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thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:22 AM
Purple Heart awarded Marine Corps son of White Sulphur man

By ERIC NEWHOUSE
Tribune Projects Editor

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

Three weeks after being severely wounded by a grenade in Iraq, Lance Cpl. Lenard Watson Jr. was awarded a Purple Heart.

Gen. William L. Nyland, assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, presented the medal to Watson Tuesday in the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Watson, 20, is from Visalia, Calif., where his mother, Linda Klein, also lives. His father, Lenard Watson, lives in White Sulphur Springs.

Lenard Watson Jr. will be transferred to Balboa Hospital near San Diego in the next few days, as soon as doctors finish removing all the shrapnel and reconstructing his jaw.

"I lost most of my teeth," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

Watson, a special gunner with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, remembers the events of Aug. 25, in which his flak jacket saved his life.

His unit was cleaning up resistance around the main mosque in Najaf, when they came under fire.

"I fired a 400-round belt from my machine gun down an alley as we moved across it," he said.

Watson was in a kneeling position, he said, looking down the alley to make sure everyone was OK.

"An RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) landed about 2Þ feet to my left and blew me to the right," he said. "It felt like my whole jaw had been blown off.

"I looked down and saw my teeth and a lot of blood on the ground," he said.

Watson was wearing a flak jacket that protected his torso, but he took a lot of flak in his hand, his arm and his leg, in addition to suffering a broken leg, a fractured skull, nerve damage and a severe concussion.

Watson is being well cared for, said his grandfather, Richard Klein of California.

"The Marine Corps is taking care of all present and future medical requirements," he said in an e-mail to the Tribune.

Newhouse can be reached by e-mail at enewhous@greatfal. gannett.com, or by phone at (406) 791-1485 or (800) 438-6600.


http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040909/localnews/1201710.html


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:23 AM
Issue Date: September 13, 2004

Virtual convoy training gets troops ready to roll

By Jason Sherman
Times staff writer


Some troops heading to Iraq are evaluating a new tool that could help them deal with the ambushes and roadside bombs that have been regularly tearing up U.S. military convoys.
The Virtual Combat Convoy Trainer, designed to help train troops to recognize and respond to potential convoy threats, is now seeing action in North Carolina, Mississippi and Texas to familiarize soldiers with the mean streets of Baghdad before they deploy.

“It gives our soldiers the ability to hone in on the skills they’re going to need when they do actual live combat convoys,” said Army Lt. Col. Joseph Giunta, product manager for Ground Combat Tactical Trainers at the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation in Orlando, Fla. “It gives the soldier the ability to do ‘no-kidding’ mission rehearsal prior to ever being in the live event.”

The new convoy trainers, which leverage off-the-shelf software and maps, let soldiers practice missions, rehearse routes and identify such potential threat areas as choke points — ideal spots for planting roadside bombs, which could lead to the mapping of new routes before they ever drive down the actual streets.

“The trainer allows you to define when and where to travel down certain roads,” Giunta said.

While providing basic to advanced convoy skills, the trainers also mix in weapons engagement training and allow networking of up to four vehicles in a simulated environment to sharpen crew discipline.

Convoy strikes using rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosives and other weapons are responsible for one-third of the more than 730 U.S. combat deaths in Iraq.

Until now, the Army has not had a training tool to prepare troops for the kind of assaults insurgents are waging against military caravans.

Using the new virtual trainers, the Army hopes to develop new combat convoy tactics and procedures, such as what each vehicle should do when the group is attacked. Marksmanship training will also be a key part of the training in the simulator, as users can shoot at anything in the virtual environment.

U.S. Army Forces Command last year identified an immediate need for such a training device, prompting an urgent plea to industry for such an apparatus.

Many companies responded and the Army tapped two, each with a different notion for a virtual trainer, to build a set of prototypes for evaluation.

Raydon Corp. of Daytona Beach, Fla., nabbed a $5.6 million contract this spring to produce a Virtual Combat Convoy Trainer.

Each Raydon system has two truck containers with interiors modified for simulation training. Soldiers wear helmet-mounted displays of a 360-degree simulated environment and sit at different stations throughout the trailer — but in the virtual world within their helmets, they’re all in a single Humvee in one of five positions: vehicle commander, driver, machine gunner and two back-seat observer riflemen.

Raydon’s virtual trainer is based on a software program used to teach high school students to drive.

The company has delivered two systems, each of which can train a full Humvee crew. One mobile suite can be linked to provide training for a four-vehicle convoy and fits into a C-5 cargo plane.

Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training & Support of Orlando has a different approach. Its convoy trainer can also fit in a truck trailer but has a full-scale Humvee mounted in the center. The trailer’s side panels expand out and screens drop around the front and sides of the Humvee, showing a simulated environment projected onto a 180-degree field of view.

