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Memorial Day in Washington D.C By Gary D. Harrington President 7/8th Artillery Association
My father served with the 99th Infantry Division in World War II. The unit trained down here in the Southern States. They were shipped to Europe just in time for the Battle of the Bulge and crossed the Remagen Bridge and into Germany.
He kept a diary of his time in the Army and I took it and made it into a DVD. I call it “World War II G.I. Diary”. He really liked the DVD and asked me if I could make some copies. He was to meet with some of the men from his Unit for the Memorial Day Parade and asked if I would like to come along.
My folks live in Milford, Delaware, which is only sixty miles from D.C., so I booked a flight and told him I would be glad to come up to see him. In my spare time I made one of my plaques to place at the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial to honor the men from the 7th Battalion 8th Artillery.
May 26, 2008 was a beautiful day in Washington D.C. We started at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church near the Capital Building. The Minster of the Church had served with the 99th. There were about ten of the old guys from the Division there to march in the parade. There were also a number of re-enactors with World War II Jeeps for those who couldn’t march that far. All that was needed was someone to carry the flag. I got that honor.
The Parade began at 14:00 hours and we march the entire length of Constitution Avenue before An extremely large crowd. It was one of the greatest honors of my life.
After the Parade, my father accompanied me to the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, where we placed the plaque next to the many other items placed each day in front of the Memorial. At the end of the day, these items are collected, catalogued, and stored for future generations.
Not much was said on the way home.
Photo's attached.
What Is A Veteran?
Msg sent via CableONE.net MyMail - http://www.cableone.net
George & Carl
Douglas
Jay Crawford, PFC, RTO, D Btry, Tay Ninh, 23 Feb 71, Mortar fire. Some of the extra information was copied from the 7th/8th KIA web page. Joe Edwards & Warren Smith are correct, there was another casualty at Ben Luc besides SFC Moore, shortly after B Btry pulled out in March 1968 and A Btry took over. His name is Corporal Grat Keene, killed by mortar fire on 31 March 1968, 6 days after SFC Moore. I am not sure of the accuracy as one soldier I looked up additional details on (Crawford), was listed as a member of "D Btry". I remember five batteries, HHB, A, B C, & Svc, no "D Btry". Crawford and Medjesky were both killed at Tay Ninh on 23 Feb 71. Perhaps PFC Crawford was a member of "B Btry" More information is available on PFC Douglas Jay Crawford at http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Feb06/dogtag.dea.html. No battery is mentioned, but he was killed at Fire Support Base Blue. More information at http://pressoffice.cornell.edu/Feb06/dogtags.shtml. Multiple hits were received for SP5 Vincent Joseph Medjesky.
Btry Casualties
Regards, Correspondent SP5 Albert Gore relates the story behind the Viet Cong attempted overrun of FSB Blue. SF5 Gore visited with the men who underwent the attack to provide insights of the event. FIRE SUPPORT BASE BLUE - (20th Bde) Overrun is a fairly explicit military term, but its full meaning is known only to those who live through it. It describes the most nitty-gritty conflict that a soldier ever sees. For that soldier, all the elaborate plans and maneuvers of the opposing armies fade momentarily into abstraction as the real nature of war is crystallized in a battle for his life. Survival depends on instantaneous reaction, superior organization, and a good deal of courage. All of this was demonstrated brilliantly recently by the men of Company C, 31st Engineer Battalion (Cbt), 20th Engineer Brigade when Fire Support Base Blue was overrun. Fire Support Base Blue is a small compound near the Cambodian border in Military Region III. 0f the 135 people stationed there, only 35 are engineers. The others are artillerymen firing eight-inch guns into Cambodia, and Duster crews firing the twin 40mm guns mounted on tracked vehicles. The primary mission of the engineers is improving and maintaining the local road net, and building up gun pads. But when the attack began, it was these 35 engineers who responded quickly and effectively to help save the Fire Base. On the night of February 22nd there was no moon. The men (not able to read) as usual, soon after the movie was over Bloody Mama with Sheiley Winters as the maniac murderess - the guards were posted as usual - the password was four. About nine oclock the radar operator sent down a message that an unidentified group had moved to within 400 meters of the perimeter. But that wasnt out of the ordinary at all. That close to the border it happens more often than not. And as usual, they asked for permission to open fire with the Dusters. Request denied, there was an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) patrol in the target area. Three hours later, at 12:15, a trip flare was set off on the outside strand of barbed wire. The Dusters immediately opened up and plastered the area. Then silence. Probably another one of those damn rabbits and probably a dead rabbit by now. Those not on guard were lulled back to sleep by the deafening concussions of the eight-inch guns carrying out a night fire support mission: the nubies reacting in their sleep like Pavlovs dogs, pressed their hands to their ears each time the gunners yelled his ritual warning. The older hands didnt even hear it. At 2:15 in the morning, there was an explosion that everybody heard Incoming! Hit the Berm! After the initial blast, many more followed in quick succession. As the men ran out of their hootches, one of the big guns was already in flames. All hell broke loose, man, recalls Specialist Four Henry Akins Ill of Nashville. Tenn. The platoon leader, First Lieutenant James M. Smith of Anderson, Ind., was one of the first out - barefooted, wearing under shorts, a flak jacket. and a steel pot. He and the more experienced noncommissioned