Center for Security Policy 8/10/00 "……There is good news and bad news about the op.ed. article published in today's Washington Post by former Clinton-Gore Secretary of Defense William Perry and his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili. …… In important respects, their assessment of the question at hand -- namely, has the reduction in the size and capability of the U.S. military over the past decade been excessive, leading to a condition where it "cannot adequately protect American national interests?" -- is highly misleading, transparently politicized and, since the authors should know better, seemingly intentionally disingenuous. ………. In the final analysis, it may well be that, as two of the leading architects of the hollow military Mr. Clinton is bequeathing to his successor, Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili cannot objectively discuss their handiwork……"

Tampa Bay online AP 5/19/99 "....President Clinton ordered an investigation Wednesday into a troubling string of six U.S. rocket failures in less than nine months. Losses have totaled $3.5 billion. ``It is vitally important that we fully understand the root causes behind the recent launch vehicle failures and take corrective action,'' Clinton said in a memo to Defense Secretary William Cohen. .... The failed rockets were carrying three military satellites, two commercial communication satellites, and a privately owned satellite capable of taking detailed, military-quality photographs of Earth. Two of the rockets exploded on launch, three satellites were stuck in useless orbits and another satellite vaporized in the atmosphere. With 52 U.S. launches since the beginning of 1998, the six failures represent a failure rate of more than 10 percent - twice the rate experienced in the previous six years. Three of the rockets were launched by the Air Force and three by aerospace companies...."

London Telegraph 5/14/99 Ben Fenton "...THE United States army has recognised white witchcraft as a religion and has appointed chaplains to oversee pagan ceremonies on at least five bases. A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that there were believed to be at least 100 witches attending covens at Fort Hood, Texas, the army's largest base with more than 42,000 troops. So respectful has the army become of the pagan rites that security was increased at Fort Hood's Boy Scout camp, where covens are held. The move is to deter members of Christian groups from intimidating the group. The pagans, called Wiccans, are accorded the same privileges as practitioners of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They are encouraged to have their religious preference stamped on the metal dog-tags each soldier wears...."

www.thestate.com (Columbia, SC) 5/14/99 Dave Moniz "...The Air Force will begin preventing some of its people from leaving the service, citing personnel shortages and an immediate need to staff the air war in Yugoslavia. The seldom-used procedure, known as "Stop Loss," will affect at least 40 percent of Air Force career fields and will begin next week. The Air Force has not announced which jobs will be affected but the service is currently suffering an exodus of highly-skilled workers, from pilots to air traffic controllers to those who fix and maintain aircraft...."

Washington Times (Book Review- Regnery) 5/12/99 John R Bolton "....... Mr. [Bill] Gertz provides a series of case studies of Clinton administration failures in defense and intelligence, based largely on his own reporting for The Washington Times, that create a cumulative impact both devastating and depressing. ...Mr. Gertz demonstrates tellingly that there is a pattern to Clinton administration decision making, the result of well-thought-out and deeply held national-security philosophies. Although the author also has much to say on individual incompetence and duplicity, his central point is how completely witting and united the administration's policy leadership actually is in its wrongheaded view of America's place in the world. .....Indeed, although Mr. Gertz's emphasis is on defense matters, he does not overlook the hollowing out of America's intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities. As with declines in military spending on research and development, the cutbacks in the U.S. intelligence capability are neither easily nor quickly corrected, and form a significant obstacle to effectively reasserting U.S. interests internationally....In Mr. Gertz's analysis, spin and intelligence also intersect in the administration's repeated distortions of what it actually knows. For example, he quotes one anonymous official saying that "Madeleine Albright lied to the Senate" about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and Mr. Gertz alleges that this incident is not a one-time occurrence..... This is not an academic book intended for defense intellectuals (although they would be remiss if they did not read it), but rather straightforward reporting covering about six years of a dangerously flawed presidency. It is troubling that so much of the book depends on government sources leaking classified information, but this unfortunate fact only underlines just how corrosive the Clinton administration's approach has been. Certainly, Mr. Gertz has given us more than ample notice of the damage caused by "the feel-good approach to national security." The remedy is obviously in our hands...."

U.S. News & World Report 5/24/99 Paul Bedard "...Navy rank and file are flashing distress calls to the Pentagon. Teams recently dispatched to bases around the nation have returned with reports full of morale and training complaints, a troubling sign as President Clinton moves to expand U.S. military participation in the Kosovo crisis. One team recently visited the Pensacola Naval Hospital in Florida and reported that "men and women felt strongly that 'military bearing and discipline is gone' and that both need to be re-emphasized especially in boot camp." Also, "Across the ranks there is a general perception that the military is not concerned for its people."...."

5/99 Lieutenant Commander Thomas Strother, U.S. Navy (Retired) "...As a then-active duty member of the military when the gay ban was lifted in 1993, I thought that lifting the ban may have served a purpose by extending basic human rights to gays and lesbians. But I also knew it eventually would hurt the recruiting of young, blue-collar males on whom the Navy so relied to man its ships, boats, and squadrons... They joined the Navy for many reasons: economic well-being, adventure, or to learn a trade. But usually the other (albeit rarely admitted) reason was to enjoy the rite of passage: to become a man. As far as helping the recruitment of enlisted people from a predominantly male, blue-collar, and conservative demographic pool, lifting the gay ban was not a brilliant move--if the intention was to sustain an all-volunteer force without a draft. Exacerbating the recruiting problems resulting from the lifting of the gay ban was the politically-correct decision to lift the ban on women serving in most combat vessels and aircraft. The arguments against lifting this ban have not focused on recruiting; they focused on bathrooms, pregnancies, jealousies that might ensue, etc. I never heard a serving senior officer openly suggest that ending the exclusion of women from combat might hurt recruiting. Yet, since allowing women to serve in combat roles, recruiting slowly has slid in the tank.. ."

LA Times 6/12/99 James Gerstenzang and Edwin Chen with Paul Richter "...Still, for all the evidence of camaraderie between the commander in chief and his GIs, there remains an undercurrent of doubt about Clinton among military figures. There has been success in the Balkans, a pay-raise proposal for the troops and a turnaround in declining Pentagon budget requests. But 6 1/2 years after he took office, to some warriors and civilian allies he is still the baby-boomer-Yale-and-Oxford president who generated controversy over gays in the military and whose initial staff included senior aides openly scornful of the armed services......"

The Washington Times 7/2/99 Wesley Pruden "...The sex really sizzles in this man's Navy Richard Danzig, the man Bill Clinton appointed to preside over the dismantling of the Navy as we've known it for 223 years, seems to think sex is the only sizzle that sells. Duty, honor, country is for old (white) coots. "Semper Fidelis" is for the birds. Reforming attitudes and eliminating obstacles in the way of making combat safe for Moms is No. 1 on Mr. Danzig's agenda as secretary of the Navy. He wants to assign women to assuage the loneliness of the long-distance submariner. And when he suggested the other day that the nuclear-submarine fleet should prepare to welcome women into the cramped crew quarters (and the fun, games and pregnancies that are sure to follow), he made a point of insulting skeptical white men, who he suggested were driven only by their egos. Danzig to Crew: Get lost...."

Associated Press 7/29/99 "...A high-ranking military leader has acknowledged that the mandatory anthrax vaccination for American troops can be potentially dangerous, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today. Citing military documents, the paper reported Army Secretary Louis Caldera agreed in September that the government would accept the burden of potential liability claims by service members against the vaccine's manufacturer. According to a memo signed by Caldera, the vaccine ``involves unusually hazardous risks associated with the potential for adverse reactions in some recipients and the possibility that the desired immunological effect will not be obtained by all recipients.'' ..."

CNSNews.com 8/3/99 Lawrence Morahan "...The members of the Commission on Military Training and Gender-related Issues, a panel of experts studying mixed-sex training for armed services recruits, who disagree with its recent recommendation that the practice should continue are saying the decision was actually made by a "Clinton-controlled Pentagon" and does not reflect the real evidence. Some panel members voted in favor of continuing mixed-sex training even though their own evidence suggests joint training is too stressful for women, resulting in an unacceptably high physical injury rate, and not stressful enough for young men. Although this does not reflect the view of all members of the panel Anita Blair, the commission chairwoman and director of the Washington-based Independent Women's Forum, told CNSNews.com that the more evidence she studied on the issue of sex-integrated training, the less likely she was to endorse it. "After I looked at the whole record and saw the rationale for the majority, I simply could not support that. It was a straight feed from the Clinton-controlled Pentagon. And when the report comes out, people will see that the dissenting commissioner's report does not simply accept anything and everything we were told by the Pentagon," Blair said...."

Washington Times 8/7/99 Phyllis Schlafly "...Even though the voters elected a president who said he "loathes" the military, we couldn't have imagined back in 1992 how much damage Bill Clinton would actually do. Now we wonder if our once-great military can survive another year and a half of our most embarrassing commander in chief. Every service except the Marines is falling short of its recruitment goals. Our most experienced pilots are leaving in unprecedented numbers, and even large cash inducements can't prevail on them to re-enlist..... The most serious problems are the feminization of the military and U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts that bear no relation to American national security. Other morale-lowering problems are the court-martialing of honorable servicemen for such offenses as refusing to wear a United Nations uniform and refusing to be "shot" with the experimental, controversial anthrax vaccine...."

Navy Times 8/16/99 William Matthews "...After citizen's groups and environmentalists complained about low-level and supersonic training near populated areas around Fallon Naval Air Station, Nev., the Navy eventually shifted the flow of training traffic to reduce noise near those areas. When the booming sound of tanks firing at Camp Lejeune, N.C., began reverberating through the nearby community of Verona, breaking windows and cracking bricks, the Marine Corps had to halt tank training on its new firing range. In the Southwest, the Army's plan to expand its premier warfare-training center by 331,000 acres has been slowed to a crawl by the endangered desert tortoise. In Arizona, a couple hundred Sonoran pronghorn antelopes -- the last of their type -- cling to life in their parched habitat on the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range. To avoid killing off the species, the Air Force has modified bombing practice for F-16 and A-10 warplanes. Across the country and around the world, from Okinawa to Puerto Rico, the services' access to training ranges is being challenged...."

AP Wire 8/10/99 "...A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit by a veterans group that said the government broke its promise of lifetime health care benefits for those with 20 years of military service. The U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit Monday, saying retirees do not have the absolute right to medical and dental care, but they may be given the service subject to availability. A message left with the Justice Department seeking comment was not returned. The 9,000-member Coalition of Retired Military Veterans can ask the Court of Appeals to reconsider, appeal to the Supreme Court or resubmit the lawsuit, said chairman Jim Gunn. ``We're not asking for anything except what we earned,'' Gunn said. ``We're not freeloaders. We just want what we were told we had when we signed up.'' Gunn, a 68-year-old Korean War veteran who won a Purple Heart, said numerous military and Coast Guard recruitment brochures promised lifetime health care and dental benefits to personnel who serve at least 20 years. He says the promises were inducements to sign up. In recent years, retirees have had their access to free care at military hospitals trimmed by budget cuts and base closings. Retirees are urged to join an HMO-like system with an annual premium. They drop out of the program once they reach 65 and are eligible for Medicare...."

USA Today 8/11/99 John Omicinski "...Mixing the sexes in U.S. military training creates some problems but ought to continue, a sharply split commission told Congress this week. By a 6-3 vote, with one abstention, the Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues endorsed the current system of training men and women together. The commission's findings on the highly charged issue are being sent to the House and Senate Armed Services committees. The panel's vote went against the views of its chairwoman, Anita Blair of Virginia, who is sharply critical of mixed training. Blair, who also is executive vice president of the conservative Independent Women's Forum, said in an interview that mixed training is contributing to falling discipline and amounts to little more than "baby-sitting" for already hard-pressed instructors. "Gender integration also is exacerbating discipline problems," she said. "You just have to deal with a group of men differently than you do with a group of women."..."

Yahoo! News 8/13/99 reuters "...The Pentagon plans to issue new guidelines aimed at ending abuses of the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy for homosexuals in the military, the New York Times reported in Friday's editions. Citing ``administration officials,'' the paper said the new guidelines, expected as early as Friday, will require troops to undergo anti-gay harassment training throughout their military careers, beginning with boot camp. Under the new guidelines, a senior level of the military justice system will handle any inquiry of the sexual orientation of members of the armed forces, the Times said. Administration officials felt the need to announce the new guidelines as quickly as possible, given the uproar over the death last month of a gay soldier at Fort Campbell, Ky. The man was beaten with a baseball bat, reportedly by another soldier in his unit, the paper said...."