The system integrates the Firearms Training System with the fielded Close Combat Tactical Trainer for the new convoy training device.

Along with maps of Baghdad, Lockheed’s trainer includes detailed topography of Tikrit and Fallujah, other Iraqi cities where U.S. convoys have been repeatedly attacked.

In addition to the visuals, the trainer has an audio track to lend realism to the training.

Lockheed Martin won a $9.6 million contract to build its system.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-MARINEPAPER-333072.php


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:24 AM
Marines clean house in Ludafiyah
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 2004983122
Story by Cpl. Shawn C. Rhodes



CAMP MAHMUDIYAH, Iraq (Sep. 5, 2004) -- Six hundred Marines, 350 Iraqi Police Officers and 80 Iraqi National Guardsmen braved suicide bombers, mortars, roadside blasts and small arms fire as they cordoned and searched most of the houses in Lutafiyah Sept. 4.

The Marines from 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, and members of the Iraqi Security Forces conducted the searches because of recent insurgent activity in the area.

"We were there to disrupt insurgent operations ... (they) are an enemy we have been fighting since we arrived and have caused casualties for the Marines," said Maj. Brian W. Neil, operations officer and native of Middletown, Conn. "We empowered the Iraqi security forces by using them in the lead with us behind them. The (captured insurgents) gave us information which will aid us in future operations."

The operation began with 2/2 picking up Iraqi Police vehicles and dividing them up among the three rifle companies. From there, each company was staged at their section of the city and waited for the operation to begin.

"Before it happened, I figured it was going to be a smooth sweep. They're pretty cowardly in Lutafiyah and not the type of enemy to openly attack us," said Lance Cpl. Richard A. French, 23, machine gunner and native of Raleigh, N.C. "I knew we had a lot of support if anything did happen. Once we figured out that the screeching sound in the sky wasn't a rocket, we were glad to have air support if we needed it."

The three companies began searching each section of the city in unison, aided by 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment to the south. Weapons such as AK-47s and mortar-firing equipment were collected from the houses but the insurgents weren't going to give them up without a fight.

"I didn't know what it was when it happened. I just heard two explosions that were loud enough to blow out the windows of the building I was in," said Lance Cpl. Dennis M. Hill, 22, a rifleman with Company G and native of Huntington, W.Va. "There were a lot of Iraqi police cars parked on the road. If it wasn't for them being there, those two vehicle-born (Improvised Explosive Devices) would have killed Company G."

The two VBIEDs were the most resistance the battalion faced during the day.
In other parts of the city, roadside bombs were discovered and dismantled. Small arms fire was heard in different parts of the city but the only attacks made were on Iraqi Police.

"I can only say we should have done it a lot earlier, if we had we might have caught more," said 1st Sgt. Billy R. Hargrove, 39, the company first sergeant for Company F and native of New Orleans. "We got a lot of weapons and a lot of people. We came prepared and I think we did a good job."

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/19207E535CAF8ACD85256F0900278DE7?opendocument


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:26 AM
Marine, LAPD Officer Receives Bronze Star
Submitted by: Los Angeles Public Affairs
Story Identification #: 200498181659
Story by Staff Sgt. Sergio Jimenez



LOS ANGELES (Sept. 2, 2004) -- Staff Sgt. Jeremy E. Stafford recieved the Bronze Star Medal during a ceremony at Parker Center, Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters, Sept. 2, 2004.

Brig. Gen. James L. Williams, commanding general, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, presented the medal to Stafford, a reserve Marine and weapons instructor with the LAPD Training Division.

Stafford received the naval service's fourth highest award for heroism in connection with combat operations against the enemy as a Civil Affairs Team Chief, 3rd Civil Affairs Group, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., on April 2, 2003, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the citation, Stafford and his team were conducting regional assessments in the vicinity of Sumar, Iraq, when he observed the enemy attempting to assemble a hasty ambush. Stafford immediately engaged and killed one enemy assailant, wounded another, and disrupted the enemy ambush giving his unit an opportunity to deliver "overwhelming and devastating fire upon the enemy."

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200498183030/$file/bronze-star-lores.jpg

Brig. Gen. James L. Williams, commanding general, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., presents the Bronze Star Medal to SSgt. Jeremy E. Stafford during a ceremony here at Parker Center, Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters, Sept. 2, 2004.

