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2003-2004
Index Department of Defense Articles
Navy
and Army ROTC members "Run For
Freedom"
By
Donna Miles
American Forces Press
Service
WASHINGTON, April 7, 2004 — Navy and Army
ROTC members, as well as students,
faculty and staff
at Old Dominion University and the local community
are
lapping the school's perimeter in Norfolk, Va.,
during a six-day "Run for
Freedom" to honor every
U.S. service member killed during the war on
terror.
Organized by Jason Redman, a Navy SEAL
attending the university through the
Navy's Seaman to
Admiral Program, the event is a fundraiser to benefit
families
of fallen service members. Proceeds will go
to the Special Operations Warrior
Foundation, Freedom
Alliance and Tragedy Assistance Program for
Survivors.
The run kicked off at 5 p.m. April 3
and continues 24 hours a day through mid-
day April
8, when university president Roseann Runte will lead a
formation of
ROTC students during the final
lap.
When the run is completed, hundreds of
runners will have taken turns carrying
the American
flag relay-style on a one-mile course around the campus,
each
commemorating a service member lost during
Operations Enduring Freedom and
Iraqi Freedom. Redman
said plans originally called for the run to extend
650
miles, but that the number increases daily as
U.S. casualties mount.
Some participants,
particularly those in the ROTC programs, are
running
multiple miles, with some tallying up more
than 20 miles during the event.
The parents and
five siblings of U.S. Army Spc. Donald L. Wheeler, a
22-year-
old native of Concord, Mich., arrived at the
site to carry the flag around the
course in honor of
their son and brother. He was killed Oct. 13 in Iraq
when
his unit came under attack and was hit by a
rocket-propelled grenade.
"I understand it was
pretty emotional," said Redman, student
battalion
commander of the school's Navy ROTC
unit.
Redman said the primary goal of the event
is raise awareness of the sacrifices
military members
families like Wheeler's make in the name of the
freedom.
He said running around the clock, even
in the dead of night, increases
awareness of the
ongoing nature of the mission, and the fact that
service
members fighting the war on terror can't take
time out when they're tired,
hungry or simply want to
go home.
"This is a very fitting way for our
campus community to honor these courageous
men and
women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country,"
he said.
Related Site:
Old Dominion University
Army
ROTC [http://courses.lib.odu.edu/rotc/]
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Operation USO care
package |
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Thank
you for your past support of Operation USO Care
Package. With your help, 178,583 care
packages were distributed to deployed service
members through December of
2003. CLICK
HERE
to read the entire newsletter in Adobe
Acrobat.
The
picture here shows the new look of the Care
Package along with some of the included
items. These bags are only a part of the
package that each troop
receives.
Our
many activities through the holiday
season were instrumental in helping us send
such a large number of care packages to our
deployed troops. Those programs
include: |
USO
and Pianist/Composer Jim Brickman Join Forces to "Send a
Little Christmas" to our Troops
- Brickman's new holiday CD, Peace, features the
emotionally-charged song, "Sending You A Little
Christmas,"........CLICK
HERE to
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4/19/2004
Commander Calls War on Terror ‘National War for Our
Survival’
By
Donna Miles
American Forces Press
Service
WASHINGTON, April 19, 2004 -- The war on terror
isn't a conflict limited to Afghanistan and Iraq, but rather,
"a national war for our survival as a
nation," according to
the commander of the Defense Department's
largest
warfighting organization, the Army's 18th Airborne
Corps.
Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands about
85,000 soldiers in four combat divisions — all of which have
seen combat in Southwest Asia — told the American Forces Press
Service last week at Fort Bragg, N.C., that the war on terror
boils down to defending the United States against the forces
of evil. "Evil is out there, and evil wishes to attack us," he
said.
Vines said the American public frequently talks
about how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "changed
the world for everyone." But terrorists had been
fighting the United States long before the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he said, launching more
than 100 attacks against Americans around the
world.
"Whether you date it from when militants overran
the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979 or the Marine Corps barracks
and U.S. Embassy were both bombed in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983
or whether it was the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000
or the (U.S. embassies) in Kenya or Tanzania in 1998 or Khobar
Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 or the World Trade Center in
1993," Vines said, "we have been under attack from
extremists."
Despite these attacks, Vines said it took
an event as dramatic as the World
Trade Center attacks, "in
prime time in one of the media capitals of the world, to drive
home the fact that these people are serious about destroying
us."
Vines said the Sept. 11 attacks did change the way
the United States views
terrorism — something he called
"long overdue." "It ceased to be a law-enforcement issue and
became, at least in the mind of our government, a war," Vines
said. "We were not on a war footing prior to Sept.