FOX News 8/13/99 AP "...A Marine helicopter crew chief has been sentenced to 30 days in confinement and issued a bad conduct discharge for refusing to take the anthrax vaccination required for all military personnel. Pvt. Eric Myers, 20, of Elbert, Colo., also was ordered to forfeit $400 in pay. "I stood up for myself and my health,'' Myers said after Thursday's hearing. "I think that's a right people have regardless if they are in the military.'' All 2.4 million active duty and reserve troops are required to get the anthrax vaccine as protection against biological warfare. ..."

New York Times 8/14/99 Philip Shenon "...The Pentagon on Friday announced its first major revision of guidelines for its "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the military, including a new requirement that commanders seek approval from senior civilian officials at the Pentagon before opening certain types of investigations of troops who admit that they are gay. The revised guidelines failed to satisfy gay rights advocates, who say that the new directives do not go far enough and that pervasive hostility toward homosexuals in uniform continues to result in violent harassment. They pointed to last month's brutal murder of an Army private in Kentucky as evidence of the entrenched hostility. Under the guidelines, the Pentagon ordered that commanders institute anti-harassment training at all levels of the military, beginning with basic training, and that low-level military lawyers consult with senior lawyers before opening an investigation of anyone suspected of being gay...."

The Washington Times 8/13/99 Bill Gertz "...Lt. Col. Ralph Zimmermann, a Desert Storm combat veteran, is retiring Jan. 2000..... But we thought Col. Zimmermann's farewell memo to his commanding general at Fort Carson, Colo., was noteworthy. We publish it, in part: "The main reason for my personal doubt is the constantly changing culture in the Army which is becoming more concerned with producing a superficial image of accomplishment, guided by false caring vs. tackling our readiness issues with up-front leadership and firm solutions. "The Army has become a 'social experiment,' geared towards promoting diversity and celebrating individual successes vs. instilling the sense of unity behind the values our Constitution, the flag and our distinguished unit colors.. ..."Programs that ought to be reviewed for overemphasis: * "Sex training" * "Consideration for Others Training. This program, called "COO," teaches soldiers their actions must "indicate a sensitivity to and regard for the feelings and needs of others . . . " * "Overemphasis on superficial inspection items, i.e. chin strap drills, 3x5 PT cards, etc. * "Too much emphasis on simulation to save money in the wrong areas. * "Overemphasis on . . . volunteerism. Most of the social services create an environment that does not emphasize soldier self-discipline, self-help, and maturity. * "Overemphasis on force protection (unfortunately, even life in the civilian world bears some risks). * "Too much emphasis on diversity (Asian week, African American week, Hispanic week etc.). Again, we fail to stress unity vs. diversity. We are all AMERICANS who should be committed to a common purpose - the defense of our nation." ..."

Baltimore Sun 8/25/99 Lisa Respers "…Community activists impatient for disposal of chemical weapons stored at Aberdeen Proving Ground are angry about a budget fight between the Army and Congress that could delay the project at least seven months. "The risk is still there, regardless of the games everyone is playing," said John E. Nunn III, co-chair of a citizens advisory commission on chemical weapons disposal. "There's a real power struggle going on, and we're suffering because of it." Defense officials announced this week that construction of a 30-acre, $500 million facility to destroy a mustard agent stockpile at APG's Edgewood area will be delayed because of millions of dollars cut from a national program…."

Army Times 8/30/99 Nick Adde "… A supposed clarification of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on military service by homosexuals has bridged the gap between supporters and opponents of gay rights. Both sides of the debate think the Aug. 13 announcement of a new directive on homosexuals is meaningless and a disappointment. Michelle Benecke, co-director of the Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network, complained the new guidelines do not end harassment of gay service members and "witch hunts'' of suspected gays. Robert L. Maginnis, head of military affairs for the conservative Family Research Council, staunchly opposes any directive suggesting the military's gay ban is weakening. And he sees little to fear in the new directive. Both believe Defense Secretary William S. Cohen's latest directive has not really changed anything. …"

Minneapolis Star Tribune 8/30/99 "…Bill Clinton made a bad mistake early in his first term. Full of himself after his victory over George Bush, Clinton moved quickly to remove the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. Although Clinton was right, he had failed miserably to prepare the ground for such action. The backlash from the military and from the religious right put Clinton in a tight spot: allow the ban to remain and alienate the gay community; force the ban out and alienate the Pentagon. Clinton compromised: He promulgated his mushy "don't ask-don't tell" policy instead. It forbade the military from inquiring into sexual orientation but allowed discharge of those who publicly make known their homosexuality. It was and is a dumb policy, which lame-duck Clinton should abolish in favor of his original goal. Steve May's case shows why……Just a few weeks into his first term as a House member, May rose to challenge a series of bigoted bills introduced by anti-gay colleagues. One of those colleagues, for example, wrote a constituent that "what follows homosexuality is bestiality and then human sacrifice and cannibalism." May took exception. He told his legislative colleagues that "when you attack my family and steal my freedom, I will not sit quietly in my office. This Legislature takes my gay tax dollars, and my gay tax dollars spend the same as your straight tax dollars. If you're not going to treat me fairly, don't take my money." Then the Army was interested. It opened an investigation into whether May's statements warranted discharge. May had committed no crime, has an exemplary military record, and was appropriately carrying out his duties as a state representative. The investigation is arrogant nonsense. So is "don't ask-don't tell." It is a bad idea that hasn't aged well. The time has come to inter it with all other bad ideas related to race, gender, religious creed and sexual orientation….."

New York Times 9/9/99 Adam Clymer "…A deep gap over politics and values has opened over the last two decades between the nation's increasingly conservative military elite and prominent civilians without military service, sowing latent distrust despite the respect each group professes for the other……For example, 45 percent of the military group favored barring homosexuals from teaching in public schools, while only 17 percent of the nonveteran civilian group did. Ten percent of the military leaders supported a ban on the death penalty while 37 percent of the civilians did. And 74 percent of the military group backed permitting prayer in public schools, compared with 46 percent of the civilian group. ….Twenty-one percent, for example, of the civilian nonveteran elite said they would be disappointed if one of their children joined the armed forces. Just 7 percent of the military officers felt that way. On the other hand, 77 percent of officers agreed with the statement that "civilian society would be better off if it adopted more of the military's values and customs;" only 43 percent of civilian elites with military experience agreed and just 25 percent of the nonveterans agreed. One simple explanation for some of the gap is the differing attitudes of men and women. Women comprise 41 percent of the civilian nonveteran elite, but only 8 percent of the military elite…."

Col. Hackworth 9/9/99 Michael Curtiss MD ".....It's important to keep the real life experiences in this discussion about the anthrax vaccine. It keeps things in the proper perspective. First, let me say that what I am writing is of my own accord and does not represent the views of the Air Force. Also, it must be made clear that the following is simply an observation of my experiences over the last two weeks and is not intended to persuade any member of the armed forces to disobey any lawful orders. I am an active duty Air Force pilot stationed at an Eastern AFB. I arrived on station just a little over two weeks ago. On my first day I met a reserve pilot at lunch and ask how things were in his unit. He then went on to explain how a large amount of pilots had resigned due to the fear of the anthrax vaccine. I asked him if their fears were backed by fact. He used himself for an example. Since he's received the vaccine, he has experienced headaches, dizzy spells, short term memory loss, to name a few symptoms. I assumed he was grounded and then he said that the medical group had given him a waiver to keep flying. He was scheduled for an MRI to rule out a brain tumor. "How could this be?", I thought. "How can he be fit to fly?" The next day I ran into an old friend of mine who was leaving the base. He was a reserve pilot who had resigned. He acknowledged the moral problem and stated that there was a real threat of an adverse reaction to the vaccine and he just couldn't risk it. The following day I checked into the squadron and spoke with the first active duty pilot I ran into about the anthrax vaccine. That pilot was grounded, and still is to this day. That pilot has sustained some serious internal damage with an unknown prognosis. The overall diagnosis is an autoimmune disorder. A couple of days later I met another pilot and asked him if he had received the vaccine. He acknowledged that he had. He described becoming very ill afterwards and to this day had problems with short-term memory loss...... The next day I recorded the names of the crewmembers in my squadron who were grounded according to our scheduling board. I called five of them that night...... The next fellow I spoke with was grounded also. After the fourth vaccine he began to experience diverse symptoms which included chronic bone/joint pain, chronic fatigue, and a loss of ability to concentrate. He is being cross-trained into another, less demanding career field. Another pilot I spoke with has experienced severe chronic bone/joint pain and he was also grounded. The pain is so bad he can't climb the steps to get into the airplane. Although this disability surfaced after he received the vaccine, at this time he doesn't attribute it as being the cause. However, as a precaution, he has had his blood tested for the autoimmune disorder. It came back negative. Again, I have only been on base a short time and with a little bit of effort I have uncovered what I consider a nightmare. I have yet to talk to the other 17 crewmembers in my squadron that are on the "grounded" list. My guess is that the anthrax vaccine will be considered a causal factor for a significant portion of these people. I was told that one of these men had a seizure last week. Another fact worth mentioning is that the chief of our immunization clinic took the vaccine and went into anaphylactic shock. We need to ensure that safety is appropriately addressed and NOW. This is the sermon that every commander I have served under has preached. Something is wrong. Way wrong. However, I cannot speak out in a way that civilians can without facing a court martial....."

Inside The Air Force 9/10/99 Adam Hebert "....While empathizing with the high operating tempo the Air Force has been faced with because of operations Allied Force, Northern Watch and Southern Watch, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle said this week the Marines are the wrong place to look for relief from the high Air Force OPTEMPO. "I don't think the Marine Corps right now can take care of the Air Force," said McCorkle, the Marine Corps deputy chief of staff for aviation. "We've got our own problems." He said all the services have been stressed because of force cutbacks, and the Marines have been at least as busy as the Air Force in terms of deployments. McCorkle spoke with Inside the Air Force following a speech on Capitol Hill Sept. 9. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan has been an advocate of the service getting a break from its OPTEMPO to transition more smoothly into its Air Expeditionary Force structure, scheduled to deploy for the first time Oct. 1. If the number of worldwide deployments cannot be eased, to give airmen a break the other services would need to pick up some of the operational missions the Air Force has been performing. ...."

Inside The Pentagon 9/9/99 Catherine MacRae "...Recent Defense Department initiatives to augment adultery and unify fraternization policies across the services are unnecessary and may prove detrimental to a healthy training and operational environment, according to a hefty new report from a congressionally mandated commission on military training and gender-related issues. The 10-person panel, chaired by Anita Blair, an expert on legal and economic issues concerning women -- including so-called gender issues and women in the military -- overwhelmingly voted to recommend that services and commanders retain the authority to handle adultery and fraternization charges on a case-by-case basis suitable to their mission..... An internal DOD "adultery review," tasked by Secretary William Cohen in 1997 in response to several high-profile cases, resulted in proposed changes to the Manual for Courts-Martial regarding adultery offenses that would add about two pages of additional guidance aimed at commanders within the adultery subsection of the MCM. Similarly, in response to a July 1998 DOD Good Order and Discipline Task Force recommendation, Cohen in February directed the services to unify policies governing unprofessional or improper relationships, otherwise known as fraternization. On the subject of adultery, which is a rare and usually tertiary charge, according to the services, a command consensus revealed that guidance is overwhelmingly clear and that the proposed changes are unnecessary. Moreover, any change would likely compromise morale and give "undue weight" to an infrequent problem, the commission found. ...."

Arizona Republic 9/14/99 E J Montini 9/14/99 "....Recently, after listening to a prosecutor and a defense attorney argue about evidence and disclosure for about 20 minutes, U.S. Magistrate Morton Silver suddenly decided the trial scheduled to begin that morning would be postponed until October..... The old veteran slumped forward in his chair, leaning on the cane he held with his hands, his hand shaking slowly from side to side. "All rise," declared the clerk as Judge Silver strode from the courtroom. DeHeer pushed hard on the walking stick, wearily lifting himself from a chair at the defense table. He is 77 years old and suffers from arthritis, bad hearing and other maladies of an aging warrior. Standing up would be a lot easier for him he didn't have the full weight of the U.S. Department of Justice on his back. In May, DeHeer drove to the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Phoenix to have his hearing aids adjusted. When he got there, DeHeer says he couldn't find an available handicapped parking space nearby, so he decided to park in one of the several vacant spots marked temporarily with "VIP" signs. Federal inspectors were visiting the hospital that day, and VA administrators apparently believed the convenience of bureaucrats was more important than the convenience of World War II vets like DeHeer.....One of the federal officers patrolling the parking lot told DeHeer that he couldn't park in a VIP spot because he wasn't a VIP. This didn't sit well with DeHeer, and after an angry exchange, the elderly man was hauled off in handcuffs and locked in a cell....."