Stafford, a reserve Marine and weapons instructor with the LAPD Training Division, received the naval service's fourth highest award for heroism in connection with combat operations against the enemy as a Civil Affairs Team Chief, 3d Civil Affairs Group, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., on April 2, 2003, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the citation, Stafford and his team were conducting regional assessments in the vicinity of Sumar, Iraq, when he observed the enemy attempting to assemble a hasty ambush. Stafford immediately engaged and killed one enemy assailant, wounded another, and disrupted the enemy ambush giving his unit an opportunity to deliver "overwhelming and devastating fire upon the enemy."
Photo by: Staff Sgt. Sergio Jimenez

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/3E9982C1F62BD62685256F09007A67B7?opendocument

Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:27 AM
Elements of 8th Engineers return from war in Iraq
September 09,2004
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

High-school sweethearts, Jonathan and Misti Larmore were married for less than a year when the young husband and father-to-be left for Iraq last February.

The separation wasn't a new experience for the couple - Jonathan, a lance corporal assigned to Camp Lejeune's 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Force Service Support Group, was deployed to Kuwait for six months in 2003.

Still, the last seven months was filled with some anxiety for the pair. Misti was pregnant when Jonathan left, and their first child was born two months ago.

"He felt a kick before he left," said Misti.

In all, about 200 people from Charlie Company and Bulk Fuel Platoon with 8th Engineer Support Battalion returned to Camp Lejeune Wednesday.

For the 21-year-old Larmore, seeing his son for the first time was overwhelming. Teary, the lanky bulk fuel specialist walked up to his wife and reached out to touch J.W. Jr.

"I missed my family," he choked. "I want to go home."

While in Iraq, troops like Larmore repaired roads and bridges. They kept convoys gassed.

In all, about 1,400 troops compose the battalion, said 1st Lt. Rachael Pitts. Two other units - a Bridge Company and another bulk fuel platoon that replaced this one - are still deployed, Pitts said.

The bulk fuel specialists are a tanker's best friend. They establish refueling points - like desert gas stations - in remote areas.

Returning from Charlie Company were combat engineers, a diverse bunch who can create barriers and slow enemy vehicles, or repair roads and bridges to help coalition troops advance.

Their primary mission is to support Marine infantry units, but they do everything from destroying captured enemy ammunition to building new schools and hospitals.

Many who returned Wednesday will likely be part of a large-scale East Coast deployment early next year when the II Marine Expeditionary Force takes over duties in Iraq from the West Coast's I MEF.

This homecoming was markedly different from the more-solemn unit departures of late.

In fact, it resembled a Labor Day picnic complete with a tent, chairs and barbecue. Along with his wife and infant son, Larmore was greeted by his parents.

In Iraq, the young Marine endured sand storms and telephone outages.

Larmore's mother thinks her son is looking forward to a little rain. With hurricane season in full bloom, he may just get his wish.

Contact Eric Steinkopff at esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.




http://www.jdnews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=25550&Section=News


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:29 AM
Navajo Nation member among seven Marines killed in Iraq

Lance Corporal Quinn Keith


Last Update: 09/08/2004 4:49:10 PM
By: Associated Press


PHOENIX (AP) - A 21-year-old Marine from Page, Arizona, has been killed in Iraq, less than a month before he was due to return home.

Family members say Lance Corporal Quinn Keith, a member of the Navajo Nation, was one of seven Marines who died Monday in a car bombing on the outskirts of Fallujah.

Family say Keith was a quiet young man who loved fishing, hunting, and wrestling. But they say he was determined to do his duty as an infantryman in the First Marine Division.

Uncle Clyde Keith says Quinn was scared to be Iraq, but he knew he had to be there.

Clyde Keith said he and his wife became legal guardians for Quinn and his three younger brothers several years ago after the boys’ parents divorced.

He says Quinn’s mother lives in Salt Lake City and will likely arrange for a funeral in Utah. But he says a memorial service also may be arranged in Page.



(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


http://kobtv.com/kobtvimgs/miscellaneous/storyadmin/quinn_keith.gif

Lance Corporal Quinn Keith

http://kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=13596&cat=HOME


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:30 AM
Why the Children of Beslan?

Special to MILINET By: Alan Walker

I think that the astounding massacre of children, teachers, and parents in North Ossetia has very, very ominous implications for the future, but I have the distinct feeling that not that many people realize quite what those implications are.

The first thing is why did they do it? You can understand bombing a bus load of Russian soldiers, or local police, or people working for the government, but kids? Even though all sorts of murderous terrorist groups have killed children in the past - the Palestinians, the IRA, you name them they've done it - none have deliberately targeted a school packed with children. It is obviously counter-productive from the point of view of propaganda and international reputation. In Bosnia the way Serb gunners targeted totally innocent people (as well as militarily useless but symbolic monuments - like the Sarajevo library) led to such international revulsion that they were defeated. Nobody had any sympathy for them anymore, even their close allies. So what happened in Russia seems completely irrational.

It would be nice to say that most of the casualties were caused by the usual heavy-handed, Rambo-like but incompetent intervention of Russian special operations forces. After all, who can forget the use of gas at that Moscow theater, where not only were many of the hostages killed on the spot by the gas, but others died of its effects because the secret services refused to tell doctors what the poison was so that it could be treated? In fact, the willingness of Russian internal security forces to risk the lives of hostages is probably an inheritance from the days of the NKVD when they could do whatever they wanted and not have to explain afterwards - so worrying about innocents caught in the crossfire was never a concern (a commentator on either French or Swiss TV suggested this and it makes tremendous sense) . However, the reports from the freed hostages tell quite a different story. The terrorists seem to have been astoundingly and callously brutal from the word go, and many (most?, all?) of the deaths seem to have been directly caused by the terrorists themselves. Even more telling is the report that one of the terrorists (a Chechen?) suggested to the group's leader that many of the children should be freed: he was then shot in the head for his pains.

What does this mean? I think it means that this event had relatively little to do with the Chechens' struggle against the Russians but was designed for something else entirely. I think the leaders of the group were hard-line Islamist extremists (could they really be, as the Russians are claiming, Arab al Qaeda people who were simply using the locals?) whose intent was never to negotiate about some Ingush prisoners or Chechen grievances - in fact, I think they intended all along to kill off all the hostages in a kind of Waco, Texas immolation. Nothing else can explain the number of bombs they rigged in the gymnasium and their patent unconcern for people who were beginning to collapse from heat exhaustion, lack of food and, especially, lack of anything to drink. Had the siege gone on much further the younger kids would have surely begun to die from dehydration. The reason why these terrorists did this is simple: they want to create a huge anti-Moslem reaction in order to gain more recruits and to facilitate their idea of a holy war against all unbelievers.

What they want is a pogrom. They know that while there are some young idiots who are sympathetic to their ideas, the vast majority of people in the Moslem world wants to get on with life, get a decent education for their children and have a decent future. That's why so many Moslems of one kind or another have moved to the West: more freedom, a better life, etc. But if, suddenly, due to some horrific terrorist attack, the non-Moslem majority in the countries where they live were to turn on the Moslems in the their midst - burning mosques, destroying homes and killing people in inchoate rage - well, this would undoubtedly make many, many of these originally apolitical and apathetic Moslems into radical Islamists. Surely something like that will happen in Ossetia unless the local authorities are really smart (in an interview on Swiss TV one of the locals said that for the Orthodox the period of mourning is 40 days, after which it's time for revenge). I have the impression that the Islamists really think that the non-Moslem world is so decadent that a massive attack by thousands/millions of enraged soldiers of God would bring it to its knees and make them all turn to Islam. Of course, that wouldn't happen, but rationality is not the forte of these people.

I think there are going to be more seemingly senseless attacks in the future; once again designed to incite hatred against Moslems as a group, thus turning the attacked Moslems into recruits for the Islamist cause. Given how politically correct Americans are, I don't think attacks like that in Beslan would have much resonance in the US, but what do you think might happen if a series occurred in France or Germany, where there are large and only partially integrated Moslem minorities? The French government is clearly very worried about Islamist extremism (far more than, for example, the British government is) since it knows full well that the relatively dormant French right could become very potent, indeed, if many French begin to see resident Moslems as being a serious threat to their well-being. The depressed suburbs of Paris, filled with fairly idle and fairly volatile North African Moslem immigrants, would explode in violence if they came under attack by mobs enraged by some sort of Islamist outrage.

While I tend to think those two French journalists will end up being freed (presumably after the French government pays several million $ in ransom for them - but without admitting they've done so), I think it is also possible that their bodies will turn up. Of course, from any form of Iraqi internal context kidnapping French journalists makes no sense, does it; but from an Islamist point of view, inciting hatred against Moslems is just what they want - and what they also want is to destroy the credibility of assimilated Moslems in the west (don't forget that 'modern' thinking Moslems are seen as traitors and enemies by the Islamists - Algerian writers, singers, poets, professors, etc. were specifically targeted by the terrorists there, forcing many of them into exile in France). In fact, the French already seem to have a contingency plan to deflect anger against Moslems in the event those two turn up headless: they're going to say that American/Iraqi Provisional Government attacks so enraged the kidnappers that they took it out on the journalists! Just watch.


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:31 AM
Officer sentenced, dismissed from Army for wounding self to get out of Iraq <br />
<br />
<br />
By Rick Emert, Stars and Stripes <br />
European edition, Thursday, September 9, 2004 <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
WÜRZBURG, Germany — A...

thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:31 AM
Marine sees wreckage where he earned medal


By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, September 9, 2004


WESTERN IRAQ — It was almost midnight last Tuesday when Lance Cpl. Steven Klimtzak, a Marine from the 4th Civil Affairs Group, found the Humvee, its dark-green hulk rising out of the darkness like the wreck of the Titanic.

