Not a Million Moms, Just Multi-Million Dollar Media

May 24, 2000 by: Phyllis Schlafly

The Million Mom March was not a grassroots uprising of mothers
but
a slick media event orchestrated by Bill Clinton's public
relations
experts and led by a sister-in-law of a close friend of Hillary
Clinton.
That the campaign was contrived was evident in the cozy meeting
with the President, the extravagant television coverage and
multi-page color "ads" disguised as "news" in national
magazines,
and the distribution of color brochures in airports.

The march was advertised as growing out of mothers' outrage at
the
large number of children who are killed by guns. But Professor
John
Lott Jr., senior research scholar at the Yale University Law
School
and author of "More Guns, Less Crime," has exposed the blatant
lies
in the statistics bandied about by the President and the press,
such
as the lie that 12 children a day die from guns.

Most of the "children" in the statistics on kids killed by
gunfire are
17-, 18- and 19-year-olds killed in gang or drug wars in
high-crime
urban areas. It is unrealistic to think that trigger locks or
waiting
periods would have any effect in stopping those homicides.

The Centers for Disease Control could identify only 21 children
under
age 15 dying from accidental handgun deaths in 1996. But 40
children under the age of five drown in water buckets every year
and
another 80 drown in bathtubs.

Are we going to demand that water buckets and bathtubs be locked
up and fitted with safety catches? The risk of a child drowning
in a
swimming pool is 100 times greater than the risk of dying from a
firearm-related accident.

The Columbine killers violated at least 17 state and federal
gun-
control laws among the 20,000 gun-control laws on the books
today.
Does anyone think that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would not
have
known how to unlock their guns, or that a waiting period would
have
made a difference in the murders they planned months in advance?

Another Clinton argument for more gun control is the alleged
increase
in what are called "rampage killings." But Professor Lott, who
did a
couple of thousand hours of research on this issue, found that
there
has been no upward national trend in such killings since the
mid-1970s.

The only policy that effectively reduces public shootings is
right-to-carry laws. In the 31 states that passed right-to-carry
laws,
the number of multiple-victim public shootings has dropped
dramatically.

Those who are looking for the cause of murders committed by very
young boys should listen to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of
"Stop
Teaching Our Kids to Kill," who believes that some children are
taught the desire and the skill to kill by violent video games.
The
killers at Columbine High School reenacted the methods of
killing
they had learned from the video game called "Doom."

How did 14-year-old Michael Carneal of Paducah, Kentucky, who
had
never before shot a real gun, have the skill to walk into a
school in
December 1997, fire eight shots and hit eight kids, all in the
head or
upper torso? Colonel Grossman says the answer is in the violent
video games kids play.

The sheer number of guns and gun owners in America makes gun
control far more unrealistic than Prohibition. At least 80
million
Americans own 250 million guns, and most of them obviously
handle
their guns responsibly or we would have lots more accidents.

The marching moms say they want handguns registered and
handgun owners licensed similarly to what is required for
automobiles. But registering cars doesn't make kids any safer,
and
many other methods are obviously better at improving safety,
such
as safety instruction itself.

Using automobiles as an analogy boxes the marching moms into a
corner, anyway, because it invites us to demand gun safety
courses
in schools like drivers ed. Schools were a lot safer prior to
the 1970s,
when many public schools had shooting clubs and high school
students carried their unloaded guns to school and competed in
shooting contests.

It's time for Americans to separate truth from propaganda in
news
coverage about guns. Under the principle that "if it bleeds it
leads,"
television redundantly reports on guns used to kill, but censors
out
the four times as many incidents of successful defensive use of
guns
to disarm criminals and protect law-abiding citizens from
becoming
victims.

Research shows that crime is reduced by putting guns in the
hands
of law-abiding citizens. Even those who do not own a gun are
safer
because the criminal fears that his next victim might have the
power
to defend himself.

Phyllis Schlafly
column 5-24-00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Online version of this column:
http://eagleforum.org/column/2000/may00/00-05-24.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eagle Forum http://www.eagleforum.org

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From:
"T.N. Tanney" <ArlingtonRidge@worldnet.att.net> Save Address - Block Sender
To:
tnt7115@worldnet.att.net Save Address
Subject:
Memorial Day 2000
Date:
Fri, 26 May 2000 19:30:09 -0400

Reply
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TO: ALL MARINES
***********************
I constantly receive many thoughtful messages from all around the world. On this Memorial Day
weekend, I wish to share three of the most meaningful ones with you. Although brief, they each speak
volumes in their own right.

Please have a safe holiday and remember all of those who have fallen in order that we may live to
enjoy the many freedoms that we too often take for granted.

Semper Fidelis and may God bless,

Tom Tanney

***************
From Col. John Ripley, Navy Cross Recipient for heroism at the bridge at Dong Ha:

Tom-

Have a good holiday, and on Memorial Day remember, as I know you will, the
wonderful Americans who gave the entire meaning to the day -- your brother
among them, and mine as well. God bless them all. And as I heard President
Regan say at the Memorial Day internment of the Vietnam Unknown, now over 20
yrs ago "...may He cradle them in His loving arms", and God knows they have
earned it.

Semper Fi, Col Ripley
John W. Ripley
Col. J.W. Ripley USMC (ret.)
Director
History & Museums Division
**************************************
From Steve Schady, USNMCB 9, III MAF, I Corps 65-66:

Tom,

I just sent the following to a well-meaning but terribly misguided soul
who wished me a "happy" Memorial Day:

"Memorial Day is NOT a happy day! Memorial Day is a day to remember the
blood shed in defense of this nation. To myself and several million
other combat veterans, it is the day we recall the faces of our dead
comrades. We remember too much. We remember the whistle and "krump" of
incoming. We remember the VERY distinctive sound of an AK-47. We
remember the shouts and screams of the wounded. We remember our dead
buddies. And always we remember the blood. Memorial Day is not a happy
day. Please don't wish anyone a "happy" Memorial Day. It's not that
kind of holiday."
Take it easy,

Steve Schady
***************************************
From Rick Sapien, 3rd Bn, 26th Marines, Kilo company:

Tom-

A friend of mine passed this web link on to me. With Memorial Day
coming this weekend please pass this on to other friends.
They Will Not Be Forgotten,
Rick

http://www.lovethissite.com/memorial

*******************************************

(Via Milinet)

The 'eathen

By Kipling


The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone;

'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own;

'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about,

An' then comes up the Regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out.


All along o' dirtiness, all along o' mess,

All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less,

All along of abby-nay, kul, an' hazar-ho,

Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so!


The young recruit is 'aughty -- 'e draf's from Gawd knows where;

They bid 'im show 'is stockin's an' lay 'is mattress square;

'E calls it bloomin' nonsense -- 'e doesn't know, no more --

An' then up comes 'is Company an'kicks'im round the floor!


The young recruit is 'ammered -- 'e takes it very hard;

'E 'angs 'is 'ead an' mutters -- 'e sulks about the yard;

'E talks o' "cruel tyrants" which 'e'll swing for by-an'-by,

An' the others 'ears an' mocks 'im, an' the boy goes orf to cry.


The young recruit is silly -- 'e thinks o' suicide.

'E's lost 'is gutter-devil; 'e 'asn't got 'is pride;

But day by day they kicks 'im, which 'elps 'im on a bit,

Till 'e finds 'isself one mornin' with a full an' proper kit.


Gettin' clear o' dirtiness, gettin' done with mess,

Gettin' shut o' doin' things rather-more-or-less;

Not so fond of abby-nay, kul, nor hazar-ho,

Learns to keep 'is ripe an "isself jus'so!


The young recruit is 'appy -- 'e throws a chest to suit;

You see 'im grow mustaches; you 'ear 'im slap' is boot.

'E learns to drop the "bloodies" from every word 'e slings,

An 'e shows an 'ealthy brisket when 'e strips for bars an'
rings.


The cruel-tyrant-sergeants they watch 'im 'arf a year;

They watch 'im with 'is comrades, they watch 'im with 'is beer;

They watch 'im with the women at the regimental dance,

And the cruel-tyrant-sergeants send 'is name along for "Lance."


An' now 'e's 'arf o' nothin', an' all a private yet,

'Is room they up an' rags 'im to see what they will get.

They rags 'im low an' cunnin', each dirty trick they can,

But 'e learns to sweat 'is temper an 'e learns to sweat 'is man.


An', last, a Colour-Sergeant, as such to be obeyed,

'E schools 'is men at cricket, 'e tells 'em on parade,

They sees 'im quick an 'andy, uncommon set an' smart,

An' so 'e talks to orficers which 'ave the Core at 'eart.


'E learns to do 'is watchin' without it showin' plain;

'E learns to save a dummy, an' shove 'im straight again;

'E learns to check a ranker that's buyin' leave to shirk;

An 'e learns to malce men like 'im so they'll learn to like
their work.


An' when it comes to marchin' he'll see their socks are right,

An' when it comes: to action 'e shows 'em how to sight.

'E knows their ways of thinkin' and just what's in their mind;

'E knows when they are takin' on an' when they've fell be'ind.


'E knows each talkin' corp'ral that leads a squad astray;

'E feels 'is innards 'eavin', 'is bowels givin' way;

'E sees the blue-white faces all tryin 'ard to grin,

An 'e stands an' waits an' suffers till it's time to cap'em in.


An' now the hugly bullets come peckin' through the dust,

An' no one wants to face 'em, but every beggar must;

So, like a man in irons, which isn't glad to go,

They moves 'em off by companies uncommon stiff an' slow.


Of all 'is five years' schoolin' they don't remember much

Excep' the not retreatin', the step an' keepin' touch.

It looks like teachin' wasted when they duck an' spread an 'op
--

But if 'e 'adn't learned 'em they'd be all about the shop.


An' now it's "'Oo goes backward?" an' now it's "'Oo comes on?"

And now it's "Get the doolies," an' now the Captain's gone;

An' now it's bloody murder, but all the while they 'ear

'Is voice, the same as barrick-drill, a-shepherdin' the rear.


'E's just as sick as they are, 'is 'eart is like to split,

But 'e works 'em, works 'em, works 'em till he feels them take
the bit;

The rest is 'oldin' steady till the watchful bugles play,

An 'e lifts 'em, lifts 'em, lifts 'em through the charge that
wins the day!


The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone --

'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own.

The 'eathen in 'is blindness must end where 'e began

But the backbone of the Army is the Non-commissioned Man!


Keep away from dirtiness -- keep away from mess,

Don't get into doin' things rather-more-or-less!

Let's ha' done with abby-nay, kul, and hazar-ho;

Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so!

nm

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/shortrounds.html

= N E W S R E L E A S E
=
= OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
= (PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
= WASHINGTON, D.C. 20301
=
= PLEASE NOTE DATE
====================================================

No. 288-00
(703)695-0192(media)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 26, 2000
(703)697-5737(public/industry)
TWO NEW SITES EXPAND FEHBP MILITARY RETIREE DEMO
In a move to expand alternative health care options to over-65
military
retirees, the Department of Defense announced today that it
recently expanded
the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP)
demonstration project to
include two new over-65 military retiree demonstration sites.

These additional sites are in the surrounding ZIP code areas of
Coffee
County, Ga., and Adair County, Iowa. They expand one of the
department's
projects to determine the most feasible way to provide health
care for
uniformed services Medicare-eligible beneficiaries and certain
others.
Members of the Military Coalition and the National
Military/Veterans
Alliance, two consortiums of organizations representing TRICARE
beneficiaries, randomly selected "seed" areas for the additional
program
sites in early April.

This congressionally mandated demonstration project allows
certain eligible
uniformed services beneficiaries to enroll in, and receive their
health care
through, a health plan in the FEHBP, the same program used by
civilian
federal employees and retirees. DoD will contribute the
standard government
amount, which is almost three-quarters of the plan's premium.

The expanded demonstration will target about 25,000 eligible
beneficiaries in
each location, increasing to 120,000 the number of beneficiaries
eligible for
the FEHBP demonstration. The Iowa site encompasses the entire
state (except
ZIP code areas in the Offutt Air Force Base's catchment area),
parts of
Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. The
second site
includes parts of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina.

The next enrollment opportunity at all demonstration sites,
including the two
new ones, will begin in November 2000 during the FEHBP's annual
enrollment
open season. Coverage for new participants will begin Jan. 1,
2001, and will
run through Dec. 31, 2002. The U.S. Office of Personnel
Management (OPM)
administers the FEHBP. OPM and DoD jointly administer the
DoD/FEHBP
demonstration project.

"We are attempting to find the best way to care for our senior
beneficiaries," according to Dr. Sue Bailey, assistant secretary
of defense
for Health Affairs. "We understand their belief in the promise
of health
care for life, and we want to try to meet it." Continuing, she
offered,
"These men and women served our country honorably and they
deserve our very
best efforts."

This fall, DoD will mail "The 2001 Guide to Federal Employees
Health Benefits
Plans participating in the DoD/FEHBP Demonstration Project" to
all eligible
persons within the designated ZIP code areas. The guide
contains a list of
participating health plans, benefits, premiums and other
information.

Information will be available in late summer on a series of
meetings about
the project that will be held in the areas of the new
demonstration sites.
Beneficiaries who meet eligibility criteria will receive
notification by
mail. Others may call the DoD/FEHBP Project Call Center
toll-free, 1 (877)
363-3342, for further information.
For a complete list of ZIP code areas to be served by the new
demonstration
sites, and other information about the FEHBP demonstrations,
visit the
Military Health System website: http://www.tricare.osd.mil/fehbp/
http://www.tricare.osd.mil/fehbp/
-END-

NOTE: This is a plain text version of a web page.
If your mail program did not properly format this
information, current News Releases are online at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/#BLUETOPS

http://network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=54364&messageid=955886440

This is resend #3 to ensure mailing to all recipients.

*****************************************************************
SOLDIERS FOR THE TRUTH
"DEFENDING AMERICA NEWSLETTER"

24 May 2000

"When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen."
General George Washington, New York Legislature, 1775

Soldiers For The Truth Foundation, PO Box 63840, Colorado
Springs, CO
80962-3840
HTTP://WWW.SFTT.ORG
*****************************************************************
TABLE OF CONTENTS

SITREP

Hack's Column:
Article 1 -- "Lest We Forget"

"From my Position" -- On the way!"
Article 2 - Readiness Truth - Victim of the Experts

Big Picture:
Article 3 - Memorial Day - Honoring those that have fallen
Article 4 -- Kosovo SITREP - A Rough Week for Battalion XX

"VOICE OF THE GRUNT"
Article 5 -- Lessons in Leadership
Article 6 - No Gun Ri response - No Gun Ri
Article 7 - No Gun Ri response -- Real Combat is not like the
Movies
Article 8 - It's raining Medals once again
Article 9 -- Why are the Ones in Power so forgetful

G.I Humor:
Article 10 -- Learning the Language

Medal of Honor:
Article 11 -- LEE, HUBERT L. Korea 1951
===============================================================
SITREP:

1. Main topics: 1) Memorial Day 2) Too many Military Experts
with clue 3)
Leadership 4) Kosovo

2. WE ALWAYS NEED YOUR HELP! Thanks to all of you who have
responded to our
call to financial arms. We have collected enough money to keep
us
operational for the next 4 months. Hack and I estimate that we
need about
100k to make us an organization with clout. We could EASILY
reach that goal
if every subscriber pitches in $ 30.00. Remember, AUSA alone
has about a 20
million dollar budget and still doesn't get anything done! If
you believe
that we are the organization to speak for the troops, support
us!

3. Methods of Support

Check or Money order: Send to and make payable to: Soldiers
For The Truth
Foundation, PO Box 63840, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3840.
Credit card
donation option via Website should be available by mid-May. Our
site is at
www.sftt.org.

REMINDERS:

Your donation is tax deductible! SFTT is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit
educational
foundation, IRS # 31-1592564.

If you send us an E-MAIL address with your donation we can
immediately mail
you a RECEIPT!!!!

Some of you have sent multiple contributions. Please remind us
when you
submit your donation, so we can send you an annual statement for
tax
purposes.

4. SFTT Website. Please check out our updates, i.e.
objectives, mission
statement, book reports, etc. If you didn't get the complete
newsletter or
only the Short Version (sv), you can find it archived on the
website
http://www.sftt.org.

Until next week let' s make contact - break through -- and
exploit!

R.W. Zimmermann
President SFTT
zimm@sftt.org
===============================================================
ARTICLE 1 - Defending America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Lest We Forget"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By David Hackworth

Another Memorial Day is upon us. Not that it's that big a deal
to most
Americans, who don't seem to understand what this holiday is all
about. But
for combat veterans and their families it's a day of reflection,
a time to
honor fallen comrades.

As the years pass, M-Day's taken on an even more special meaning
for me. Old
pals who back in their young and foolish days were brave mud
soldiers are
checking out faster than I want to count.

Almost every week now I get the word that another brother's
gone. Sometimes
it's a phone call in the middle of the night, a letter or an
obituary piece
I've been sent about a friend I fought alongside.

Each death notice brings pain. Some bring tears. All bring
reflection that
dials up the face of a brother I grew to love a long time ago. A
love born
from terrible strife where we had the searing privilege of
getting to know
each other as few men ever do.

Back then, we thought we were damned to be the chosen few. But
now, so many
years later, we know the truth: It was the defining and most
challenging
period of our lives.

Together, we saw the elephant.

On the battlefield there's no faking it. A guy is either a good
man who'd
die before letting his brothers down or a dud the outfit figures
out how to
unload. You get to join The Brotherhood only if you're trusted,
only because
you've earned the respect of the other elephant hunters.

For me, after the shock wears off from hearing the bad news,
reason sets in:
"Eventually everyone's going out feet first. My old friend just
beat me by a
few ticks."

Next, the process seems to move quickly to the good times shared
and why my
pal was so special and why his memory won't disappear until I
do.

Then I'm ringing a brother, giving him word of the death, and we
start in
with the old "Remember when ..." jazz, retelling all the fun
stuff about our
fallen mate. We never dwell on the horror or go to the dark side
of the
moon. Maybe that's how we keep it together and move on.

Another thought that always comes front and center in my head is
why did
Frank or Billy or Phil die now and not me? This was the question
we all
silently asked ourselves back on the battlefield when a comrade
didn't get
up after a fight. It didn't seem fair then, and it doesn't now.
But whoever
said this crap game called life was fair?

The loved ones of World War II and the Korean vets are hearing
"Taps" played
at funerals at the rate of almost 2,000 a day, and now the
Vietnam vets are
stepping up for their turn at the death plate. The combat-vet
dying business
has become a boom industry and will continue to roar for the
next couple of
decades until the ranks are exhausted.

And by then, M-Day might have morphed further into a meaningless
extended-weekend party no longer even momentarily interrupted by
glimpses of
flags or sound bites from politicians jawing some insincere
patriotic
gobbledygook. Only the still-serving and families and friends of
the
departed will still care about what our warriors went through,
the
sacrifices they made.

Seems like we're almost there now. Liberty and the good life are
so taken
for granted that few folks can be bothered to spend M-Day
remembering --
honoring those who died so we could be free to do our thing. No
one's had to
buy a freedom ticket for a long time, and the living's easy.
Minimum wage,
Social Security, a college degree -- all that good American
stuff -- are
there pretty much for the asking. No price of admission paid. No
respect for
those who did pay. Just gimme gimme gimme.

I'm afraid one of these days soon some fast operator will come
along and try
to change Memorial Day into something else. You know, a name
change due to a
new sponsor.

Hope you'll kill that ignoble idea quick smart and that you'll
visit a
Veterans Home this week and tell those valiant men and women you
haven't
forgotten their sacrifices.
***
The End

Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's
home page. Sign
in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site.
Send mail
to P.O. Box 5210, Greenwich, CT 06831.
© 2000 David H. Hackworth
Distributed by King Features Syndicate Inc.
==================================================
ARTICLE 2 - "From my Position" -- On the way!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Readiness Truth - Victim of the Experts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By R. W. Zimmermann
President SFTT
05/22/00

Our intellectual elite and the military experts without
experience are on a
crusade to convince you that all is well with national defense.

In a recent piece in the Washington Times, Michael O' Hanlon, a
fellow at
the Brookings Institution, acclaimed author and adjunct
professor at
Columbia University, attempts to convince us that under Mr.
Clinton, our
fighting forces have not declined.

Au contraire, with stats directly from the Pentagon's Dreamworks
studios, he
tells us that our fighting forces are in terrific shape. The
proof:
spectacular victories in the Balkans, the successful
"never-ending" war with
Iraq, Somalia, Korea, Taiwan and other ongoing deterrent
missions.

Joseph Goebbels, propaganda spin-Meister under Adolph the
Terrible, couldn't
have done any better than that!

Lets look at some of O' Hanlon's frightening conclusions:

The US is still capable of fighting a two-front war strategy,
(most likely)
against Iraq and North Korea, while maintaining sufficient
forces for all
other nuisance missions.

Whoa!!! O'Hanlon has probably never talked to any brigade
commanders.
Brigades are the building blocks for our combat divisions. He
would have
learned that of the three brigades in each division, maybe ONE
is fully
mission capable and that two of them are normally robbed for
personnel and
equipment to enable the "Ready Brigade" for deployment. It
isn't much
different for the Navy to keep ships in critical operational
areas.

As another reason, he claims that our weapons and equipment are
much better
today. Maybe true but are the humans that are handling and
maintaining the
stuff?

Next, he states that our units are expertly trained and that our
equipment
maintenance readiness is between 70-80% for critical combat
equipment, such
as tanks, planes, choppers etc. That's only slightly down from
the 90% in
recent years and in the Reagan era.

The man seems to have "zero" clue of the corruption in our
readiness
reporting. When a unit reported 90% readiness in recent years,
the true
number was about 75%. Why? Because the efficiency report of a
successful
battalion commander depended on the 90% pass figure. No
Division commander
would have accepted less. If today, we proudly report 70-80%,
the real
readiness number is likely in the 50% range, cause for very
great readiness
concern!

O'Hanlon also claims that we are recovering well from the
recruiting crisis
and he cites our recent successes with pay raises and improved
AD CAMPAIGNS.
He claims our forces today are better educated and qualified
than ever
before.

That pegs the BS-meter at max output! Do you really believe
that spending
more money on fancy commercials will improve recruiting quality?

My experience in the last three years was that to keep up the
numbers (and
recruiting careers), we were scraping the bottom of society's
barrel. We
were trying to buffer our shortfalls with more and more minority
groups.

Pretty soon, if we can't make our forces attractive to our
middle and upper
middle class white male citizens, we will have created a force
that is so
diverse and "standards-deprived" that we won't be able to
preserve the
essential ingredients that make cohesive fighting organizations
- common
national values, language and history.

And by the way, test standards have dropped over the years so
that lower
category recruits won't show as total morons but in the
"availability"
range. In many cases, today's High School Diplomas don't mean as
much as the
ones from ten years ago, and I recall a few Lieutenants from
questionable
colleges who couldn't write a simple field order or successfully
lead a
bunch of ants to a picnic.

Then O'Hanlon talks about the distinguished performance of our
troops in
Somalia. Accepted, our troops on the ground fought well, but
they were
"sold out" by their senior political and military leaders. Once
more, the
analyst forgets the human factor. Bad leaders implement bad
processes, give
bad orders, and make bad tactical decisions.

My conclusion from the grunt level is that all is not so well
but that we
are not in a totally hopeless situation yet. To make candy from
the crap
that we are being served, we must return to the basics and
assemble
information that is as close as possible to the truth.

That ground truth is best obtained from those who would have to
do the
fighting and dying vs. the sleek analysts and fast buck
E-commerce salesmen.
The Democratic biased assessment that we are as ready as ever is
total
nonsense. But the Republican position that more money thrown at
defense
will fix it all is just as flawed.

Zimm

© R.W. Zimmermann, LandserUSA
zimm@sftt.org
============================================================
ARTICLE 3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Memorial Day - Honoring Those that have Fallen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: Another Memorial Day is upon us. Many politicians will
render empty
speeches to honor our troops' sacrifices they personally never
made. Where
the political speeches fail, the simple words of those who
served can stir
the proper thoughts and emotions. The following piece is by a
former old
Guard Officer. The attached poem was written by one of his
soldiers. On the
upcoming Memorial Day, a salute and warm thanks from all of us
to the troops
of the 3rd US Infantry who make sure that duty, honor and
country live on
from the day you don the uniform, to the day you are recalled
from duty on
this planet.
************************************************************************
By Bob Milani
Bob.Milani@spinetech.com

Memorial Day conjures up so many memories of a previous life. A
military
life, a life spent as an infantry officer in command of American
soldiers.
No greater honor exists in this world than to lead the wonderful
men and
women of this blessed country. And no greater honor exists
within the
military, as in command of soldiers providing military honors to
our fallen
comrades. For more than a year I had the privilege of company
command in
the prestigious 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at
Arlington
Cemetery.

Those of you who have visited Arlington Cemetery and the Tomb of
the Unknown
Soldier, know The Old Guard. These are the soldiers who guard
the Tomb and
pay silent tribute to the Unknown Soldier. Each of these Tomb
guard's
movements are executed silently, with precision and grace. Each
of their
movements replicate a higher purpose: That of bestowing honor
on the dead.
Each movement is choreographed to replicate our nation's highest
honor -- a
21-gun salute; each Tomb guard does so with their 21-step
cadence and their
21-second salute.

Many of us remember President Kennedy's funeral at Arlington
Cemetery: A
horse drawn caisson, John-John's salute, the three rifle
volleys, the
mellifluous notes of Taps echoing in the hills of Arlington, and
the folding
and presentation of the flag to Mrs. Kennedy.

The daily life of the average Old Guard Soldier revolves around
providing
military honors at funerals conducted in Arlington. It was not
uncommon for
my company to be assigned more than 10 funerals a day - all of
which were
executed flawlessly.

Each of these soldiers took their job seriously and trained
accordingly.
Whether as part of the casket team, the firing party or the
marching
platoon, each soldier had a role to play and a job to do.
Precision,
timing, teamwork, impeccable appearance, and discipline were the
hallmarks
of The Old Guard soldier. There were no slouches. These
soldiers were the
best the Army had to offer -- they knew it and I knew it.

When these soldiers were not conducting funerals, they were
training to
conduct funerals. No one wanted to make a mistake. The firing
party
strived to have seven men so synchronized that on the command of
"Fire!" the
volley sounded like one big "crack. " The eight-man casket
team's goal was
a good flag fold - a tight tuck with no red showing. All of
these
movements were choreographed with the military band, the caisson
horsemen,
the color guard, the marching platoon, and the bugler. Most of
these
commands were executed without verbal command and on silent cue.
To witness
a funeral at Arlington was to see attention to detail in its
minutest form.

One who participates in these events cannot help but be moved.
Many days I
fought back tears. The days that I was assigned to present the
flag to the
widow of the deceased were the most difficult for me and the
difficulty
usually started at the playing of Taps.

No matter how professional an organization is, motivating a unit
to perform
a repetitive task at a high level of execution is not always
easy. For me,
personalizing the event as much as possible had the necessary
effect of
drawing out the best in my soldiers. Anything I could learn
before the
funeral about the deceased and their family I would pass on to
the soldiers.

Soldiers do not express their emotions easily. I always felt
that I was the
only one struggling to maintain my composure, but I was not.
The following
story really defines The Old Guard and caring attitude
exemplified by its
soldiers:

We were assigned to perform a military funeral for 2nd
Lieutenant William P.
Dever. We were to provide only a headstone marker and military
honors for
this man - 47 years after his death.

Three weeks before being shipped out to England, William Dever
married a
beautiful girl. Six weeks later his plane was shot down over
the English
Channel and he was killed. His body was never recovered.

In that very short time before his deployment to England,
William Dever and
his lovely lady, smitten with young love, had conceived a son.
William
Dever's son was present the day of his father's funeral,
memorializing a
father he never new. He walked next to his mother behind the
horse drawn
caisson. Since there were no remains, the caisson carried only
an empty
casket bearing an American Flag. The funeral was very moving to
me and to
my soldiers as well - more so than I knew at the time.

The day I relinquished command of my company, a soldier
presented me the
following poem about that funeral. It moves me to the point of
tears every
time I read it and takes me back to that hallowed place.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
In Memory of 2nd Lieutenant William Dever
***********************************
"Can you see me?"

I can see you; looking so lost.
The blank stare, the empty expression.

Emotionless you sit - broken, melancholy, I feel your pain . . .
A flag shadows the lawn before a quiet marker standing in silent
representation of a fallen hero; the one you loved . . .

Three sharp cracks that leave your ears ringing.
Taps is lifted up; the melody fills the air; it's tune wretches
the heart,
pulling out memories of happiness lost long ago.
As the notes fade gently to their rest; I can hear the sobs
echoing on the
wind.

I watch you still; as the flag is folded. Mesmerized, I am
unable to look
away.
I watch the strength - the composure, creep it's way back into
your spine.

(Continued)

I watch the strength - the composure, creep it's way back into
your spine.

A salute rendered, the flag presented.
To see you receive the flag, clutching it to you;
Maybe you feel you'll regain one last moment of closeness with
the one you
lost?

I'm still watching you as the crowd slowly departs.
If you look up towards the silent formation on the hill you'll
see me too -
I'm the soldier with the tears in his eyes.

PFC Kevin W. Baker
Charlie Guard, 3rd U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard)
August 1991
==========================================================
ARTICLE 4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kosovo SITREP - A Rough Week for Battalion XX
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: The attached SITREP is an unclassified email now
circulating widely in
Army channels and on Capital Hill. The SITREP covers his
battalion's
activities for the seven days from 4 May thru 10 May 2000.
Maybe the
Senators who voted for an open ended commitment to the Kosovo
"No-Winner"
should read some of these first hand accounts to figure what the
real deal
is. Thanks to our troops, the situation is still stable.BUT they
are
increasingly becoming the TARGETS for both warring parties vs.
the good-guy
peacekeepers we envisioned them to be. Our Army editor removed
all unit
references to prevent making our troops friendly fire/political
targets.
**********************************************************************
Email from Officer X in Battalion XX

The ethnic violence continues to increase. Currently, the
Battalion XX
operations area is the most active in Kosovo. As a result, we
are getting a
lot of "attention" from COMKFOR, Task Force Falcon, and civilian
officials
from Pristina.

We have had almost two weeks of continuous activity.

On 4 May, a Serbian home was bombed. The building had two female
occupants
and a child (the male family member was in Serbia). The
occupants suffered
minor injuries, but the home is not safe to live in.

The next night [May 5], an unoccupied Serbian home in Vitina was
burned.
Naturally, the tension in all of the Serb communities was high.

On 6 May, a 67 year old Serb man was murdered in Klokot while he
was
fishing. Cobra Battery found the body. When the Klokot Serbs
found out, they
began to riot. They began attacking Albanian cars passing
through the town.
They smashed vehicle windows with bricks, pulled the occupants
out of the
cars, and beat them. Soldiers responded quickly, and were able
to save the
lives of many Albanians.

As reinforcements were sent north into Klokot, a column of
wounded and
bloody Albanians (including women and children) were moving
south towards
Vitina. Ten cars were damaged and 13 Albanians were treated by
Battalion XX
medics and transported to a local clinic. After negotiating with
the Serb
leaders, the riots ended around 2300 hours. By midnight, the
Battalion
XX'ers had removed all Serb obstacles from the road (burning
cars, tires,
and wood).

On 7 May, the situation deteriorated further. In Vitina, an
Albanian man
fired an AK-47 at a Serbian family while they were sitting in
their yard.
The attack was probably in retaliation for the attack on the
Albanians in
Klokot yesterday. The gunmen emptied a 30-round magazine at the
family. All
of the family members were hit (a man, woman, and two little
girls).
Thankfully, none of the individuals were killed, although all of
them
suffered serious wounds.

Later that evening, an explosion destroyed a Serbian home in the
town of
Vrbovac. The home was unoccupied, however, the owners had
recently returned
from Serbia and were repairing the home for future occupation.
Within
minutes of the explosion a crowd of about 70 angry Serb males
gathered and
became hostile towards KFOR. Someone in the crowd attempted to
grab the
platoon leader's weapon. He shoved the man back and the
Battalion XX'ers
locked and loaded their weapons as the crowd surged forward. The
crowd
grabbed the Albanian interpreter, but the soldiers reacted
quickly to
prevent him from being injured. After tense negotiations, the
crowd
dispersed back into the town.

The next day [8 May], the Serbians decided to block the roads in
Klokot to
prevent the Albanians from going to work at a bottling plant and
health
facility. When the Albanians showed up for work, the Serbs moved
to attack
them. Soldiers from Cobra Battery moved to interdict them and
protect the
Albanians. The Serbs and the Albanians began throwing rocks at
each other,
with the Battalion XX'ers caught in the middle. The squad leader
ordered his
squad to lock and load, called for the QRF, and fired warning
shots to
regain control of the situation. The word quickly spread through
the
Albanian communities of the situation in Klokot.

Soon, the worst case scenario began to develop: Albanians from
all of the
surrounding towns began to mobilize to march on Klokot. 300
Albanians
attempted to march from Pozaranje in the west, but were stopped
by the UAE
company attached to the Battalion XX'ers. Warning shots were
fired. About
100 Albanians marched on Klokot from Zitinje in the north. They
were stopped
by Battalion XX'ers and MPs. Approximately 150 Albanians marched
on Klokot
from Radivoiche in the east. They were stopped by Delta Company
and another
group of MPs. The largest group of Albanians (600-700) attempted
to march on
Klokot from Vitina in the south. This group was stopped by
soldiers, riot
police, and MP dogs.

Our efforts were greatly assisted by the Kiowas and Apaches
flying overhead.
We always had early warning of where the Albanians were massing
and what
direction they were headed because of the good work done by the
aviators.
Because we had control of the interior lines, we were able to
shift forces
around the sector all day to counter the different crowds. It
was a long and
exhausting day. I was extremely proud of the young Battalion
XX'ers on the
ground. Most of them spent the entire day, moving from location
to location,
to confront angry crowds.

On 10 May, the violence erupted again. An unoccupied Serb home
north of
Grncar was destroyed by a bomb. Bulldog soldiers responded
within minutes
and were immediately attacked by approximately 75 angry Serbs.
The Serbs
were throwing rocks and climbing onto the vehicles. Warning
shots were
fired. One soldier on the vehicle was grabbed by Serbs, but
another soldier
swung the .50 cal around, knocking the Serbs off of the vehicle.

A helicopter appeared on the scene and created an excellent dust
cloud for
the squad to withdraw. Another squad of soldiers that were
responding to the
call for help from the previous squad, also met an angry crowd
of Serbians.

The Battalion XX'ers responded by shoving the crowd back and
butt-stroking
civilians with their weapons. Warning shots were fired (The
first three
rounds in the magazine need to be tracer ammunition. It can be
seen by the
crowd and has a greater effect). During the pause, the squad
leader directed
the M203 gunners to load non-lethal munitions and tossed a CS
grenade. The
CS instantly dispersed the crowd and enabled the squad to link
up with other
forces.

Meanwhile, another group of Serbs attacked the soldiers at the
Vrbovac
church. There were only two soldiers at the church because the
rest of the
squad moved from the church to assist other soldiers involved in
a
confrontation down the road. Other forces rushed to link up with
the two
soldiers, but for a short period of time, they defended their
position by
themselves.

Once again, a helicopter appeared on the scene and assisted the
soldiers by
kicking up a lot of dust and obscuring the vision of the
Serbians. Another
CS grenade was used in the defense of the church and dispersed
the crowd
until reinforcements arrived. In the end, three Battalion XX'ers
were
injured, however, only one was evacuated to the Battalion Aid
Station. The
soldier received a small wound to his face that required four
stitches to
close up.

In hindsight, it appears that the entire event might have been
staged by the
Serbs, including the bombing of the abandoned home. I cannot go
into the
evidence/justification in this unclassified e-mail. Suffice it
to say, the
Serbs knew we had intended to occupy the abandoned house that
night with an
OP. The squad that was supposed to occupy the position was late.
If our
assessment and TF Falcon's assessment is correct, the Serbs were
attempting
to kill American soldiers, blame the Albanians, and change the
rules of the
game.

(Continued)

If our
assessment and TF Falcon's assessment is correct, the Serbs were
attempting
to kill American soldiers, blame the Albanians, and change the
rules of the
game.

Last night, another Serbian home was burned in Klokot. A crowd
of about 30
males gathered, but did not become violent. Surprisingly, they
were all
sober. So far today, it has been quiet. The Task Force is
resting, and
preparing for another eventful night.

That is all of the news from Kosovo. It is going to be a long,
hot summer.
Rest assured that the Battalion XX'ers are up to the task. We
are learning
some tough lessons, but we are getting better at this business
everyday.
===============================================================
ARTICLE 5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lessons in Leadership
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: After serving on four subs and an outstanding track record
of over 18 ˝
years, this old hand was torpedoed by his own during his last
assignment.
Maybe his Navy had changed and it was time to call it quits!
************************************************************************
Clinton C. Owen ETC(SS), USN, Retired

I have never considered myself to be a great leader, not even a
very good
one. But the Navy seemed to think otherwise. In 18˝ years,I had
received a
Navy Commendation Medal, Four Navy Achievement Medals, and
enough
certificates and letters to paper my den, if I went in for that
sort of
thing. So, what happened at my last command, where I received
four Letters
of Instruction, got relieved of my duties, and nearly got
disqualified from
nuclear power? Was it me that changed, or was it the US Navy?

I reported aboard in February 1998, at the beginning of a
mini-overhaul. I
knew that I was supposed to get re-qualified on all of my
watches in six
months, a nearly impossible task without any sea time. I hit the
books,
relying on my excellent ET1 to keep the division running.

Four months later, it was time to start up and test the reactor,
my first
time on this ship and propulsion plant. During the pre-check
procedure, the
two operators rushed a bit, and one entry was missed (in 120
pages!) The
Engineering Duty Officer caught the mistake and we did the job
again. My
first Letter of Instruction (LOI) was for failing to prevent
that single
admin mistake.

By August 1998, I felt ready for my first watch qualification,
Reactor
Technician (RT). What did I get when I asked the engineer for an
interview?
LOI #2, of course, for failure to qualify within six months!
Serious
concerns about my lack of progress had been a well kept secret,
from me and
from my division officer, who had no idea the LOI was coming
either. I was
warned that I could be disqualified from nuclear power. I got
qualified RT
on the second interview.

In October 1998 I had my first Reactor Operator (RO)
qualification board. I
think that I would have passed that board at any of my previous
commands,
but the CO and the Engineer thought that I was too hesitant and
unsure of
myself. Instead of getting qualified RO, I got LOI #3.

I arranged to go out to sea on another boat of the same. Five
days underway
studying, standing training watches and observing casualty
drills
effectively doubled my operational experience on that reactor
plant! A week
later I passed my board, even though I answered the questions in
essentially
the same way as before. I was qualified Reactor Operator, eight
months after
reporting aboard, with 10 days at sea! My last hurdle would be
Engineering
Watch Supervisor (EWS).

We got underway for a 70-day patrol, with a major inspection at
the end. I
stood watch with every qualified EWS and Engineering Officer of
the Watch as
often as I could. I took each one around the engine room and got
them to ask
me every question they could think of, practical and off the
wall. Each one
said that he would be happy to have me in his section. Of
course, I failed
my first EWS board. They still didn't like my "style." At least
they skipped
the LOI this time! Two weeks later I had another go, and managed
to squeak
through, magically transformed. Fully qualified, in only 9
months! It was
November 30th.

I got assigned to the mid-watch, midnight to 6 AM, every day. I
didn't mind.
That is part of the job and someone has to do it. I usually got
my sleep on
the evening watch, five to eleven PM, because of drills and
meetings
throughout the day. We settled into a normal routine.

On December 26, once again without any kind of warning, I was
called to the
CO's stateroom for another leadership lesson. I was astonished
to discover
that I was being relieved of my duties as LPO, in favor of my
senior ET1. It
was all laid out in LOI #4. I had not been performing or
supervising enough
maintenance (routinely done on the evening watch, my only chance
to sleep).
They were concerned that I would not make a good showing for the
inspection,
at the time about two weeks off.

There is a happy ending to this sordid tale. I got reinstated as
LPO during
the next offcrew cycle (after the inspectors were safely out of
site). At my
retirement ceremony I received Navy Achievement Medal #5, and
the Captain
gave a glowing speech about my contributions to the command, the
submarine
force, and to the nation. I guess all that leadership must have
paid off.
===============================================================
ARTICLEs 6 & 7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reader Responses - No Gun Ri
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: I received many responses on the topic. Some told us that
No Gun Ri
was a press-manufactured event as expressed in the recent
Newsweek article.
But.a great number of Korean War vets said that No Gun Ri could
have
happened, even more than once. Some point to an air attack gone
bad which
stirred civilian movement in the midst of a North Korean attack.
Add the
high number of green troops and disaster is possible. Maybe
we'll never
know. The bottom line remains: War is Hell and fought by humans
who have
the ability to make it even worse. America remains the greatest
nation on
earth because most of us have no fear of the truth.
***********************************************************************
By Paul Viscovich, Jr., CDR, USN

Thanks for your remarks on the alleged massacre at No Gun Ri,
1950, which
you wrote in the 17 MAY 2000 edition of Soldiers for the Truth.
Your's are
the most intelligent remarks I have seen on this subject and
they are
applicable to all U.S. conflicts going back to the Revolutionary
War.

It is easy and cheap for armchair philosophers to sit back and
second guess
decisions made under conditions which they shrink from enduring
themselves,
but as General Sherman noted, "War is all hell."

So if in the grand Judeo-Christian scheme of things, we may have
made some
mistakes in war fighting, I would still challenge anyone to show
us a
country in any war whose victorious military has exhibited
greater restraint
and compassion under fire than has that of the United States ...
and without
the benefit of "consideration of others" training!
==============================================================
ARTICLE 7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No Gun Ri response -- Real Combat is not like the Movies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed: A combat soldier speaks out. Self-preservation is an
essential element
in every firefight.
************************************************************************
Ralph W.
Texas
Retired Special Forces

I arrived in Korea 9 July 1950, and I damned sure shot where the
bullets
were coming from and they were not all wearing uniforms. I
really didn't
give a rats ass then nor did I give a rats ass for the total of
the five
years spent in combat zones during my 22 years in The Military.

That's why I'm still alive, 69 years old and have a seven year
old son.
Great, great column.
==============================================================
ARTICLE 8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's raining Medals once again
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: In response to the recent announcement of 21 WWII Medals of
Honor to
Asian Americans.You could probably add Hack to the list. Food
for thought!
*********************************************************************
By Mohawk

How about Medals of Honor for the following:
"Chesty" Puller (5 Navy Crosses).

Victor "Transport" Maghakian, Navy Cross (punched out an officer
who wanted
to surrender--MOH down-graded to Navy Cross -- 2 Silver Stars,
Bronze Star,
2 0r 3 Purple Hearts. Aren't Armenians minorities?

And why not "Teddy" Roosevelt, and many, many others?
==============================================================
ARTICLE 9
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why are the ones in power so forgetful?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: A German WWII veteran and close friend of one of our
editors, comments
on the American soldier and why he deserves care and compassion.
Simple but
truthful words.
************************************************************************
By Gerhard Bluemlein

I am sorry for what has happened to your veterans. They (the
politicians)
have forsaken you, sold you down the river. They forgot that
you, all of you
American soldiers, saved them from Kaiser Wilhelm for, if he
would have won
WWI, Europe, Mid-East and Africa would have been Great Germany
(The
Fatherland of Mankind).

They forgot that you, all of you American soldiers, saved them
from Hitler
for, if he would have won WWII, together with Mussolini and
Hirohito, the
world would have been a dictatorial power and millions would
have
disappeared in concentration camps, starving to death or being
eliminated by
fast killing death machines.

They forgot that you, all of you American soldiers, saved them
from Stalin,
Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Castro, Saddam Hussein, for the world would
have been
enslaved to the whims of the conquerors.

They forgot that you, all of you American soldiers, helped them
to be in the
position they are in now, in a free Nation, indivisible and a
home for all,
regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sex or
handicap.

And most of all, they forgot that you, all of you American
soldiers, saved
them from being the ones in labor- or concentration camps.
===============================================================
ARTICLE 11
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GI HUMOR - Learning the Language
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: Transitioning out of uniform or retiring soon? Help is
here. When
you're reading the Classifieds, this is what job ads "really"
mean. From
Tig Dupre's trick box.
***********************************************************************
"Competitive Salary"
We remain competitive by paying you less than our competition.

"Join our fast-paced company"
We have no time to train you.

"Casual work atmosphere"
We don't pay enough to expect that you will dress up; a couple
of the real
daring guys wear earrings.

"Some overtime required"
Some every night and some every weekend.

"Duties will vary"
Anyone in the office can boss you around.

"Must have an eye for detail"
We have no quality assurance.

"Career-minded"
Female applicants must be childless (and remain that way).

"Apply in person"
If you're old, fat or ugly you'll be told that the position has
been filled.

"Seeking candidates with a wide variety of experience"
You'll need it to replace the three people who just quit.

"Problem-solving skills a must"
You're walking into perpetual chaos.

"Requires team leadership skills"
You'll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay
or respect.

"Good communication skills"
Management communicates, you listen, figure out what they want
and do it.
===============================================================
ARTICLE 12 - MEDAL OF HONOR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed.: Korea 1951. Close in combat of the toughest kind.
Another reason to
be proud of our troops who turned certain disaster into tactical
victories.
If you would like more info on MOH recipients and their stories,
please
email James H at bulldogleader@mindspring.com.
*********************************************************************
LEE, HUBERT L.

Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company I,
23d Infantry
Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Ip-ori,
Korea, 1
February 1951. Entered service at: Leland, Miss. Born: 2
February 1915,
Arburg, Mo. G.O. No.: 21, 5 February 1952.

Citation: M/Sgt. Lee, a member of Company I, distinguished
himself by
conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call
of duty in
action against the enemy. When his platoon was forced from its
position by a
numerically superior enemy force, and his platoon leader
wounded, M/Sgt. Lee
assumed command, regrouped the remnants of his unit, and led
them in
repeated assaults to regain the position. Within 25 yards of his
objective
he received a leg wound from grenade fragments, but refused
assistance and
continued the attack. Although forced to withdraw 5 times, each
time he
regrouped his remaining men and renewed the assault. Moving
forward at the
head of his small group in the fifth attempt, he was struck by
an exploding
grenade, knocked to the ground, and seriously wounded in both
legs. Still
refusing assistance, he advanced by crawling, rising to his
knees to fire,
and urging his men to follow. While thus directing the final
assault he was
wounded a third time, by small-arms fire. Persistently
continuing to crawl
forward, he directed his men in a final and successful attack
which regained
the vital objective.

His intrepid leadership and determination led to the destruction
of 83 of
the enemy and withdrawal of the remainder, and was a vital
factor in
stopping the enemy attack. M/Sgt. Lee's indomitable courage,
consummate
valor, and outstanding leadership reflect the highest credit
upon himself
and are in keeping with the finest traditions of the infantry
and the U.S.
Army.
==============================================================
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EDITOR'S NOTE:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Article Submissions: as a rule of thumb, please try to keep
article for
possible publication to 750 words or less. Please make every
editing effort
not to exceed these guidelines and SUBMIT IN WORD FORMAT, if
possible!

What we're into is getting the word to as many citizens as
possible about
what is causing our military machine to fly like a B17 with 3
engines on
fire (and that plane still flew!).

Watch your flanks - the bad guys are still out there!!!
R.W. Zimmermann
zimm@sftt.org
=============================================
GLOSSARY OF MILITARY ACRONYMS:
We've had numerous requests from troops in different branches of
the
military to establish this link so that we will all know how
"all you
others" talk that talk. Please see below:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/acronym_index.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
***** BOOK SALES *****
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hack's books About Face*, Hazardous Duty*, The Price of Honor*
and The
Vietnam Primer can be found at www.hackworth.com. They make a
great addition
to any library. We are offering them at special SFTT price.
====================================================
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Defending America Newsletter: Administrative Volunteers:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R.W. Zimmermann, Chief Editor, President of SFTT, Mine Detector
and "Gunner"
David H. Hackworth, Spirit Guide, and undisputed Y2K Expert
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Kate Aspy, Contributing Editor and Oracle
Barry "Woody" Groton, Chief TECH DROID and Medicine Man
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Hansachs@bc.seflin.org
Kyle Elliott, Book List Editor and Most Over-worked
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===================================================
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It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle: Carry on! Carry on!

There isn't much punch in your blow.
You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind. Carry on! Carry on!

You haven't the ghost of a show.
It's looking like death, but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing;
The man who can fight to Heaven's own height
Is the man who can fight when he's losing.
Carry on! Carry on!

Things never were looming so black.
But show that you haven't a cowardly streak,
And though you're unlucky you never are weak.
Carry on! Carry on!

Brace up for another attack.
It's looking like hell, but -- you never can tell:
Carry on, old man! Carry on!

There are some who drift out in the deserts of doubt,
And some who in brutishness wallow;
There are others, I know, who in piety go
Because of a Heaven to follow.
But to labour with zest, and to give of your best,
For the sweetness and joy of the giving;
To help folks along with a hand and a song;
Why, there's the real sunshine of living.
Carry on! Carry on!

Fight the good fight and true;
Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;
There's big work to do, and that's why you are here.
Carry on! Carry on!

Let the world be the better for you;
And at last when you die, let this be your cry:
CARRY ON, MY SOUL! CARRY ON!

Robert Service
One of a group of poems dedicated to his
brother who died with Canadian forces in
WWI - 1916

Author: Rudyard Kipling

Tommy


I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."

The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";

But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to
play,

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.


I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;

They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,

But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the
stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";

But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the
tide,

The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the
tide,

O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the
tide.


Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;

An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer
soul?"

But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.


We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",

But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in
the wind,

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the
wind,

O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in
the wind.


You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:

We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the
brute!"

But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;

An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Subject:
e-Nuclear Veterans News
Date:
Fri, 26 May 2000 07:36:49 -0600

e-Nuclear Veterans News
“Published periodically to send as e-mail from Albuquerque, New
Mexico to
furnish information on pending legislation and other information
of
relative mterest to Nuclear Exposed Veterans and Others.
Vol. 00, Issue 11. 2000
Visit our WEB Site at: http.//www
angelfire.com/txfatomicvderan/email2
html


We have been asked why we do not send attachments to this
Newsletter.
Some of you received the first issue which had graphics,
outlines, etc.
Several replied that could not receive e-mail attachments or
graphics (or
do not accept attachments to e-mail for several reasons). We
searched for
an acceptable answer. The way the construction is done now takes
over
twice as long to setup. We have received no complaints, so feel
it is
worth the effort. The important factor is to get the info out to
as many
as possible.

On Wednesday evening (5/17) there was an article on CNN Headline
news,
and on CBS evening news with Dan Rather on 5/18, regarding the
flyover
several Navy Ships which released a spray, “Test Substitue’ of
Anthrax
without prior notice to the “troops.” The Substitute and the
sray
received from same would not have an effect on them. Where have
we heard
this before? Now several of them have physical problems which
also are
not recognized by the Government, VA or Other. We are
researching more
info on this subject and would like to invite those persons
involved to
join our group.

How many out there have contacted your Congressional Delegation
(also,
State Governors) asking them to support July 16 as a “National
Day of
Rembrance for Atomic Veterans?” July 16 is the date of the first
Atom
Bomb Test conducted at Trinity Site, White Sands Proving
Grounds, NM.
Only you can make this happen.

AS WE PREPARE for Memorial Day Remembrance and Honor Our Fallen
Comrades,
Atomic Veterans receive another (continuing) “Slap in the Face”
as
follows:

from Albuquerque Journal 05/25/00
House To Take On Miner Reparation
*Bill would increase government payments up to $100,000 to
miners
sickened by above-ground nuclear tests
By MATT KELLEY, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - More former uranium miners and Westerners sickened
by
above-ground nuclear tests could get government payments of up
to
$100,000 each under a mea­sure sent to the full House Wednesday.

The House Judiciary Committee endorsed a Senate-passed bill that
would
expand the list of cancers and other diseases that make former
miners or
nuclear test “downwinders” eligible for compensation under a
1990 law.
The mea­sure also would add open pit uranium miners and uranium
mill
workers to those who can seek the payments, and adds five states
to the
list of six states where such workers are eligi­ble.

The bill, as well as the 1990 law, provides “much-deserved
compensation
for the people who provided this country with uranium when we
needed it
most,” said Utah Republican Rep. Chris Cannon, whose district
includes
many of those eligible for compensation.

The law was meant to help Westerners who became ill because of
their
involvement in Cold War nuclear weapons production. Much of the
uranium
used in nuclear weapons was mined in the Four Corners area of
Arizona,
New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, and aboveground nuclear tests
were
detonated in New Mexico and Nevada.

­Critics of the 1990 law are seeking the changes, saying the
original law
was too nar­row and too many people with legitimate. ******

Picture at this point with Capitol in background and following
standing
in front of.
SEEKING AMENDS: Sarah Harvey Benally of Dolores, Cob., far
right, and
fellow Navajo uranium workers lobbied Congress in April to
increase
compensation to radiation-exposed, cancer-stricken workers. The
bill was
sent to the House on Wednesday after being passed by a House
committee
and the Senate. ******

claims are being denied. As of March 1, the Justice Department
had paid
3,302 claims worth $244 million and denied another 3,500 claims.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposed
changes would
cost $1 billion during the next two decades. ******
Insert
The bill, as well as the 1990 law, provides “much
-deservedcompensation
for the people provided this country with uranium when we needed
it
most.”
UTAH REPUBLICAN - CHRIS CANNON
******
Among other things, the bill would extend eligibility to uranium
workers
from Soth Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon and Texas. The law
covers
Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and
Washington
state.
Other specific changes in the bill include:
• Adding leukemia and cancers of lung, thyroid, brain, kidney,
esophagus
and stomach to the list of cancers that make miners eligible for
compensation. Kidney disease and two lung ailments also would be
added to
the the list. For downwinders - people who lived in Nevada,
Utah and
Arizona most afffected by nuclear fallout from tests - the added
cancers
include leukemia and those of the brain, bladder, colon, ovaries
and
salivary gland
• Eliminating provisions that give less money to downwinders or
miners
who ssmoked.
• Cutting the amount of time an elilble miner had to work in
uranium
mines fron age of just under 20 years to less than four years.
• Requiring the Justice Department to take :
American Indian law and custom into account when processing
applications.
Navaj~ have complained that widows of dead miners have been
denied
compensation because they were married in traditional Indian
cerimonies
and don’t have marriage certificates.

Note: The Portland Press Herald is Published in Portland, Maine.
Norway
is a Town in Maine some 35 miles north of Portland.
Forum - MAINE VOICES - Portland Press Herald, Thursday, November
6, 1997

NUCLEAR HAZARDS - Mainer's Studies Revealing
• Research on atomic veterans shows higher disease, death rates.

By ROBERT L Campbell [About the Author: Robert L. Campbell of
Norway is
director of mortality studies for the Atomic Veterans Radiation
Research
Institute]

NORWAY - Those who cast doubt on the hazards of nuclear power
and
environmental radiation unfortunately overlook data that make
debateable
the conclusion that in the scheme of things, mining coal and
drilling foi
oil are far more hazardous, and that radiation expo­sure may
possess
beneficial effects.

One shortcoming reprinted earlier thIs year In this newspaper is
reliance
on yet unsubstantiated find­ings that low.level ionizing
radiation is
somehow less harmful than large doses. That account cited
findings by the
Radiation Effects Research Foundation In Hiroshima which found
"324
excess deaths from solid-tissue cancers in excess of what would
be
expected...and a smaller number of leukemias.”

Unfortunately, Nagasaki/Hiro­shima data were skewed from the
beginning.
As social scientist Sue Babbitt Roff revealed in her book “Hot
Spots,”
the American team sent to the two cities to measure radla­lion
was still
1,500 miles away on the island of Tinian, when they read the
“results” of
their study in Stars and Stripes. the military newspaper!

Annette Flanagan, R. N., MS., edi­tor of the annual radiation
Issue of
the Journal of the American Medical Association, stated that
Hiroshima/
Nagasaki data are not "generaliz­able.” In short, radiation
exposure data
from the August 1945 bombings cannot be used as a benchmark for
radiation
exposure.

MISSING from this entire debate is mortality data of American
and British
atomic veterans, who, according to their respective governments,
received
negligible amounts of radiation exposure.

In 1994. I published the first non-government study of the
mortalitv of
American atomic veterans (members of the military exposed to
radiation
during atom-bomb testing during the 1940s and 1950s) and found
an average
age at death -from all causes - of 58.47 years.

A year later, my study was expanded to include British veterans.
Their
average age at death, again frpm all causes, was 53.85 years! In
1995,
the Veterans Administration published its study of participants
in 1958
Pacific tests and found an average age at death of 51 years from
all
causes!

IN 1996 Institute of Medi­cine, part of the National Academy of
Sciences,
released Its study of Operation Crossroad (BikinI, 1946).
finding an
average age at death of 58. StudyIng death certificates of
clvi­lian
employees of the Nevada Test Site, I found an average age at
death from
all causes of 60.

The cancer death rate for Ameri­can and British veterans was 75
percent
and.73.3 percent respec­tively. As is readily apparent, these
average
ages at death are far below the average age at death for the
general
population.

While the IOM officially recog­nized my 1994 report, it believed
the
cancer death rates were too high. To balance the record, my
work is an
on-going project.

The missing element In this debate is: If low-level radiation Is
not
harmful. then why, as three indepen­dent studies conclusively
find, are
so many men dying prematurely?

The authors of the VA study noted in their abstract that “Most
of the
cancers. suspected of being radio-genic were not significantly
elevated
among the test participants. Nevertheless, increased risks for
certain
cancers cannot be ruled out.” Key here is "not significantly
elevated."

The conclusion then is that certain cancers were elevated. IOM
officials
similarly reported that the dealths of Crossroads participants
from
cancer and Leukemia were "slightIy higher while "... not
statistically
significant." These statements raise signicant questions which
have yet
to be answered.

The IOM also reported that more than half of the Crossroads
partici­pants
are now deceased and that they will destroy the death
certifificates in
their possession in 1998. The IOM study did not compare their
death
certificates with ships’ rosters to determine whether there was
a high
cancer/leukemia cohort for crews of any particular vessel. The
loss of
this data is Incalculable and has a direct bearing on the
effects of
low-level ionizing radiation.

With attention now being focused on fallout from the Nevada Test
Site, it
Is a matter of record that Chicago received measurable amounts
of beta
radiation from Shot Dog, an 81-kiloton device detonated as part
of
Operation Greenhouse at Eniwe­tok Atoll In 1951. While the
charge of the
National Cancer Institute was to investigate only the Incidence
of
thyroid cancer, the fact nonetheless remains that radioactive
fallout is
not limited merely to iodine-131.

Other radioactive elements incident to radiation exposure
include
ptutonium’239, -plutonium-239, cesium-137, strontium-90,
cobalt-60,
uranium-238 and other lesser-known elements, all of which have
the
potential to cause fatal harm if Inhaled or ingested.

A CRITICAL aspect of fallout is the size of radioactive
particles. Are
they small enough to be lnhaled/ingested without knoowing? In
1995,
researchers found a 16 percent increase in adult cancers and a
32 percent
Increase In childhood cancers, but failed to find a specific
cause.

The American public deserves un­biased answers to the question
of
radiation exposure. However, it is doubtul this will occur as
long as
meaningful data are withheld and the media continue to accept
government
and pro-nuclear press releases without question.

- Special to the Press Herald

e-Nuclear Veterans News is NOT affiliated with any organization
and sent
Free via e-mail.
Eligible: Atomic Veterans, Gulf War (Depleted Uranium), Others
Nuclear
Exposed. To be placed on our list please furnish:
Name, Address, City, State, Zip Code, Telephone Number, e-mail
Address.
Send above information via e-mail to: rucon@juno.com. If you do
not
desire to receive copies please notify us.
Information gathered by Dick Conant, 2424 Venetian Way SW,
Albuquerque,
NM 87105, Tp: 505-877-3707 & Dale Howard, Tp: 505-865-8138, to
assist
Nuclear Exposed Veterans.



Thank you,

Dick Conant (Richard U. Conant, Tp: 505-877-3707, FAX:
505-877-2119.

(Via Milinet)

A quiz for Million Mom marchers to consider.

> >

> > OK now, no cheating

> >

> > 1. Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer and Barbara Boxer strongly
denounce

> > private gun ownership. Their bodyguards; however, carry:

> >

> > A. Berettas

> > B. Glocks

> > C. Garbage can lids

> > D. Slingshots

> > E. Very heavy purses

> >

> > 2. You and your baby daughter are awakened in the middle of
the night by

> > your estranged, abusive ex-husband. Although you have a
restraining

> > order against him, he is drunk and beats down your front
door with a

> > crowbar screaming, "If I can't have you, nobody can!" You
should:

> >

> > A. Call Barbara Boxer.

> > B. Call 911, and tell them that they should arrive within
30 seconds.

> > C. Threaten legal action.

> > D. Grab a ping-pong paddle.

> > E. Reason with him (maybe he was an abused child).

> >

> > 3. Since 1987, 34 states have enacted concealed carry
laws. Violent

> > crime decreased in these states and the anticipated "Dodge
City" mayhem

> > never materialized. Even critics were surprised. Concealed
carry succeeded

> > because:

> >

> > A. Sunspot activity decreased after 1987.

> > B. Trigger locks rendered guns inoperative and therefore
safe.

> > C. Sarah Brady scared the crooks away.

> > D. A healing wave of pacifism swept over the hearts of
criminals in these

> > 34 states.

> > E. Janet Reno said that crime should stop.

> >

> > 4. Schools, churches, subways, and restaurants have often
been
assaulted, but

> > rarely military bases, police stations, or shooting clubs.
The reason for

> > this is because:

> >

> > A. The targets aren't sitting or kneeling.

> > B. VA benefits are lost if you shoot a soldier.

> > C. You can't enter an army base without bumper stickers.

> > D. Schools don't threaten felons with detention hall.

> > E. All of the above.

> >

> > 5. Logic, reason, and common sense:

> >

> > A. Are irrelevant if they contradict your feelings.

> > B. Should not apply to firearms.

> > C. Defy opinion polls.

> > D. Pale beside hysteria, fear, and political ambition.

> > E. All of the above.

> >

> > 6. Every dictator always disarms his victims, before
beginning to

> > annihilate freedom loving people. The reason for this is
because:

> >

> > A. Guns cause crime.

> > B. Guns cause accidents

> > C. Guns cause suicides

> > D. Being defenseless is the only way that mothers can
demonstrate their

> > love for their children

> > E. All of the above

> >

> > 7. The FBI states that every 5 minutes there is a woman who
is raped.

> > Because of this you should:

> >

> > A. Wear crotchless panties

> > B. Carry extra condoms

> > C. Always have an inflatable mattress in the trunk of your
car

> > D. Invest in pepperspray scented underwear

> > E. Don't vote for a Democrat

I really enjoyed reading all of it. I am still looking for those Crocthless panties. Are they from a catalog or does Billary wear them in the White House? Pepperspary scented undies? Gotta love it. Keep em coming. SF Jose

NM=No Message

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2000 -- Veterans of the Korean War are
gearing up for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of that
conflict. "They, better than most Americans, understand that
'freedom is not free,'" said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Nels
Running, director of the commemoration committee.

The phrase 'freedom is not free' is part of the Korean War
Veterans Memorial in Washington that will be the focal point of
ceremonies commemorating the start of the war. President Clinton
will speak at the memorial June 25.

Running stressed the ceremonies are not a celebration.
"Commemorate really means remember," he said. "We're going to
recognize, honor and remember the service provided during the
Korean War."

At the end of World War II, the Soviets occupied Korea north of
the 38th parallel, while the United States occupied the south.
The Soviets installed a communist government in the north; on
June 25, 1950, North Korea's army stormed the border and easily
overran the South Korean army.

President Harry S. Truman at first limited U.S. participation to
sea and air units, but soon was forced to call on U.S. Army
ground units. By the armistice three years later, about 5.7
million American service members had served during the war. More
than 33,667 U.S. service members died in battle with another
3,249 dying "of other causes."

The opening ceremony will set the stage for the rest of the
commemoration, Running said. He expects up to 10,000 Korean War
veterans and their families to attend. Former Ohio Sen. John
Glenn, a Marine Corps veteran of the conflict, will represent
all the veterans of the war. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen
will also speak.

South Korean Ambassador to the United States Hong-Koo Lee will
represent his country at the commemoration, as will
representatives from the 20 other U.N. countries that fought
alongside U.S. forces.

Getting the word out to Korean War veterans is a huge job for
Running's committee. There are 1.2 million Korean War veterans
still alive and the committee wants to reach them all and let
them know America appreciates their sacrifices.

"Many of these men and women served during World War II, so they
were familiar with the service lapel pin given to veterans of
that conflict," Running said. "Well, Korean War veterans never
received that kind of recognition. We now have lapel pins for
them to wear similar to 'the Ruptured Duck' that World War II
vets received."

Korean War veterans are also authorized to receive the Republic
of Korea's Korean War Service medal. On Aug. 20, 1999, Defense
Secretary William S. Cohen authorized Korean War veterans to
receive this foreign award.

"We would like to give those medals to all 1.2 million veterans
and the families of veterans who have died," Running said. He
said DoD is working out a certification process, and the Korean
government is shipping an initial 150,000 of the medals to start
the awards process. Distribution to all eligible veterans is
expected to take about four years, he said.

Many Korean War veterans are familiar with the World War II
commemoration. Following the World War II commemoration
committee's lead, Running's committee is trying to reach
veterans in their hometowns. His group is sponsoring Korean War
Commemoration Communities, as the World War II committee did.

To date, almost 2,000 communities have signed up to honor their
veterans. "This grass-roots support is what we need to reach the
veterans," Running said. "You know, I walked into a local book
store and asked the clerk for the books on the Korean War. There
were books on the Civil War, books on World War II and Vietnam.
There was one book on Korea.

"Many of the veterans of the war call it "the Forgotten War,'"
he continued. "We want to ensure these Americans to understand
we honor their commitment to freedom and the sacrifices they
made. That's what this commemoration is all about."

##end##

20005253a.jpg Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Nels Running (left)
and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Bender hold the Korean War
Commemoration Community flag at their Crystal City, Va. office.
Photo by Jim Garamone.

20005253b.jpg Materials prepared to educate Americans on the
impact of the Korean War surround the Republic of Korea's Korean
War Service medal. All U.S. Korean War veterans are now
authorized to receive this medal. Photo by Jim Garamone.

20005253c.jpg Korean War veterans are now authorized to receive
the Republic of Korea's Korean War Service medal. Photo by Jim
Garamone.

NOTE: This is a plain text version of a web page.
If your mail program did not properly format this
information, current News Articles are online at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/#News Articles

====================================================
Virtual tour of the Pentagon
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon/
====================================================

Scuttlebutt & Small Chow USMC History List

*********

On this date, May 25, in the year...

1775: The first recorded mention of American Marines is cited in
an
account which describes eight Connecticut Marines escorting
money for
troops to Albany, New York, for further shipment to Ticonderoga.
These
Marines are often referred as the "Original Eight."

1779: Marines participated in the capture of the British
schooners St.
George, Dove, Hazard, and the sloop York by the Oliver Cromwell.

1862: Marines, commanded by Captain Charles G. McCawley,
reoccupied
the Navy Yard at Gosport, Norfolk, Virginia.

1912: The 2nd Marine Regiment of 40 officers and 1,252 enlisted
men,
commanded by Colonel James E. Mahoney, embarked in nine United
States
battleships for Guantanamo, Cuba, to assist in forestalling a
revolution.

1942: Companies C and D, 2nd Raider Battalion, and the 37mm
battery of
the 3rd Defense Battalion, arrived at Midway on board the USS
St.
Louis.

1945: The JCS approved a directive calling for the invasion of
Japanese home islands, scheduled for 1 November.
On Okinawa, pilots from Marine escort carrier Gilbert Islands
flew
their first combat air patrol and close air support strikes.

1947: The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, followed the rest of its
regiment from Taku, Hopeh, China to Guam.
In China, some 200 Marines were successfully evacuated by
ship from
Chinwangtao (120 northeast of Tientsin) where they had been
isolated
for a week by Chinese Communists.

1949: Company C, 7th Marines, departed Tsingtao for the United
States,
the last Marine Corps unit to serve in the waters off Mainland
China.

1955: Final elements of the 1st Marine Division departed from
Korea
for Camp Pendleton, California.

1961: President Kennedy requested funds to increase the Marine
Corps
to 190,000, following an earlier request to raise strength from
175,000 to 178,000. This would permit manning the Fleet Marine
Force
at a high level, particularly the aviation wings, and the
forming of
the nucleus of a fourth division.

1965: After a meeting between rebel leaders and McGeorge Bundy,
Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs, the major
phase
of the Dominican crisis ended when a military truce was put into
effect.

1966: Five armed Cuban soldiers intruded into the U.S. Naval
Base,
Guantanamo, but were driven away by Marine fire.
General Wallace M. Greene, Jr., CMC, and Lieutenant General
Richard
C. Mangrum, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, stated
that the
Federal Government should be rebuilding the fleet which was
proved to
be worn out and inadequate by the Vietnam war. They urged that
the
Merchant Marine be kept strong in times of peace to meet the
needs in
times of war.



*********

By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2000 -- For a full minute or so, the two
fatigue-clad soldiers in brown boots stood at attention, ramrod
straight, among the Pentagon brass.

But as soon as the cameras stopped flashing, the Army's most
incorrigible troop, Pvt. Beetle Bailey, gleefully slumped back
to his normal slack-shouldered stance.

Sgt. 1st Class Orville Snorkel, of course, maintained proper
military decorum as befitting a senior NCO.

Beetle and Sarge will celebrate their 50th year of service this
September. The Army recognized that service and their creator,
Mort Walker, at the Pentagon May 24.

Just as he has for years in his comic strip, the 76-year-old
cartoonist poked fun at the military throughout the award
ceremony. "Boy, how times have changed," Walker told reporters
and guests at the ceremony. "I was persona non grata around here
for many, many years."

He recalled that the Pentagon once used his work as an example
of "how not to do things."

"I think finally the brass has learned how to laugh at
themselves a little bit," Walker said. "They're not kicking me
out of 'The Stars and Stripes' anymore like they did a couple of
times."

After receiving framed commemorative coins from the defense
secretary, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary
of the Army and the Army Chief of Staff, Walker quipped, "I
won't spend it all in one place."

Beetle Bailey, the comic strip, is seen by 200 million people
every day in 1,800 newspapers around the world. It is based on
friends and acquaintances Walker met during his Army days.
Drafted into the Army in 1943, the cartoonist advanced from
private to first lieutenant and served in a number of branches.

"I was drafted into the air corps," Walker said, "although I'd
never been on an airplane before. They sent me to the signal
corps, although I had no mechanical ability at all…. They sent
me to the engineers although I'd never even taken any math in
high school. They sent me to the infantry where I became the
first scout of A Co., 97th Division. I was nearsighted."

After "scraping through" OCS, Walker said he went to an ordnance
depot in Italy. There, the infantry officer was assigned as an
intelligence and investigating officer.

"I'd never had any police experience; I was only a little over
20 years old. They said, 'He can also be fire chief and he can
be in charge of the German prisoner of war camp. I ended up with
10,000 Germans. I couldn't speak German," he said.

Concluding his repertoire, Walker remarked, "I just hope that
guy who made those assignments doesn't work for you anymore." On
a more serious note, he added, "Little did I know that I was
gathering research that would come in so valuable for me over
the years. I've learned how to draw jeeps real well."

Army Secretary Louis Caldera praised Walker for his wit,
charisma and mastery of his craft in creating Beetle, Snorkel
and his dog, Otto, Brig. Gen. Amos Halftrack and the rest. "He
has brought to us the lighter side of life in the military,
poking gentle fun at the people, the regulations, the chow, the
order and discipline of the military," he said. "Or in Beetle's
case, the disorder and indiscipline.

As seen through Walker's eyes, Caldera said, soldiers are
"human, warm, sometimes lonely, sometimes funny, and sometimes
in awe of God's creation. The troops at Camp Swampy may not be
the rock-hard fighting force we see in today's Army," he said,
"but they're a lovable and unforgettable bunch who serve as a
daily reminder of all the men and women who serve our nation in
uniform."

Caldera recalled an all-time favorite where Beetle complains to
Sarge about the chow, and Sarge admonishes Beetle to be more
like the chaplain, who always finds something nice to say about
others. "And in the background, the chaplain is telling the
cook, 'Congratulations on the ketchup,'" he said.

Walker received the Secretary of the Army's Decoration for
Distinguished Civilian Service, the Army's highest civilian
honor, for boosting service members' morale for nearly 50 years.
Caldera also recognized the cartoonist for his contributions to
the National World War II Memorial Campaign. Walker recently
helped publicize a Noncommissioned Officers Association World
War II Memorial Honor Walk from Mobile, Ala., to Washington.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Theodore Stroup honored Walker on behalf
of the Association of the U.S. Army. Retired Sergeant Major of
the Marine Corps Dave Sommers honored the cartoonist on behalf
of the Noncommissioned Officers Association. Retired Army Col.
Bob Patrick saluted Walker's efforts supporting the National
World War II Memorial Campaign.

Later, the Army honored Walker at a Twilight Tattoo that
featured the 3rd U.S. Infantry's Old Guard and the U.S. Army
Band, Pershing's Own. The Army's Chief of Public Affairs, Maj.
Gen. John G. Meyer Jr., and the Military District of Washington
hosted the tribute. Last year, the Army honored Walter Cronkite.

##END##

20005254a.jpg (From left to right) Sgt. Snorkel, Army Secretary
Louis Caldera, Mort Walker, and Pvt. Beetle Bailey pose for
photographers during an award ceremony at the Pentagon. Army
officials honored Walker May 24, for 50 years of raising morale
with his humorous depictions of Army life in his Beetle Bailey
comic strip,. Photo by Linda D. Kozaryn.

20005254b.jpg Pvt. Beetle Bailey and Sgt. Snorkel, the comic
strip characters who've entertained newspaper readers for nearly
50 years, salute the press and guests at a May 24 award ceremony
at the Pentagon in honor of their creator, cartoonist Mort
Walker. Photo by Linda D. Kozaryn.

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If your mail program did not properly format this
information, current News Articles are online at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/#News Articles

http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/MCRCweb/gimlet.html

http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/MCRCweb/samar.html

From:
"Draft Keyes For Senate" <DraftKeyesForSenate@ElectionProgress.org> Save Address
- Block Sender
To:
<GunnyG@HotMail.Com> Save Address
Subject:
Let's Draft Keyes For Senate NY - May 24, 2000
Date:
Wed, 24 May 2000 14:15:00 -0700


-------------------------
Note: You are receiving this email because you have expressed
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Alert! Grassroots kick off drive to draft Keyes for Senate in
New York!
http://ElectionProgress.org

The following press release was sent out yesterday by an
independent
coalition of New York Keyes supporters. If you would like to
support the
"Draft Keyes for Senate" effort, please take a moment to read
the
following release and then call, email, fax or write the New
York State
Republican Party:
Attn: Bill Powers
New York Republican State Committee
315 State Street
Albany, NY 12210
(518) 462-2601 phone
(518) 449-7443 fax
Republicans@nygop.org

and visit our website at http://ElectionProgress.org

or contact the "Draft Keyes for Senate" ad hoc committee at:
Michael O'Donnell
501 County Hwy 112
Gloversville, NY 12078
(518) 775-1505

------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE
May 22, 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: David Howard
Phone: (518) 775-1505

Draft Keyes for Senate, New York

Ever since New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made public his
battle with
prostate cancer and put his candidacy for a U.S. Senate seat
into
question, I have been inundated with telephone calls and e-mails
from
Keyes 2000 supporters. They have called upon me to convey the
message
that Alan Keyes should enter the New York Senate race.

While moved by the demonstration of support for Dr. Keyes, I
thought it
would be inappropriate to address the question of a Keyes
candidacy as
long as Mayor Giuliani was still in the race. As we all know,
last
Friday, Mayor Giuliani declared he would not run.

So, I am now pleased to report the growing grassroots enthusiasm
for a
Draft Keyes for Senate Campaign. Indeed, I believe that, if
nominated,
Alan Keyes would defeat Hillary Clinton, bring honor to the New
York
Republican Party, and make the New York Senate race the most
exciting -
perhaps even the most important - electoral contest in the
nation.

However strongly we may oppose Hillary Clinton, we ought to be
candid
enough with ourselves to admit that she is a formidable
candidate.
Hillary is a charismatic figure - a national icon of
left-liberalism. She
is also, like her husband, a master of the arts of spin,
triangulation,
and contrived empathy. No mere politician can beat her.

Rudy Giuliani is no mere politician - but he is out of the
running. To
win the Senate seat, Republicans need a candidate of national
stature who
can mobilize the Party's base, electrify audiences, best any
opponent in
debate, and appeal to segments of the electorate not
traditionally
identified with the GOP.

In addition, the GOP candidate will need the enthusiastic
support of the
three other center-right parties in New York State -
Conservative,
Right-to-Life, and Independence. Finally, Republicans will
need a proven
campaigner and fundraiser.

On all of those counts, Dr. Keyes would make an exemplary
candidate.

Dr. Keyes has said that, as someone who was born in New York,
attended
college in New York, and worked in New York as a Reagan
Administration
Ambassador, he is deeply moved by the broad and active support
he is
receiving from New Yorkers. But after many years as a Maryland
resident
working in public service in our nation's capital, he believes
it is not
proper for him to put himself forward to the NY GOP as yet
another
"outsider" candidate.

Given the national significance of the U.S. Senate race in this
state, and
the strength of the Democrat nominee we face, I believe the New
York
Republican Party should indicate in a convention draft
nomination on May
30th its willingness to support a Keyes candidacy. If it does
so, I
believe that Dr. Keyes would seriously consider stepping up to
the
challenge. This is not a contest that Republicans can afford to
lose.


Mike O'Donnell

(Via Milinet)

Time
May 29, 2000
Pg. 32

Memorial Day: How We Remember

"Sometimes I Really Wonder How I Will Make It"

In these last letters home from doomed soldiers, the poetry of
the
battlefield shines through

By Douglas Brinkley

One night in April 1944, just weeks before D-Day, like all
lonely
servicemen, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower was
writing
a letter home. "How I wish this cruel business of war could be
completed
quickly," he wrote to his wife Mamie. "Entirely aside from
longing to
return to you (and stay there) it is a terribly sad business to
total
up the casualties each day--even in an air war--and to realize
how
many
youngsters are gone forever. A man must develop a veneer of
callousness that lets him consider such things dispassionately,
but
he can never escape a recognition of the fact that back home the
news
brings anguish and suffering to families all over the
country...War
demands real toughness of fiber--not only in the soldiers [who]
must
endure, but in the homes that must sacrifice their best."

Made of pretty tough fiber himself, Eisenhower would note later
that
the hardest part of his job in World War II came on Sundays,
which he
set aside for the mournful chore of signing thousands of
condolence
letters to the families of G.I.s killed in the European theater.
(It
was a chore we'll be reminded of again next month, when the
National
D-Day Museum opens in New Orleans.) To soothe the pain of the
bureaucratic task of
signing these starkly official government letters--casualty
certificates, really--Ike turned to the classics of war poetry,
from
Homer to Siegfried Sassoon.

Eisenhower understood that however gripping the battle
histories,
nothing captures the heartrending pity of war the way good
poetry
can, particularly that written in trenches and foxholes amid the
horrors of combat. It is one thing to read in a textbook that
more
than 116,000 U.S. soldiers died in World War I; it's quite
another to
be struck by the question British poet Wilfred Owen raised in
his
Anthem for Doomed Young: "What passing-bells for these who die
as
cattle?/Only the monstrous anger of the guns./Only the
stuttering
rifles' rapid rattle/Can patter out their hasty orisons." But
Owen
never learned that he had penned some of the most celebrated
verse to
come out of World War I: he was killed in action on the Western
Front
a week before the Armistice. A similar fate met Alan Seeger, an
American who joined the French Foreign Legion when the war broke
out
and was killed in France fighting Germans in 1916-- shortly
after
writing his poem I Have a Rendezvous with Death. The verse
begins, "I
have a rendezvous with Death/At some disputed barricade" and
ends, "And I to my pledged word am true./I shall not fail that
rendezvous." Seeger's poem inspired Franklin D. Roosevelt's
famous
line "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with
destiny" and
was later adopted by President John F. Kennedy when insisting
that
the U.S. would soon put a man on the moon.

The letters published here for Memorial Day evoke the same
emotion in
a plainer poetry of their own. Dating from World War I through
the
Vietnam conflict, they are the last letters the soldier-authors
are
known to have
written, living testimonials from ordinary men who only
suspected
they were about to die. There is no vainglory of war in these
missives, just the eternal mystery of man's preference for the
call
to arms over the
Golden Rule. These epistles haunt the soul the same way the best
war
poems do--perhaps even more poignantly, because we know what
their
authors didn't: that in Owen's memorable line, their eyes would
very
soon "shine the holy glimmers of good-byes."

Although unintentionally so, these are farewell letters to the
loved
ones who received them, proud but painful reminders of lost
youth and
patriotic sacrifice. Selected from more than 50,000 wartime
letters
collected by Andrew Carroll's Legacy Project, a nonprofit
initiative
that seeks out historically significant wartime letters written
by
Americans from all walks of life (a larger selection edited by
Carroll will be published as a book next May by Scribner's), the
correspondence included here suggests a larger historical
pattern:
soldiers enlisted in the two World Wars are generally upbeat and
optimistic, brimming with good-natured confidence. By contrast
the
G.I.s of the cold war, fighting in Korea and Vietnam, write
letters
of doubt and confusion, unsure whether dying in a Chosin
Reservoir
crater or Mekong Delta rice paddy for Old Glory made practical
sense.
Fear of death, however, permeates them all, no matter in which
bloodstained decade they were composed.

But it would be a disservice to their authors to dwell only on
the
sad finality of these letters full of playful language and good
cheer, even under the most harrowing circumstances. After all,
most
were responses
written in the glow of morale boosted by receiving news from
home
that life was still normal there, that Dad was still priding
himself
on the tomatoes bursting ripe in the vegetable garden, that
Little
Brother had just smacked his first stand-up double or that Sis
had
been accepted at the local university. The mundane details of
life in
the U.S.--the score of Friday night's football game, the pattern
of a
soft cotton dress bought special on Main Street--have always
been the
rare joy of American soldiers far from home. For every Dear John
letter serving notice that a soldier had been dumped by his best
girl, a thousand others served warm reminders of Mom's cooking
for a
holiday picnic under the oak tree in the backyard. And it was in
this
home-and-hearth spirit that the doughboys, G.I.s and grunts
wrote
back.

It's important too to remember the restrictions on servicemen's
correspondence. Whereas in the Civil War soldiers could wax
poetic in
detailed epistles about the topography around battlefields, the
long
rock gullies of the Maryland countryside or the paltry food
rations
at Vicksburg, 20th century U.S. troops were censored from
describing
their surroundings for fear of tipping off the enemy to military
movements. As a result their letters home are far more personal,
more
expressive of the gripping fears and hopeful longings of young
men
with no illusions left. Each one of these introspective letters
sounds the distant and disturbing echo of a lone bugle blowing
taps.

Photocopies or typed transcripts of letters from any of
America's
wars, on any subject, may be sent to the Legacy Project, Attn.:
Andrew Carroll, Box 53250, Washington, D.C. 20009 (Include phone
no.)

--------------------------------------

Dear Winifred,

(Somewhere in France -- October 6, 1918) Sitting on head of cot,
map
case on knee and head ducked beneath canvass leanto against side
of
company officer's wagon, smoldering fire and dirty dishes in
immediate front
with orderly (likewise dirty) prowling around in imitation of a
working man. Lt. DeLessquaur's tent beyond fire with nothing but
his
feet sticking out, and an occasional drizzle--Picture this and
you
have the ideal gypsy outfit which we resemble.

I got back to the company and for a solid day read five week's
accumulated mail--about fifty letters with six or seven from
you. I
never received so much mail at one time before in my life. It
certainly was a red-letter day and make no mistake.

I discovered this was Sunday by bumping into an open air Mass
conducted by our chaplain, a prince of a fellow and as sincere
and
straightforward a priest as they make them...

The war news continues to be the best ever. We have just
received
word of Germany, Austria and Turkey asking for an armistice to
discuss peace on basis of President Wilson's fourteen proposals.
I
don't believe they will get an armistice any more than Bulgaria
did,
tho the Allies may allow them to discuss the question. All this
will
be history when you receive this letter.

At any rate we're licking the tar out of the Germans and I'm a
live
part of it. Still that's not saying much because things are
lively
everywhere now. The spirit of the boys is great and they are
brimming
over with
confidence. On the other hand I believe the morale of the enemy
to be
lower than at any previous stage of the war. These are stirring
times
and regardless of my personal outcome I'm glad to be here...

I'm feeling fine and fit to fight--one reason being that I've
had a
bath three weeks later than any one else in the company. Note
I'm not
mentioning when! Pardon the allusion. We reckon history from one
of
them to another!

Sincerely, Bob

(Before serving in World War I, Robert Mitchell was studying law
at
Columbia. He died in the trenches in France, nine days after
writing
this letter, one of 80 Winifred received. Winifred Bostwick was
a
college
friend. His sweetheart too? No one knows )

------------------------------

Dear Bud --

Glad to receive your letter telling about your improvements at
home
and getting a leave. Bet the old place looked good even though
it is
getting a little worn. Sure wish I could get back to see it real
soon, but got to
help win this damn war over here first. The more I fly and drop
bombs, the more I know how damn foolish this war is.

I don't know whether Mom wrote and told you about my
"experience" or
not so I'll tell you here supposing that she never. We were on a
bombing mission to "Der Fatherland"--where, I cawn't say, nor
when--but we
were up to no good. Also it wasn't a nice day as I've yet to see
one
over here. We were up in the air about 5 miles plus minding our
own
business and just going into the bombing run when some sad
character
on the
ground decided to try out his new flak gun. He fired the thing a
few
times and together with his comrades proceeded to shoot out two
of
our engines--in retaliation, we got bitter and dropped our bombs
on
the city.

Everything was fine save that we were deep in the heart of
Germany
with only two engines and had lost our formation because we
couldn't
stay up with them and were sweating out enemy fighters. Four of
our
fighter
escorts felt sorry for us so they flew over us watching out for
the
Luftwaffe--gee, did they look beautiful.

Well to help make a long story short, we lost another engine
over
enemy territory and had the choice of bailing out over Germany
and
becoming P.O.W.s or sticking with the plane to the border. We
stuck
and bailed out over the front lines. On the ground we got a
great
reception from the Belgians when they found out we were
Americans and
not German paratroopers. I've never drunk so much cognac in my
life.

We are back flying again--in fact have been for some time--and I
may
finish up over here in a couple dozen more missions if someone
feels
sorry for me.

Write more about what you're doing and how things are back there
and
I'll try to do the same. Got to get some sack time so will be
closing
now. Write!

Love, DeDe

(In November 1944, with World War II grinding down and not long
after
Lieut. Ross ("DeDe") McCollum, 22, wrote this, he was shot down
over
the North Sea.)

-----------------------------------------

Hello Darling,

July 6, 1944, India -- Gee I'm happy today. I got a very sweet
letter
from the girl I love and also 2 wonderful pictures of her.
Honestly
dear I think the pics are terrific. I got another very sweet
letter
from you about four days ago but this is the first chance I've
had to
answer any letters in the past week. As you probably noticed I
am
back in India again. Actually there's not very much difference
between being in Burma or India except that here living
conditions
are better and we don't fly quite as much...

Last night I saw a very amazing thing. About 8:30 p.m. we were
just
sitting around talking when one of the boys looked to the north
and
saw of all things a rainbow. It was at least an hour after
sundown so
how a
rainbow could form without sunlight--don't know but there it
was. It
was a very beautiful sight.

I'm very glad to hear that you are liking your camp life better
now.
I like the "out-of-doors" a lot myself but after having lived
that
way for the past year I'll gladly settle for good old Milwaukee
for
awhile.

The past 3 nights I've stayed up till about 1 or 2 o'clock just
sitting outside talking with a few of my better friends. I like
to
sit up these warm bright nights and watch the white clouds and
dark
shadows move in the night. That's when I miss you the most,
darling.
At night when everything is so still and quiet. On the nights
that I
sit up alone I can feel you very close to me. Sometimes we sit
and
talk and sometimes we pretend we are just sitting there with our
arms
about each other with our hearts beating as one. Best I don't
dwell
on the subject just now cause I miss you so much right now it
seems
as though my heart is going to burst.

I'd better close now, dear. Thanks again honey for the very
lovely
pictures and I hope that by now you have received both the ring
and
the pictures I sent several weeks ago.

I Love You, Jack

(Audrey Taylor Behrens still cherishes this letter from her
World War
II sweetheart, Army Air Corps Lieut. Jack Emery. Three days
after he
wrote it, at age 20, Jack was shot down over Burma. Audrey later
married
a high school friend and Navy veteran.)

-------------------------------

Dear Kathie

May 29, 1953 -- Hello again, I trust all is well with you; the
situation here is not greatly changed, we're still taking that
foolish training, which will do us no earthly good, since, if we
don't know how to keep alive by now, we never will. The
replacements
who have joined us since we were relieved aren't even getting
anything out of it, as they were taught the exact same things
back at
the States, and they pick up all the extra
little tricks after about ten minutes in combat. But I suppose
the
big wheels think it's benefiting us, and you can't fight City
Hall,
as the saying goes.

This ought to be a little lesson to Brother--he should be
learning by
now that the military takes a lot out of a man and gives very
little
in return; it is not, despite anything people say, glamorous,
exciting or
enjoyable...The service has no regard for the individual, and
the
personal feelings & privileges of the lower-ranking personnel
mean &
rate a big fat nothing. It's a hard & merciless taskmaster, and
he's
a fool to
even consider it--never mind about the glory of a uniform, or
the
supposed "honor" of serving your country. There are too many
dead &
maimed glorious & honor-bound boys, poor young fellows who never
hurt
a
soul, and were blinded by such baloney. God knows I was blinded
too,
and Heaven forbid, but I might yet be one of them. Ask him to
read
this letter, & perhaps he'll wise up before it's too late;
consider,
Brother, if you will, all your buddies in school. If you make
the
same mistake I did, you may someday be carrying what's left of
them
back on a stretcher, or burying them...

No matter what you read, or are told, it's no fun dodging
bullets and
artillery shells, never knowing from day to day whether you'll
ever
see your home, family or parents again--no, it's a Hell on
earth, and
you'd be a lot wiser to spare yourself from it.

Forgive me for going overboard, Kathie, but I can't stand
thinking of
more poor kids being dragged into this mess. Sorry to sound so
melodramatic; my love to Maureen (hah!) Carol (ha-ha!), hello to
Robert & Charlie, my best to Jos. Byres, & company. So long for
now,
must close this as my time is up.

Love Jack

(During the Korean War, Jack Train of Somerville, Mass., wrote
this
to dissuade the brother of a friend from joining the Navy.
Brother
went to college instead. Jack Train died in battle on his 20th
birthday, six
weeks later.)

----------------------------------

Dearest Wife

10 July 69 -- There are many times while I am out in the field
that I
really feel the need to talk to you. Not so much about us but
what I
have on my mind. I can tell you that I love you and how much I
miss
you in a letter and I know you will receive it and know what I
mean,
because you have the same feelings. But many times like
tonight--I am
out on ambush with eleven men and a medic--after everything is
set up
and in position I
have nothing to do but lay there and think--why I am here as
well as
all the men in my platoon? ... why I have to watch a man die or
get
wounded--why I have to be the one to tell someone to do
something
that may get him blown away--have I done everything I can do to
make
sure we can't get hit by surprise?--are we really covered from
all
directions? How many men should I let sleep at a time--1/4, 50%
or
what?...

Being a good platoon leader is a lonely job. I don't want to
really
get to know anybody over here because it would be bad enough to
lose
a man--I damn sure don't want to lose a friend. I haven't even
had
one of my
men wounded yet let alone killed but that is too much to even
hope
for to go like that. But as hard as I try not to get involved
with my
men, I still can't help liking them and getting close to a few.
I get
to know their wives' names or their girls and kids if they have
any.
They come up and say, "Hey, 26"--they all call me 26 because
that is
my call sign on the radio--"Do you want to see a picture of my
wife/girl?" or "Look at what my wife or girl wrote."...

If I had prayed before or was religious enough to feel like I
should--or had the right to pray now--I probably would say one
every
night that I will see the sun again the next morning & will get
back
home to you.
Sometimes I really wonder how I will make it. My luck is running
way
too good right now. I just hope it lasts.

I have already written things I had never planned to write
because I
don't want you to worry about me anyway. Don't worry about what
I
have said; these are just things I think about sometimes. I am
so
healthy I
can't get a day out of the field, and you know I'm too damn mean
to die.

Hon, I better close for now and try to catch a few z's. It will
be
another long night.

Sorry I haven't written more but the weather is against me. You
can't
write out here when it rains hour after hour. I love you with
all my
heart.

All my love always, Dean

(Newlywed Dean Allen of Voorheesville, N.Y., was drafted, sent
to the
Army's officers school and finally to Vietnam. Four days after
he
completed this letter to his wife Joyce, a schoolteacher, he
stepped
on a land mine and was killed.)

Brinkley is professor of history and director of the Eisenhower
Center of American Studies at the University of New Orleans.

we go to Baltic Ohio...in the northeast part of the state. Why Baltic, population 500? Wife's mother attends an annual reunion and, that's one of the places where American patriotism is still practiced. I strap on my uniform and stand near the cemetery as the colors are swayed up the hill...fight away tears as a Marine Korean War veteran stomps by on aging legs, proudly clutching an M-1, his own eyes briming...try to fathom the thoughts of the Amish who, though non-combatants, faithfully and reverently attend the ceremonies...and think always of PFC Donald Stein, memorialized on The Wall, forever resting on a nearby hill, Donny's Hill. A wreath is laid, taps played, speechs given, and afterward, the people of this little hamlet return home with their memories, of those who served, and those who fell...and we trust, with a clearer notion of freedom's price.

Semper fi, Dick
George

From:
alcareaga@webtv.net
To:
tatum@inreach.com
Subject:
Liversedge Memorial.
Date:
Sun, 21 May 2000 14:02:38 -0700 (PDT)


As a member of the 1st. Raider Btn. I served under Harry the
Horse
Liversedge in the New Georgia Campaign in July/Aug. 1943.
The late General was born in Volcano
Calif. a tiny hamlet in the Mother Lode country of the Sierras.
The town
not having a cemetary the general is buried in Pine Grove, Ca.
some 3
miles distant.
Outside of the B.O.Q. at Quantico there is no memorial to
honor
this unsung
legend of our Corps.
I intend to erect a memorial honoring
the general in the form of a bronze plaque
to be mounted on a marble base and placed in the center of this
tiny
town where there are already 3 simiiar memorials, all
militarily oriented dating back to the 1,800's
The town has granted permssion as have the surviving family
members.
The plaque will depict a likeness of the General, the Globe
and
Anchor and the Surbachi flag raising. The appropriate copy will
follow.
At this point the approximate cost is
$2,000.00 complete. Approximate because we have not settled
cmpletely on
copy or size of the plaque.
All monies donated will be handled by the U.S. Marine
Raider Assoc.
Inc.
and checks should be mailed to them at 704 Cooper Court.,
Arlington,
Tx. 76011
Attention John Dornan.
The check should state Liversedge memorial fund or LMF for
short.
Be assured this is a 100 Percent clean Marine deal....There
are not
nor will there be any kickbacks or commissions from the foundry
and no
reimbursed expenses. All monies donate over and above actual
costs will
be contributed to the Liversedge Scholarship Fund.
A full and complete report will be provided so you can
inform those
who access your site. I do not have a staff so cannot contact
each
contributor individually.
I trust you can see your way clear to post this on your site
so all
Marines will have an opportunity to participate in this
Memorial.
I would in particular like to reach those Marines from World
War 2
who served in the first, third and fourth Raider Battalions as
well as
the 28th Marines.
Please let me hear from you.
Semper Fi
Al Careaga

Scuttlebutt & Small Chow USMC History List*********

On this date, May 23, in the year...

1803: Marines participated in the action between the U.S.
frigate John
Adams and several Tripolitan gunboats off Tripoli.

1837: Colonel Henderson and part of his staff left Florida to
return
to Washington, leaving Lieutenant Colonel Miller as the Senior
Marine
Officer.

1871: Marines from the Asiatic fleet escorted the American
Minister
from Nagasaki, Japan, to Seoul, Korea, to execute a treaty.

1899: The First Battalion of Marines, composed of 15 officers
and 260
enlisted men, commanded by Colonel Percival C. Pope, arrived at
Cavite, Luzon, Philippine Islands, to provide protection for the
naval
base against Filipino insurrectos.

1903: Marines from the US Marietta and the USS Olympia landed at
Puerto Cortez, Honduras, to protect American lives and property
during
a period of civil strife.

1942: The Training Center, Fleet Marine Force, organized at
Marine
Barracks, New River, North Carolina, to include all Fleet Marine
Force
units and replacements except the 1st Marine Division.

1943: On Samoa, the 22nd Marines was detached from the 3rd
Marine
Brigade and moved to Tutuila where it remained as a separate
tactical
unit.

1944: On Bougainville, Navy and Marine Corps TBFs mined the
Buin-Kahili waters.

1947: In China, U.S. Marines evacuated a party, including 66
Americans, from Peitaiho Beach, who had fled Chinese Communist
troops
who had looted nearby Changli on May 18.

1948: Marine Garrison Forces, Pacific, became an administrative
command directly under the control of Headquarters Marine Corps.

1951: In Korea, the 1st Marine Division counterattacked
northward
toward Yanggu at the east end of Hwachon Reservoir.

1969: The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Leonard F.
Chapman,
Jr., announced that Sergeant Major Joseph W. Dailey would
replace
retiring Sergeant Major Herbert J. Sweet as the next Sergeant
Major of
the Marine Corps.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Lewis and Major Charles L.
Phillips
claimed the aircraft distance record in an OV-10A (Bronco). The
two
Marine pilots flew non-stop from Stephensville, Newfoundland to
Mildenhall A.F.B., England in 11 hours and 49 minutes and
covered a
distance of 2,522 miles. The Bronco, which was being used by
Marines
in Vietnam, was a twin-engine, turbo-prop, visual reconnaissance
plane.



*********


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, write to
scuttlebuttsmallchow-unsubscribe@listbot.com
____________________________

trying to find marines in korea 52/53 w/1st mar div 3rd bat item co i believe that was my outfit fought on dagmar, op2,boulder city. appreciate your efforts

charlie dis hon nov 53

Here is a message from CDR Paul Galanti (I mis-remembered his
name) which

debunks the various HJ POW myths.


Roger Helbig

rhelbig@california.com


-----Original Message-----

From: Paul Galanti <pgalanti@i2020.net>

Cc: rhelbig@california.com <rhelbig@california.com>; Mike
McGrath

<mmcgrath@mail.iex.net>

Date: Tuesday, October 26, 1999 10:31 AM

Subject: Re: COMMENT: Jane Fonda




Per Roger's note to me (above) the following is what Mike
McGrath,

President of Nam-POWs, our fraternal society of Vietnam POWs,
sent us after

some of the tales of "POWs' being tortured because of Jane
Fonda" began

surfacing in July. Mike also refutes some "BS" about John
McCain. "CC" =

our tap code for "All Hands"!


Paul Galanti

CDR Paul Galanti, USN (Ret)

Webmaster

Vietnam POW "Three's In" Page

(804) 359-6366

http://www.nampows.org

personal page:

http://www.eos.net/rrva/nampow/pgbio.html

****************************************************************

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:02:40 +0000

Reply-to: The NamPow List <NAMPOW@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>

From: Mike McGrath <mmcgrath@POP.IEX.NET>

Subject: Fonda, Ted Guy, John McCain, false stories...

To: NAMPOW@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM


Hi CC: Sorry to bother you with a long message, but I thought
you

needed to see a message that I sent to some folks who were

establishing web pages with completely false stories which had
been

submitted to them as true stories. They agreed to stop after

learning that they had received bogus information. NAM-POW
names of:

Jerry Driscoll, Larry Carrigan, and A.J. Myers have been
connected,

falsely, with the below stories. If any of you see these false

stories passed around the net from group to group, please send a
copy

of this message to the sender and try to get this nonsense and

slander of McCain, Driscoll, Carrigan, and A.J stopped. Thanks,
Mike

McGrath, President of NAM-POWs....


(1) There is a bogus story floating around about Larry Carrigan,
Jane

Fonda, torture of POWs, death of POWs, strips of paper, notes
given

to Jane, etc. I just thought you should know that this is all
bull

crap propagated by someone for some unknown purpose....probably
to

bolster some hate against the traitorous witch. I'm not
defending

her, we all hate her as much as the next person, but you need to
get

your stories straight. Jerry Driscoll is my
Secretary/Treasurer.

I just talked to him. Same for A.J. Myers. They had nothing to

do with the article attributed to them. They ask that we get

their names off that bunch of crap. Tonight I talked with Larry

Carrigan. He asked that we get his name off all that crap as
well.

He never left a room to talk to anyone like that. No torture or

beatings to see Fonda. He was living with Bud Day, John McCain
and a

bunch of hard nosed resistors during the Fonda visit...lots of

witnesses if you want to question him (or them). Larry was never
near

Jane. There were never any POWs killed on account of Jane.
(Did

anyone ever provide a name of one of these tortured fellows?)
That

story about the notes has a nice theatric touch, but no such
thing

ever happened. The only ones who met with Jane willingly, to my

knowledge, were CDR Gene Wilber and LCOL Ed Miller. One NAM-POW
was

forced to go before the Fonda delegation. And I think that was

only to sit at a table for a photo opportunity. I doubt he even
got

a chance to talk to her let alone slip her a note. To my
knowledge,

the worst that happened to the rest of us was that we had to
listen

to the camp radio (Radio Hanoi and Hanoi Hannah) with the Fonda

propaganda. It pissed us off, but I doubt you can call that

"torture." So, if you get a chance to SHUT THIS STORY DOWN to
the

groups who are forwarding it, PLEASE DO SO. You can cut and
paste

this paragraph is you want to. Doubters can come to me if they
need

to. Mike McGrath, President of NAM-POWs. POW 30 June 67 to 4
march

73. <mmcgrath@iex.net>


(2) Next, the false stories of John McCain's conduct. Again,
there

are false stories floating around the net about McCain. He was
never

missing from our group for six months. He never co-operated
with the

enemy. We have dozens of us who lived with and around John for
his

entire time (10-26-67 to 14 March 73). Larry Carrigan, for one,

lived with or near both John and Ted Guy. Larry says Ted would
never

make the statements which are being attributed to him ...and Ted

can't set the record straight because he is dead. We have
dozens of

roommates who will vouch for the loyalty and courage and conduct
of

John McCain. Here is a more accurate story: John had both arms
and

at least one leg badly hurt on ejection. He was bayoneted near
the

groin by a soldier as they were pulling him from the lake.
After

three days of interrogations and no cooperation, he was near
death.

They found out his father was Admiral McCain. They stopped the

interrogations, gave him medical care, brought in a French
reporter

(with camera), and let him make a statement to his family that
he was

alive and would recover and come home. After laying off the
rough

stuff, and trying to get John to cooperate by the "good guy"

treatment for a couple of weeks, they got pissed off that he
would

not give information or cooperate. So, they threw him in a cell
with

Bud Day (MOH recipient) and Maj Norris Overly. McCain was in
danger

of dying from maltreatment. Maj Overly had to nurse both men
back to

health. From that point on, McCain resisted just as hard as any

other POW. He went through the same interrogations and

treatment. His roommates can testify to his valor and
patriotism.

In short, I think that the slanderous reports by faceless people
(and

some are attributed to Ted Guy...which I doubt are true) are
from the

bunch who are really pissed off that McCain made a political
decision

to back Clinton when Clinton decided it was time for
"normalization"

of diplomatic and trade relations, and it was time to have

Ambassadorial level representation. To many, that made John a

traitor. To most, it was just a political reality. It opened
the

door to better cooperation for a host of areas, including a full

accounting of the POW/MIA issue (which is still an ongoing issue

today. We have 2,060 yet to account for). If you want to get
the

straight story on McCain's conduct, please contact his
roommates.

Start with the Honorable Orson Swindle at <OrsonIII@aol.com>.

Thanks for helping shut down these Phony stories. Again, you
can

copy this paragraph if it will help. Mike McGrath, President of

NAM-POWs.


Bottom line: Who are these guys who pretend to know who the
POWs

are, what we are, how we think and thought, how we conducted

ourselves, what we said, what we did, or why we did whatever.
There

are over 50 books written by or about us which pretty much
detail

our ordeal. For book list, see our web site at:

<www.eos.net/rrva/nampow/nampows.html> If that isn't enough,
please

contact us personally and get the straight story. Over 280 of
our

e-mail addresses are on the NAM-POW web site. We also list the

300 or so Phony POWs on the Hall of Shame. But please don't

attribute anything to us that is not verified. Thanks. Mike


For those with a genuine interest to find out about us, I
suggest

you get a very recently released book, 700 pages of hard hitting

researched reality, "Honor Bound," by Frederick Kiley and Stuart

Rochester (recently nominated for a Pulitzer for this work).
This by

far is the most comprehensive work ever done on our ordeal. Do
you

want to find out the truth about the Cuban Program, the torture,
the

brutality, etc. Just pick up your phone and call the Naval
Institute

at: 1-800-233-8764. Read this book first, then we'll talk to
you

about real POW experiences in Hanoi... not false stories of
Hanoi.

-----end-----

From:
"ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds@airnet.net>
Reply-To:
owner-scan@efga.org
To:
"ScanThisNews Recipients List" <scan@efga.org>
Subject:
[FP] Gun owners face mandatory fingerprinting, photos, testing
Date:
Sun, 14 May 2000 21:21:14 -0500


======================================================================
SCAN THIS NEWS
5.13.2000

---

Gun owners face mandatory fingerprinting, photos, testing
By Matthew Mittan

http://www.ashevilletribune.com/fingerprinting.htm

Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced a bill that would
require that
all legal gun owners in America be licensed, fingerprinted,
tested,
photographed and forced to sign safety contracts with the
federal
government.

"When you want to hunt, you get a hunting license; when you want
to drive,
you get a driver's license," Feinstein said. But, "when it comes
to guns and
gun owners, there's no license and no registration. ... The time
has come to
treat gun owners no differently than anyone who seeks to drive a
car."
Accompanying Feinstein at her Capitol Hill news conference were
other
gun-owner-control advocates.

Under the new law, if it is passed, all law abiding American
citizens who
wish to purchase a new firearm would have to pass a federal
firearms use
test, submit to fingerprinting and photographing by the federal
government,
pass Justice

(Pictured above) The U. S. Border Patrol already employs a
system, to log
information on people, that uses digitized fingerprints and
photographs. The
information is stored in a government computer database which is
available
to federal agents and law enforcement officials. The government
may enlist
the help of this same technology to build files on law abiding
Americans who
own guns, if a new bill before Congress is adopted. (Photo by
Denis Poroy..)


Department and State background checks, provide information as
to date and
place of birth and their current residential address, sign
contracts to
"keep the guns away from children" and pay a $25 license fee.
Licenses would
need to be renewed every five years, and would be revoked at any
time if the
gun owner ever became disqualified under any new or old federal
law
regarding gun possession.

Current gun owners would have 10 years to become federally
licensed or face
consequences, possibly from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms
(ATF), the agency responsible for the debacle at Waco, TX where
dozens of
men, women and children died and also for the incident at Ruby
Ridge. New
gun purchases would be effected immediately.

The legislation, called The Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale
Act, is the
latest and most aggressive gun-owner-control measure to be
authored by
Feinstein, who in 1994 won passage of a ban on numerous
manufactured gun
features. In the Republican-controlled Congress, where centrist
and rural
Democrats share a skepticism about imposing too many additional
gun
restrictions, its short-term fate can be judged by examining
other gun
legislation.

A measure targeting gun-show sales has been stalled for 10
months.

"Anybody who understands the political situation in this country
knows this
bill isn't going to go anywhere," National Rifle Association
spokesman Jim
Manown said. "The only thing it will accomplish is get Senator
Feinstein
publicity."

Feinstein is campaigning for re-election against Rep. Tom
Campbell of Palo
Alto, a moderate Republican who's strongly supported gun-control
measures in
the past. Campbell, however, has raised doubts about the new
bill, including
privacy concerns over the maintenance of a permanent
gun-ownership list and
constitutional concerns over the law's reach.

More than 65 million U.S. residents currently own about 230
million
firearms, according to National Rifle Association estimates.
Feinstein's
measure would not only apply to handgun owners, but to rifle
owners also.

As an incitement to debate, Feinstein's legislation raises
several
questions. Gun aficionados will want to know whether mandatory
registration
violates the Second Amendment's stricture against government
infringement on
the right to bear arms.

"The Constitution reads, "...the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms
shall not be infringed." A synonym for infringed is encroach.
Encroach is
defined by Webster's New World College Dictionary as "in a
gradual or sneaky
way"; "to advance beyond the proper, original, or customary
limits; make
inroads on or upon."

Manown of the NRA said the thrust of opposition will be
elsewhere. More
pragmatically, gun-owning skeptics question how well the ATF
will be able to
administer what could be a large-scale registration program.

"I'd venture that the only people standing in line to get their
fingerprints
taken will be law-abiding citizens," Manown said.

Under the 1934 National Firearms Act, the government already
registers
owners of machine guns, silencers, sawed-off shotguns and
certain other
firearms that lawmakers once deemed as gangster-friendly.

Feinstein's is not the first effort to require widespread
documenting and
list compiling of gun owners.

New York City started requiring the registration of rifle and
shotgun owners
in 1967. Then in 1991, the city banned certain shotguns and
rifles that had
always been legal, and notified the effected 2,340 licensed
citizens that
they had to surrender or render inoperable their guns to
government
authorities.

The Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act, is cosponsored by
Senators
Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Charles
Schumer
(D-N.Y.). Rep. Marty Meehan, (D-Mass) is introducing the same
bill in the
House of Representatives. Supporters of the new legislation
include Donna
Dees-Thomases, founder of the "Million Mom March"; Charles
Ramsey,
Washington, District of Columbia Chief of Police; and Michael
Barnes,
President of Handgun Control, Inc..

Contact information:
Sen Dianne Feinstein - 202-224-3841
NC Senators: John Edwards - 919-856-4245 and 202-224-3154
Jesse Helms - 828-322-5170 and 202-224-6342
Tribune comments: 828-254-1106 or tribune@ioa.com


(For further examples of widespread gun-owner-control measures
accomplished
in the past visit
http://www.ashevilletribune.com/guncontrol.htm.)

Michael Doyle’s report from Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
contributed to
this article.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Social security is the bane of individual liberty. - SAM
======================================================================
Don't believe anything you read on the Net unless:
1) you can confirm it with another source, and/or
2) it is consistent with what you already know to be true.
======================================================================
Reply to: <scan@networkusa.org>
======================================================================
This is a copy of ScanThisNews, sent to contributors. For
information
on contributing, please visit our contributions web page:
http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/fp-contributions.html

To subscribe to the free ScanInReview abbreviated newsletter,
send a
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Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page:
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http://www.aimnet.com/~suntzu75/lister99.htm

(Via Milinet)

That Million Mom March was really about

The Hill

May 17, 2000

By David Keene



Now that the million moms, give or take a few hundred thousand,
have gone

home, it's time to look at just what last weekend was all about.


At one level, what we saw was what we got. They rallied to show
their

distaste for societal violence and disintegration by demanding
that

Congress do something about gun violence. People who want to
make a

difference will invariably respond to those who offer what they
perceive to

be solutions to problems they want solved.


The important word here is "perceive." Perception will trump
reality almost

every time. The fact that violent crime in this country is
falling for

reasons unrelated to banning, or severely restricting, private
firearms

ownership doesn't matter to those who are scared. The fact that
an American

child is far more likely to be killed on a bicycle than in a gun
accident

is less relevant than the perception that kids are dying in
record numbers

simply because guns exist.


In the atmosphere in which the march took place, it matters
little that

fewer people died in this country last year in gun-related
accidents than

in any year since 1913, when our population was much smaller. As
little as

a recent government study that found young people who grow up in
homes with

legal firearms are less likely to illegally use a gun than those
never

exposed to guns.

The perception borne of the tragedies in Littleton, Colo., and
elsewhere

that our public schools are unsafe because of gun-toting
lunatics in the

halls is far more potent than the fact that the single safest
place for a

child at any time is in an American school, or the fact that
school

violence has been decreasing.


At another more fundamental level, however, the Million Mom
March had less

to do with any real concern about guns than about the
presidential and

congressional elections. The sincerity in the faces of many of
those

recruited for the march should not obscure the motivation and
backgrounds

of those who put it together so that they could exploit that
sincerity for

their own purposes


The organizers of the march dismissed any attempt to educate
young people

on gun safety as ludicrous, and laughed at those who suggest
that President

Clinton might at least be asked why he hasn't supported those in
his own

administration who have tried to prosecute criminals who violate
existing

federal gun laws.


Take the recent case of one-time militant H. Rap Brown who has
given up the

revolutionary rhetorical flourishes that made him a campus hero
in the

'60s, but remains a thug and possibly a murderer. He already had
a couple

of felony convictions last year when Georgia authorities
identified him as

the prime suspect in a robbery and murder. When they caught him
he was

carrying an illegal gun. They had him dead-to-rights on the
murder and

robbery charges, but before they could get him to trial, the
main witness

in the case conveniently "vanished."


As a result, the local authorities couldn't hold Brown on those
charges,

but they believed him dangerous and urged the federal prosecutor
to put him

away for violating federal gun laws. Their argument was simple
enough:

Brown is dangerous and you have the ability to take him off the
streets.


The prosecutor, however, checked with Washington and was told
not to

prosecute. He didn't. Brown walked and a couple of months ago
killed a

deputy sheriff, whose widow, one suspects, was not among those
Bill Clinton

invited to the White House last week.


A leading Democratic pollster suggested in a briefing before
last weekend's

march why it was so important. Democrats have benefited from the
so-called

gender gap for some years, but are finding that it may no longer
exist.

Indeed, when one looks at the women's vote right now, it is
clear that Al

Gore and his friends are losing groups they need to win in the
fall.


Remember the soccer moms. Like most other moms, they seem ready
to vote for

George W. Bush this fall. In fact, one recent poll gives Bush a
20-point

lead among married women and a 44-point lead among women who
stay home

rather than go out to work. These groups include soccer moms and
the

targets of the Million Mom March.


The pollster said the march was vitally important to Democrats
looking for

a wedge issue to pry these women away from Republicans. Whether
it works or

not remains to be seen, but is clear the weekend wasn't only
about guns.

It was about politics, stupid.



David Keene is chairman of the American Conservative Union and a

Washington-based government affairs consultant.


*If you want to be removed from the ACU Infonet, reply to this
e-mail and

type "ubsubscribe" in the subject line.

Two meter bomb, Dick. Good on ya!

Semper fi
George

(Via Milinet)


FYI...
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- AAFES RECALLS CHILDREN’S CLOTHES
- AIR NATIONAL GUARD’S NEW RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN
- NAVY ANNOUNCES NEW HIGH TECH RECRUITING TOOL
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AF SAVINGS BOND CAMPAIGN APPROACHING
The Air Force will kick off its annual Savings Bond
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increase the participation rate by 5 percent and to have
10 percent of current bondholders increase their
allotments. Both Series EE U.S. Savings Bonds and Series
I U.S. Savings Bonds will be available through payroll
deduction. The interest rates in effect for the campaign
will be 5.73 percent for EE Bonds and 7.49 percent for
I Bonds. The Campaign will run from June 1-30.

ARMY OFFERS AT-HOME ASSOCIATE DEGREES
The Army has teamed up with Columbia Union College, a
fully accredited college in Silver Spring, MD, to provide
soldiers, their families, and civilians the opportunity
to earn an associates degree by mail. Offered through the
Army Corresponding Education and Training System (ACETS),
army personnel and their families will have up to a year
to complete a course with no set limit on the length of
time it takes to earn their degree. The fees will include
a $50 registration fee for the degree program, $60 each
time the student registers to take one or more classes,
and $80 tuition per credit hour. The Defense Activity for
Non-Traditional Education Support will reimburse 75
percent of the tuition upon completion of a course. For
more information, call DSN 927-2079/5715 or 757-878-2079
or write to: Army Institute for Professional Development,
Army Training Support Center, Attention: ACETS, Newport
News, VA 23628.

AAFES RECALLS CHILDREN’S CLOTHES
The AAFES, along with the U.S. Consumer Safety Commission
and two manufacturers, has recalled some styles of baby
clothes and several vacuum models. Healthtex/VF Playwear,
Inc. has recalled infant and newborn clothing styles in
their “Little Impressions” and “Healthtex” lines. The
recalled clothing was sold during the fall and winter
1999 in sizes 3-24 months and contained permanent labels
that had the style number and the words “Made in
Thailand.” The recall resulted in a finding that snaps
can come loose and become a potential choking hazard for
young children. Also, BISSELL Homecare, Inc. has recalled
some vacuum models in their PowerClean and PureAir lines,
which were sold through AAFES from July 1998 – March 2000.
The vacuums are missing a 3” plastic flex where the power
cord enters the handle, which presents a risk of shock
and burns if the power cord tears, exposing bare wires.
Customers should stop using the vacuums immediately and
contact BISSELL for repair. If you want a copy of the
list of recalled childrens clothes and a list of
recalled vacuum models, simply go to our website at
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“archives” button on the top of the homepage.

AIR NATIONAL GUARD’S NEW RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN
The Air National Guard is aggressively perusing a goal to
reach its fully authorized strength of 106,678 people by
recruiting 2,500 men and women before Sept. 30. In
addition to making an effort to retain current personnel,
the Air Guard is ready to launch a $13 million advertising
campaign targeting people between the ages of 17 and 23.
Part of that money will be earmarked to hire an additional
27 recruiters this year and 38 more between 2001 and 2003.
It is essential that the Sept. 30 goals are met, insist Air
Guard officials, as they will be authorized an additional
1,300 people in 2001.

NAVY ANNOUNCES NEW HIGH TECH RECRUITING TOOL
The Navy’s Recruiting Command unveiled their newest
recruitment tool at the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show
on May 5-7. Attendees at the show had the opportunity to
take a virtual flight with the Blue Angels. For the first
time, the Navy has provided a simulator to the public that
allows the audience to feel as though they are actually
flying in formation with the famous squadron. Housed in a
tractor-trailer truck, the simulator consists of a custom
theater with 20-seat motion pod and can accommodate up to
200 virtual pilots per hour.

ARMED FORCES DAY – MAY 20th
May 20, 2000 marks the 50th Armed Forces Day. On August
31, 1949, secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced
the creation of an Armed Forces Day, a day honoring those
who serve their country in uniform. Replacing separate
Army, Navy and Air Force Days, the single-day celebration
unified the Armed Forces under one department – the
Department of Defense. There will be celebrations around
the nation honoring the 2.7 million men and women in
uniform.

MILITARY’S BEST COMMISSARIES
The 1999 Best Commissary Awards were announced by the
Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) at a May 4 ceremony.
The winning commissaries are: Best Large Commissary in
the U.S., McChord Air Force Base; Best Small Commissary
in the U.S., Armament Research Development and Engineering
Center (Picatinny Arsenal); Best Large Commissary
Overseas, Yongsan, Korea; Best Small Commissary Overseas,
Taegu, Korea. Evaluations of the 17 nominees dealt with
such areas as management, customer service, meat and
produce departments, and accountability controls.

KOSOVO CAMPAIGN MEDAL APPROVED BY PRESIDENT
A Kosovo Campaign Medal, approved by President Clinton in
a May 3 executive order, will be awarded to qualified
members who served in the U.S. Armed Forces in Kosovo (or
contiguous waters or airspace, as defined by regulations)
after March 24, 1999. Members may be awarded the Kosovo
Campaign Medal in lieu of the Armed Forces Service Medal
or the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal but may not receive
more than one of these medals for service in Kosovo.
However, those members that qualified for the Armed Forces
Service Medal and the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
between March 29, 1999 and May 1, 2000 for serving in
Kosovo will remained qualified for those medals. The
Kosovo Campaign Medal can also be awarded posthumously,
according to regulations.

LEGALLY SPEAKING
(General legal discussions for the military community
by the Law Firm of Shaw, Bransford, Veilleux and Roth)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces recently
held that the Navy had gone too far in its efforts to
balance national security and the accused’s right to
counsel in a court-martial. In U.S. v. King, the accused,
a cryptologic technician, potentially faces the death
penalty for providing a computer disk containing U.S.
submarine secrets to the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC.
At the beginning of the case, the Navy issued a protective
order governing the handling of classified information,
which included a requirement that an Information Security
Officer (ISO) monitor all communications between the
technician and his attorneys. The accused challenged the
order on grounds that it interfered with his attorney-
client privilege to confidential communications. The Navy
-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeal upheld the
protective order. However, after Navy counsel admitted
that interim security clearances could be approved for
defense counsel in just a few weeks, the Court of Appeals
found that provision requiring an Information Security
Officer did not represent “the least restrictive means
of providing appropriate protection of classified
information and the accused’s right to counsel.”
Therefore, the Navy may not prosecute the case until they
have granted interim clearances to defense counsel and
dropped the requirement for ISO monitoring.

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Subject:
#37 5-20-00 The Prison Doctor Looks Me Over
Date:
Sat, 20 May 2000 13:38:33 EDT

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#37 May 21, 2000 THE PRISON DOCTOR CHECKS ME OVER
©copyright 2000 RK

Even though I’m really just a traveler, a visitor, so to
speak,
temporarily stranded in this fascinating outpost of the realm of
California
Prisonland, I do share many of its services with its citizens.
I eat in the same mess halls with the citizens of this
strange land. I
sleep in their buildings along with them, and, I use the same
medical
services. Therein lies a tale:
Two days ago, one afternoon. I received a small slip of
white paper with
printing on it, slipped under the door by the “hall porter”.
My friends here
tell me this is called a “ducat”.
Ducats are used by the authorities to officially request a
prisoner to do
something. (report to a specified spot at a specified time). The
reason will
not be given, but can usually be ascertained by analysis.
My ducat identified itself as a “pass” to the
“Hospital clinic”. In the
block entitled “reason” It showed the name “Greenman”
No problem for an experienced prisoner to interpret this..
Greenman is the
name of my (assigned) doctor. This is a request to meet with the
good doctor
for my yearly medical checkup.
The ducat says I am to report to the clinic tomorrow. Not
much of an
advance warning, you say? Well, as the prison sees it, I’m not
going
anywhere. No point in giving me advance warning. I’ll always
be available.
The ducat specifies 1:45 Monday. So, when Monday arrives and
its near the
time to report I walk over to the main gate of our quad, and
exit through the
revolving cage doors, showing my ID card and pass as I do so.
The entrance to
the Hospital corridor will be just a hundred feet from the gate
I’ve just
left.
I walk over to its entrance go thru another revolving cage
and find
myself in the hospital corridor. The door to the clinic is
another 100 feet
down this corridor. Alongside the hospital building on one side
of the
corridor is a long row of benches. There’s a simple shade roof
over them. The
benches are filled with men waiting for their clinic
appointments.
I love this place. Such a far cry from the calculated
cruelty back at
Salinas. (the last place I visited). No benches at all in
Salinas. No shade
at all in Salinas. In Salinas, to make the same medical visit I
would have
marched two miles with my hands handcuffed behind my back, would
have been
thrown into a holding tank, where I would have spent the day
waiting for a 15
minute chat with the doctor.
I walk up to the clinic door way and present my ID card and
ducat to a
prisoner friend who works for the clinic. He takes my ducat into
the building
and after a short wait returns. “Doctor Greenman is checking
out a long list
of guys today. Have a seat and I’ll come and get you when
she’s ready for
you.
He’s an old friend. He will look out for me. No problem. I
had expected a
long wait, so I’ve brought cross word puzzles to work on.
I’ll enjoy the
wait. It’s a beautiful day. There are friends in the waiting
line I can talk
to in the meantime.
I’m on my second “puzzle” when my friend comes to get
me. “Mrs Greenman
is free now”, he says, “Follow me”.
We walk into the Clinic lobby. Actually it’s no longer a
lobby. It’s
been turned into several wall-less offices with desks loaded
with papers,
chairs covered with books and busy people working away.
We wend our way through this obstacle course to a very small
office in
the far corner of the clinic area. It’s a general purpose type
of office,
obviously assigned out as needed on a daily basis. Today it
belongs to the
Doctor.
I walk up to the Doctors temporary office and stand at the
door. This is
a prison! The Doctor looks up, sees me, points to a seat on the
far side of
her desk and says “Have a seat”.
The doctor is a matronly looking lady somewhere in her
fifties. She could
well be a pleasant person, outside of the prison. She, however,
has a curious
way of looking at me and talking, as though there was some sort
of glass
barrier between us. And there is.
She sees a criminal in front of her. No one can like a criminal,
but she has
a job to do, and, she will do it. She has contracted to provide
certain medica
l services to this criminal, with the view that live criminals
are what the
prison gets paid to manage. (dead criminals are not profitable)
She is now leafing thru my a large file of paper in front of
her,
obviously my medical file. Also obvious is the fact that she
hasn’t looked at
it since my last visit 6 months ago.
“How have you been?” She asks. This question always
gives me a problem.
I’m still a Marine at heart. I would like to answer “I’m
fine, and I’ll be
here long after you’re dead” (A Marine would word that just
a bit
differently though. “I’ll piss on your grave” is the
correct Marine
response.)
But, again, this is prison. We play a different game here.
An optimistic
answer here would be a mistake. It would be instantly noted in
the file, and
would serve to close the interview. (You’re fine? That’s
fine, Goodbye. Send
the next man in!)
So, in answer to her question I say “I an still living
with all the
problems I reported last time. In several areas they are getting
worse. My
back is still a painful problem, my feet are continuing to lose
feeling.
(Peripheral Neuropathy).
The doctor looks up from her files and says “The
Neurologist reports that
there is nothing they can do for your Peripheral Neuropathy. You
can drop
that complaint. You
will have to live with it”
(Read that: We’ve decided that your Peripheral Neuropathy
is not our
fault. You did that to your self when you didn’t eat properly
years ago as a
Prisoner of War.)
“What else is wrong?” she asks.
“I’m 80” I answer. “I have 7 to 8 years left before
I cash in my chips.
To be blunt, I’m dying”. I’m not sure how you want to
write that down.
However, I do want to make it clear that for me time is running
out.”
The doctor answers “Every one dies in time. That’s not
news” (This
is my doctor talking. This will be the extent of the free
medical advice I
receive today).
I answer “You’re absolutely right. The thing is, at 80,
that time is
here. It’s now! It’s come.”
She doesn’t answer. I’ve made my point. She won't be
able to write into
my file that the inmate seemed to be in perfect health (thus
justifying the
prisons failure to spend any money on me.)
Is there anything else you want to cover? “ she asks.
“Yes, I answer. There seems to be a question as to whether
I can hear.
Although I do wear hearing aids, you will note we have been
conversing with
no difficulty in a normal tone of voice. “The problem is this,
as I
understand it”, I tell her. “There is a note in my medical
file that says I
am hearing disabled”. On several occasions that note has
caused prison staff
to try to send me to Corcoran. (a hearing disabled designated
prison.)
"I am not hearing disabled," I say. “I don't want to go to
Corcoran. I
would like this corrected.”
This is a legitimate request. The original entry in the file
was done at
Pelican Bay by non medical staff to justify a move they wanted
to make. As
all things in prison are done, it was done in the interest of
”prison
security”
The doctor responds, “We can’t change files based on
your word”. (Read
that, “you criminals are always trying to put something over
on us. We solve
this by saying “no” to all requests from “criminals”.)
How funny. The prison can do anything it wants to with its
files, “in the
interest of security”, except respond to a prisoners request.
I have a solution to this problem, but I won't offer it. The
doctor
doesn’t have that good a sense of humor. Here’s the solution
I would have
offered:
Pretend I have a family living near Corcoran. I of course
would want to
be transferred there. Now, In the interest of “Security” it
should be easy
to stop that transfer. Just remove the “hearing disabled”
reference from my
files.
Explanation: In prison if a prisoner wants something there
has to be a
reason. In prison it is taken as a “given” that the
prisoners reason will
not be “in the interest of prison security” prison security.
The prison will
automatically kill it “in the name of “Security.” (They
haven’t the time
to figure out what nefarious reason he had in mind. They just
know he’s
probably up to no good). Needless to say I do not make this
suggestion.
The doctor closes up my file. Looks up and says, “Ask the
next man to
step in”.
The yearly medical checkup has been concluded. The doctor
has earned her
pay. Nothing she said will cost the State a penny.
In all fairness I must admit this is better than the medical
treatment I got
as a Prisoner of War. I leave happy. I will survive. I am a
survivor.

Richard Keech
semper fi
Richard Keech

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Here's one a guy gave to me in a grocery parking lot after spotting my USMC tag on my truck. You'll LOVE it!!
A Story of Creation
In the beginning was the word, and the word was God. In the beginning was God, and all else was darkness and void, and without form. So God created the heavens and the Earth. He created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, so that light may pierce the darkness. The Earth, God divided between the land and the sea, and these he filled with may assorted creatures.

And the dark, salty, slimy creatures that inhabited the murky depths of the oceans, God called "sailors." And he dressed them accordingly. He gave them trousers that appeared as bells at the bottom, and their shirts had cute little flaps on them to hide the hickeys on their necks. He also gave them shaggy hair and shabby-looking beards. God nicknamed them - "squids," and banished them to a lifetime at sea so that normal folks would not have to associate with them. To further identify these creatures He called them words like "petty" and "Commodore" instead of titles worthy of red-blooded men.

And the subnormal creatures of the land, God called "soldiers." And with a twinkle in His eye, and a sense of humor that only He could have, God made their trousers too short and their covers too large. He also made their pockets over-sized so that they may warm their hands. And to adorn their uniforms, God gave them badges and emblems in quantities that only a dime store owner could appreciate. And he gave them ropes and crests.... and all sorts of shiny things that glittered... and devices that dangled. (Even God sometimes gets carried away!)

On the 6th day He thought about creating some air creatures. For these he designed a uniform not unlike that of a Greyhound bus driver; but he discarded this idea, and it wasn't until years later that some apostles resurrected this theme and established what we now know as "the wild blue yonder wonders."

And on the 7th day, as you know, God rested. But on the 8th day, at 0600 hours, God looked down on what he had wrought, and was not happy!! God was not happy! So He thought about His labors, and in His divine wisdom, God created a divine creature. And this he called Marine.

And these Marines, who God had created in his own image, were to be of the land, of the sea, and of the air. And He would give these Marines many wonderful uniforms. Some were green, some were blue with trimmings of red. And in the early days some were even a beautiful tan. He gave them practical fighting uniforms, so that they may wage war against the forces of Satan and evil. He gave them service uniforms for their daily work and training. And He gave them evening and dress uniforms....sharp and stylish, handsome raiment so that they may promenade with their ladies on Special Outings and impress the **** out of everybody!! He gave them swords, so that people who were not impressed, could be dealt with accordingly.

And at the end of the 8th day, God looked down upon the Earth and saw that it was good ! But was God happy? NO! God was still not happy! Because in the course of His labors, He had forgotten one thing. He did not have a Marine uniform for Himself!!

But He thought about it, and thought about it, and was satisfied Himself in knowing that:
NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A MARINE!
(signed)roywusmc@aol.com

it keeps getting better. I shared it with the youth group at church. Needless to say, they and some adults didn't get it. Father forgive them for they know not ..........GI Jose

That's right the last god given virtue congress hasn't aborted, the USMC. Semper Fi! A marine who was the last to know Subic Bay as it truly was, the 8th wonder of the world.
AJB, former Marine Barracks, Subic Bay,RPI.
Looking for same who served similar duty 2/86-6/87. PI Revolution Jarheads.

Subject:
e-Nuclear Veterans News
Date:
Wed, 17 May 2000 14:59:31 -0600

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e-Nuclear Veteran News
“Published periodically to send as an e-mail attachment” In
Albuquerque,
New Mexico
Vol. 00, Issue 10, 2000
Visit our WEB Site at:
http://www.angellire.com/tx/atomicveteran/email2.html
Published random to furnish information on peading legislation
and other
information of relative interest to Nuclear Exposed Vaterans.

LANL Land Burned: Radiation Contaminant Threat - Albuquerque
Journal
05/16/00 By IAN HOFFMAN - Journal Northern Bureau

LOS ALAMOS: More than a quarter of Los Alamos National
Laboratory’s land
has been burned so far by the Cerro Grande Fire, more than 20
times the
amount reported earlier.

Federal lawmakers have drafted an emergency $85 mifilon request
to get
the lab running again and stem potential releases of
contaminants from
erosion of burned waste sites.

Smoke from the burning lab so far contains levels of
radioactivity as
much as three times normal, scientists said. Yet federal, state,
and lab
officials still believe the radioactive smoke is a natural
emission from
burning trees and is not evidence of a lab release.

“So far, the evidence we have is there’s no health risk,” said
Gregg
Dempsey of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation
lab in
Las Vegas, N.M.

To test their natuial-radioactivity theory, lab scientists raced
to
Ruidoso and tested smoke from the Cree Fire there. They phoned
back with
preliminary word that Ruidoso’s smoke is just slightly more
radioactive
than that of the Los Alamos fire.

"Early indications from sampling the Ruidoso fire indicate
radiation
levels very comparable to those seen during the Los Alamos
Fire,” said
LANL environmental health physicist David H. Kraig. “This
indicates that
the radiation levels are consistent with the level of
radionuclides from
the burning of vegetation and the release of naturally occurring
radioactivity,” The real tests for LANL contaminants in the
smoke are due
back from a lab in Colorado late this week. Those tests will
detail the
actual radioactivie elements in the smoke and whether their
source is
natural - indicated by radioactive polonium, lead and bismuth -
or lab
related - indicated by plutonium, americiwn, cesium and others.

But scientists suspect the greater concern is still to come,
when summer
thunderstorms flush down charcoaled mountainsides and through
lab canyons
where Los Alamos has disposed of radioactive wastes for decades.

“The canyons have all burned and there has been extensive damage
to the
ecostructure,” said LANL director John C. Browne. ‘So if we get
some
monsoon rains, you’re going to get a tremendous amount of
erosion through
these canyons.”

A team of two dozen LANL scientists is studying waste sites and
the
erosion risk.

Julie Canepa, head of LANL’s cleanup program, said her team is
struggling
to access data in lab computers and offices.

“We’ve been working feverishly getting files from people’s homes
and
personial computers,” she said.

They are trying to estimate the risk of lab releases and
recommend ways
to shore up waste sites against erosion. Canepa said she aleady
is
mobilizing contractors for the work, although she predicts the
most
pressing job of stabilization lies with the Santa Fe National
Forest.

They will be working against a tight deadline. Climatologists
are
predicting New Mexico’s rainy season could start sooner than
usual this
year, as early as late June or early July.

Senator Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he will seek an $85 million
emergency
cash infusion for the lab’s fire recovery in the 2001 Military
Construction Appropriations Bill.

“Los Alamos is home to a premier laboratory that has weathered
the
terrible Cerro Grande Fire. But even beyond the fire damage,
restarting
lab facilities shut down because of the fire threat is not an
inexpensive
proposition,” Domemci said.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, toured the
lab’s
burned areas Sunday and promised his help to lab executives,
said LANL’s
Browne.

LANL officials now estimate the burned areas at 7,764 acres, or
a little
over 28 percent of its land area, up from a previouf stimate
this weekend
ofjust over 1.2 percent. The only modem buildings lost were
office
trailers.

The fire devoured five clapboard buildings and sheds at V Site
that date
to the Manhattan Project. Oddly, the flames dodgec he
neighboring
Assembly Building, where project scientists fitted together the
blocks of
high explosive for the Trinity Bomb.

ED: The Topography is such that the monsoon erosions could wash
downhill
and eventually end up in the Rio Grands River, vhich eventually
empties
into the Gulf of Mexico. I have not witnessed an actual
spokesperson
addressing this issue, but will bet that when same occurs - All
will be
well, NO Threat.

Sent Wednesday, May 17, 2000 1255 PM
Subject: OUTCOME OF VOTE ON H.R. 853
DAV MEMORANDUM FROM: Joseph A. Violante, National Legislative
Director
SUBJ OUTCOME OF VOTE ON H.R. 853, DATE. May17, 2000

Late on May 16, 2000, the House voted 250-166 to defeat H.R.
853, a bill
that, among other things, would have changed the current
non-binding
budget resolution to a joint resolution that would become law if
signed
by the President. The bill would have required that all programs
except
Social Security be reauthorized every 10 years and that all new
programs
be authorized for no more than 10 years.

Over the last two days, over 700 e-mails were sent from our web
site.
Thank you for your overwhelming support of our position on this
bill.

JOSEPH A VIOLANTE, DAy, National Legislative Director

e-Nuclear Veterans News is NOT affiliated with any organization
and sent
Free via e-mail.
Eligible: Atomic Veterans, Gulf War (Depleted Uranium), Others -
Nuclear
Exposed.
To be placed on our list please furnish: Name, Address, City,
State, Zip
Code, Telephone Number, e-mail Address. Send above information
via e-mail
to: rucon@juno.com. If you do not desire to receive copies
please notify
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Information gathered by Dick Conant, 2424 Venetian Way SW,
Albuquerque,
NM 87105, Tp: 505-877-3707 & Dale Howard, Tp: 505-865-8138, to
assist
Nudear Exposed Veterans.

Thank you,

Dick Conant (Richard U. Conant, Tp: 505-877-3707, FAX:
505-877-2119.

Subject:
Anoither "On this date..." daily chronology: this one about WWI
Date:
Wed, 17 May 2000 00:54:33 -0400


Scuttlebutt & Small Chow USMC History List

Knowing that there are a number of WWI buffs on this list I
thought I
might mention that I also send out every day a detailed
chronology of
WWI-related events: cultural and political as well as military.
It
covers the war in detail, on all fronts, as well as events
related to
the Russian Revolution, Irish uprising, etc. It also covers
labor
movements and strikes in all countries during the war. Also
included
are excerpts from the letters and diaries of poets serving on
the
front lines. The chronology is set up along the lines of the "On
this
date..." USMC history chronology that I send to this list.

The way to receive it is to sign up for my WWI Poetry discussion
list
at
http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/poetrywwi.html

It is a small list, so there is only occasional discussion.
Usually
the only message the list produces is my daily chronology
posting.

BJ Omanson


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