Fort Worth Star-Telegram 9/19/99 Bob Mahlburg "....Larry Gene Ashbrook, a paranoid loner who killed seven people at a Fort Worth church, was thrown out of the Navy but was also awarded a naval "humanitarian service medal," military records state. Ashbrook worked his way up to a highly respected spot on a submarine warfare team, which requires security clearance and training. But he struggled for more than seven years to reach the same level that others do in only a few and was probably frustrated, a retired Navy official said..... After 7 1/2 years and two stints in the Navy, Ashbrook was dishonorably discharged in December 1983 in a court-martial for using marijuana, records show. Ashbrook's overall naval career is "not impressive," Whitley said. Despite reports of mental problems, Ashbrook passed a naval security clearance to get a sensitive post as an aviation warfare systems operator, or AW2. "It just amazes me if he's had some problems all along that it didn't show up in a background investigation," Whitley said. "He had to have a background investigation by the FBI and he had to be clean enough on the security clearance to get that AW rate.".... Military records don't show the reason for the humanitarian award, but Whitley said such awards are typically given to an entire unit. "A humanitarian service medal would be earned by a group of people -- you didn't save anyone's life, but hauled some food somewhere or something," he said...."

Hartford Courant 9/17/99 Matthew Hay Brown "...U.S. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson has asked Defense Secretary William Cohen to stop dishonorably discharging soldiers who refuse potentially harmful innoculations for anthrax. "Forcing our men and women in uniform to choose between this vaccine and their careers fosters distrust and erodes morale," the New Britain Republican said Monday. "We shouldn't continue down this path until we have more conclusive evidence" of the drug's safety. In December 1997, Cohen announced plans to innoculate all U.S. troops against the effects of anthrax, a deadly bacterium that could be used by enemy forces. By mid-July 1999, more than 300,000 service members had received at least one dose of the vaccine. According to the General Accounting Office, the long-term safety of the vaccine has not been determined, and the optimal number of doses is unknown. Johnson said the innoculations of 150,000 Gulf War troops should have given the Pentagon a unique pool of subjects for study, but poor record-keeping has prevented large-scale research. ..."

Los Angeles Times Syndicate. 9/21/99 William Pfaff "....A recent study comparing the values and political outlooks of U.S. military officers with representative civilian groups (some with, and some without, military experience) shows that the military respondents are more conservative than the civilians, which is scarcely a surprise. It produces other, less predictable but more provocative findings. The results demonstrate that today's U.S. officers believe their values are closer to those of the public than are politicians' values. They also believe, more than do civilians, that it is "very important" to use the military in conducting foreign policy. The officers are conservative. Sixty-four percent are Republicans, and 67 percent describe their political philosophy as conservative. They believe in themselves: Eighty-seven percent have "a great deal of confidence in the military," while just 35 percent of the civilians without military experience share that confidence. ...."

http://www.ncpa.org/pi/congress/pd092299c.html 9/22/99 Greg Jaffe Thomas Ricks "....Military analysts contend that all branches of the U.S. armed services too often assign valuable and technically skilled personnel to inefficient tasks. This is happening at a time when the Pentagon is frantically trying to reach recruitment goals, and often failing at the task......A 1998 Rand Corp. study concluded that updating technology could allow substantial reductions in personnel on aircraft carriers -- allowing the Navy to operate 15 carriers at the current cost of operating 10 to 12. Critics cite the example of sailors being assigned to swabbing the decks and chipping paint with antiquated tools. New tools and advanced types of flooring are available which could drastically cut the time allocated to such tasks -- thereby freeing up specialists for more important work....."

Enter Stage Right 10/4/99 Col David Hackworth ".....Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy tells audiences around the nation, "Today's Army is not your father's Army." Then she goes into why "Consideration Of Others" (COO) sensitivity training is the real deal in today's Army and why Private Ryan's kill-or-be-killed World War II techniques are as obsolete as Sherman tanks. A sergeant major who sat in on one of her lectures says, "The general, wearing spit-shined paratrooper boots that came up to her knees, spent 15 minutes discussing our mission. And then, for the next 40, she stressed the need for equality and sensitivity and understanding of others. I couldn't help wondering if this was some event sponsored by a YWCA instead of the U.S. Army." In my Army, the sergeants were gravel-road rough, and the mission was about knocking off the enemy and winning. Back then, the brass didn't care about COO stuff. They were into training soldiers to kill our enemies and win battles. Put simply, the philosophy was: The more sweat in training, the less blood in battle. Back then, generals didn't hug returned POWs after they threw down their weapons, waved the white flag and then wrote "thank-you" notes to their jailers. They court-martialed the slackers. No way I can imagine Gen. George Patton saying to three such cowards upon their release from a Belgrade slammer, "Welcome home, boys. Don't sweat that .50-caliber machine gun, those three M-16 rifles and all that ammo you handed over to those nasty Serbs without firing a shot. Bad things happen in wars. Oh, and on behalf of our president, here are six medals for all that discomfort those mean old Serbs put you through." ...."

Air Force Magazine 10/99 Peter Grier "...Air Force Capt. Jonathan E. Richter is a third-generation military officer. A C-5 pilot in the Air Force Reserve at Dover AFB, Del., he flew missions in both Operations Desert Storm and Northern Watch and is not, in his own estimate, the sort of person who normally goes around looking for ways to disobey his superiors. However, on Feb. 3, 1999, Richter was injected with anthrax vaccine from lot #FAV 030. The same lot was used for his second shot on Feb. 19. Five days later, his problems began. His right shoulder began to ache, as if he'd thrown a baseball hard without warming up. Then his left shoulder began to feel the same way. Soon, his spine hurt so badly that he could hardly get out of bed in the morning. Since then, his arthritis-like symptoms have stabilized mostly in his feet and left hand. He has no way of proving that the vaccine is the cause, but he's not taking any chances. He told a Congressional panel on July 21 that "taking another shot is not part of the Jon Richter health care program" and that he will resign his commission before taking another anthrax injection..... Two years after Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen first announced that all US military personnel would be vaccinated against the deadly biological agent anthrax, the Pentagon is facing a growing revolt against the program. Around 200 active, Guard, and Reserve members of the armed services have refused to take part in the six-shot vaccination program, according to DoD's own records....."

Wall Street Journal 10/6/99 "....I was a member of a tactical fighter squadron in 1965 at Kadena, Okinawa. Annually, the Air Force would come out with a Cost Reduction Program. We would assign a captain as program chairman. He would go to the several staffs and solicit ways to cut costs. Usually this meant coming up with mundane proposals such as making two instead of four carbon copies of a letter. The Cost Reduction Program was a paper exercise. But this time our program chairman, a resourceful captain, came up with a cost saving that would be so great our squadron would, on paper, show a profit. We would be the only tactical unit in the military to show a profit. Our pilots Flight Manual stated that, under certain extreme emergencies, the pilot could choose to point the RF-101 to a safe, uninhabited area and bail out, or he could elect to attempt an emergency landing. It was the pilot's sole decision. During this period we had two incidents in which the pilots elected to make an emergency landing, each time saving the Air Force $1.7 million (Fighter aircraft were much cheaper in 1965). The two "saves" totaled $3.4 million, giving our squadron a profit for that period. Our superiors were enthusiastic and sent the proposal on up the chain of command. When the paperwork arrived at Pacific Air Command Headquarters in Hawaii, they turned it down and sent it back. Essentially they said, "Come on guys, be realistic." We tried. Tony Weissgarber, Lt. Col, USAF, retired, San Antonio...."

Norfolk Virginian-Pilot 10/2/99 Bill Sizemore "....Is the vaccine safe? The only facility licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to manufacture anthrax vaccine, BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Mich., has been plagued by quality-control problems.....``I went to the commanding officer and said, `Sir, everything I do in the military is evaluated,' '' Nichols said. `` `If I don't get a good evaluation, I won't get promoted. I'll get reprimanded, and I can be put out. Well, at MBPI, all of their evaluations were terrible. How am I supposed to have any faith in what you're telling me about the vaccination?' '' ...... Randi Martin, 26, a civil service technician from Eaton Rapids, Mich., began the series of shots a year ago in preparation for a voluntary deployment to the Persian Gulf with the Air National Guard. She got the fourth shot in March. Martin has experienced severe headaches, joint and muscle pain, fatigue, abdominal cramps and memory loss that have left her unable to work for weeks at a time, she said in a telephone interview this week. Nine of 12 people in her work group reported similar symptoms, she said. ...... She is looking for a new, non-military job..... Some studies of the licensed vaccine have found higher reaction rates, particularly among women. A Department of Defense physician stationed in Korea found reaction rates of 42 percent to 44 percent in men and 71 percent to 74 percent in women. A survey at an Army hospital in Hawaii found muscle soreness in 66.6 percent of men and 79.4 percent of women, and lumps or knots in 63.9 percent of men and 89.9 percent of women. In April, the FDA reported that it had received 101 reports of ``adverse events'' associated with the vaccine, 14 of which were considered serious. One recipient was hospitalized with meningitis; one contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome and was unable to walk for nine days; another experienced bipolar disorder. The Pentagon says the reaction rates are comparable to those of other vaccines......Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Ronald R. Blanck, the Pentagon's top expert on the vaccine, told a congressional committee this week that only 72 of the 324,000 troops who've been vaccinated to date have suffered reactions serious enough to require hospitalization. And none of those had any long-term problems, he testified. There have been no studies of the anthrax vaccine's long-term safety, the General Accounting Office reported to Congress in April..... Invoking a law allowing government protection of contractors for unusually hazardous risks, the Pentagon has indemnified BioPort against product liability so it can't be sued by vaccine recipients. BioPort told the Defense Department in June that it could not stay in business under the price terms of its 1998 contract, and the Pentagon agreed to new terms boosting the price per shot from $4.36 to $10.64. Service members who refuse the anthrax shots have been subject to a variety of disciplinary measures. Some have been court-martialed. Nichols and his fellow refusers on the Roosevelt were subjected to a captain's mast, a non-judicial proceeding. They were docked half a month's pay, reduced in rate, restricted to the ship for 45 days and given 45 days' extra duty. ``Our chain of command treated us like trash,'' Nichols said. ......"

The Wanderer 9/30/99 Samuel Francis "....One of the major tests of the proper progressive view of women and sexual equality is whether you think women should serve in the military. If you think they shouldn't, progressive mythology holds, you probably also think they should be chained up in the kitchen and kept pregnant throughout the year. Now it turns out that even most women in the military don't conform very well to the myth of equality that progressive thinking demands. Asked in a recent survey by the General Accounting Office whether they agreed with the statement, "I think that women should be treated exactly like men and serve in the combat arms just like men," the overwhelming majority of the enlisted ladies of the U.S. Army replied that they did not so think. Only 10% of the female privates and corporals agreed with the statement. Not agreeing that women should go into combat, of course, does not imply that women shouldn't be in the military at all, let alone that they ought to be kept in the kitchen, and maternity dresses, but it does raise the fundamental question, also frowned upon by progressive right-think, why should women be in the military if they don't want to be in the military? "War means fighting, and fighting means killing," said the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In general Forrest's day, being in the army at all meant being ready and willing to go to war. Even in our own day, it still rneans that, but if the women of the army, who compose about 14% of the total 1.4 million active military force, don't think they ought to go to war, it's reasonable to ask, why they are in uniform at all and why they want to be....."

WASHINGTON TIMES 10/11/99 Rowan Scarborough "..... The Pentagon's mandatory anthrax vaccine is forcing thousands of service members to choose among job security, possible prison time or the unknown. Eugenio Pangramuyen is one of them. At first, the 58-year-old father of five refused the injection while in the Persian Gulf aboard the USNS Rappahannock. But told in writing he would be fired from his Navy Military Sealift Command job, Mr. Pangramuyen reluctantly signed a consent form -- and prayed science knows enough about the anti-anthrax dose to vouch for its safety. "It's so controversial. I don't know who is right," said Mr. Pangramuyen, a retired Navy chief petty officer. "I heard a lot of stories. Adverse reactions. . . . I'm a civilian employee. I should have a little control of what goes into my body." Across the armed forces, hundreds of soldiers, Marines, sailors and pilots are refusing what amounts to a direct order from Defense Secretary William S. Cohen: all 2.4 million active-duty troops and reserves, plus some specified civilians, must undergo a regimen of six anti-anthrax shots over 18 months. The Pentagon adamantly defends the vaccine as safe and effective. But pockets of resistance are popping up across the country since the 1998 order. At Travis Air Force Base, Calif., home to the giant C-5 cargo jet, 32 Air Force reserve pilots out of 65 in one squadron alone have refused the shots, according to reserve Maj. James Hechtl. ...."

