By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 19, 2007 - The commander of U.S. Pacific Command met here today with Timorese government and military leaders to praise strides they've made in building a new democracy, and he promised U.S. support to help them overcome challenges to that democracy. Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating met with Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta, