Archived Military Matters

The About.com U.S. Military Newsletter

Note: Newslinks contained in this archived newsletter will take you to the discussion area of the U.S. Military Forum, but links to the stories from there are probably no longer valid. Online news-sources normally leave links active for only a few days.

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Previous Poll: Should the U.S. Support the Creation of a Permanent U.N. Peacekeeping & Police Force? 25 percent of you said, (A) Yes - This would be more economical and improve reaction time; 75 percent of you said, (B) No - This gives the U.N. too much power.

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This Issue's Poll: How Should the U.S. Investigate War Crime Allegations Against U.S. Troops? (A) - The U.S. Military should investigate (current practice); (B) - The Justice Department should investigate; (C) - Congress should investigate; (D) - The United Nations World Court should investigate; or (E) - The U.S. should establish a special war crimes committee to investiage.


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NEWS AND COMMENTARY:

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How Should we Investigate War Crimes?: In recent months, both the media and human rights advocates have raised questions about the legality of U.S. military conduct overseas. U.S. forces stand accused of shooting hundreds of civilians at No Gun Ri during the chaotic retreats early in the Korean War. A recent New Yorker article charged that then-Maj. Gen. Barry McCaffrey and the U.S. Army's 24th Infantry Division attacked Iraqi soldiers while they were retreating after the cease-fire at the end of the Persian Gulf War. A few weeks ago, Amnesty International alleged that NATO's air campaign over Kosovo (conducted overwhelmingly by the United States) included war crimes against the civilian population. That accusation was reinforced by the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, which said NATO's actions were of "dubious legality," though morally justified. Despite their gravity, there is no independent forum to investigate most of these charges and make its findings public. The former Yugoslavia has an international criminal tribunal, whose chief prosecutor recently concluded that "although some mistakes were made," NATO was innocent of war crimes. But that tribunal's jurisdiction is limited to events in that part of the Balkans. What of Korea and the Gulf War, and future U.S. military actions that will undoubtedly generate new allegations? Currently, the U.S. military investigates itself. That is what is happening with the charges of atrocities at No Gun Ri. And shortly after the Gulf War, U.S. military investigators cleared McCaffrey--now director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy--and the 24th Division of war crimes allegations.

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The Problem with Powell: As the 10th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait approaches, imagine for a moment what the world would look like if Saddam Hussein's Aug. 1, 1990, conquest had been allowed to stand. Imagine that George Bush had not launched Operation Desert Storm but had decided to draw the line at Saudi Arabia and let Saddam keep Kuwait. Or, to put it another way, imagine what might have happened had President Bush listened to Colin Powell. Powell's thinking after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is well documented. As Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor reported in "The Generals' War," Powell argued in internal deliberations that "we can't make a case for losing lives for Kuwait--we must communicate to Saddam Hussein that Saudi Arabia is the line." Like a majority of Senate Democrats (but not Al Gore), Powell wanted to limit the American response to economic sanctions. Like Pat Buchanan, Powell believed "the American people do not want their young dying for $1.50 a gallon oil." Defending Saudi Arabia and leaving the Iraqi army in Kuwait was the "prudent option."

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Former Defense Secretary May Join Bush Ticket: AUSTIN –– As George W. Bush privately pondered his choice for vice presidential running mate, there were new signals today that former defense secretary Richard B. Cheney may be the top contender to join the Republican ticket. Cheney last week told board members of the Halliburton Co., where he is chairman and chief executive officer, that there was a strong likelihood he would be asked to be Bush's running mate, according to one board member. "He in effect told us it was virtually certain if there wasn't a glitch," said the board member, who asked not to be named. "But he also made it clear it wasn't 100 percent."

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President Plans Trip to Vietnam: WASHINGTON - President Clinton is planning to visit Vietnam this autumn, capping a five-year period in which he normalized relations and then negotiated a trade agreement with a nation whose very name is a shorthand for geopolitical and emotional issues still unresolved. A White House official confirmed yesterday that Clinton hopes to make the trip in mid-November, a week after Election Day. The trip would be the first visit of a US president to Vietnam since 1969, when Richard M. Nixon visited Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam.

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Army, Marines Investigating "Actual" Deployment Costs: The Marine Corps commandant and Army chief of staff are launching an initiative to determine the costs -- in terms of dollars, wear and tear on equipment, and personnel losses due to resignations -- of deploying U.S. troops around the globe. The initiative is a direct result of two days of meetings held by Marine Gen. James L. Jones and Army Gen. Eric Shinseki on May 17 and 18 at the Army War College, Carlisle, Pa. They were accompanied by 24 four- and three-star officers from both services. The generals concluded that the unrelenting pace of deployments for the nation's land forces is exacting a heavy toll in wear and tear on equipment, personnel, ships and aircraft. Maj. Gen. Arnold Fields, director of the Marine Corps Staff, said in a written summary of the meetings that "engagement is currently being performed on the backs of soldiers and Marines. The consensus was that engagement has a currently undefined cost." Jones and Shinseki directed their staffs to attempt to measure those costs to alert political leaders about the impact on the nation's ground forces of a national security strategy that features continued military engagements around the world.

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Don't Discount the Lessons of the Cold War: In "A War To Be Won," their new one-volume account of World War II, historians Williamson Murray and Allan Millett offer the following comment about military planning: "One of the great myths of military history is that military organizations prepare for the next war by studying the last war and that is why they perform badly." Murray and Millett go on to note that, of the major European belligerents in 1939, only Germany (and the Soviet Union until Stalin purged its officer corps) made a systematic effort to study the tactical and operational lessons of World War I. As a result, when blitzkrieg--lightning war--burst upon the world, it was revolutionary only to its victims. That bit of history may be peculiarly relevant at a time when some optimists seem bent on discovering a military revolution under every technological rock, and when the most common criticism of the U.S. military is that it remains mired in the Cold War. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. If the Cold War is defined by its principal shooting engagements--Korea and Vietnam--whatever impact it once had on American military thinking seems largely to have evaporated during the past 10 years.

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AF Colonel loses Command, Possibly Career: A colonel slated to head an F-15 Eagle wing next year has lost the command -- and perhaps any chance at a first star -- because of his connection to the crash of two helicopters at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., in 1998 in which 12 airmen died. Col. Larry New's assignment to head the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., was canceled by Gen. John Jumper, head of Air Combat Command, after an independent review of the accident investigation board's report. Jumper announced July 10 the decision to drop New. Family members of some of those killed in the accident expressed support for Jumper's decision. A senior Air Force official at the Pentagon said the assignment loss will end New's Air Force career. New, now assigned to the Pentagon in the Joint Staff's strike-force office, was commander of the 57th Operations Group at Nellis at the time of the accident. While the accident board identified pilot error as the cause of the crash, it also concluded that New bore some responsibility because he was aware of readiness and safety issues in the overworked 66th Rescue Squadron but failed to address them.

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Remains of Soldiers Repatriated: TOKYO -- Remains believed to be those of 12 U.S. soldiers missing in action since the Korean War were returned to the U.S. military on Saturday. To the skirl of a lone bagpipe, an honor guard removed the caskets from the plane that flew them to the U.S. Yokota Air Base in Japan from Pyongyang, North Korea, the Air Force said. The remains were to be taken next week to an Army laboratory in Hawaii for identification. A U.S.-North Korean team working in Unsan and Kujang counties, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, recovered the remains during an operation started June 25.

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Containing North Korea?: CHINA AND Russia continue to make it clear that they take a dim view of the U.S. effort to build a national missile defense (NMD) system. Linking that program to the supposed menace of American global hegemony, the two governments took the occasion of President Vladimir Putin's July 18 visit to Beijing to issue a blistering attack on U.S. policy. More evidence, it would seem, of NMD's destabilizing impact on relations among the great powers. But there is another way to think about this story. Mr. Putin traveled from China to North Korea, where he produced a North Korean pledge to give up its ballistic missile programs in exchange for international help with "peaceful space research." This followed China's own push on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to show a more conciliatory face to South Korea, and, by extension, the United States. That helped produce the recent inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang. In other words, China's and Russia's own nervousness about NMD may be inducing them to rein in the dangerous North Korean missile program that provoked the United States to build missile defenses in the first place.

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Up or Out for Marine Reserve Staff NCOs: First the good news: Promotion rates for Reserve staff NCOs will improve in coming months. But in order to do that, the Marine Corps Reserve has instituted an up-or-out policy for staff non-commissioned officers. That means any drilling or active reservist twice passed over for promotion in grades E-6 through E-9 will be reassigned to the Individual Ready Reserve. "If nothing else, we hope this sends the message that if you want to be here, you have to improve your game," said Capt. R.J. Feliciano, officer in charge of incentives and promotions at Reserve Manpower, Quantico, Va. Marines with 20 years of satisfactory service can choose to retire with benefits instead of transferring to the IRR.