Norfolk Virginian-Pilot 10/8/99 Jack Dorsey ".....Despite a time of peace and prosperity throughout the world, Defense Secretary William Cohen warned Thursday of a ``grave new world of peril'' as nationalistic, ethnic and religious conflicts threaten to ignite into violence. ``It is a time of new foes with terrorists and tyrants . . . willing to use conventional and unconventional means to strike at any target they can reach,'' he said. ``It is also a time of new fears when at least 24 countries have, or are in the process of acquiring and developing, nuclear and biological weapons and the means to deliver them.'' Cohen, in Norfolk as the keynote speaker during a formal ceremony redesignating the U.S. Atlantic Command as the U.S. Joint Forces Command, noted that 50 years ago, following World War II, the nation also was looking ahead at prosperity. ``Well, today our generation stands at another pivot point in history. With the Cold War receding into memory, leaving at once both turmoil and unprecedented prosperity in its wake, we find it no easier . . . to look ahead as we did a half century ago.'' For those reasons, he said, it is imperative that the nation's military and commands such as the renamed USJFC be made even more effective........Gehman will become the commander most responsible for joint service warfighting training and will take the lead in joint service experimentation. An additional duty of the command will be to provide military assistance to civil authorities in the event of a nuclear or biological attack within the United States....."

Associated Press 10/12/99 Robert Burns ".....The Army will undergo a fundamental transformation to make America's land forces more responsive to short-notice crises and smaller-scale conflicts, such as the war over Kosovo, that have increasingly occupied the American military in the 1990s. The Kosovo conflict, almost entirely an air war, showed that the Army was unable to move sizable combat forces quickly. It took far longer than expected to deploy Apache attack helicopters to Albania, and they never saw combat, although the Army is heavily involved now as Kosovo peacekeepers. The transformation will take years but will begin immediately with the conversion of two combat brigades at Ft. Lewis, Wash., into more flexible, faster-moving units, Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, said Tuesday. Eventually the entire Army will be changed, he said, but he gave no timetable. In a speech to an Army booster group, Shinseki spelled out ambitious goals: achieving capability to move a brigade-size force of about 5,000 soldiers from the United States anywhere in the world within four days, a division of about 15,000 soldiers within five days, five divisions within 30 days....."

Associated Press 10/12/99 Catherine Strong ".....Lawmakers said Tuesday they were skeptical of Defense Department assurances that the anthrax vaccine is safe and that shots given to soldiers are having no effect on troop readiness and morale....... About 200 to 300 have refused to take it because of concerns about its safety and efficacy. At a House hearing, lawmakers questioned Pentagon officials' assertions that the number of adverse reactions to the shots was small and there was no impact on troop readiness. ...... But Kwai-Cheung Chan of the Government Accounting Office, the research arm of Congress, said his review of the studies available on the anthrax vaccine since the 1960s showed its long-term safety is unknown. He also said there has been no specific study of the efficacy of the licensed vaccine in humans who have inhaled anthrax spores. Such studies have been conducted using guinea pigs, rabbits and monkeys. ...."

Baltimore Sun 10/12/99 Tom Bowman ".....Pentagon officials continue to play down the exodus of military personnel over the anthrax vaccine, despite continued warnings by subordinates that the mandatory six-shot regimen is leading hundreds of National Guardsmen and reservists to resign or seek transfers. According to interviews and documents obtained by The Sun, more than 50 percent of pilots in some Air National Guard squadrons are resigning or seeking nonflying jobs. Some documents describe units "struggling" to conduct missions and training with the "hurdle" of the anthrax vaccine, which some military personnel fear is neither safe nor effective. Two weeks ago, top Pentagon officials assured Congress that the numbers were small and having little effect on retention or the ability of the military to carry out its missions....."

Washington Times 10/10/99 "....Four years after Desert Storm, United Nations inspectors discovered Iraq had weaponized aflatoxin, a known liver carcinogen. American intelligence failed to detect the Iraqi program, and Pentagon biological detection devices would not have detected the substance if it had been used. The 150,000 U.S. troops secretly inoculated against Iraq's known anthrax bombs would have fallen victim to the Iraqi aflatoxin weapon without ever knowing what had happened. By simply fielding an obscure yet deadly poison, Iraq demonstrated how easy it was to outfox America's limited biowarfare program. Nearly a decade after the Gulf war, the Pentagon has learned little from the experience....."

Chicago Tribune 11/1/99 "...Since the threat of nuclear Armageddon receded after the Cold War, a widening and alarming gap has emerged between the general attitudes of American civilians and the nation's military elite. Moreover, absent the kind of pro-defense consensus once cemented by the Soviet threat, average Americans have grown more complacent and ill-informed, even apathetic, about the U.S. military. This is not a crisis--not yet, anyway--but it's worrisome. A growing distrust in civilian-military relations is, at the very least, unhealthy in a democracy. At worst, it could eventually undermine the confidence of officers in civilian leadership, and ultimately, the military effectiveness of the world's sole superpower....."

Syracuse Post-Standard 10/26/99 Erin Duggan "….A 1995 investigation into sexual discrimination at the 174th Fighter Wing in Syracuse was marred by false testimony from key players, overlooked important evidence and torpedoed morale at the unit, a recent U.S. Department of Defense report said. The 174th was grounded for "safety reasons" after the 1995 investigation upheld Maj. Jacquelyn Parker's allegation that discrimination prevented her from passing her flight training. During the initial inquiry into her charges, several pilots and administrators were forced to retire or resign, or were reassigned. Many claimed they were retaliated against for cooperating with investigators and pointing fingers at higher-ups. …."

CNSNews.com 10/28/99 Lawrence Morahan "….A Pentagon panel that studies issues related to women in the services has recommended that Navy submarines be redesigned to accommodate female service members, despite opposition by commanders, and findings by experts that mixed-sex crews "could increase risks." The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, or DACOWITS, this week urged that future submarines accommodate female crew members, a move the Navy estimates would add up to $5 million each for the cost of restructuring attack subs. The unanimous recommendation by the panel of 27 women and two men conflicts with an in-depth study in 1994 by the Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), a highly-respected independent contractor, which pointedly opposed mixed-sex crews on subs. "A mixed gender crew will complicate submarine life - from simple things like shipboard supplies, watch [duty] and bunk management to the far more complex areas of potential fraternizations and harassment which would be difficult to deal with in the uniquely confining environment of a submarine," the report said. …."

electronic telegraph 10/27/99 ben fenton "....THE United States Marines are trying to cope with new and unfamiliar concepts such as "holistic readiness" and "empowerment" after its new commandant announced plans for a softening of his corps. The image of service in the Marines as hard, sternly disciplined and incompatible with family life will change under Gen James Jones, who took over command of the 172,000 troops in June. The Marines have an esprit de corps based on mutual support, self-sacrifice and a single-minded dedication to military discipline. But their new commander wants them to start loosening up....."

USA Today 10/26/99 Andrea Stone "…. A Pentagon advisory panel has recommended that future submarines "incorporate appropriate berthing and privacy arrangements to accommodate mixed gender crews." Subs are the only major combat vessel where women can't serve. The Defense Advisory Council on Women in the Services, noting that existing submarines could stay in service for 40 years, wants the Navy to explain in greater detail why it can't refit existing subs sooner. The Navy says it would cost from $200,000 to $400,000 per female bunk to convert existing vessels ..."

New London Day 7/18/99 Elaine Donnelly "…. Despite frequent denials that anything is about to change, the Navy is conducting an informal test of female sailors on submarines. A group of 144 female and 218 male ROTC midshipmen, participating in 48-hour, two-night "career orientation and training" trips, are going to sea this summer on five Trident nuclear submarines. The women will sleep in a separate 9-man compartments in the enlisted berthing areas. Each ship captain will determine arrangements for their access to shower and lavatory facilities...."

Washington Times 10/26/99 AP "…..The Pentagon's program to vaccinate all 2.4 million service members against anthrax remains troubled with delays, supply problems and uncertainties, congressional auditors said yesterday. The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, criticized the Defense Department's procedures for keeping track of vaccinations. The Pentagon also is not doing a good job screening "adverse reactions" the report said...."

AP via Newsday.com 10/25/99 Tom Raum "....The Pentagon's program to vaccinate all 2.4 million service members against anthrax remains troubled with delays, supply problems and uncertainties, congressional auditors said Monday. The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, criticized the Defense Department's procedures for keeping track of vaccinations. The Pentagon also is not doing a good job screening ``adverse reactions,'' the report said...... The program is at least five months behind schedule, the GAO report said. ``The most critical component of the program, an adequate supply of vaccine, is threatened by testing delays and possible loss of production capability,'' the GAO said. ``Testing problems have already delayed release of stockpiled vaccine.'' .....It also cited financial problems facing the only licensed producer of the vaccine, BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Mich. ....."

Fox News 11/9/99 AP Tom Raum "....Only in rare instances will U.S. forces be required to take drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the Clinton administration told Congress Tuesday. A Pentagon official said these could include exposure to lethal biological-chemical weapons for which there are no approved vaccines. But members of a congressional panel suggested the authority could be abused. "I happen to believe such requests will not be rare,'' said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of a House Government Reform subcommittee looking into Defense Department vaccination programs. On Sept. 30, President Clinton signed an executive order setting forth the process under which a mandatory vaccination program could be administered under terms of a 1998 law. Essentially, the defense secretary would have to request such a program. It would then have to be approved by the president....."

Washington Times 11/5/99 Bill Gertz Rowan Scarborough "…..The Army is warning soldiers to watch out for radioactive foreign military equipment. "It's primarily Chinese," a senior military officer told us. Other radioactive equipment in Army hands includes stuff "from Third World countries," he said. "Commanders of units that possess foreign military equipment must be alert for the possibility that such equipment may contain radioactive material," the Oct. 22 memorandum states…..The memorandum said the main dangers of contamination were posed by gear with radium, strontium-90 and tritium. Tritium is a gas used to enhance nuclear explosions….."

Washington Times 11/14/99 "….Army Gen. Henry Shelton was a Special Forces parachuting commando who brought back a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star from two tours of duty in Vietnam and helped lead the 101st Airborne Division's deployment in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. He is undoubtedly one of the nation's toughest, battle-tested warriors. Ever since he became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Clinton's principal military adviser more than two years ago, however, Gen. Shelton has been a highly politicized "yes man," seemingly all too eager to defend the indefensible and to spin whatever military line emerges from the White House's political machine. Nowhere is this clearer than in the budget process. When Gen. Shelton first testified about the adequacy of Mr. Clinton's fiscal 1999 defense budget before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 1998, he assured senators that the armed forces were "within an acceptable band of readiness and risk." Spinning the White House's view, he and the other chiefs told Sen. John McCain that the armed forces were "fundamentally healthy" and had achieved "a right balance" between current needs and long-term modernization. In other words, Gen. Shelton was defending the indefensible, hailing a White House defense budget that failed miserably to address the military's readiness problems. ……"

WorldNetDaily-Commentary Col Hackworth 11/16/99 "…."The purple fingernail polish and the dreadlocks covering her face and the hole in the side of her nose where she wears a diamond stud on weekends were bad enough," a command sergeant major says. "But then Specialist Flake asked me if she had to take that 'pointy sticky thing that goes on my gun' when she went to the M-16 rifle range." Flake is a single female soldier with three children by three different fathers. The "pointy sticky thing" is her bayonet. You know, the one that's stuck in an enemy soldier's belly when things get close and nasty. Beats me why this soldier is concerned with the bayonet or why her commander insists she qualify with her rifle. When her outfit moves out on a combat mission, Flake will be left behind to care for her kids, along with the sick and lame. She is nondeployable. She is like a firefighter who can't ride on the fire truck. ….."