officers quickly took charge, Get the hell on the berm. They all had the same scenario in mind; this was a mortar barrage that probably would be followed by a ground attack. They were wrong. At first, I thought they were mortars, says 1st. LT. Smith, But it didnt sound the same, and the flashes were definitely different. Staff Sergeant Preston E. Thompson of Ieager, W. Va., noticed the artillery bunkers were empty with two M60 machine-guns loaded and left unguarded. His exact words cant properly be reproduced, but the tough veteran of Tet 68 didnt need to ponder the possibilities very long. He quickly put two engineers on each of the machine-guns. VC in the compound! VC in the compound! Suddenly everyone was yelling it and the dogs were barking. For the first fifteen minutes, there were solid explosions throughout the compound. Almost all the men were on the berm line with their weapons, ready for the attack. The dusters were firing away at anything unlucky to be outside the perimeter. The explosions kept up. And they all seemed to be hits. The eight-inch was already gone, one of the dusters was now in flames, the sandbag bunker beside it was flattened, an entire row of hootches was destroyed. Either they were dammed accurate shots, or... VC in the compound! VC in the compound! Suddenly everyone was yelling it. And dogs were barking. Instead of panicking the engineers coolly readjusted to the new situation. Staff Sergeant Leland F. Piper of Antigo, Wis., another veteran of Tet 68, was checking out his mens positions at the time the cry went up, I just turned half of them around with their weapons pointed inside the compound. The other NCOs were doing the same. Actually, the Viet Cong (VC) had been in the compound from the beginning. The f1rst explosion was not a mortar but an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) that cut a large bole in the wire mesh directly in front of the eight-inch gun. Then a band of 20 Viet Cong zappers (they zap people, they dont sap them) quickly slipped through the hole unseen and began throwing satchel charges all over the place. Probably the first man to see them was one of the Duster crewchiefs. Immediately after the first explosion, several of them ran right by him while he was on the latrine. Since he was clad in his underwear and armed only with flashlight, he sat tight until they left. They were good, damn good. They knew what they were doing. They werent seen by anyone else until 15 minutes later. There are several explanations why. First, as 1st. Lt Smith says They were good, damn good. They knew what they were doing. Second, they apparently knew the exact location of their targets and didnt have to spend time searching the compound and take the chance of bumping into people. And third, their camouflage was exceptionably good Wearing only shorts and small hats. Usually you know where theyre at. Here you didnt know where they were. For the next half-hour, there was a lot of confusion on both sides. One of the VC saw the shower tree out of the corner of his eye and riddled it with AK47 rounds. Many of the satchel charges were thrown with dead fuses. Seemingly, they were running around all over the place. One of them ran right smack dab into Specialist Five Donald McKenzie. During the struggle, the zapper beat him over the head with the RPG he was carrying and ran away fast. Grandpops McKenzie is now one of the few men who can claim he caught direct hit on the head with and RPG and lived. The two seasoned veterans of the engineer group, Staff Sergeants Piper and Thompson, drew on their experience to deal with the situation. Usually you know where theyre at, says Piper, Here, you didnt know where they were. SSG Thompson, who was stationed at Fire Support Base Yeager when it was overrun in 1968, adds, You cant just sit there when you got VC in the compound. Theres only one damn thing to do: thats find em, and pin em down. He and 1st. Lt. Smith set up teams to do just that. With most of the men left on the berm line, the teams set about searching the bootches, the bunkers, everywhere. In the process, they found a lot of other problems to be dealt with. The eight-inch gun, still burning had a live round laying in the fire just behind the chamber. Thompson barked, Where is the crew to that gun? Then without waiting for an answer, he dispatched three engineers Simminx, Curtis, and Specialist Four Francis T. Christie of Linwood, Pa., - to put out the fire. Charlie was the first one to the gun, An AK started throwing rounds at us and I just hit the ground. They got up and started hassling with the CO-2 extinguishers but they were empty. Finally, with more extinguishers, they brought the fire under control and moved the 250 pound shell before it could go off. Meanwhile, on the other end of the compound, one of the VC was attempting his escape. He ran down a row of hootches toward Duster number four, still carrying a loaded rocket launcher. Max, a large mongrel dog adopted by the Duster crew, met him halfway. Alerted by the barking, Specialist Four Steve Vandervliet of Chicago looked up just in time to see the VC hurling the double row of barbed wire in one leap. Max, who looks for a11 the world like a small Siberian wolf, hurtled it right behind him. As soon as the VC hit the ground, Max caught him by the throat and brought him down. The VC managed to wrestle free, but one leap and Max had him by the throat again. I didnt want to shoot at first, says SP4 Vandervliet, Because Max was right there but as soon at the light hit them, Max just let go and mowed away like he knew what was going to happen. Its entirety possible that Max did know. After all, hes been a Duster dog for five years. Originally, he belonged to another crew at Katum, but one day the Battery commander ran by in a rush and Max brought him down Thats why hes out here in the boonies, says Specialist FourChristopher Banks, and he adds, I know for a fact that that dog saved somebodys life on this track; that zapper wasnt carrying RPGs for nothing. Three more VC tried to escape by the mess hall 50 yards away, but they came in view of the nearby ARVN compound and were killed immediately. That might have been the last of them