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Military Acts to End Gay Harrassement: WASHINGTON The Defense Department on Friday announced a 13-point plan aimed at eliminating "all forms of harassment" in the military after the bludgeoning death of a homosexual private at Ft. Campbell, Ky., a year ago. The plan instructs commanders to take disciplinary action against harassers and was produced in response to an inspector general's survey that found widespread verbal abuse and other forms of harassment of homosexuals in the armed services. It also follows a separate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the slaying of Pvt. Barry Winchell of the Ft. Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division, who was attacked by two fellow enlisted men last summer. Though the new plan stipulates that "commanders and leaders will be held accountable for failure to enforce this directive," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told a Pentagon news briefing that the investigation absolved the officers in Winchell's chain of command from any responsibility.

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Some Active Duty Cleared for Laser Eye Surgery: WASHINGTON -- With only a few exceptions, active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are allowed to have their vision corrected with laser eye surgery and not worry about it affecting their careers. Service officials have been studying photorefractive keratectomy, or PRK, and laser in-situ keratomileusis, commonly called LASIK, the two most common procedures, almost since their outset and are convinced they're safe for military members in most career fields. PRK involves correcting vision by using a laser to remove surface corneal tissue. In LASIK, the surgeon cuts a flap in the cornea, flips it aside, removes corneal tissue with a laser, and flips the corneal flap back into place. Members do need to be evaluated by a medical board after receiving the now-rare radial keratotomy, RK, the first common vision-correction surgical procedure. RK involved shaping the cornea with spoke-like scalpel cuts that, service medical officials insisted, weakened the eye structure and put members at risk in military operating environments. Service officials outlined the restrictions on their active duty members.

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Live-Fire Returns to Navy Boot Camp: Starting this fall, Navy recruits will learn the basics of firing weapons with live ammunition as part of boot camp at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill. For almost three years, since concerns about lead contamination closed the base's old firearms range, recruits have used a modified M-16 rifle equipped with a laser -- not live ammunition -- to train with firearms. The new training is meant to familiarize recruits with two of the weapons used out in the fleet for ship and shore installation security -- 9 mm pistols and 12-gauge shotguns. Firing live ammo also helps impart the "warrior ethos" to recruits, said Cmdr. Rob Newell, a spokesman at Great Lakes. "It's military, it's serious stuff and you need to instill that in the recruits at boot camp," he said. The command is opening a new $6 million small-arms firing range this fall, said Lt. Perry Suter, the training command's technical training officer.

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U.S. to Station Stealth Bombers in Britain: STEALTH bombers, the most secretive, expensive and feared aircraft in the American air force's arsenal, are to be based in Britain from next year, the first time the planes have ever been on long-term assignment outside America. American contractors have already begun upgrading the RAF base at Fairford, Gloucestershire, to accommodate the aircraft. The arrival of six bombers - worth £8 billion and constituting more than a quarter of America's stealth bomber force - will signal the first permanent increase in America's military presence in Britain since the end of the cold war. Diplomats say the arrival of the planes, which can carry nuclear bombs, is likely to increase tension between Russia and the West. The disclosure also prompted a row inside the Labour party, where many MPs and several ministers retain membership of, or sympathy with, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. One Labour MP complained that "America wants to use us as a floating aircraft carrier again".

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Air Force Renews Demand for Repayment from Gay Officer: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The U.S. Air Force has asked a federal judge to throw out a first-of-its-kind lawsuit by a gay officer discharged under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and renewed its demand that he pay back more than $70,000 the Air Force spent to send him to medical school. Air Force attorneys maintain that John Hensala, a former captain-turned-psychiatrist, deliberately timed his announcement to get out of his four-year military commitment and insist he is obligated under Air Force code to reimburse the government for his education. Hensala argued in his May 18 complaint that the Air Force could not recoup the funds because he had indicated he wanted to fulfill his four years of active duty after disclosing his homosexuality, but he was denied the opportunity.

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Corps Relieves D.C. Commander in Midst of Ecstacy Investigation: Amid investigations into allegations that Marines at the historic Marine Corps Barracks in Washington, D.C., have been distributing and using the drug ecstasy, the commanding officer of the barracks installation was removed July 10. Marines officials said the ecstasy investigation is not related to Col. G. Kevin Brickhouse's removal. "We're aware of the investigation, and while it's something we're not pleased about, it has no relationship to the reassignment of Colonel Brickhouse," spokesman Maj. Patrick Gibbons told The Washington Post. In its July 14 issue, the Post reported that Brickhouse was personally relieved of command by Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Jones, who lives at the barracks at Eighth and I streets in southeast Washington, D.C. The removal was revealed July 13. Officials said the decision was not based on any misconduct by the colonel.

