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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (3059)	7/6/2003 2:27:11 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

A Soldier's Story Thursday, July 03, 2003 Pfc. James Matise MOSUL, Iraq — Tonight I watched the sun set on the glowing Tigris River (search), and as I smelled the marshland water in the cool breeze that washed over me, I wondered if a few months ago, Saddam Hussein himself wasn't watching the same scene -- I am sitting on his balcony, after all. After months of vehicle hoods, tents and foxholes, the ground and concrete schoolhouse floors, nasty critters, stray dogs and sandstorms, I'm sleeping in a palace tonight overlooking the lights of Mosul (search). It's incredible to look back. We've accomplished much in the past month of fighting. We've liberated a country, broken the back of a firmly established totalitarian regime, begun to provide for the masses and are teaching a nation how to stand on its feet. I've had so many experiences, seen and done so many exciting, strange and sometimes crazy things; I cannot begin to describe them. Some might say we had a little luck; others would say the campaign was simply well planned. I couldn't say whether luck was a factor, but looking back, I see many things I am thankful for having happened: For the successful campaign of the coalition forces, who freed the noble Iraqi people from 30 years of oppression in less than 30 days. The smiles and cheers of the resilient citizens I've met in An Najaf (search), Karbala (search), Baghdad and Mosul, and their iron will to learn how to support themselves without the Ba'ath Party (search) infrastructure, are all the reasons I need for being here. For their happiness, their kind hospitality, the little girl who gave me a rose, I am thankful. For the leadership of the 101st Airborne Division (search) (Air Assault), my fellow Screaming Eagles (search), who had little time to prepare but were still able to successfully orchestrate the unique capabilities we have so that we could participate in Iraq's liberation. For the 3rd Infantry Division (search), whose tanks charged relentlessly across the Iraqi desert and set the fastest invasion pace ever seen. Behind them, the 101st Airborne Division was able to set up fuel points that enabled our helicopter-heavy brigades to conduct combat air assaults and allowed our Apaches to strike deep into the ranks of the Republican Guard (search) -- helping us get home that much sooner. For the Marines (search), especially for sticking it out at Al Nasiriyah (search), the bloodiest battle in the war with the possible exception of Al Basrah (search). The liberation of Nasiriyah will forever be preserved in their legacy, along with Okinawa (search) and Tripoli (search). Semper Fi. For the British, who fought bravely and successfully secured the Al Faw peninsula, averting ecological disaster, and liberated Al Basrah, although the Ba'ath Party intended to make its streets run with British and Iraqi blood alike. For the Kurdish Peshmerga (search), who dared to enter the fight even after failing before and facing the wrath of Saddam Hussein (search), and for being victorious. For the Air Force (search) and the Navy (search), who took the skies over Iraq and whose bombing campaign swiftly cut off the regime's ability to communicate with its forces. For the Iraqi soldiers who, faced with tourture and death if they were caught, braved those risks and capitulated. Those who realized Saddam wasn't worth fighting for will live to participate in the building of a better Iraq. Their people owe them a greater debt of gratitude than they will ever know. For the weapons of mass destruction (search) that were not used, even though our intelligence said they would be. Perhaps they heeded our warnings, or perhaps we eliminated their capability to unleash them early on in the war. If it's the latter, the credit belongs to the Navy and Air Force for diminishing that capability. That they had such weapons is no longer a question. For the Patriot missile (search) batteries from the 11th Air Defense Artillery Division (search) out of Fort Bliss, Texas. The new Patriot Advanced Capability 3 technology (search) has been targeted with harsh criticism, but all I know is that it kept Iraqi missiles from hitting us. For the safe return of our prisoners of war -- roughed up, but alive. I knew Spc. Joseph Hudson (search) of Fort Bliss, Texas from high school, and the sight of his grizzly, weary, but smiling face as he walked down the tarmac has been a highlight of my deployment. For the opportunity to take time and grieve with my brothers of 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, when we lost Capt. Chris Seifert (search) during a grenade attack in Kuwait. It really helped speed the healing process and prepared us for what could lie ahead for any one of us. We must carry on the work of the living, but not forget the fallen, the most noble among us. Chris and Air Force Maj. Greg Stone (search), who later died from injuries suffered in the incident, are no exception. For the fact that nobody has planned my memorial service yet, as well as almost 250,000 others. I've been shot at enough to distinguish an incoming AK-47 round from one fired away from me, enough to earn my Hostile Fire Pay (search) five times over. And many service members have endured more than I. To the higher being in all of our lives, for seeing that so many soldiers on both sides of the fight escaped harm -- including me -- I thank you. For those brave souls who will never return home, whom more than self their country loved and mercy more than life. We must always remember that those soldiers, Marines, seamen and airmen, and their families, paid a price so high it can never be repaid. For those men and women I serve beside, who understand and have seen the ultimate sacrifice we all may be called upon to make for America, yet choose to serve anyway. Certainly not least, I am thankful for the support we've been given by those who are back home, by the families and friends of soldiers and perfect strangers. For the letters, the care packages, and the rallies. Americans, you are the ones who remind us what we're fighting for. Our work in Iraq is far from over, true, and we're not out of danger yet. Even as I write, the night sky is painted with the bright orange and red streaks of tracer rounds, and sporadic small-arms fire crackles like popcorn, sometimes interrupted by the quivering explosion of a grenade. And there's no telling what tomorrow might bring. So tonight, I'll sleep on my cot in this palace, listening to those sounds in a foreign, far-away land, and count my blessings that when I do wake up, tomorrow I'll be one day closer to coming home. Pfc. James Matise is a public affairs specialist with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).) This column was published by the Army News Service on April 30, 2003. Pfc. Matise is still serving in Iraq.