for all anyone knew. There were relative quiet in the compound except for the ammunition still blowing up on Duster number two. The other VC might have escaped unseen. But the engineer teams kept up the search. Inside the row of artillery hootches that had been destroyed, they found Americana dead and wounded, but no VC. The engineers medic, specialist Four Sylvester D. Thompson of Saginaw, Mich. had his hands full for the next several hours. The Medivac helicopters still hadnt arrived. In fact, the only helicopter that had reached the scene was the personal ship of Colonel Leslie F. Forrest, Jr., deputy commander of the 23rd. Artillery Group. He and his sergeant Major, Charlie McTier, left Long Binh the minute the radio operator woke them up, and landed under fire at 3:00 a.m. SSG Piper peered into the storage bunker where the artillery shells are kept and saw two maybe as many as five VC. He asked them to surrender. They didnt. The search continued. Finally, at 4:30 A.M, SSG Piper peered into the storage bunker where the artillery shells are kept and saw two - maybe as many as five VC. He asked them to surrender. They didnt. SP4 Akins recalls, That SSG Piper, he doesnt fear anything. He walked right around the corner and said, Lai day (come here). The nearest one to him raised his hands and gave a slight sidelong glance over his shoulder. Following his eyes, SSG Piper, saw another VC rising out of the darkness with something in his hands. SSG Piper jumped backwards just before a satchel charge blew a hole in the concrete floor he had been standing on. Is was followed by a grenade. Still wearing only one boot, SSG Piper tried to kick it away, but luckily it was a dud. So much for Lai Day and Chieu Hoi and all that. Within 30 seconds of the blast, 1st. Lt Smith had his men placed completely around the storage bunker, just as the circle closed, the VC decided to run for it. Un-Un. No dice, SSG Thompson exchanged rounds with one of them at point blank range and the VC changed their minds and backed into the bunker again. We didnt know at the time but they were out of grenades and only had one AK47. We didnt know it at the time. says SSG Piper, But they were out of grenades and only had one AK47. There were other complications, too. First of all, it was still pitch dark. Simmins was setting off flares at 10 second intervals. I was waiting two or three seconds between each one, sort of hoping they would try to make a break and then catch, em in the open with the next burst. The main problem though, was the bunker itself. Many of the artillery shells inside were armed and ready to go off. Even worse, there was a large stack of cylinders inside filled with pure Cordite, the highly explosive powder used to propel 250 pound shells 37 miles. In short, there was enough Cordite to make Fire Base Blue nothing but a big hole in the ground. So they decided to wait until daylight. Two hours later, at the break of dawn, Simmins had only two flares left. About 7:00 a.m., a group of 1st Cavalry advisors arrived from the nearby ARVN compound and advised throwing a few grenades into the bunker. They didnt take the advice. When it was sufficiently light, someone walked up and tossed a CS grenade inside, and within minutes, four VC came staggering out with their hands over their faces. The 1st. Cav. Advisors learned from them that they had come from Cambodia to knock out the Fire Base because several days before, one of its guns had scored a direct hit on a secret VC hospital. The interrupters also learned that inside the bunker there was another VC - dead. The engineers made the prisoners bring his body out - just in case it was booby-trapped. Then they went inside themselves and found the artillery canisters pried open and a large pile of Cordite on the floor. Relieved, the engineers set about the job of cleaning up and caring for any remaining wounded. Doc Thompson, a conscientious objector, had been patching up serious cases all night. He had seen 23 men medievacked. NOW he was caring for the wounded VC. There was a lot of work left to be done. SSG Thompson, after finding out that no EOD (Explosive ordinance disposal) teams were available, organized engineer teams to do it themselves. They found 30 satchel charges that hadnt gone off, and exploded them in a safe area. In the latrine, they found a flashlight booby-trapped with grenades. Other engineers buried the VC dead behind the gasoline storage area. Still others set about cleaning up the debris that used to be hootches or bunkers. Later in the day they stopped work for an awards ceremony. Brigadier General K. B. Cooper, commanding general of the 20th Engineer Brigade, awarded four Bronze Stars on the spot: to staff Sergeants Thompson and Piper, SGT Simmins, and SP5 Christie. And more medals are in the works. The trouble with putting these guys in for medals, says 1st. Lt Smith, Is that youre supposed to pick out one act of heroism that the award is for. It just wasnt like that; these guys did it all night long, He might have included himself; 5P4 Akins says, Hes got it together and the men know it. Now, when he says jump, we ask how high on the way up. Its great when you do the job, come through with flying colors, and have no one hurt. Its great when you do the job, come through with flying colors and have no one hurt. Says 1st. Lt. Smith, what I guess no amount of practice or having it uptight can match dumb luck. Maybe, but the engineers came through the conflict with only minor injuries and no fatalities. Most of the dead and wounded were hit either in the first series of blast, or were caught in their hootches. That might at dinner, there was a strong esprit and too many war stories. Then someone brought in an intelligence report that one of the Fire Bases in the area was going to be overrun on the night of February 22nd. Oh Yeah No Kidding?
War correspondent remembers Saigon's final hours By Richard RobbinsTRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, April 24, 2005
Conditions in Saigon were chaotic in the final hours of the Vietnam war 30
years ago, says Uniontown native George Esper, then a special
correspondent for The Associated Press in the South Vietnamese capital.
"I've never seen more emotions unfold," said Esper, now a journalism professor at West Virginia University. "That last day (April 30, 1975), there was chaos. Chaos and panic." As Saigon bureau chief for AP, Esper was besieged by South Vietnamese wanting to leave the country before the arrival of North Vietnamese troops. "They slept outside my (apartment) door," Esper recalled. "'We want you to take us with you,' they told me. These were people who knew me, who couldn't get out. I had to tell them we could only do so much. These people were not on our 'A' list." One of the chiefs of the South Vietnamese military forces in Saigon even approached Esper, but received the same answer as the others. Esper believes the man escaped the city with the help of the U.S. government. Esper's arrival in South Vietnam in 1965 coincided with the dispatch of U.S. combat forces to South Vietnam by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who tracked through Vietnam in the mid-1960s seemed fully committed to the mission, Esper said. "As the years wore on," Esper said, "the Army was in disarray. By the late '60s and early '70s, the military had tremendous problems -- drugs, racial, leadership problems, discipline problems." The turning point, the North's 1968 Tet offensive, masked a deeper problem, Esper argues. "No one," he said, "was clear what U.S. policy was. No one could figure out what the goals were." In the end, the U.S. public would not sustain "a long war, a war of attrition," Esper said. And neither would the average GI. "The draftees didn't want to be there." "No one," Esper added, "wanted to be the last to die in Vietnam." As for Vietnamization, the Nixon administration's goal of turning the fighting over to the South Vietnamese, the plan came too late in the day to have much of an impact, Esper said. "Many of the South Vietnamese troops didn't have the spirit to fight. The fighting spirit was all on the communist side." The fall of Saigon and the end of the war came two years after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Anger at Americans was strong among the South Vietnamese, especially those in the military, as the war reached its climax, Esper said. "The feeling was that after years of promises to the contrary that we were abandoning them." Esper said he felt sorry for the South Vietnamese who wanted to leave but who got left behind. "Almost everyone who had been associated with the Americans was trying to get out of the country," he recalled. As for the AP, it stayed in Saigon to report the bitter end of a long, sad story. In the war's waning hours, Esper raced to a public square about a block from AP headquarters to try to interview panicked South Vietnamese troops. In the square, he encountered a colonel of the Saigon police force. Without asking a single question, Esper heard the man say, "Fini, fini -- it's all over," Esper noticed that the colonel was fingering his holstered pistol. "I thought to myself, I've spent 10 years here, and now, at the end, he's going to kill me." Esper said he tried to back away slowly. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a low wall he might be able to dive behind. Just at that moment, Esper said, the colonel executed an about-face, saluted a nearby war memorial, put his now-unholstered pistol to his mouth and pulled the trigger. Esper described the hours between the collapse of South Vietnamese fighting capability and the arrival in the city of the North Vietnamese as a "twilight zone," a period of "apprehension" about the intentions of the communists. Part of the uncertainty had been fueled by a widely circulated CIA report that the North intended a "blood bath" in Saigon, Esper said. The report, Esper said, "was just really not true." The visible evidence that the CIA report was wrong arrived in the AP bureau office hours after Esper's foray to the public square. Two North Vietnamese soldiers managed to find the Saigon headquarters of the U.S. news service, but instead of posing a danger, the two "country boys," as Esper described them, seemed "overwhelmed by the city and the Americans." They opened their wallets to show off photographs of their families. "They had been in the jungles for more than a year," Esper said. "They talked about how they wanted to get back alive. I thought these guys have the same feelings as the (South Vietnamese) and, indeed, as the Americans. That is the way the war ended for me, thinking, 'These are human beings, they just want to get back to their families.'"
Frank Ford's response to the Macon Telegraph
Frank Ford's response to the Macon Telegraph By: Francis N. Ford Dear Mr. Woodgeard: This responds to your editorial titled "Veterans share Kerreys experience in Vietnam." In February, 1969, like Kerrey, I was assigned to a combat unit in the Mekong Delta. I was an 8" firing battery executive officer, in charge of shooting the battery. We shot many fire missions in support of Navy Seals and Navy River Patrol Boats along the Kim Bo Bo Canal and the Vam Co Dong River, as well as for the Armys 9th Infantry Division. I cannot agree with Senator Clelands statement that combat veterans "have been forced to do things in war that they are deeply ashamed of later." In my view, there is nothing for Senator Bob Kerrey to be ashamed of and there is no reason for him to return the Bronze Star he was awarded. As the story has been reported, Kerrey was leading his small unit and received fire. They fired back. Unfortunately and unintentionally, some civilians were killed along with some Viet Cong. On that much, I think that you and I agree. What I disagree with is the final few paragraphs of your editorial, which implicitly perpetuate the common myth that Vietnam veterans "repressed what happened" and that some of us became decent citizens in spite of our service. Most of us are productive citizens of this nation and always have been. The overwhelming majority of us do not fit the disaffected, long-haired, motorcycle-riding stereotype of television, movies, and your editorial. We went to Vietnam because we thought that it was right to do so. We did our jobs and came home. We might not have been given a brass band and a parade but we soldiered on. We finished our educations, got jobs, raised families, started businesses, contributed to our communities. We are fathers and grandfathers now and the years have passed all too quickly. It is true that once we were young and idealistic and proud of our service. Now we are middle-aged and idealistic and proud of our service. We answered a call that many vilified and refused. There is no reason for us to be ashamed of what we did. Our silence about the details of service in war is matched by that of our fathers who marched across Europe and of our uncles who slogged up and down the mountains of Korea. We have not "repressed" what happened. We remember it, sometimes starkly. We do not talk about it frequently, not because it is something to be "ashamed" of but because it is something that can be understood only by others who have experienced the sounds and smells and fear of combat. Ask any veteran what war is like and he will not give you the details. He has not forgotten; he remembers. That is why he will not tell you. There should be no shame for the veterans of Vietnam. They have earned not ignominy but esteem. That is how we should treat Bob Kerrey and those who served with him.
TROA Update for August 3, 2001 [TOP] Issue 1: House Armed Services Committee Approves Authorization Bill.
