-year-old Joshua M. Koerner, a specialist-rank driver. Last week, military police found Koerner's body in a training area of the Army base south of Tacoma. An autopsy revealed the Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.-native, who had been missing for three days, died from several gunshots to the head and neck.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2314.1
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Army Confirms General's Claims: WASHINGTON | Army investigators have substantiated a charge by the highest-ranking woman in the Army, Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, that another Army general, Larry G. Smith, touched her in a sexual manner and tried to kiss her in a Pentagon office in 1996, defense officials said. Although Kennedy did not file a sexual harassment complaint at the time, the Army investigation found, she did describe the incident to friends and colleagues soon after it occurred, and they have recently corroborated her account. If the findings are accepted by the Army's leadership, as officials familiar with the matter expect, Smith probably will receive a reprimand and be forced to retire.
http://forums.about.com/ab-usmilitary/messages/?msg=2316.1
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You can read more military news on the About.com U.S. Military Site at:
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/news/newsindex.htm
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Around and About:
Shipping Property: Some tips on shipping your property for that next PCS move.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/allhands/blpropertyshipment.htm
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GI Bill: How much do you get? How long do you have to use it? These questions and more answered in this basic article about the Montgomery G.I. Bill.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/blmgib.htm
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Family Member Dental Program: All about the Dental Insurance program for military family members.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/blfamilydental.htm
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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: One of the most hated First Sergeants on the base was giving a lecture to a group of PFCs on the basic requirements for promotion to the grade of sergeant.
"Consider what it takes to make a topnotch sergeant, men, a truly superior one, an unparalleled one. Well, you think about it for a moment and then I'll tell you."
He paused for two or three seconds, then continued, "Here's what it takes...well...I'll tell you what it takes...well, well, y'see...he's got to be born that way. Understand?"
"There was a moment's silence, then a voice chirped from the last row, "In wedlock, or out, First Sergeant?"
For more military humor, check out the Military Humor Netlink on the About.com U.S. Military Site at
http://usmilitary.about.com/msubmenujokes.htm
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With those words of wisdom, I once again leave you.,
Rod Powers
About.com's U.S. Military Information Site