Insight Magazine 12/6/99 Timothy Maier "…. Republicans in Congress are demanding that the FDA prove the safety of the controversial mandatory anthrax vaccine for military personnel ordered by the president. Concerned about the growing number of U.S. troops experiencing adverse side effects after submitting to an anthrax-vaccine injection, four Republican congressmen have called on the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, to list the controversial shot as an investigative new drug. This likely would stop President Clinton's mandatory program to inoculate 2.4 million troops with the anthrax vaccine….."

airforce times 11/12/99 Nick Adde ‘….new presidential order bars the services from giving experimental drugs to troops without their consent, except in national emergencies. Under the executive order, titled "Improving Health Protection of Military Personnel Participating in Particular Military Operations," only the president can waive service members' right to informed consent before they can be forced to take experimental drugs. But some lawmakers are concerned that President Clinton's Sept. 30 directive, which imposes the new restriction, still leaves the Defense Department room to circumvent the waiver process and order troops to take experimental drugs anyway….."

AP 12/2/99 "…..Puerto Rico has won at least a temporary victory in its fight to stop the Navy from resuming use of its bombing range on the island of Vieques, Clinton administration officials said Thursday. The aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower and its battle group, including a contingent of Marines aboard Navy ships, will complete training off the southeastern U.S. coast instead of using Vieques, the officials said. The Marines will conduct an amphibious assault on the North Carolina coast and Navy strike aircraft will conduct air-to-ground bombing runs at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. If the decision holds, it would mean the Eisenhower battle group likely would deploy to the Mediterranean Sea in February at a substantially reduced state of combat readiness, several officials said. Normally the battle group would conclude its pre-deployment training with a joint exercise on Vieques that is designed to create combat-like conditions….."

The Washington Times 11/19/99 Wesley Pruden "…. Here's a tip for Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Jiang Zemin or any other big-time cowboy yearning to make trouble for America: send an army of women. We scared. They could even come unarmed, since unregistered guns frighten feminists. The National Organization for Women would declare fighting back as "sexist" (and maybe sexual harassment besides) and the only thing left to do, for Bill Clinton or whoever succeeds him, would be to arrange a suitable surrender. Our mighty military, no longer designed to be a war-fighting machine, has already surrendered to the ladies and the lady-men in Congress. Several politically incorrect officers at the Pentagon concede that the signs are ominous. The Army, in one straw in the wind, is investigating allegations that two recruiting officers in Little Rock -- must Arkansas be resigned to always being ground-zero? -- have given the required aptitude tests to surrogates acting for recruits who couldn't have made it into the Army……Some of the most vehement objections to women in combat come from women in the Army, who understand their limitations and who understand how these limitations would contribute to getting themselves and the men killed when war comes, as war always will. One day a foe of our own size will teach us this lesson, and the blood of a lot of young men and women will be on the hands of the feminists and the congressmen, Pentagon warriors and other cowards they have so easily emasculated….."

St. Louis Post Dispatch 11/27/99 "….There is nothing new about soldiers feeling separate from society. But with the end of the draft in 1973, signs indicate that the military is growing more homogeneous politically and ideologically. A study by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies found that nearly two-thirds of career-track officers now identify themselves as Republicans, up from one-third in 1976. Only 8 percent say they are Democrats, down from 12 percent in 1976. The civilian population is split evenly between the two parties. ….. More pressing is the issue of race relations. While the military is often touted as the most integrated sector of the United States, a recently released report revealed that 75 percent of minority members in uniform reported experiencing racially offensive behavior….."

AP News 11/22/99 "….His face splattered with fake blood, actor Martin Sheen knelt beside a coffin and made the sign of the cross before he was led away during a protest to demand the closing of the Army's School of the Americas. Sheen joined thousands who risked arrest Sunday by marching into Fort Benning to demonstrate against the school that trains Latin American soldiers and police. Opponents blame the school for human rights abuses committed by some of its graduates. "The U.S. Army is given a mandate to protect the weak," said Sheen, who plays the president of the United States in the television series The West Wing….."

Armttimes.com 11/22/99 William Matthews "…. The military's leading officers have abandoned the tradition of political neutrality and become overwhelmingly Republican, a Duke University researcher has found. "Elite military officers are Republican by a margin of eight to one over Democrats," said Peter Feaver, a political science professor. That compares to roughly a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats among the general public. Such strong Republican affiliation is just one symptom of a growing "gap" that separates the military from the rest of American society, said Feaver, who conducted an extensive survey of military values, attitudes and opinions and compared them with those of civilians. ….."

The Chicago Tribune 12/5/99 James O’Shea "….Cpl. Joseph Cooper is a paratrooper, one of the U.S. Army's best soldiers, trained to jump from airplanes and fight the toughest fights. But on a recent sunny Saturday the Sacramento paratrooper had a different sort of mission in the sector of Kosovo patrolled by U.S. forces: Tactical day care. Each school day soldiers such as Cooper show up at the local grade school to guard kids from potential attacks, a legacy of the ethnic hatred that continues to plague this war-torn region. "We guard the Albanian kids (from Serb attacks) in the morning, and the Serbian kids in the afternoon," said Cooper, clad in a flak jacket and steel helmet as children frolicked in the nearby playground during recess. ….."I didn't expect to be doing this," added Spec. Christopher Morgan of Katy, Texas, as he slung his M-16 rifle over his shoulder. "I wasn't trained to do day care." …."

Excite news 11/30/99 Reuters "…Researchers said Tuesday they have found brain damage in soldiers believed to be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome as a result of chemical exposure during the conflict. Magnetic resonance scans of 22 veterans found reduced levels of a brain chemical called NAA, suggesting a loss of neurons in the brain stem and basal ganglia, said the report from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. The brain stem controls some reflexes while the basal ganglia affects movement, memory and emotion. Thousands of soldiers who served in operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in 1990 and 1991 during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait have complained about health problems including memory loss, sleep disorders, balance problems, depression, exhaustion, body pain, diarrhea and difficulties in concentrating. ….."

Colorado Springs Gazette 12/1/99 Bill Radford "…..When Biernacki-Purvis returned from the gulf, she was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her.. .But as life raced ahead, her health problems began to mount. She had thyroid problems almost immediately upon returning from the gulf, and other "small things that kept progressing": irritability, joint pain, rashes….Her second son, Henry, was born three weeks early. The baby was fine, but Biernacki-Purvis was still suffering a lot of pain, still throwing up, her body withering away. Doctors thought she had lupus, MS, cancer. "They tested me for everything. Nothing pointed to anything specific." And no one pointed to her duty in the gulf. But when one doctor said she would be lucky to live another six months, her family started looking for alternatives. Her mother learned about the work of Garth Nicolson, who at the time was researching gulf war illness while at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "It sounds like gulf war illness to me," Nicolson said after talking to Biernacki-Purvis' doctors. Nicolson believes one cause of gulf war illness is infection by a microorganism known as mycoplasma fermentans. At his suggestion, Biernacki-Purvis' doctors - who she says "were willing to try voodoo at this point" - put her on a common antibiotic, doxycycline. Within six weeks, Biernacki-Purvis, bedridden at the time, showed marked progress. Three years later, she remains on the doxycycline. She walks with the aid of a cane and has bad days and good - "a lot of good days," she said. But she still gets stomach pains that radiate upward, still gets rashes, still gets twitches in her right arm. At times, the vision in her left eye will zap away for an instant. She doesn't have a theory for the cause of her illness. It could be the shots: she was given the anthrax vaccine that some soldiers are now refusing to take, and she took the anti-nerve gas pill that since has been acknowledged as a possible cause of gulf war illness. It could be exposure to chemicals in the air. For all she knows, she said, it could have been the sand fleas….."

The Atlantic 7/97 Thomas Ricks "…..AFTER following a platoon of Marine recruits through eleven weeks of boot-camp training on Parris Island in the spring of 1995, I was stunned to see, when they went home for postgraduation leave, how alienated they felt from their old lives. At various times each of these new Marines seemed to experience a moment of private loathing for public America. They were repulsed by the physical unfitness of civilians, by the uncouth behavior they witnessed, and by what they saw as pervasive selfishness and consumerism. Many found themselves avoiding old friends, and some experienced difficulty even in communicating with their families……"

Proceedings 12/99 Richard Boyle "…..On 3 June 1999, when Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig raised the prospect of women in submarines at the Naval Submarine League Symposium, I was in the audience. A silent, unbelieving gasp seemed to hang on the announcement. Subsequent fallout in the press has been spirited. In September, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson and Director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Admiral Frank Bowman both spoke out against the idea. On 20 September 1999, a policy statement was released: "The Navy's policy of not assigning women to submarines remains unchanged." …."

San Diego Union-Tribune 12/4/99 James Crawley "….The Pentagon has delayed the second phase of its controversial anthrax vaccination program, originally set to begin next month, because the Food and Drug Administration has yet to recertify the plant making the vaccine. The postponement -- which could last until late next year -- will delay vaccine shots for all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who would be "early deployers" during an overseas conflict. That includes personnel assigned to many Navy ships, airborne units and fighter squadrons, along with hundreds of thousands of others….."

Dallas Morning News 12/8/99 Henry Tatum "….At first, the United States was unwilling to accept what may have happened to the troops sent to the Middle East. The sleeplessness at night. The headaches. The loss of memory. The constant feeling of fatigue. The diarrhea. All of those ailments that have affected thousands of Desert Storm servicemen were blamed on stress. Gulf War vets knew that wasn't so. There was anxiety about being sent into a combat zone where the prospects for death were high. Life in the Middle East was hard while waiting for the signal to attack. But those symptoms weren't imagined. They were real. Nothing said to the contrary by researchers or the Veterans Affairs administration was going to change that. Finally, the veterans of Desert Storm are being handed scientific keys that will begin to unlock the puzzle that has been plaguing them for eight years. They are starting to hear things that make sense to them. Last week, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas released the most compelling study yet that the ailing Persian Gulf miltiary personnel suffered brain damage. UT Southwestern researchers found low levels of an important brain chemical in a test of veterans who have experienced mysterious illnesses since returning from the Middle East. ….."

THE WASHINGTON TIMES 12/15/99 Rowan Scarborough ".... The Pentagon ordered a new review of its ban on open homosexuals just four months after issuing a statement vouching for the policy's fairness. In August, the department released new guidelines for commanders on the policy, known as "don't ask, don't tell," and re-released a 1998 statement that said the prohibition was working. A working group, the Pentagon said, "concluded last year after an extensive review of the implementation of the policy that, for the most part, the policy has been properly applied and enforced."..."

St Paul Pioneer Press/LA Times 12/14/99 Paul Richter "…. Inside the attack submarine USS Oklahoma City, sailors share bathrooms with 32 other men, sleep atop torpedoes and attend Sunday services in a space that also functions as the officers' dining room, reading room and surgical theater. Spending months at a time inside a 360-foot vessel with 145 men, a nuclear reactor and dozens of torpedoes and cruise missiles is like living inside a Swiss watch, crew members say. And in the view of some submariners and their superiors, it's no place for a woman. The elite and insular submarine service is the last all-male bastion of the Navy. But it is under growing pressure to open the hatches of its 76 subs to women, despite warnings that doing so could cause touchy sex-related problems, increase acquisition costs and diminish the speed and fighting power of these vessels. ….Last spring, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig lobbed a rhetorical bomb by warning members of the Naval Submarine League that the service is a narcissistic ``white male preserve.'' If submariners don't become more diverse, he warned, their political support could ebb. …."

Washington Post 12/14/99 Bradley Graham "….. The Pentagon's controversial effort to inoculate U.S. troops against anthrax bacteria suffered another setback yesterday with the disclosure that a new facility built to produce the vaccine had failed its first safety inspection. As a result, Pentagon officials said, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen decided to halt the planned expansion of vaccinations next year. Until deficiencies at the manufacturing plant are resolved, the officials said, military authorities will draw on stockpiled doses produced at a predecessor facility and administer shots only to the several hundred thousand troops who rotate periodically through such high-threat areas as South Korea and the Persian Gulf region. The delay in producing new doses could take up to a year and cost an additional $7 million to $10 million, officials said at a Pentagon news conference. The announcement brought further embarrassment to the two-year-old vaccination effort, already battered by questions about safety and effectiveness. Touted initially by defense officials as a farsighted response to the rising threat of germ warfare, the program has become a source of some unrest in the ranks and political controversy on Capitol Hill. …."