The Committees initial draft of the authorization bill recommends substantial
pay and allowance raises for active duty and Reserve/Guard members. Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee approved its version of the FY2002 Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 2586), calling for $343.3 billion for defense. Here are a few of the highlights of the personnel- and compensation-related issues: *January 2002 pay raises of at least 6% for enlisted members and 5% for officers, with higher raises (up to 10%) for some grade and longevity combinations, including certain warrant officers and senior NCOs. *Housing allowance increases that will cover about 89% of median housing cost by grade (vs. the current 85%), with further planned increases to get to 100% of median housing cost by FY 2005. *Several improvements in permanent change-of-station (PCS) reimbursements, including an increase in the maximum family Temporary Lodging Expense allowance from $110 to $180 a day; higher household goods weight allowances for junior enlisted personnel; and increased military PCS per diem rates to equal those for federal civilians by Jan 2003. *Protection of military retirees eligibility for both DoD and VA health care programs, without being forced to choose one or the other. *A requirement for the Secretary of Defense to establish home health care and skilled nursing facility benefits for families with extraordinary medical needs. *Authority for federal agencies to pay FEHBP premiums for reservist employees who are called to active duty for more than 30 days in support of a contingency. *Authority for concurrent receipt of military retired pay and veterans
disability compensation, effective October 1, 2002 BUT this would be
contingent on enactment of additional legislation (see Issue 2). Issue 2: House Armed Services Committee Raises Concurrent Receipt The House Armed Services Committee took an important step in the right direction this week in adopting a proposal that -- provided certain important conditions are met -- would authorize disabled military retirees to receive both their military retired pay and VA disability compensation as of October 1, 2002. TROA believes the committee action represents an important step in the right direction, and applauds Military Personnel Subcommittee Chairman John McHugh (R-NY) and long-time concurrent receipt champion Rep Mike Bilirakis (R-FL) for coming up with it. Under the language in the Committee bill, this authority would only take effect if legislation and funding offsets are submitted in the Presidents budget for FY2003 and subsequently enacted into law. While this provides no real assurance the proposal will take effect in 2002, TROA and nearly all military and veterans organizations see it as a significant step forward on three counts. First, it puts the Committee on record in supporting concurrent receipt, as opposed to the provision in last springs FY2002 Budget Resolution, which merely called for another Pentagon report. Second, its the maximum the Committee was allowed to do under congressional rules, since there was no provision for such a retired pay change in the Budget Resolution. Third and most important, a positive statement in the House bill can only help our chances of success where it really counts in House and Senate conference committee negotiations later this year. Last year, the Senate approved concurrent receipt after a special floor amendment, but the House had nothing in its bill. In the end, it was dropped in House/Senate negotiations. This year, Senate champion Harry Reid (D-NV) intends to offer his concurrent receipt amendment again. With 72 Senate cosponsors, most observers expect the Senate to again approve a real concurrent receipt measure. With positive statements in both bills this year, we expect to generate more pressure on the House and Senate conferees to find a way to pass a funded concurrent receipt measure. Chairman McHugh and Rep. Bilirakis deserve thanks for taking us another step down that road. Issue 3: DoD Mails TFL Information to Medicare-Eligibles Starting last week and over the next two weeks, the Defense Departments TRICARE contractors are mailing out important information to TFL beneficiaries. This is extremely important information, and Medicare-eligibles should be rechecking their mail and watching their mailboxes for it. Each geographic region will have its own envelope, so keep a sharp lookout for any correspondence with a return address from one of the following: *Sierra Military Health Services, Inc; *Humana Military Healthcare Services; *TRIWEST Healthcare Alliance; *Health Net Federal Services; *WPS; or *PGBA To identify the TRICARE contractor for your area on the Web, visit: https://www.tricare.osd.mil/tricareservicecenters/default.cfm or http://www.tricare.osd.mil/tricareservicecenters/default.cfm Unfortunately, some of the envelopes have been poorly marked, and weve received calls from members who initially thought they were junk mail. Not so! The packages include important information about the new TFL benefit and forms Medicare-eligibles need to fill out to assist in accurate processing of your TFL claims starting October 1st. The DoD mailing includes: For questions on this mailing or other TFL issues, call DoDs
TFL Call Center toll-free at 1-888-DoD-LIFE [1-888-363-5433], Monday
through Friday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and
Sunday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Eastern Time). Issue 4: TFL Question of the Week Q. Im planning a trip
overseas. A. Medicare doesnt provide benefits outside the United States, but TRICARE does. If you are a TFL beneficiary (enrolled in Medicare Part B) and become ill while traveling or residing overseas, TFL will be the first payer for TRICARE-covered benefits. Youll be responsible for paying the TRICARE copayments and deductibles, up to $3,000 per family per year. You also will be responsible for paying any billed charges above what TRICARE allows. For more information, call DoDs TFL Call Center toll-free at 1-888-363-5433. To subscribe or unsubscribe to TROAs legislative update, send a request to legis-update@troa.org (Please include your TROA membership number if applicable, OR, your full name and address. Without this information we cannot process your request.) Any requests received after Wednesday will not be processed until the following week. If you have questions regarding the update, please address them to legis@troa.org Copyright 2001, The Retired Officers Association (TROA), all rights reserved. Part or all of this message may be retransmitted for information purposes, but may not be used for any commercial purpose or in any commercial product, posted on a Web site, or used in any non-TROA publication (other than that of a TROA affiliate, or a member of The Military Coalition) without the written permission of TROA. All retransmissions, postings, and publications of this message must include this notice.