11."
Today, with U.S. forces waging the war on terror
in Southwest Asia and
elsewhere around the globe, Vines
said the United States is "asking some
extraordinary
things" of its service members.
"We are in a struggle,
and there are some incredible sacrifices and service by our
men and women," he said. "They need our 100 percent support
and we need to make sure that the American citizens know the
heavy load they are carrying and value the sacrifices they are
making."
He praised the "extraordinary heroism and
extraordinary professionalism" of the individual soldiers,
sailors, airmen and Marines who have joined forces to protect
the United States against terrorism. Their efforts, he said,
have been "absolutely amazing and inspirational" to anybody
who sees them.
Vines said success in combat isn't about
military hardware or technology. "It boils down to the
individual soldiers. It's about having people who have the
commitment, the courage, the will and the warrior values to
confront the forces that threaten us," he said. "And only so
long as we have those men and women who are able and willing
to confront this will we be safe."
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The
Coalition is facing a “test of will” in Iraq.
4/7/2004
Jim
Garamone
American Forces Press
Service
WASHINGTON, April 7, 2004 – The coalition
is facing a "test of will" in Iraq,
and it will meet
that test, Defense Department leaders said at a press
briefing
today.
"We will certainly not allow
fugitives from Iraqi justice to stop progress
toward
a better life for 25 million people," Defense Secretary
Donald H.
Rumsfeld said. "We will not allow Sadr to
get away with murder. We will not
allow Zarqawi and
others to block the path to a free Iraq."
He was
referring to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr, whose militia
is fighting coalition forces,
and fugitive Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab
al-
Zarqawi, believed to be behind terrorist
activities in Iraq.
Rumsfeld also said troop
levels in Iraq are higher than normal because of
the
deployment and redeployment of U.S. forces in
Iraq. Officials stressed that no
decisions have been
made yet, but some units may extend past their
one-year
tour if conditions dictate that.
"We
have military plans to systematically address the
situations we are
currently facing," Rumsfeld said.
"Those plans are now being implemented.
Because we're
in the midst of a major troop rotation, we have a
planned
increase in the number of U.S. troops in the
(U.S. Central Command) area of
responsibility, and
indeed in Iraq.
"We're taking advantage of that
increase," he said, "and we will likely be
managing
the pace of the redeployments to allow those seasoned
troops with
experience and relationships with the
local populations to see the current
situation
through."
Extending troops past their year is
just one option Army Gen. John Abizaid,
CENTCOM
commander, is looking at, officials said. Other options
include
earlier-than-planned deployment of troops
scheduled to go to Iraq, and shifting
coalition
troops within the country.
"We've said it every
week, every month from the very beginning that
the
commanders on the ground make a continuing
assessment as to the number of
troops they believe
they need and the kinds of troops they need,"
Rumsfeld
said. "They make recommendations, and I sign
deployment orders. You can be
certain that if they
want more troops, we will sign deployment orders so
that
they'll have the troops they
need."
Rumsfeld said the vast majority of the
Iraqi people want freedom for their
country.
"Nonetheless, … as the date for Iraq's transition to
self-government
approaches, those opposed to a free
Iraq will grow increasingly desperate. And
indeed
they are," he said.
Rumsfeld said the combat in
Iraq is "a power play between those who
favor
terrorism and a return to oppression, and those
determined to have freedom
and
self-government.
He said the Iraqi people
would reject the terrorists and former Baathists.
"The
overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people oppose
them, and given a free choice,
the Iraqi people will
choose the rule of law, not rule by murderers,"
Rumsfeld
said. "This much is certain: those who
oppose the Iraqis people transition to
freedom and
self-rule will not be permitted to derail
it."
Coalition forces are taking the battle to
the enemy. Two types of enemy are
attacking coalition
forces in Iraq now, said Air Force Gen. Richard B.
Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 1st
Marine Expeditionary Force is
taking on one type of
enemy in Fallujah and Ramadi, consisting of
Baathist
remnants, Iraqi extremists, foreign
terrorists and members of the Zarqawi
network, he
said.
The second enemy consists of "thugs and
gangs that would associate themselves
with Sadr," the
chairman said. This group is small – between 1,000 and
6,000
through all of Iraq – but it is active in
Baghdad, Amarah, Nasiriyah, Kut,
Basra, Karbala and
especially in Najaf, he added.
Myers said the two
enemies have only one thing in common: "a desire to
keep
Iraq from progressing towards peace and freedom
and self-rule."