Since he got out of the hospital a few days before, the Marine, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, has had trouble sleeping. When he closes his eyes, he hears explosions, echoes of the bomb that destroyed the Humvee on Sept. 3 and made him the first in the brigade to receive a Purple Heart.

“There it is,” he said, shining a flashlight through the gloom to reveal the mangled steel frame of a Humvee resting among dozens of other military vehicles.

Swirling dust made the parking lot resemble a graveyard from a B-grade horror film, but even in the dark, it was easy to see that the Humvee suffered greatly in the explosion.

Its nose was a mangled mass of twisted metal; a shredded tire hung from one of the front wheels; the left-side mirror was gone and the metal bar that once held it ripped in half; the roof had caved in and the driver’s door, which was blown off by the blast, lay bent in the back of the vehicle.

Klimtzak hunkered down and shone his flashlight on the underside of the Humvee to reveal a blackened mass of metal, shredded like Swiss cheese and leaking fluids onto the sand.

Inside, the dashboard was a tangle of broken instruments. The accelerator pedal had a hole in it where Sgt. Luke Cassidy’s big toe once rested. Cassidy, also from 4th Civil Affairs Group, was medically evacuated and also will be awarded a Purple Heart, Klimtzak said.

Klimtzak, a 19-year-old from Cheektowaga, N.Y., searched the driver’s compartment in case his friend’s toe was still there, but found only pieces of the shrapnel that ripped through the vehicle.

“I’ve got eight of these still in my shoulder,” he said, holding up a piece of jagged silver metal from the floor.

Klimtzak pulled down his T-shirt to reveal a hole where a piece of shrapnel entered his back, and another hole where it exited his shoulder.

Being near the Humvee for the first time since the attack made the young Marine uneasy, and he lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.

Klimtzak has hazy memories of the Sept. 2 explosion. There are a few details he can recall: A few days after he arrived in Iraq, he was manning a machine gun on the back of the Humvee on his first trip outside the wire. It was a civil affairs mission to inspect a soccer field and a school, he said.

Shortly before the attack, the vehicle passed under a tree and an overhanging branch struck Klimtzak. Then he saw a man with a shovel running away from the road. As Klimtzak started to turn his gun to face the threat, the bomb detonated, he said.

The blast sent a swarm of shrapnel into the young Marine’s shoulder, dislocating it, knocking him out and damaging his hearing in one ear.

“I was told the driver kept going for 20 meters and then we crashed into a ditch. I ended up in the cab with the driver,” Klimtzak said.

“The next thing I remember is somebody yelling, ‘Get out of the way, casualties coming in.’ I remember the doc putting my shoulder back in place, which really hurt, and the nurse calming me down. Then they put me out because of the pain.

“I remember getting into a helicopter and waking up a day later at [a military hospital], not knowing where I was. I was scared and I didn’t know what happened. I kept worrying about Sergeant Cassidy.”

When Klimtzak called his parents, Thomas and Belinda, to tell them he was all right, they cried.

Now, standing by the wrecked Humvee, Klimtzak’s shoulder still hurts. But it’s healing fast, he said. His hearing is coming back, too. It might take longer for the psychological scars to heal.

“It is hard to sleep at night,” he said. “I hear explosions. I wake up crying or sweating. The other day a sergeant broke a light bulb in a garbage can and I almost jumped out of my boots.”

Other times he feels angry with the people who attacked him.

“I don’t understand why people are doing this to us. We are here to help them and there are people out there that don’t want our help and they are trying to hurt us,” he said.

For now, he is taking stress management classes and maintaining vehicles on post, but he is determined to continue his mission in Iraq.

“The best Marine is a hundred percent Marine,” he said. “They want me 100 percent before I go back out, but eventually I will go back out.”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=24259


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 07:11 AM
Issue Date: September 13, 2004

Promise to Army forces in Germany: ‘no surprise’
Troops heading to U.S. will have plenty of notice before leaving

By Vince Crawley
Times staff writer


A top U.S. commander says the recently announced plan to pull up to 40,000 American troops out of Europe does not mean Germany-based units sent to Iraq will head directly to the United States when their deployments end.
But when the time does near for Germany-based troops and families to head home, they are being promised plenty of advance notice — unlike the hurried drawdown of the early 1990s.

Also, Pentagon officials disagree with an independent congressional budget estimate that says the costly troop moves out of Europe and South Korea would offer little long-term savings.