Just For Respect [TOP] By David Brunnstrom MY LAI, Vietnam (Reuters) - When Secretary of State Colin Powell comes to Hanoi this week, survivors of the Vietnam War's most notorious massacre would like him to spare them at least a thought. It will be Powell's first trip to Vietnam since serving in that war in the 1960s and he will be the most senior U.S. official to have fought the country ever to return. During his visit to attend a regional security forum, U.S. officials say the former general plans to take time out to pay tribute to seven Americans killed in Vietnam in April searching for remains of U.S. servicemen still listed as missing from the conflict. But he has no plans to visit My Lai, a village near the coast of central Vietnam, where soldiers of the same 11th brigade of the Americal Division Powell served with killed, according to Vietnam, 504 civilians, mostly women and children, on March 16, 1968. The U.S. army later put the toll at more than 300. The massacre at My Lai, the worst committed by U.S. forces in Vietnam, occurred 10 weeks before Powell returned to Vietnam to start his second tour during which, as a major, he served as the Americal's operations officer. COVER-UP ACCUSATIONS In his autobiography "My American Journey" Powell says he did not learn of the massacre until the autumn of 1969. However, he has been accused of failing to properly investigate a December 1968 letter from an 11th Brigade soldier, Tom Glen, describing murder and torture of civilians by U.S. troops, which Powell was ordered to check out. According to the 1992 book "Four Hours in My Lai" by British journalists Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim, Powell concluded in a memo in response to Glen's letter: "Although there may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs, this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the division. "In direct refutation of this portrayal (by Glen) is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and Vietnamese people are excellent." Survivors of the massacre interviewed in My Lai recently said they were outraged by that statement, which Powell makes no mention of in his memoirs. "It's rubbish for him to say relations between local people here and American soldiers were good," said 63-year-old Pham Thi Thuan, who lost six members of her family, including her father, sisters and nephews. "I was very angry to hear that. They killed people here -- we are the survivors. Many people were killed, they even killed cattle, and destroyed trees. How can he say relations were good?" Another survivor, 76-year-old Ha Thuy Quy, whose mother and children were killed, said she did not blame all Americans, but thought Powell should take the opportunity to apologize on behalf of his country and make amends. "HE SHOULD APOLOGIZE" "He should apologize, they killed innocent people, they were guilty...they sent troops here to kill innocent people, they were very guilty. "Bombs and bullets destroyed our place, we have no schools... the Americans could give us some assistance. People are still poor and hungry, the Americans need to help them," she said. Pham Thanh Cong, who survived the massacre as an 11-year-old after being shielded from a grenade blast by relatives who were killed, now looks after a museum at the massacre site. He said did not think Powell needed to make an apology. "But he should think about what happened here...and perhaps he could do something to help with the upkeep of this site and to help some of the victims and their families, especially the ones living alone and who are disabled. Briefing reporters in Washington on Friday, Powell said he expected a flood of emotions to hit him on his return to Vietnam. But he also said: "There are are no ghosts within me that need exorcism." He made no mention of My Lai, but in his memoir, he described it as "one of the darker chapters of American military history" and "an appalling example of much that had gone wrong in Vietnam." Diplomats say Powell is highly unlikely to make any reference to My Lai in Vietnam, far less offer an apology, something not in line with U.S. policy. When former President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the war last November he spoke of the shared pain of the past but offered no apology. The Vietnamese government has skirted the issue, saying only that Powell would be welcome as a dialogue partner, just like any of the other foreign ministers attending the regional forum. However, Larry Colburn, a former U.S. helicopter gunner now living in Atlanta who was decorated as a hero by both the United States and Vietnam for helping to rescue victims from marauding soldiers during the massacre, told Reuters he wished Powell would address the My Lai issue. Asked why, he said: "Just for respect." Highland Unrest [TOP] July 11, 2001By DAVID THURBER, Associated Press Writer HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Two of the three Vietnamese provinces hit earlier this year by hill tribe protests are responding positively by improving conditions for ethnic minorities, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday. Ambassador Douglas "Pete" Peterson said the February protests in Vietnam's Central Highlands appeared to have been caused by 20 years of large-scale migration of ethnic Vietnamese to the area and the resulting marginalization of native minority people. Religious issues apparently did not play a major role in triggering the protests, in which thousands of mostly Protestant hill tribe members poured into the streets of the provincial capitals, he said. The rare mass demonstrations shocked the Communist government, which quickly sent in riot police and military to quell the occasionally violent protests. Dozens of hill tribe members were arrested and hundreds of others fled into neighboring Cambodia. Peterson visited the region for five days beginning last Thursday after Vietnamese authorities accepted his long-standing request to be allowed to make a fact-finding trip. Since the protests, the government has limited foreigners' access to the region. Foreign journalists were taken on a government-sponsored tour of the area in March but their contacts with local residents were controlled. Peterson, who has resigned after four years as ambassador and is leaving Vietnam on Sunday, said he was warmly welcomed in two of the provinces - Lam Dong and Daklak - and was allowed to meet freely with officials and ordinary people there. In both provinces, officials "spoke freely about the many activities they are undertaking in the social, economic, and political spheres to address the problems underlying the unrest earlier this year," Peterson said. But Peterson said he was not allowed free access to officials or ordinary people in the third province, Gia Lai. The provincial leaders, he said, appeared to be preoccupied by the perceived security threat from the unrest instead of attempting to find constructive solutions to the problems. "Clearly, this is a misguided policy, and it is my hope that the local leadership will redirect their energies toward addressing the real problems of the people," Peterson said. He said he has urged central government officials in Hanoi to help the province find long-term solutions to the problems. Vietnam's treatment of ethnic minorities has become an issue in U.S. congressional debate on an agreement that would grant normal trading status to Vietnam. Opponents of the pact have cited human rights issues in urging the United States to delay ratification. Tensions between the two countries flared when Washington gave asylum to 38 hill tribe members who fled into Cambodia after the protests. Another group of about 300 hill tribe members remains in a U.N.-supervised camp in Cambodia, but is expected to be repatriated to Vietnam soon. Addition to the 'WALL' [TOP]