Myers also spoke about the
performance of Iraqi security forces in the
recent
fighting. He said they are a part of Operation
Vigilant Resolve in Fallujah.
"They're part of the
outer cordon, and perhaps some operations inside,"
Myers
said. "There are other Iraqi forces that are
actually conducting operations in
Fallujah, with our
forces. I'm told that's going very well.
"There
are other instances where Iraqi forces have not been as
aggressive," he
acknowledged. He said a priority has
to be to properly equip and train
Iraqi
forces.
Rumsfeld said the Iraqi forces
would be more effective once the U.S. military
is
freed from some of the constraints on U.S. ability to
train and equip the
Iraqi security forces. "There's
just too many rules and regulations and laws
and
procedures that are based on peacetime constraints that
impede and slow the
progress towards getting Iraqi
forces trained and equipped and deployed in ways
that
are effective," he said.
Biographie:
Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
[/bios/rumsfeld_bio.html]
Gen. Richard B. Myers
[/bios/myers_bio.html]
Gen. John Abizaid
[http://www.centcom.mil/aboutus/cdrbio.htm]
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April
22, 2004, Rumsfeld Asks Editors To Tell Whole Story of
War
By
Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON,
April 22, 2004 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appealed
to
American newspaper editors here today to tell the whole
story about the global
war on terrorism.
Rumsfeld
spoke at a conference of U.S. newspaper editors, and told the
group
their publications are uniquely posed to help debate
in America because they
have the room for detail and
nuance.
"To know the whole story about what's going on
in Iraq today, America and other
nations need to hear not
just the truth that there are attacks and setbacks, …
but
also why these attacks are happening and why the terrorists
and the regime
remnants are lashing out," Rumsfeld said.
"And this is where the print media
can play a special role.
You have the space to give context -- to inform the
public
about things that don't make the sound bite on evening news.
Terrorists
and bomb-throwers get headlines, to be sure. The
good people of Iraq and
Afghanistan do not."
Nor do
the courageous men and women of the coalition who have
deployed to the
countries, Rumsfeld added. Military and
civilian personnel have deployed to
help Iraqis and Afghans
get on a path to self-government and to self-reliance,
he
said. "They do not make headlines, but they are making a
difference," the
secretary told the editors.
"The
vast majority of the Iraqi people are not rioting, they're not
looting,
they're not shooting, he continued. "For every
bomb that goes off in Baghdad,
there are many bombs that
are defused as a result of coalition soldiers acting
on
information they receive from Iraqi people.
"For every
building that's damaged by mortar fire, there are many schools
and
hospitals and clinics that are being built and
repaired," he continued. "And
for every Iraqi soldier who
was reluctant to fight in the past few weeks, there
are
tens of thousands of Iraqi security officials who are fighting
every day
for the Iraqi people, and there have been over
300 Iraqi security forces that
have been killed in recent
months."
The secretary had harsh words for the Arab
television news services Al-Jazeera
and Al-Arabiyah. He
said the two media outlets "are routinely telling the
world
lies about coalition actions."
He said that as
the Arab population becomes used to freedom, it will be able
to
discern truth from lies. "Afghans and Iraqis are now
free," he said. "After
decades of being fed lies by
dictatorial regimes and the controlled press, they
are
starting to thirst for the truth.
"Just as Americans
have, so too free Afghans and Iraqis will eventually
develop
their own sense of balance, their own inner
gyroscopes, and an ability to
absorb what they hear," he
said.
Top of Page
Rumsfeld
Thanks Troops for Actions, Sacrifices 9/6/2003
By
Jim Garamone
American Forces Press
Service
BAGHDAD,
Iraq, Sept. 6, 2003 – American service members can be very
proud of the roles they are playing in Iraq and around the
world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here today.
Rumsfeld is in Iraq visiting American service members
and
meeting with military and coalition leaders. He is
using the trip to get a feel for conditions in the country.
Rumsfeld spoke to members of the 4th Infantry
Division in Tikrit, to soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division
in Mosul and the 1st Armored Division here. He also
visited
with the Polish-led Multinational Division Central-South in Al
Hillah. U.S. Marines are helping the division as it settles
in.
At each location, he thanked the service members
for their sacrifices and their willingness to volunteer to
perform what is still a dangerous mission. At the 4th Infantry
Division – which is in the heart of remaining support for the
former regime in an area some soldiers call "Baathland" – the
secretary said the soldiers are doing a truly outstanding
job.
"It's noticed, it's appreciated, it's important,"
the secretary said. Rumsfeld said the job is important not
only to the Iraqi people, but also to the region and the
world. "I recognize that the circumstance for you here is far
from perfect and you have family and loved ones at home, … but
the appreciation that the president of the United States and I
and the American people have for the sacrifice you make and
the sacrifice your families make is enormous," he
said.