The repositioning moves were announced Aug. 16 as part of a worldwide plan to base more forces within the United States, resulting in fewer families overseas and reducing the political impact of stateside base closings.

Days after the Pentagon confirmed plans to pull both Army divisions from Germany, the top Army commander in Europe also confirmed a long-discussed merger of U.S. Army Europe and the Army’s V Corps, both based in Heidelberg, Germany.

USArEur has been the Army’s overall theater headquarters, while V Corps has been a deployable field headquarters that most recently served as the nucleus of Combined Joint Task Force 7, the Baghdad headquarters of occupation forces in the first year of the Iraq mission.

In an Aug. 21 letter to troops and families, Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of USArEur, said his command has 62,000 soldiers in 240 installations centered on 14 major military communities.

Officials expect to reduce these numbers by about “two-thirds over the next 10 years,” Bell wrote.

As that happens, officials will establish “joint task force-capable headquarters in theater,” he said. “USArEur and V Corps headquarters will merge to become a single headquarters, called USArEur and Task Force 5.”

The new entity will oversee Army operations for the U.S. European Command while providing a “deployable, war-fighting headquarters capable of [joint task force] operations for combatant commanders,” Bell wrote. “We will also establish one or two small, light and mobile JTF-capable headquarters ready for contingencies around the globe.”

After the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division, along with “several echelon-above-division units,” move to the United States, “units such as the Army’s new modular brigades will rotate from [the continental United States] into forward operating sites … in the territories of our new NATO partners to the east,” Bell said.

Poland, Romania and other Eastern European nations have been eager to host rotations of U.S. troops. Pentagon officials stress these rotations would be to bare-bones bases that feature little in the way of permanent facilities.

The whole plan is subject to change, Bell said, but he promised the pacing of troop movements will be “thorough and deliberate.”

Not another ’90s drawdown

In contrast, troop cuts in Europe in 1991-1992 were done hastily and in secret and focused mainly on rapid cost savings. Troops and families were sent home at rates exceeding 60,000 people per month, with no formal notice until installations were almost vacant. Those arriving home found themselves at bases unprepared to receive them, creating massive overcrowding in housing and schools.

“There will be no surprise,” Bell said in his letter. “If your unit is affected, you and your family will have time to properly prepare.”

Also, “some believe that units in Afghanistan or Iraq will redeploy to ConUS directly from operations,” Bell said. “That will not happen.”

Instead, “if a deployed unit is designated for return to ConUS, it will fully redeploy, reintegrate and reconstitute at its European home base first. No family will be left to move themselves back to ConUS.”

In May, the Congressional Budget Office studied alternatives for moving troops from overseas and said cost-savings would be minimal, noting that foreign governments pitch in considerable sums of money to help defray the expenses of American stationing.

“Because the United States has invested heavily over the past 50 years in base infrastructure for its troops stationed overseas, any major shifting of forces — either between overseas locations to the United States — would require significant spending to provide that infrastructure somewhere else,” the CBO said in its report.

“There would be limited annual savings to offset the large initial investment needed to re-station U.S. forces, unless U.S. presence overseas was greatly reduced,” the CBO said.

In that case, annual savings could top $1 billion, but the net upfront investment required would be substantial — up to $7 billion.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-MARINEPAPER-330639.php


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 08:28 AM
Military loses key evidence in death of Iraqi man at Marine-run prison <br />
<br />
By: SETH HETTENA - Associated Press <br />
<br />
CAMP PENDLETON -- The U.S. military has lost key pieces of medical evidence in its...

thedrifter
09-10-04, 12:07 PM
Myers, Rumsfeld defend approach to Iraq militants


By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, September 8, 2004



ARLINGTON, Va. — While U.S. troops in Iraq no longer patrol what is now being called “no-go zones,” volatile areas such hotly contested cities such as Ramadi, Najaf, Fallujah and Samarra, the absence of forces has not created a safe haven for insurgents, the Pentagon’s top military leader said Tuesday.

Declining to provide specifics because it might reveal operational secrets, Gen. Richard Myers told reporters there were logical reasons behind decisions to keep U.S. forces from going after pockets of enemies, reasons topped by arrangements with the interim government that would leave that responsibly to the new Iraqi security forces once they are prepared to take over, Myers said.

“They’re all a little bit different in terms of the strategy we’re using, where some of the insurgents are not able to travel outside of those communities,” Myers said during a Pentagon press briefing flanked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “There are places where we do not conduct patrols, we don’t conduct joint patrols, but they’re all going to be dealt with on priorities developed by the Iraqi government and by coalition forces.”

This summer, Marines withdrew from active patrols in Fallujah as ceasefire agreements were brokered between top U.S. military leaders and governing council members.