Chicago Tribune 12/13/99 James O’Shea "…. Cpl. Joseph Cooper is a paratrooper, one of the Army’s best soldiers, trained to jump from airplanes and fight the toughest fights. But on a recent sunny Saturday in Mogita, Yugoslavia, the Sacramento paratrooper had a different sort of mission in the sector of Kosovo patrolled by U.S. Forces: Tactical day care. Each school day, soldiers such as Cooper show up at the local grade school to guard kids from potential attacks, a legacy of the ethnic hatred that continues to plague this war-torn region. "We guard the Albanians kids (from Serb attacks) in the morning and the Serbian kids in the afternoon," said Cooper, clad in a flak jacket and steel helmet as children frolicked in the nearby playground during recess. "I didn’t expect to be doing this," added Spec. Christopher Morgan of Katy, Texas. "I wasn’t trained to do day care." …."

St. Louis Post Dispatch 1/8/00 Harry Levins "….The consensus holds that "don't ask, don't tell" is fatally flawed - that patriotic homosexuals should be allowed to serve without hiding their orientation. It's a matter of fairness, we're told. What's open to question is whether fairness is the issue here. Consider that nobody has a right to serve in the armed forces. The armed forces discriminate regularly. They'll turn you away if you're too old, too young, too fat, too dumb. You're a felon who paid your debt to society? Sorry. You're a kid with a bum eye who's yearning to follow your father into the Marine Corps? Sorry. The courts have consistently deferred to the armed forces as the best judges of how to defend society. After all, at bottom, the armed forces are about life and death. Alone in our society, they have a warrant to kill people and break things. Given those grim realities, the courts have left decisions on eligibility to the armed forces - and to Congress, which sets the rules and regulations for people in uniform. In 1993, when Congress OK'd "don't ask, don't tell," it did so through a law that states flatly, "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service." …"

St. Louis Post Dispatch 1/8/00 Harry Levins "….Why do the armed forces feel that way? Two reasons, mainly. Military people call the first "small-unit cohesion." You and I call it "male bonding," of the nonsexual sort. To prevail in combat, soldiers must have trust and faith in one another. Sexual tension corrodes faith and trust, which is a big reason why women have been barred from infantry squads and tank crews - so far, anyway. The second reason is a simple respect for what little privacy soldiers enjoy. Soldiers do more than work together. They eat, sleep, shower and shave together. I sampled this togetherness in September in Kosovo, where I lived in a tent with a dozen Navy Seabees. We showered in a group in a big tent with no partitions. That shower tent drove home "don't ask, don't tell" to me…… But I suspect that few of the people writing the op-ed pieces or appearing on the cable TV talk shows have had that shower-tent experience, or any experience with the armed forces….."

Associated Press 1/7/00 "…..An Air Force major said Friday he faces a court-martial for refusing to take the anthrax vaccine because he fears it could jeopardize his health. Maj. Sonnie Bates, a pilot stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, is believed to be the highest-ranking military officer facing court-martial for refusing to follow a direct order to take the shot. The Defense Department has ordered the anthrax vaccine to be administered to all 2.4 million active duty and reserve military troops as protection against biological warfare. More than 380,000 service members have started the six-shot regimen. More than 200 military personnel have refused to take the vaccine because they fear its safety, Pentagon officials say….."

WorldNetDaily 12/31/99 Gertz & Scarborough "…..The Silent Service is speaking out. The Navy's normally quiet fraternity of submariners took one on the chin earlier this year when Navy Secretary Richard Danzig criticized the force for being a "white-male preserve'' and suggested women be put on board the tight-quartered vessels. Now submariners are sounding the alarm against Pentagon plans to cut up seven Los Angeles-class attack submarines -- one of the most effective military weapons in the U.S. arsenal -- beginning in 2001. The Clinton administration decided in 1997 that to save money the submarine force would be cut back from 72 boats to 50 by 2001. However, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were recently sent a secret report on the Navy's dwindling number of submarines. The report, according to a naval insider, says the nation is at an "unacceptable risk'' as the number of attack boats drops near the required 50 mark. The report said the Navy needs a minimum of 55 attack submarines to counter the Russian nuclear threat and also deal with emerging sub forces in China, Iran, India and Pakistan. The desirable fleet strength is 68, says the report by a private consultant……. The immediate solution: Keep operating the seven Los Angeles-class submarines slated for destruction. For the longer term, the United States is going to have to start building more submarines, by some estimates as many as three a year. The new Virginia-class attack submarine will be procured at a one-sub rate. Another option under review is to convert four Trident nuclear missile submarines into cruise-missile shooters……. His friends inside the Navy are not the only ones rooting for Adm. Vernon Clark to be the next chief of naval operations. Some Air Force generals are too. Here's why: Adm. Clark, currently Atlantic Fleet commander, is considered one of the top prospects from the Navy to be the next Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman in two years. But, if he gets the CNO job next summer, the move would likely preclude him from becoming a chairman candidate since he would only have been in his new post about a year…… "

The New York Times 12/17/99 Marc Lacey "….Addressing a sympathetic audience of gay and lesbian backers of the Democratic Party, President Clinton said today that the way the military was implementing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals in uniform could turn soldier against soldier and that he intended to push for changes in how the services put the policy into effect. "He told us what he's been telling us privately for two years -- that he doesn't like the policy but that it was the best he could get politically," said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay political group. "The president called it institutionalized hypocrisy and said it creates an atmosphere of secrecy that turns soldier upon soldier." ……"

European Stars and Stripes 1/3/00 Gregory Piatt "….As NATO evolves in the next decade, U.S. troops in Europe will focus on the eastern and southern parts of the continent, U.S. officials and analysts say. They say instead of the main concentration of U.S. troops based in Germany, they will be in Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and maybe Poland. Others say the military will be based in those countries and in Germany to provide stability and guidance, but much of their mission will be to operate beyond NATO frontiers. "The U.S. will be doing things in Europe and will use Europe as a base," said Robert Hunter, the U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 1993 to 1997. "I wouldn't be surprised if you see more weight [troop concentration] in southeastern Europe."…."

New York Daily News 1/7/00 Timothy Burger "……Key veterans' groups came out yesterday against a proposal by the two Democratic presidential contenders that Pentagon brass who would serve under them would have to endorse military service by openly gay soldiers. "We would obviously be opposed in a big way to any litmus test," said Steve Van Buskirk, spokesman for the 1.9 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars. "If you're going to have any test at all, it's going to be to their ability to lead and to be a straight shooter on matters affecting readiness," said Steve Thomas of the American Legion, which is 2.8 million strong. …."

WorldNetDaily.com 1/7/00 Julie Foster "….Former Army Spc. Michael New, court-martialed in 1996 for refusing to obey an order to wear a United Nations uniform, will appear before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the highest military tribunal in the land, on Feb. 4. Considered a hero by many, the media-shy New refused to don the U.N. uniform while stationed in Germany in 1995 during a peacekeeping mission. This hearing is yet another in a long line of court battles fought to reverse the bad conduct discharge the Army gave New in 1996. Given his past court battles, New's prospects for victory look grim. This is his second appeal in the military court system -- which New's father, Daniel, characterizes as "an intense adversarial relationship." …… "We brought a mountain of evidence that the U.N. uniform is not regulation," Daniel New said. But the Army maintains the issue before the court is simply whether or not a soldier can disobey an order. Since the scope of the allowed debate is so limited, New can no longer argue the real issue -- should an American soldier be subject to wearing foreign military uniforms and serving under foreign military officers as occurred with New's unit in Germany. New's officers told him that the president now has the authority to place Americans under the United Nations, according to Presidential Decision Directive 25, signed in 1994. While an executive summary of that directive exists, the document itself is classified. Supporters of New's position claim that President Clinton has, under PDD 25, "affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power" -- civil power being Congress, not the Commander in Chief. …."

New York Times 1/7/00 Steven Lee Myers "….When Clinton administration officials interviewed Gen. Charles C. Krulak for the job of commandant of the Marine Corps in 1995, he recalled today, no one asked for his views on any social issue facing the military. And there were certainly many brewing at the time, including women in combat and the integration of the sexes in boot camp. And so General Krulak said he was dismayed with the way the two Democratic candidates for president, Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley, had so strongly endorsed allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. Mr. Bradley said he would expect his appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to carry out his policy. Mr. Gore went further to say it would be a "litmus test" for any appointee he selected. Presidents, General Krulak said, have historically selected nominees based on their experience and military expertise, not on their views on political issues -- particularly divisive social ones. To do otherwise, he said, "is in my opinion wrong." "It has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of gays in the military," said General Krulak, an opponent of allowing homosexuals to serve openly who retired as commandant last year. "It has everything to do with how a commander in chief goes about getting the best officers in the land." …."

Reuters 1/6/00 Deborah Charles "….President Clinton said on Thursday the next president will need Congress's consent to let homosexuals serve openly in the military, despite vows to overturn current policy by the Democrats seeking his job. ``I believe that the next president, if he wants to change the policy, will have to get the Congress to change the law,'' Clinton told reporters. Clinton spoke outside his new house in the New York City suburbs after he and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spent their first night there. During a Democratic presidential campaign debate on Wednesday night in New Hampshire, Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley (news - web sites) both said they would seek to overturn the present ``don't-ask-don't-tell'' policy. Critics say the policy has led to an unintended increase in expulsions of gay and lesbian soldiers. Clinton in December acknowledged that the policy was not working as intended, after Mrs. Clinton, who is running for U.S. Senate seat from New York, called for its elimination….."

Orlando Sentinel 1/6/00 Charley Reese "…. There are a few things Americans who care about their country should be concerned about. Of course, they are not the things the politicians and news media are telling you to worry about. One is the decline of the U.S. armed forces. They are losing people right and left, primarily because those people are tired of being posted to various paradises such as Somalia and Haiti for senseless United Nations missions. They are having so much trouble recruiting that they are lowering the standards. At the same time, they have far too many women who, because of pregnancy or too many illegitimate children, are not deployable. The politicians in Washington are ruining the U.S. armed forces, and Americans had better stop those politicians….."

Inside The Pentagon 1/6/00 Keith Costa "….The State Department has refused to turn over to House Armed Services Committee member Walter Jones (R-NC) all the documents he requested on the department's voluntary anthrax immunization program for its overseas employees. The State Department responded to Jones in a Jan. 4 letter that briefly sketches the history of the program. However, the agency insisted it could not release the bulk of material Jones requested unless asked to do so in writing by a committee chairman. In an August 23, 1999, letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Jones said he was "baffled" that the State Department's immunization program is voluntary while the Defense Department's program is mandatory (Inside the Pentagon, Sept. 2, 1999, p1). …."

TIME 1/6/00 Tony Karon "….Is Al Gore's campaign shipping water that could sink it later on? Bill Bradley's challenge from the left was always going to force the Vice President to tilt the wheel in that direction, but Wednesday night's debate was a reminder that painting Gore as holier than Bradley in the eyes of the left wing of the Democratic Party involves taking positions that might haunt him in the presidential race. Gore, who remains the strong favorite despite Bradley's lead in New Hampshire, took a stronger stand than both his rival and the Clinton administration on the issue of gays in the military. He vowed that he wouldn't appoint any officer to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who didn't support the right of gays to serve openly in the armed forces….."

NYTimes 1/6/00 RL Berke "…. Vice President Al Gore and his Democratic opponent, Bill Bradley, said tonight that if they were elected president they would require their appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to fully support allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. Although both candidates had previously opposed the Clinton administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy their comments in the fourth Democratic debate of the primary season, here at the University of New Hampshire, were a strikingly forceful embrace of gay rights and were bound to come under attack by the Republican candidates……. Of the two, Mr. Gore was the more expansive, saying he wanted to make the same sweeping changes toward allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military that President Harry S. Truman made toward racially integrating the armed forces….."

Washington Times 1/7/00 Bill Gertz Rowan Scarborough "…..We've had a bunch of queries about COO, the Army's sensitivity training program, ever since this column told of the service's top intelligence officer speaking to a group of hardened senior sergeants. Instead of focusing on future intelligence needs, the general lectured them on COO (Consideration of Others), much to the dismay of some of those present. What is COO? We procured a document on the subject distributed by the Army's Military District of Washington. COO's goal, the guidance states, is "increasing sensitivity in a diverse environment." ….. "Consideration of others is not just a concept to address sexual, racial or religious harassment -it covers the broad perspective of civility and encompasses harassment, discrimination, prejudice, insensitivity, offensive behavior, verbal abuse and basic thoughtlessness….."