At the 101st, he told the soldiers they helped
free more than 23 million people. "It's an enormous
accomplishment," the secretary said. "You will never forget
it. "I have been watching and observing, and needless to say,
am interested in all that you do," he continued. "The
difficulties of what you do (are) well known. The fact that
you've lost some of your colleagues is well known. The
accomplishments, however, are less well
known."
Rumsfeld said the provincial governor of
Nineveh, where Mosul is, was very complimentary of the
American soldiers' contributions. He listed the division's
work in building schools and roads, fixing bridges, and
helping with thousands of small projects making life better
for the average Iraqi as examples of this work. "I hope that
as you
go forward, those accomplishments become as well
known as the difficulties," he said. "We're on a path … that
will ultimately
succeed. There have been bumps in the road and there will be
bumps in the road going forward."
At each location,
Rumsfeld took questions from the soldiers. At the 1st Armored
Division, a soldier asked about whether separation pay and
hazardous duty pay were going to drop. The secretary answered
that while Congress has such a
proposal on the table, he
would be surprised if the pay dropped. He also was asked about
the status of the reserve components – especially regarding
deployments. He said the department is studying the balance
between the active and reserve components. Some skill sets are
only in the reserves, and that means they get called up almost
regularly, he explained. "If they wanted … that, they would be
on active duty as opposed to being in the Guard and reserve,"
the secretary said. The study will be out soon, and it will
seek to relieve the stress on these communities, he
assured the soldiers. At Mosul, a soldier asked about the
possibility of an end- trength rise. Rumsfeld said the
department should
try other options before asking for more people. He cited a
study showing that 320,000 military personnel are in
jobs
that could be done by civilian workers. The department
needs legislation to implement those changes. "We have nothing
more important,
nothing more valuable to the armed forces, than the men and
women in uniform," he said. "We simply have to find modern
ways of managing that force so that we can attract and retain
and deal fairly and
responsibly with each of you, and all
of your colleagues around the world."
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of Page
Rice:
Stable Iraq Means Death Knell for Terrorism
9/8/2003
By
John D. Banusiewicz
American Forces Press
Service
WASHINGTON,
Sept. 8, 2003 – Successful completion of the mission in Iraq
will severely undermine the goals and strategies of
terrorists, President Bush's national security adviser said
today.
Foreign fighters are coming to Iraq because
"Iraq, if it is prosperous and stable, in a different kind of
Middle East, is going to be the death knell for terrorism."
Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Katie Couric on
NBC's "Today" program. Rice said that although the number of
foreign fighters coming to Iraq is unknown, "they clearly
understand that a victory for the peace in Iraq, like the
military victory we've had there, will mean that their goals
and their strategies will be severely
undermined."
Referring to President George W. Bush's
Sept. 7 address to the nation, Rice said, "I think the
American people got a very good explanation from the president
about why our resoluteness, our will, our willingness to use
our power, is going to defeat terrorism. And that's the only
way to do it." She echoed the president's reminder that the
difficulty of the mission has come as no surprise. "The
administration always knew that it was going to be difficult
to bring Iraq to peace, prosperity and stability after almost
30 years of brutal Baathist rule," she said. Saddam Hussein's
regime,
she added, impoverished the country by using its
resources to obtain weapons of mass destruction "and to build
castles to Saddam Hussein." If anything was underestimated,
Rice said, it was how much damage Hussein had done to his own
people,
to their mentality and to the country's infrastructure. "For
instance, the country had probably only 50 percent of the
electrical generating power that it actually needed," she
said. With about $20 billion of the $87 billion the president
will ask Congress to provide for the coming year's efforts in
Iraq, Rice said, Iraqi resources will need to be
mobilized
and the international community will need to pitch in. "But we
believe that this is the right amount of money for
reconstruction over the next year, and that with this money we
can do things like accelerate the building of the Iraqi army,
accelerate the building of Iraqi police forces (and) civil
defense forces to protect infrastructure," she said.
"This
is a well-thought-out program by (Coalition Provisional
Authority head) Jerry Bremer and his people."
Rice said
a resolution the United States has submitted to the U.N.