There are now about 95,000 adequately trained and equipped Iraqi forces who could take over some of the patrolling missions once done by U.S. forces, Myers said. That number is down from 206,000 number the Pentagon touted as available earlier this year — before realizing they were poorly trained and equipped. By mid-2005, Rumsfeld said the number should go to more than 200,000.

As of Tuesday, some 997 U.S. servicemembers have died since the start of the Iraq war, according to a count by The Associated Press based on Defense Department figures.

Rumsfeld sidestepped a question on the fact that the 1,000 U.S. casualty milestone was near. “A single loss of life is large and it’s a life that’s not going to be lived,” he said.

He noted that the death toll of victims of terrorism — including the some 3,000 lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — has far dwarfed 1,000.

Rumsfeld blamed “a combination of terrorists, former regime elements, and criminals” for the continuing violence in Iraq.

In the single deadliest attack against American troops in four months, seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi soldiers were killed on Monday when a car bomb exploded near their convoy on the outskirts of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Six American soldiers were later killed in attacks in and around Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Rumsfeld defended the U.S. plan of operation in Iraq against criticism that the war plan was flawed and that the United States and its coalition partners had severely underestimated the enemy.

“No war plan survives the first contact with the enemy,” Rumsfeld said.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23415&archive=true


Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 02:28 PM
U.S. Attacks Militants In Iraq
Associated Press
September 10, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - American warplanes struck militant positions in two insurgent-controlled cities Thursday and U.S. and Iraqi troops quietly took control of a third in a sweeping crackdown following a spike in attacks against U.S. forces.

More than 60 people were reported killed, most of them in Tal Afar, one of several cities which American officials acknowledged this week had fallen under insurgent control and become "no-go" zones.

Nine people, including two children, were reported killed in an airstrike in Fallujah against a house which the U.S. command suspected of being used by allies of the Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. American and Iraqi troops also moved into Samarra for the first time in months.

The robust strikes came during a week in which nearly 20 American troops were killed, pushing the U.S. military death toll in the Iraq campaign above 1,000, and al-Qaida claimed U.S. forces neared defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Americans in both countries are between two fires, if they continue they bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything," Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin-Laden's top deputy, said on a videotape broadcast Thursday by Al-Jazeera.

President Bush received a National Security Council briefing on Iraq early Thursday from Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte and other top officials. White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to say what they told Bush of the surging violence.

In a statement, the U.S. command said military operations around Tal Afar were designed to rid the city of "a large terrorist element that has displaced local Iraqi security forces throughout the recent weeks."

The U.S. military said 57 insurgents were killed in the attack on Tal Afar, a northern city near the border with Syria that lies on smuggling routes for weapons and foreign fighters. The provincial health director, Dr. Rabie Yassin, said 27 civilians were killed and 70 wounded. It was unclear whether those reported by the Iraqis as civilians were counted as insurgents by the Americans.

Late Thursday, the regional government's television station reported U.S. and Iraqi government forces had agreed to allow medical teams to enter Tal Afar to care for the wounded but that military operations would continue "until the city is liberated from outsiders and saboteurs so that peace can be restored."

"Fighting went on throughout the night in three streets of Tal Afar between U.S. and Iraqi forces on the one hand and the resistance on the other," said Bashar Mohammed, a teacher who fled the city with his family.

The airstrike in Fallujah was the third in as many days against suspected insurgent positions in the city 30 miles west of Baghdad. A two-story house was destroyed and two adjacent homes were substantially damaged, witnesses said.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities lost control of Fallujah after U.S. Marines ended a three-week siege last April and turned the city over to a U.S.-sanctioned force, the Fallujah Brigade, which has now all but disappeared.

Before dawn Friday, Fallujah residents reported hearing strong explosions in the north of the city, but the U.S. command in Baghdad said it had no reports of a new American bombardment.

Using a different strategy, American and Iraqi forces entered the central city of Samarra for the first time in months under an agreement with local leaders to restore central government control peacefully.

A member of the Samarra council, Raad Hatem, said the deal called for the appointment of a new mayor and police chief and for reconstruction to begin next week. In return, Samarra residents agreed to remove guns from the streets. The Americans pledged to stop raiding private homes.

The troops that entered the city will maintain joint traffic control points in the city and will also open the Samarra Bridge.

Maj. Gen. John Batiste, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said this week he had offered a deal to insurgents under which they would be free to leave Samarra or to remain inside as long as they stopped fighting. U.S. said they believed a hundred or so extremists, including some 40 foreigners - Saudis, Yemenis, Sudanese and Jordanians - had been the biggest obstacle to Batiste's initiative.