To: calgal who wrote (3059)	7/6/2003 2:32:10 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

From July 2: Transformation Not Yet Done Wednesday, July 02, 2003 By Melana Zyla Vickers Judging by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s (search ) reported interest in devoting Army troops to a non-U.N., standing international peacekeeping force, his highly unusual decision to pass over the current crop of Army leaders to choose a retired general as Army chief of staff, and his evident clash of vision with those Army leaders before, during and after the Iraq war, that service is due for some major changes. That’s a good thing, as long as newly nominated Army Chief of Staff Peter J. Schoomaker (search), a retired special forces general and Army Secretary James Roche (search ), currently Air Force Secretary, focus their attention on the three changes Army soldiers need most. As soon as they’re confirmed this summer, Roche and Schoomaker need to rethink Army deployments so the same exhausted guys aren’t fighting war one minute and cleaning up after war the next. Second, they need to focus the Army’s transformation efforts on addressing the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, answering how technology can help the individual solider get to the conflict most quickly and prevail in close combat. Third, the new leaders will need to minister to the Army’s morale, seriously battered after a few years in which the service has felt, rightly or wrongly, that it has as many enemies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as it does in Iraq. Deployment and Stability Operations: The best illustration of the deployment problem is offered by the Third Infantry division. (search) Its 17,000 weary soldiers have been in the Gulf region since last September, first training, then fighting the war on the ground in Iraq (search), and now doing stability operations. While they may come home soon, the fact that two-thirds of active Army brigades are deployed in Iraq or in the Balkans (search) and Afghanistan (search ) has forced an unreasonably long wait. Not only has the long, varied deployment been too much of a strain on the Army soldiers and their families, it’s also highly unusual for the Army or any service. Consider that when Navy personnel do tours overseas with their families for six months at a time, they do so only once every few years. Or that the Air Force tries to make sure that only two of its ten “air and space expeditionary forces” are deployed at any one time. The Army tradition, meanwhile, has been to “garrison” soldiers at bases around the world with their families, rather than to send them overseas for long periods alone. Even service in Korea, which is done without family members, is limited to a few tours in the course of a soldier’s career. By contrast, the long deployments in Iraq are very taxing. Given the country’s post-Sept. 11 needs for warfighting and long-lasting stability operations, the days of the “garrison Army” may be behind us. The service needs to join the Navy, Air Force and Marines in becoming an “expeditionary force.” To make that change effectively, Army leaders need to work quickly to figure out how to dedicate certain troops to warfighting and others to stability operations, all the while developing a deployment rotation that protects soldiers from unnecessarily long and wearying deployments away from their homes and families. Transformation: The Iraq war, like the Afghanistan war before it, showed the military and Americans that precision strikes from the air and sea have largely eliminated the Army’s need to fight an enemy that is beyond its line of sight or to defend itself from enemy attacks from the air. In other words, the Army no longer needs better and fancier ways to lug heavy artillery and air defense weaponry with it into battle. Instead, the Army needs to focus on moving in close to the enemy quickly and exploiting the openings that precision strikes provide. While the Army has improved its speed considerably -- deploying to Iraq in three months compared to six months in 1991 -- it still has a ways to go. Real Army transformation will require Roche and Schoomaker to ensure that the Pentagon (search) invests in greater mobility, sea lift and bigger air lift for the service. They also need to invest in Army aircraft that will improve operational or battlefield mobility, perhaps including tilt-rotor aircraft (search ) such as the V-22. In addition, investment needs to go into technologies that will protect the individual soldier who is fighting the enemy close up in an urban environment, as was -- and is -- the case with many a skirmish in Iraq. Among the technologies that could help are see-through-wall equipment, unmanned vehicles and other sensors for the individual soldier, and robotics to improve his strength, endurance and survivability. Morale: After a war in which the Army was criticized for slowness (Kosovo (search )), another where the non-special-operations Army sat on the sidelines (Afghanistan), and another in which the Army’s great achievements were overshadowed by acrimony between the service leadership and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Iraq), the Army has developed a bruised ego and a bunker mentality. It’s only natural that its membership will perceive the appointment of outsiders Roche and Schoomaker as a sign of the service’s further estrangement from Bush administration leaders. But that doesn’t need to be the case. Roche and Schoomaker will have to work hard to show the troops that they have the secretary’s ear, and that their appointments bring the whole Army back into the inner circle. Building morale won’t be any easier than solving the Army’s deployment and transformation challenges. But surely the Army’s new top man in uniform and new top civilian understand that Donald Rumsfeld didn’t stick his neck out with bold appointments so that the two of them could keep things going as they have been in the past. Melana Zyla Vickers is a contributing editor to DefenseCentralStation.com.