Security Council to further involve other nations in the
effort is not the first of its kind. Two previous resolutions
– 1483 and 1500 – deepened the involvement of the
international community, she said, and the proposed resolution
submitted to Security Council members would further that
process. "Let's remember that it was the U.N. headquarters
that was attacked by these terrorists," she said,
referring
to
the Aug. 19 truck bomb that destroyed the U.N. headquarters in
Baghdad, killing special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello
and roughly 20 others. "The terrorists understand that their
goal is to destroy civilization, to destroy freedom. And if we
have a stable and prosperous Iraq, and therefore a more stable
and prosperous Middle East, there's no doubt that the entire
world is going to benefit from that." Establishing a unified
multinational command led by the United States is another
important aspect of the proposed U.N. resolution, Rice said.
"It's very important to have unified command, and
the United States has by far the bulk of the forces there,"
she said. "But I think if you read the comments of (U.N.)
Secretary General Kofi Annan and of others, understanding that
in a military sense, unified command under the command
of
the largest contributor is all that makes sense. And that
largest contributor is the United States."
The national
security adviser said U.S. force levels in Iraq are correct
and at the level military commanders say they need. "We should
also note," she added, "that some of these deployments are
probably temporary – that American troop strength, for
instance, has been coming down in the Balkans over the last
couple of years."
Rice
said the president was talking about moving forward when he
addressed the nation the previous night.
"Saddam
Hussein is no longer in power, and Saddam Hussein was the
problem with weapons of mass destruction," she said. "It was
he who had a thorough appetite for weapons of mass
destruction. It was he who had used weapons of
mass
destruction. It was he who was using the wealth and
patronage of the country to develop weapons of mass
destruction. "We have every reason to believe that a stable,
prosperous and democratizing Iraq will not be a problem in
this regard," she continued. "Removing Saddam Hussein removes
the threat of weapons of mass
destruction."
Top of Page
Rumsfeld,
Sanchez Say Press Ignores Good News From Iraq
9/7/2003
By
Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
BAGHDAD,
Iraq, Sept. 5, 2003 – American officials here took on the
press for not reporting the "good news" coming out of Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited the headquarters
of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit and the
headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul Sept. 5.
Following the visit, he held a press conference. He said that
as he came back, he was told a member of the traveling press
said it was a good trip, but there really wasn't any news in
it. That obviously annoyed the secretary. "There was news up
there," Rumsfeld said during the press conference held in one
of Saddam Hussein's palaces. "There was good news. Important
good news." He said constructive things are happening
throughout
Iraq.
"The Iraqi people are being substantively benefited and
advantaged by being rid of that vicious dictator," he
said.
He pointed to the surroundings and said that
anyone who doubts whether the Iraqi people are better off
should just examine the palaces and the enormous sums of money
Saddam spent on the military. Officials estimate that Saddam
spent
up to 35 percent of the country's gross domestic
product on the military, the intelligence service and other
means of staying in power. "It's a tragic, heartbreaking thing
to see how the Iraqi people suffered over these past decades,"
he said. Rumsfeld said coalition forces have built or rebuilt
schools, ensured hospitals are working and helped universities
function. In addition, coalition forces are helping to dig
wells, refurbish the irrigation system and rebuild roads.
Specialists are helping to maintain and rebuild the oil,
electric and water infrastructure. Rumsfeld said the
scope
and
speed of such operations are impressive. "If one looks back at
Germany or Japan or Bosnia or Kosovo and measures the
progress
that has taken place in this country in four or five months,
it dwarfs any other experience that I'm aware of," Rumsfeld
said.
He said he is not wearing rose-colored glasses in
looking at the situation. He stressed that the road ahead will
be hard and have many bumps, but that it is worth traveling.
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of Combined Joint
Task Force 7, also took exception to media coverage of the
situation in Iraq. "It is very disturbing to me to sit here
every day and watch the news back home that focuses on the bad
things that are occurring in Iraq," he said.
The
general says it makes it seem as if the sacrifices of
coalition troops is not being appreciated. He said there is
progress in every area of the country. "We ought to make sure
that America knows that their sons' and daughters' sacrifices
are for a good cause," he said. "We have eliminated a dictator
here. We are making a difference every single
day."
Sanchez also addressed charges that the security
situation in the country mandates that he needs more U.S.
troops. He said soldiers are experiencing about 14 to 16
attacks per day from individuals or very small groups. "I have
about 160,000 service
members
here," he said. "I don't need any more forces here. When you
look across this country … there is no practical threat.
There
is no tactical threat, there is no strategic threat or
operational threat that exists to the coalition or to
America.
"One battalion's worth of coalition power can
accomplish the task of defeating any threat that may surface
in the coming months, "
he continued. "We can do this. We are doing this. We are
making a difference. And we need to capture the great news
that is
out
there and make sure that America knows what their sons and
daughters … are doing in Iraq."
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