Restoring government control to major cities is essential if the country is to hold national elections by the end of January. The weakening of central government authority has led to a wave of kidnappings of Iraqis and foreigners, including two French journalists seized last month and two Italian female aid workers taken captive Tuesday in Baghdad.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged this week that it could take months before U.S. and Iraqi authorities can take back all those cities - especially the toughest Sunni insurgent bastions such as Fallujah and Ramadi.

Contacts are under way between Fallujah representatives and the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to restore some degree of control over the city. The Fallujah residents want the U.S. attacks to stop and the Americans to pay compensation to people killed in attacks.

Allawi wants city officials to hand over al-Qaida-linked terrorists that he and the Americans say are in Fallujah.

Relative calm returned to much of the Shiite Muslim heartland after an agreement negotiated last month by Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The agreement brought an end to weeks of fighting between U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Scattered clashes continue between al-Sadr's loyalists and American forces in the radical cleric's Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City.

Iraqi officials want to prevent al-Sadr from rebuilding his forces in Najaf. Toward that end, dozens of Iraqi soldiers and police raided al-Sadr's Najaf office to search for weapons. Al-Sadr was not there at the time, and no weapons were found, although Iraqi officials said ammunition and mortars were confiscated from nearby houses.

Ellie

thedrifter
09-10-04, 07:49 PM
Issue Date: September 13, 2004

Corps will test its version of ‘Sea Swap,’ Hagee says
Entire MEU might fly out to strike group

By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer


The Marine Corps will soon fly all or part of its Marine Expeditionary Unit personnel to deployed amphibious ships in an experimental plan that borrows from the Navy’s “Sea Swap” concept, according to the commandant.
The Navy has been using Sea Swap — in which sailors fly out to ships while the hulls stay overseas — since 2002, when it rotated as many as four destroyer crews during one ship’s two-year deployment.

Top Corps officials say the concept could be applied to Marines on a grander scale — replacing as much as an entire MEU, about 2,200 Marines — aboard an at-sea expeditionary strike group. But moving such a large number of personnel all at once could prove daunting, Marine Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee told reporters Aug. 23. He touched on a number of topics during his remarks.

“We believe it can be done and we are going to experiment with it over the next year or so,” Hagee said. “Because if it can be successful, we can provide [Marines] to that [regional] commander in chief without any increase in end strength or equipment.”

It is unclear when the experiment would begin. With most Marine units rotating through Iraq or training to deploy, the Corps is running short of units to conduct such exercises.

Hagee also weighed in on the Bush administration’s mid-August announcement that it would begin to draw down America’s Cold War-era military presence in Asia and Europe, repositioning those forces instead to Eastern Europe, Central Asia or other parts of Asia.

The repositioning proposal has found its way into election-year politics, with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry calling the move a “hastily announced plan” that “raises more doubts about our intentions and our commitments than it provides real answers.”

Hagee called the global posture review “absolutely the right thing to do.”

The Corps has more than 20,000 troops deployed to bases in Asia and around 100 Marines in Europe.

“During the Cold War, that force structure … was really quite important,” Hagee said. “Now is the time, as we go into the 21st century and as we try to project what’s going to happen out there, for us to do a really serious review of [whether] we have our forces positioned correctly.”

The Pentagon has said it will take several years to redeploy as many as 70,000 U.S. troops, possibly including Marines, to new bases or back home. The administration has not yet outlined specific plans or timetables, but says the military’s global posture should better reflect the challenges of the war on terrorism.

Although it already has some of the most deployable U.S. forces, the Marine Corps must become even more mobile, Hagee said.

In the past three years, the Corps has been called on repeatedly for varying missions, making swift deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and elsewhere. So the Corps “must be able to move our forces much more rapidly than we can today,” he said.

But access is a growing concern for U.S. forces, he said, as countries are reluctant to permit them to gather on their territory to prepare for war.

One way to avoid that is with “sea basing,” he said, a developing Marine Corps and Navy concept for staging war supplies and troops aboard ships that can be moved rapidly to trouble spots.

With enough ships and troops, Marines could conduct “arrival, integration and staging at sea,” Hagee said. Sea basing would enable Marines to rapidly strike deep inland from the sea.

“We can’t do that today,” he said, but eventually the Corps wants “to be able to do Iraq without Kuwait.”

For last year’s invasion of Iraq, U.S. troops spent months in preparation in Kuwait.

Hagee’s vision of sea basing includes putting 15,000 Marines on ships, along with enough equipment and supplies to sustain and protect them for several weeks. Sea basing would permit a sizable number of Marines to strike anywhere in the world within 10 or 12 days, he said.

To accomplish that, Hagee said, the Marines will require new ships and the willingness from Congress to provide enough money to build them.

Defense News staff writer William Matthews contributed to this report.


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-MARINEPAPER-330770.php

Ellie