Washington Times 1/14/2000 Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough "…. Tree huggers at the Pentagon are at it again. We reported several weeks ago how the Army ordered a massive program to replace the lead in millions of 5.56 mm bullets - those fired by standard issue M-16 rifles - with tungsten filler. Now the Army is expanding its politically correct ``Green Ammo'' program even further. Army Undersecretary Bernard Rostker directed the Army recently to consider filling all 120 mm tank rounds with tungsten instead of depleted uranium. Apparently, depleted uranium used in the tank-busting, armor-piercing shells is an environmental hazard, according to the Pentagon's environmental police. If the conversion is approved, however, there are serious drawbacks. The tungsten shells will have less range than those containing depleted uranium, thus nullifying a key advantage for U.S. ground forces. During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, depleted uranium tank shells gave U.S. forces a decisive advantage over Iraqi tanks. That advantage could be lost under the conversion plan for an environmentally safe battlefield. We're told by officials who oppose the idea that in addition to the decreased range, tungsten- filled tanks rounds also pose another national security risk, one we highlighted earlier: The United States has no reserves of the material and currently has to buy what it uses from China…."

CNSNews.com 1/21/2000 John Nowacki "….With Bill Clinton's push for hate crimes legislation and Al Gore's admitted pro-homosexual litmus test for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (which he now insists is not a litmus test, after all), homosexuality in the military promises to be once more on the front burner of American politics. But it isn't just here in the United States that the debate about mainstreaming homosexuality is being conducted. The United Kingdom ended its ban on homosexuals in the military last week, after the European Court of Human Rights overruled the British government, calling the ban a "grave interference in private lives." With that out of the way, the pro-homosexual interests in Britain are focused on their next move, the repeal of Section 28……. Section 28 of the Local Government Act was enacted when Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister. The law prohibits local authorities from intentionally promoting homosexuality or publishing material with the intention of promoting homosexuality……"

CBSNEWS.com 1/14/2000 Vince Gonzales "….CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports Bates, who is stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, was summoned before his commanding officer Friday and told he is the first U.S. military officer facing court-martial for refusing a vaccine designed to protect against the deadly biological warfare agent anthrax. Bates says he "never thought I'd be singled out for not following an order." Bates refused the shot because many of his comrades got sick after being vaccinated. "It wasn't a difficult decision at all because I feel like I have a higher order to follow," he explains, "and that is to stand up against things that are wrong." ….."

WorldNetDaily 1/17/2000 Scott Park Human Events "….A new study of more than 12,000 servicemen and women reveals that seven years of Clinton administration defense policies have driven down morale among personnel of all ranks. The findings, published in "American Military Culture in the 21st Century," which was released last week by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, indicate that U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines are losing trust in their chain-of-command. Only 35 percent of servicemen surveyed agreed with the statement: "When my service's senior leaders say something, you can believe it's true." Soldiers in the ranks also conceded that they do not believe senior officers are being honest with the American people about the readiness of units for combat, the adequacy of resources, and the quality of recruits emerging from basic training. Any admiral or general who has the moral courage to talk openly about the significant, pervasive and dangerous trends that have developed in the armed forces during the Clinton years would likely see his career summarily ended or his advancement permanently blocked. The CSIS survey, accordingly, was conducted in strict confidentiality…..Referring to the survey, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness told Human Events she sees a causal connection between dissent in the ranks and top-down pressure to support dubious political decisions such as integrating women into combat units and allowing open homosexuals to serve…… No confidence in women in combat: The study found that only one-third of junior enlisted men believed women would pull their load in combat. Remarkably, 44 percent of low-ranking enlisted women agreed…."

WorldNetDaily 1/20/2000 Jon Dougherty "….Little that has gone wrong with the military since the Clinton administration took the helm has been its fault. Stupid, damaging and shortsighted PC policies have done more to destroy the U.S. military than any opposing army has in the past 40 years. Military traditions and time-tested doctrine mean nothing to the PC captains within the administration… Perhaps more despicable, however, is the top military brass' willingness to abide by these damaging policies. Their acquiescence to Clintonian feminization and homosexual policies, while scoring them political points in the White House, has done incredible harm to the force. If you doubt that, take a look at any services' current pitiful recruitment figures; with the exception of the Marine Corps, which still trains men and women separately, all services have been consistently reporting recruitment shortfalls….. That's no accident -- men, who are physically and statistically better suited for warfare and combat, don't want to serve with a bunch of pansies and women. That's just the way it is, and it is why senior noncoms and officers are getting out in droves….."

Dayton Daily News 1/14/2000 Timothy Gaffney "….The Air Force's years of research cutbacks drew blistering criticism Thursday by the service's biggest booster, the Air Force Association. A 30-page "special report," prepared by retired top Air Force generals, says the service has "shortchanged the nation's future military-technological edge" by reducing basic research in favor of short-term programs. The report says the Air Force, founded as a technology-based military power, has cut research spending so much during the past 10 years that it now trails both the Army and Navy……. It can take 20 years to develop new technology, the report says, but the Air Force is focusing more and more on short-term research tied to specific weapons programs, such as the proposed Space Based Laser and Discoverer II, a prototype for advanced spy satellites. The report says basic research gets the smallest slice of the Air Force's funding pie, about $210 million, down from $265 million in 1993. "Without a robust Air Force (research and development) program today, there will be no way to catch up 20 years from now. What's in the pipeline now is what our men will have to depend on to face threats not yet imagined," the report says….."

Washington Times 1/18/2000 Rowan Scarborough "…. They get detention for passing love notes in class, holding hands, kissing, giving foot massages, smiling suggestively and uttering sexually tinged language. An American high school? No. It's basic training in the new U.S. military. Hundreds of disciplinary reports collected by a congressional commission show that today's military drill instructors appear just as busy keeping the sexes apart as they do molding young people into obedient soldiers. The reports were reviewed by The Washington Times after the commission recently deposited the unpublicized reports at the National Archives……. "The reports show that basic training has become more of a summer camp than preparation for war," said Jim Renne, a legal counsel for the commission, which went out of business after submitting the report. "It reaffirms the overwhelming view of drill instructors that basic training has become primarily a baby-sitting exercise," said Mr. Renne, who opposes mixed-sex boot camp….. Henry Hamilton, a lawyer in South Carolina who defends personnel charged with sexual offenses, analyzed the Article 15 reports at the commission's request. He said he performed no statistical analysis, but discovered a general practice of not punishing female recruits who had consensual sex with supervisors. "Males were punished more often than females with whom they violated the gender policy," he said. "There were very few instances of females being punished, especially when they engaged in consensual sexual acts with drill sergeants. There was a disparate underdisciplining of females. This says that females aren't responsible. It says that all males are responsible."…."

New York Times 2/2/2000 Elizabeth Becker "....Every member of the armed forces, from four-star generals to privates, will undergo training by the end of the year to prevent anti-gay harassment, the Pentagon announced today in a sweeping admission that its "don't ask, don't tell, don't harass" policy is poorly understood in the ranks. In the wake of the murder of a gay private in Kentucky last July, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen ordered each of the armed services to prepare training programs and asked the senior civilian and military leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines to send letters to their commanders this month emphasizing that anti-gay threats and harassment will not be tolerated. .....The Pentagon said it had no immediate estimate of the cost of the additional training. P. J. Crowley, a Defense Department spokesman, said the expense would be measured in hours rather than dollars. ....."

Detroit News 1/31/2000 John Hanchette "....Researchers have been digging for almost nine years to discover what triggered the mystery symptoms known collectively as gulf war Illness, chronic afflictions complained of by about one-sixth of those who served in the 1991 war with Iraq. In a medical journal being published today, Memphis immunologist Pamela Asa and colleagues at the Tulane Medical School in New Orleans assert that squalene -- an experimental additive thought by some scientists to make for better absorption and immunity response when added to vaccines -- may have had a lot to do with it. Asa -- with Tulane's Robert Garry and Yan Cao -- have established a correlation between antibodies to squalene found in the blood and the presence of Gulf War Illness symptoms. When they looked at 144 Gulf War-era veterans, the researchers found squalene antibodies in 95 percent of the sick vets who had been deployed to the Persian Gulf -- and in 100 percent of ill Gulf War-period vets who had received vaccinations but never were deployed to the Middle East. .... In a large control group of blood donors, lupus patients, silicone breast implant recipients, and chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers, the researchers found no antibodies to squalene. Conclusion: Somehow, an experimental substance still unlicensed by the Food and Drug Administration for human vaccinations has gotten into the blood and bodies of sick Gulf War veterans....."

Omaha World-Herald 1/27/2000 "….Severe stress, physicians warn, can do major harm to a person's health. Stress can also harm an organization. A recent study indicated a problem in the way the U.S. armed services utilize their people. Stress is the unfortunate result. The report, prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., concludes that "readiness and morale have slipped; recruiting and retention are problematic; and careers in the military have become less satisfying." Top U.S. military leaders, the report says, have "not yet adjusted to the reality that there are insufficient operating resources and personnel to match missions." It concludes, "for all hands and their families, it is a tough time to be in uniform."….."

Christian Science Monitor 1/28/2000 Elaine Grossman "…. If the military is a culture unto itself, the submarine represents another world altogether. Running silent and deep for months at a time, with manufactured air and sardine-cramped quarters, the boats can become emotional pressure cookers submerged in dark and icy waters. Now the Navy has been asked to add a potentially volatile new ingredient: women. A Pentagon commission recently proposed that submarine service be opened for the first time to female sailors. The move could broaden the recruiting pool for underwater duty, which like other branches of the armed services, faces a shortage of talented volunteers. And this could be one of the last gender barriers to fall in the Navy. But critics, including top Navy brass, say the initiative would raise costs and increase the rigors of one of the world's most challenging work environments. Women line up on both sides of the debate, with opposition surfacing in one group that, though quiet in public, carries considerable weight behind the scenes: wives of current submariners. "The majority of wives and family members do not want women on submarines," says Tami Calhoun of Groton, Conn., an opponent of gender integration on subs and director of the Submarine Wives Club, a support group……"

Severnside 1/28/2000 "…. PLA General Xiong Guangkai has left Washington. Here's a brief after action report:
1. This time he did NOT/NOT offer to nuke Los Angeles.
2. The press is turning over rocks all over Washington to find out which U. S. Senator or Congressperson he met in secret.
3. Sec. Cohen announced he would be inviting Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian to Washington. [With luck, this will happen just before the election. Chi is on the cover of 'Red Dragon Rising'.]
4. Sec. Cohen obliged Xiong by reaffirming the various anti-Taiwan policy statements-the 3 Communiques, the 3 'no's' and One China. We have no information on whether Cohen also knocked his head nine times on the floor. ….."

Washington Times 1/28/2000 Rowan Scarborough "….The Army has ordered mandatory homosexual sensitivity training for all soldiers in the aftermath of the murder of a soldier at Fort Campbell, Ky. The Pentagon is also issuing written surveys to military personnel on how their commands view homosexuals. The survey, for example, asks if service members have heard jokes or negative remarks about homosexuals. The training order and written questionnaire are part of the military's drive to rid the ranks of anti-homosexual actions and statements. Pfc. Barry Winchell, the Fort Campbell soldier, was killed in July by a barracks mate who thought Pfc. Winchell was homosexual. Pvt. Calvin N. Glover was court-martialed for the killing and sentenced to life in prison. The actions also come after first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Clinton criticized his own policy on homosexuals -"don't ask, don't tell," which bars open homosexuality in the ranks. The survey and training is not sitting well with some armed forces members, who complain the Pentagon is promoting the homosexual agenda……"

Providence Journal-Bulletin 1/28/2000 Mackubin Thomas Owens "….The issue of homosexuals serving openly in the military is shaping up to be one of the most contentious issues in this year's presidential campaign. The tone of the debate was set in December, when President Clinton asserted during a radio interview that the current policy of "don't ask, don't tell," which has been in effect since 1993, was not working as he had intended. …… For example, in his Boson Globe column of Jan. 11, James Carroll writes that "today's soldiers and sailors reluctant to serve shoulder to shoulder with homosexuals are the progeny of racist and sexist soldiers and sailors who were told to get over it or get out." Although it is popular to equate opposition to permitting homosexuals to serve openly in the military today with opposition to racial integration of the services five decades ago, the similarities between the two cases are superficial. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, who no doubt knows something about racial discrimination, made the proper distinction in a reply to former Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., when she argued that point. "Skin color is a benign nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument." ….. For this reason, General Powell stated in testimony before Congress in 1992 that it "would be prejudicial to good order and discipline to try to integrate [open homosexuals] into the current military structure." Congress agreed and subsequently reaffirmed the longstanding exclusion of open homosexuals from military service. This is an important fact that the Democratic candidates either don't understand or are ignoring for partisan political purposes.. ….."