By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - It is Washington's most visited memorial, honoring the dead of the 20th century's most divisive war. Now the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, created two decades ago amid bitter acrimony, is becoming the subject of dissension and controversy yet again. The veterans who helped build the memorial want to add a structure nearby to educate visitors, not about the war but about the memorial itself. Critics, not least among them the National Park Service, are appalled. The black granite wedge is engraved with the names of the 58,226 men and women killed in or still missing from the war. Its designer, architect Maya Lin, intended it to be "a quiet place, meant for personal reflection and reckoning." The proposed 1,200-square-foot education center would change that intent, says the park service, which manages the memorial in addition to those within its sight honoring George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. "We believe we risk diminishing the original work by adding adjunct structures to this site," John Parsons, a regional park service official, told a congressional committee last month. Lin's simple concept for the memorial, chosen from a national design contest, roused a furor among many Americans who felt it cheapened and demeaned the memory of those who died. Inclusion of a statue of three combat-weary servicemen overlooking the wall was a key part of the compromise that had the Wall built. Many now consider the monument the most poignant of all the sites on the National Mall. The memorial's purpose, the park service says, is "to separate the issue of the sacrifices of the veterans from the U.S. policy in the war." A quarter-century after the last American GIs left Vietnam, scholars agree that passions still run so strong as to defy an objective assessment. "Objective, noncontroversial history that everyone can agree on doesn't exist with the Vietnam War," said Ronald Spector, chairman of the history department at George Washington University. The National Capital Planning Commission, the government agency that reviews federal land development proposals, also opposes the proposed center. Lin is remaining mum for the time being, according to her spokeswoman. Nonetheless, plans for the education center are speeding ahead, and legislation authorizing it is before committees in both the House and Senate, where support is overwhelming. Among the backers are Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Max Cleland, D-Ga., and John Kerry, D-Mass., all Vietnam veterans. Kerry, who earned three purple hearts in the war but led demonstrations against it after he returned home, said focusing on the veterans makes Vietnam easier to understand. "Despite the war's confusing moral backdrop, we tried to make sense of our mission," Kerry said. "The faults in Vietnam were those of the war, not the warriors." Veterans groups also support the idea, saying the project would elaborate on the lives of the men and women whose names are on the wall and provide basic information about the war without interpreting it. "The purpose is not to teach the long and difficult and confusing history of the Vietnam War," said Jan Scruggs, originator of the memorial and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. "The purpose is to understand why the memorial is such a significant place." The education center, with space to accommodate about 50 people at a time, would replace a Park Service kiosk now at the site. Financed by private and corporate donations, its construction would take about a year once approved by the government. Scruggs said it would house some of more than 62,000 items such as dog tags, photographs, bracelets and toys that have been left at the memorial since its construction. It would also have computers where students and visitors could read and view remembrances about the veterans whose names are on the Wall. Ten years after completion, the center would be evaluated, and Congress would decide if it should stay or come down. The Vietnam War inflames American passions. It is nearly impossible to keep controversy at bay when talking about it, scholars say. "You can't do anything about Vietnam today without aggravating someone," said Texas Tech University history professor James Reckner. "As long as two people are alive from the Vietnam generation, there will be an argument." The Vietnam Memorial, which attracts 3.7 million visitors each year, now includes the Wall, two statues and a commemorative flagpole. In the works is a memorial plaque honoring veterans who died after the war but as a direct result of their service in Vietnam. --- The bills are H.R. 510 and S. 281
Surprise!
Surprise! When one of the world's most liberal left wing
By Del Jones, USA TODAY When manufacturer Mykrolis replaced retiring CEO and former Marine captain William Zadel two months ago, the board chose Gideon Argov. The directors were impressed that Argov, 47, had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, received an MBA from Stanford and had been CEO of two other publicly traded companies. But they were equally swayed by Argov's combat experience in the Israeli army as a tank commander along the Syrian border.
Combat veterans don't rattle easily. They have seen pressure, and they've seen it young. There is no substitute for war to force twentysomethings into life-or-death decisions that influence their leadership style decades later. A business crisis just doesn't seem stressful in comparison, says Zadel, 61, a West Point graduate who was under enemy fire in more than a dozen operations in Vietnam.
These days, though, companies rarely have the option of replacing one war-seasoned CEO with another. Vietnam veterans are aging out of consideration. Companies can find replacements with military experience. But as Vietnam vets retire during the next decade, there are few people in their 40s and 50s with combat experience following in their footsteps, fewer than at almost any time since the Industrial Revolution.
"I think it will be a competitive issue," says David Moore, chairman of the publicly traded Corinthian Colleges and an Army colonel in Vietnam.
The shift is already responsible for the lack of business ethics that has led to scandal, says retired admiral Bill Owens, 64. Formerly the second-highest-ranking military officer in the USA as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he took over as CEO of Canadian telecommunications giant Nortel after its accounting scandal.
Owens says fewer leaders with combat experience means fewer who know what it means to sacrifice to do the right thing. That played a role in causing scandals such as those at Enron, WorldCom and Nortel, and led to the laws passed to clean them up and avert recurrences, Owens says.
"When there is a vacuum, there is a tendency to fill it with rules," says Owens, author of Lifting the Fog of War about his hand in restructuring the military and making it high-tech in the post-Cold War era.
The trend is not new. The supply of leaders with combat experience has been gradually diminishing for 20 years since World War II veterans began to retire. Maurice Greenberg of American International Group and Sumner Redstone of Viacom, both closing in on 80, are among the last CEOs left from World War II. Greenberg earned a Bronze Star. Redstone joined an elite military intelligence unit that helped crack Japan's naval codes. (Greenberg's company is under fire in the insurance investigation launched by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.)
These vanishing war-seasoned CEOs have received far less attention than the decreasing percentage of veterans in Congress, which has half the veterans it did in the decades after World War II. Among the 50 new senators and representatives who took seats this month, nine have military experience vs. 22 among those departing. And it's likely that those newcomers have less combat experience than those exiting.
Leadership lessons
Gone soon will be those such as Lumeta CEO Tom Dent, 58, who served three Vietnam tours in a Navy fighter squadron and still keeps his 1960s copy of Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach in his office. The U.S. economy and its government will now be captained by those who learned their leadership lessons elsewhere. It will be some time before Gulf War veterans age into corporate leadership. In the meantime, the bloodiest thing witnessed by our industrial captains in their formative years of business could well be the breakup of Ma Bell.