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Hundreds of Ex-Military Offered Back Pay: Several hundred former airmen discharged from the Air Force for drug use in the early 1980s can collect up to $7,500 each in back pay because their drug tests were faulty. The former members have until June 2002 to file claims according to an agreement settling a class-action lawsuit against the Air Force. The problems stem from a 1983 military investigation that revealed problems with urinalysis tests done jointly for the Army and Air Force at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, from April 1992 to November 1983. Investigators reviewed more than 30,000 test results and set aside thousands of positive findings because they weren't considered legally sound. In all, 907 Air Force tests and about 7,000 Army tests were drawn into question. Separately, about 4,300 Navy tests also were determined to be suspect. But while the Army and Navy quickly offered back pay and re-entry to affected veterans, the Air Force did not, according to David F. Addlestone, a lawyer with the National Veterans Legal Service Program. The Air Force "only told people they could apply to the Air Force Discharge Review Board to alter the general or honorable discharge, and the Board for Correction of Military Records, which could have let them back in," he said.

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Colonel gets 5 Months for Laundering Drug Money: NEW YORK -- The former head of the U.S. military's counterdrug operations in Colombia was sentenced to five months behind bars followed by five months' house arrest for laundering cash from his wife's drug deals. In imposing the sentence July 13, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman called Army Col. James C. Hiett, 48, "a traitor to his country." Korman said Hiett's criminal act undermined the public's faith in him as the top anti-drug commander in Colombia and that Hiett -- who was widely expected to only receive probation -- deserved to be punished accordingly.

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Charges Brought Against C-130 Pilot: WASHINGTON -- The Air Force brought charges on Monday against the officer who commanded a C-130E cargo plane during an aborted landing in Kuwait last year in which three U.S. servicemen -- two of whom were from northeast Kansas -- were killed. Charges of dereliction of duty and negligent homicide were brought against Capt. Darron A. Haughn by Brig. Gen. Richard J. Casey, commander of the 43rd Airlift Wing at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., the Air Force announced. The pre-dawn crash Dec. 10, 1999, killed Airman 1st Class Benjamin Travis Hall, 24, of Hiawatha, and Airman 1st Class Warren Willis, 21, of Council Grove. Also killed was Capt. Michael D. Geragosian, of Michigan. Seven of the 86 military personnel on board were injured, two of them critically.

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Army Absolves Officers in Gay Killing: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Army investigation at Fort Campbell, Ky., where a homosexual private was murdered by another soldier last year, has found that no officer should be held responsible and that there was no general atmosphere of homophobia at the base, U.S. defense officials said on Wednesday. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said the Army's inspector general found troublesome anti-homosexual attitudes among some members of the gay victim's Army company in the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell. But Lt. Gen. Michael Ackerman, the inspector general, concluded that the division as a whole did not have any unusual climate against gays and lesbians, the officials said.

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Okinawa Curfew Applies to Civilians & Family Members: At first, the Okinawa islandwide curfew and alcohol restriction applied only to Marines. Then service commanders agreed July 10 to extend the restrictions to all the island's 25,000 service members, a similar number of family members and government civilian workers. The Air Force curfew requires that Kadena airmen and civilians be on base or at their off-base homes from midnight to 5 a.m. The only formal exceptions are for people traveling to or from work and then they must be in uniform. Kadena spokesman Lt. Col. Brian Hoey said the base will try to assist people who need to be off Kadena past midnight for valid reasons, such as picking up a relative arriving on a late flight into Okinawa. Kadena's base clubs must stop selling alcohol at midnight, and after midnight the clubs can serve nothing stronger than caffeine. The ban continues until 10:30 a.m. The alcohol restriction doesn't extend into airmen's residences, Hoey said. A couple sharing a bottle of wine at home can keep drinking even after the clock strikes midnight. But Marines and sailors on Okinawa are barred from drinking alcohol anywhere at anytime through July 24, even in their homes and quarters. Also, Marines and sailors are required to be in uniform when at work or in public view.

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Around and About:

The Perfect University. Free tuition, free books, free room & board.

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New Subject Area! -- Military Weapons

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Private Military Schools

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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).

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MILITARY HUMOR: During a visit to a military medical clinic, I was sent to the lab to have blood drawn.

The technician there was friendly and mentioned that his mood improved every day because he was due to leave the service in two months.

As he applied the tourniquet on my arm, he told me that taking the blood wouldn't hurt much. Then, noticing my Navy T-shirt he asked me what my husband did.

When I replied that he was a recruiter, the technician smiled slyly and said, "This might hurt a little more than I thought."

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