Navy Times 1/31/2000 Gigdet Fuentes "….When the new amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard heads west Jan. 24 for its first deployment, more than two dozen female enlisted Marines will be aboard. The women will join about 326 female sailors in the ship's crew for a six-month Western Pacific deployment. The Bonhomme Richard, with a total crew of about 1,100, can accommodate up to 450 women in berthing compartments and staterooms. It hasn't been so easy for female Marines to deploy on the Navy's amphibious ships. The lack of female berthing -- or sufficient space to accommodate female Marines -- has forced women to miss out on the "Gator" ship deployments……."

Inside The Pentagon 1/27/2000 Elaine Grossman "…When a group of North Carolina academics concluded last fall that a cultural "gap" exists between elite military officers and the public they serve, few defense experts disagreed with their data. But over the past several months, a debate has percolated among civilian policymakers, active and reserve military officers, retired service members and expert observers over how to interpret the study's results…..But the Triangle Institute researchers express concern that military leaders think they should "insist" on any matters -- be it ROE, types of force used or exit strategy -- because these issues traditionally remain solely in the purview of civilian policy makers……. For UNC-Chapel Hill's Richard Kohn, one of the study's two principal investigators, the findings imply that in instances in which military officers believe they have a right to "insist," they would be willing to resign if they do not get their way. That "goes too far," Kohn said in a Jan. 18 interview……."

Philadelphia Inquirer 1/24/2000 Deroy Murdock "....Has the time come to ban heterosexuals from the armed forces? Evidence that straight GIs weaken America's defenses continues to accumulate. Sex between male and female soldiers disrupts numerous military installations. The Army Inspector General reported in July 1997 that leaders at one boot camp believe it is unrealistic to stop sex between coed recruits thanks to the chain of command's inability to provide adequate oversight in the barracks, given the high frequency of such incidents. Exasperated, the Army has tried a technical fix. According to the Washington Times' Rowan Scarborough, the Army has installed alarms and surveillance cameras to keep male and female enlistees in their respective quarters. That often fails. At Fort Bragg alone, the Army Times notes, about 200 unmarried, pregnant soldiers are on base at any given time. According to Penna Dexter of Concerned Women for America, the Navy now takes it for granted that 10 percent of women will be pregnant when they return from long cruises. In the first 13 months of America's deployment in Bosnia, 118 soldiers got pregnant and were shipped out. Expectant GIs move from bunks and barracks to cozier housing and lighter duties. Then they become single moms, with the attendant consequences......"

PR Newswire 2/13/00 "….The Pentagon is looking at the battle for the Chechan capital of Grozny -- which was long and bloody for Russian attackers and Chechen defenders -- as a preview of urban warfare of the future that the U.S. military is not prepared nor equipped for. ``I'm not so sure that we'd do a whole lot better than the Russians,'' one senior Pentagon official says in the current issue of Newsweek....,Instead of the high-tech, laser-guided munitions which worked in the gulf war, U.S. military planners say they need equipment such as handheld sensors to detect an enemy in the next room, and the sort of trolley that mechanics use to go under cars to rescue wounded comrades. In the last couple of weeks, a company of Marines has been ``fighting'' their way through the houses and office blocks of Fort Ord, Calif., an Army base abandoned in 1994. If the results mimic those at a similar exercise last spring, they won't be encouraging. In ``attacks'' on a naval hospital in Oakland, Calif., the Marines took casualty rates as high as 70 percent, reports National Security Correspondent John Barry in the February 21 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, February 14). In the past, the U.S. Army avoided cities because the cost of street-fighting casualties was just too steep, Barry reports. If cities couldn't be avoided, then the other option was to flatten them. Now, neither option exists….."

AP 2/12/00 Amy Forliti "…..At least a dozen Indiana Air National Guard pilots in Fort Wayne are barred from flying for refusing an anthrax vaccination required for an upcoming mission overseas, pilots say. Members of the 122nd Fighter Wing, which is scheduled to be sent to the Middle East in April, have until Sunday to begin the series of six shots. The vaccination program had been voluntary until now. "Everybody is worried about safety," said Capt. Bruce Everett, a commercial pilot barred from flying for the Guard in January for refusing the vaccine. "I don't know if it's unsafe. All I know is that there hasn't been enough research to prove that it is safe." The Pentagon has ordered all of its 2.4 million active and reserve personnel be inoculated against anthrax, a deadly germ that can be used in biological warfare. About 200 to 300 people have refused the vaccine so far, according to the Pentagon. Several men and women have been prosecuted, and many reservists have quit because of the shots. …."

American Spectator 2/11/00 R Emmett Tyrrell Jr "….There was that unpleasant ceremony in the White House East Room. The room was filled with military brass and veterans, rough fellows whose company brings agitation to this graduate of war protests and draft irregularities. Worse, he had to place a Medal of Honor around the neck of a hero from the Vietnam War, Mr. Alfred Rascon…….. When Rascon and his unit were ambushed 34 years ago in Long Khanh Province, Bill Clinton, the awesome student politician and frequent class president, was growing increasingly apprehensive about his chances with what was then a universal military draft. Mr. Rascon spent the next couple of years recovering from the wounds he suffered while treating his wounded and turning an abandoned machine gun on the enemy, wounds so grave that he received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile the smartest student politician in American history was anxiously plotting to escape the draft.. ….One of the most contemptible transgressions committed by the Clintons in public life is their willful falsification of the historical record with lies, evasions, and stupefying exaggerations. Most of Clinton's lies about his draft dodging have now probably been exposed. Yet he and his apologists have followed up these exposures with an even more contemptible lie, namely the lie that they resort to so often when caught red-handed, the lie that "everyone does it." To listen to them, every young man of draft age in the late 1960s worked as energetically as the President to avoid military service. Oh yes, and every American president was an adulterer. And it is the rarest of American presidents who did not fill his campaign coffers with money from foreign nationals and perhaps even extra-terrestrials. Truth be known it was only the rarest of young American men in the late 1960s who dodged the draft. ……"

World Net Daily 2/5/00 Dr Alan Keyes "….I believe we need to return to the ban on gays in the military. The present policy is unconscionable, and puts an intolerable burden on the military. It signals to people who are homosexual that they may enter the military with the full expectation that the practice of homosexuality will be winked at by military authorities. Under the current policy, it is quite reasonable to form the impression that homosexuality will not be looked upon as a violation. Meanwhile, the regulations that say it is a violation stay in place. So what are the people who have responsibility for enforcing those regulations supposed to do when they come across information that suggests violations are occurring? It is true even more in the military than in civic life that respect for the laws that define justice and right behavior is the most fundamental prerequisite for the well-being of the community. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy is a classic instance of the preferred Clinton assault against decency. He attacks by arranging things so that there will be a persistent, gnawing erosion of the well-built structures of human life. In this case, the real target is the never-ending struggle by military leaders to burnish in their charges the respect for military order that will ensure willing obedience under even the most daunting of circumstances. "Don't ask, don't tell" is Clinton's program of euthanasia for military discipline. For what is the inevitable result of such Clintonesque gray areas in a military chain of command? It gives rise to resentment, and to a corresponding lack of confidence on the part of military authorities in enforcing the regulations. And, of course, it gives rise to possibilities of abuse, where subjective judgments can be interposed in order to play favorites or pursue private vendettas. …."

Associated Press 2/6/00 Edith Lederer "…..The U.S. military is resuming high-level contacts with U.N. peacekeeping officials after years of strained relations over the debacle in Somalia and the U.S. failure to pay its U.N. debt. ``It is rebuilding a relationship which was severely strained and more or less dried up'' in recent years, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said in an interview on Friday. ``We're trying to use Pentagon know-how to help the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in its planning effort. This is not an attempt to take over U.N. responsibilities,'' he said. ``Since American taxpayer dollars are involved, and at times even American lives are at risk, we want to help get it right.'' ……"

The Hill 2/2/00 David Silverberg "….. On Jan. 12, a brief essay appeared on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Penned by former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak, it was titled, "Don't Politicize the Joint Chiefs." Gen. Krulak knows whereof he speaks, being the father of an active-duty Marine and having served as a joint chief. He asserted that top military leaders must be free to offer the president whatever advice they deem appropriate based on their best judgment -- and that those serving in uniform "deserve a head of state who has the moral conrage to accept, even to demand, the best military advice the joint chiefs can provide -- regardless of how that advice might play politically." Furthermore, selection for top slots, he writes, "must be based on military experience, military expertise and leadership ability. It cannot be based on support or lack thereof for a current social or political position. As a nation we must never allow our elected leaders to subordinate an issue of national security for the sake of political gain." All this sounds like mom and apple pie, but what prompted Krulak to write was a remark by Vice President Al Gore that, not only would he lift the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military, he would require his nominees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to support the policy. In the face of criticism, Gore immediately backpedaled. It's difficult now to say where he stands -- or if he stands anywhere at all. But even suggesting a political litmus test for military leadership is like opening Pandora's box. Even if the lid is lifted just a little, all the demons can get out. …."

Associated Press 2/4/00 Brigitte Greenberg "…..A U.S. soldier's bad-conduct discharge for refusing to serve on a U.N. peacekeeping mission should be overturned because the jury was not allowed to decide whether President Clinton's order to deploy was legal, the soldier's lawyer argued Friday. Attorney Henry L. Hamilton, representing Army medic Michael New, told five judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces that Clinton's order to deploy troops to Macedonia in 1995 was illegal because he did not have congressional approval. ``Superiors may not compel subordinates to obey illegal orders,'' said Hamilton, a retired Army judge advocate general. ``The government must prove lawfulness. ... If it's not a legal order, there's no duty to obey it.'' Capt. Kelly Haywood, representing the government, argued that the order's legitimacy was never for the seven-member military jury to decide, and New had a duty to obey the commander in chief. ``The mission lives and dies by the soldier following an order,'' Haywood said. ….."

INSIGHT Magazine 2/4/00 Paul Rodriguez "….. A peer-reviewed article by Tulane University researchers confirming the presence of squalene in the blood of gulf-war veterans has spurred Congress to demand answers from the Pentagon. At least 10 senior members of Congress recently sent Defense Secretary William Cohen a stern letter about the Pentagon's failure to take seriously a newly discovered bio-marker that may help explain the mysterious illness known as gulf-war syndrome, or GWS. This latest escalation of tension between Congress and the Department of Defense, or DOD, follows news that the Department of Microbiology at the Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans has published in the February issue of Experimental and Molecular Pathology a groundbreaking study on the discovery of exotic antibodies to a substance called squalene that appear only in troops of the gulf-war era - both those who served overseas and those who never left the United States. Immunologist Robert F. Garry, leader of the Tulane study group, and Tennessee microbiologist Pamela Asa reported in their peer-reviewed article that they found the squalene antibodies only in the blood of sick soldiers who had been given the full complement of immunizations (see "Breakthrough on Gulf War Illness," April 19, 1999). The speculation for more than two years has been that the troops were given an experimental immunization that contained an adjuvant with squalene. The DOD repeatedly denied this despite compelling circumstantial evidence to the contrary. …."

Foreign Policy Research Institute 2/4/00 Walter A McDougall "….Indeed, one of the central goals of the feminist movement is to establish a fully sexually integrated military, trained, fit, and ready to engage in combat. To the advocates of this cause, it is an outrage that the United States is not moving at a rapid enough pace in their direction; but the truth is that it has moved very swiftly indeed. The United States today is the only serious military power in history to contemplate thorough sexual integration of its armed forces. And thanks to an adamant feminist lobby, a conspiracy of silence in the officer corps, and the anodyne state of debate over the issue, the brave new world of female infantry, bomber pilots, submariners, and drill sergeants may lie just around the corner. ……. As former Secretary of the Navy James Webb attests, military institutions must be coercive, hierarchical, and self-sacrificial, and as such they depend on a rigid code of fairness with regard to conduct, performance, and deportment, promotion on merit, and egalitarian treatment that by its nature cannot be gender- neutral. For as soon as the sexes are mixed in close quarters, especially for prolonged and tense intervals, the jealousies, courtships, and favoritism that are bound to erupt must corrode fairness and discipline. Imagine, writes Webb, a ship at sea for a hundred days during which numerous crew members pair off for sex. That in itself spawns favoritism, duplicity, and pregnancies. But what of the crewmen who don't "score" with shipmates and must stifle their libido for months? "The inescapable feelings of resentment, competition, and anger that follow create a powder keg of emotions that cannot help but affect morale, discipline, and attention to d