On the one hand: "We certainly don't want any wars. ... The last reason would be to train the next generation of leaders," says Hormel Foods CEO Joel Johnson, a 61-year-old Bronze Star recipient as a Vietnam Army captain.
On the other: "Everything I know about leadership, I learned in the military," says Thomas Hoog, chairman of Hill & Knowlton USA and a naval aviator for six years.
DTE Energy CEO Anthony Earley, 55, served on the USS Hawkbill nuclear attack submarine. Thirty years later, he was dealing with the massive 2003 blackout in the Northeast.
He recalls being in Soviet torpedo exercises, which were not hot combat but caused as much stress. "If I screwed up," he says, "it could have been World War III." The blackout, though important, seemed less critical by comparison.
"We got through it," Earley says. "I don't know what I'd be doing (without the military), but I wouldn't be here. A day doesn't go by that I don't use the leadership lessons I learned in the Navy. It was absolutely vital." Fighting at a moment's notice A byproduct of war, says Kevyn DeMartino in his book Bullet Points, is leaders trained to be decisive in the face of uncertainty. It teaches preparedness to fight at a moment's notice, and it teaches leaders how to "smell" victory because certain signs don't often materialize until it's over. The military teaches effective post-mortems, figuring out what went wrong without pointing fingers of blame, Earley says. The Pentagon (news - web sites) may happen to be the 22nd-largest economy in the world, but it doesn't win wars. It's the people in the field who do that, Johnson says, and those at Hormel corporate headquarters know they are there mainly to support the sales force. Brilliant strategists are worthless without competence in the middle to execute, he says. Leaders without military experience are more likely to be guided by ego, Moore says. "They want to be sure that everybody knows that they're in charge." Are veterans perfect? Far from it, says Earley, who knows of officers who failed to make a clean transition to the civilian world, "barked orders on the first day on the job and everyone looked at them like they had two heads." And, of course, many successful executives never fought, including the past two presidents and almost every woman. They might be expected to disagree with any premise that combat-seasoned veterans make better leaders. Even among male veterans in corporate suites there is debate over whether it was combat or military training that gave them a leadership edge. The military teaches the responsibility of serving, not just fulfilling your own needs, says Louis Giuliano, the 58-year-old just-retired chairman of ITT Industries and an Army first lieutenant in Vietnam. Combat itself is largely chaos, Giuliano says. "I'm sure there are great examples of leadership in those situations, but it's mainly confusion." Earley and Hoog agree. "It is not a function of combat. All members of the military are trained to be good followers and good leaders," says Hoog, who is on the Vietnam War Memorial board of advisers. But Moore says no training can simulate combat. Only in battle do leaders get immediate, if not horrifying, feedback on their decisions. Herb Vest, 60, founder and CEO of the Web site True, calls the difference between serving and being in combat enormous. Those with ambitions in the military know they need "the sounds of guns" on their rsum to get promoted, Johnson says. It's clear that a lack of combat hurts promotion in the military. Moore is such an avid believer in the lessons of combat that he suspects lack of it may partly explain the slow rise of top female executives in business. Few experts have voiced this belief, but if it's true, Moore says, women stand a better chance at promotions when few men have combat experience, too. Moore says countries that have war veterans will likely gain a competitive advantage. Earley says some combat veterans of the Gulf wars can prepare for a meteoric rise. Many companies sing the praises of veterans and actively recruit them. Home Depot made the January cover of Workforce Management magazine for hiring 13,000 in 2004. On the most recent season of The Apprentice, winner and West Point graduate Kelly Perdew was extolled for his military experience and his ability to give and take orders. He never saw combat. Jay Amato, the 45-year-old CEO of 95-employee technology company Viewpoint, was a few years too young for Vietnam. So turned off in war's aftermath were Amato's parents that they didn't want him attending the Air Force Academy. He attended Binghamton University in New York and retired rich before joining Viewpoint. CEOs who fought often say they learned to make fast decisions with limited information, but Amato says "shooting from the hip" is not as valuable as it once was. "The problem now is analysis paralysis," and CEOs are more likely to "drown in information" rather than be forced to make decisions without it, Amato says. "I feel at no disadvantage with what I have in my quiver," Amato says, then hesitats before noting that many Vietnam veterans may have scars that interfere with business success. "In some cases, they are carrying baggage," he says. Vest says he still has flashbacks of being in combat, and he has dreams of war that are becoming less frequent, although he suspects they will never completely go away. He's probably the most combat-grizzled CEO interviewed. He was an Army captain in charge of a helicopter platoon in Vietnam. Some days his men would be sent in to rescue the crew of another downed helicopter. Other days they would land a helicopter, intentionally looking for a fight in what was known as a "hot insertion." If they couldn't find a fight, they would fly elsewhere. 'Genuine caring' essential "Life expectancy was not long," Vest says, and he is certain no one under his command went more than six months without a wound. Vest received a Purple Heart because he was hit by grenade shrapnel. During an interview about the leadership lessons he learned from combat, Vest used the word "love" four times. "If you feel genuine caring for a customer, ... there's love inside your product because you care about the problem the consumer has. Genuine caring is essential. "You have a buddy who gets killed, and you get mad and kill people. That makes them mad, and they kill you," Vest says. "Over time you get sick of the whole cycle. You start thinking about the people you killed, their mothers and spouses and children. You develop an extreme caring and a mission to make people's lives better. "A paradox in life is that war heroes are the first to cry at a sad movie," Vest says. Vest says he used his desire to make lives better to further his career. Still, he maintains a samurai's edge. "The object of war is not to kill everybody, but to destroy the enemy's willingness to resist," Vest says. "That's so important to being an entrepreneur."
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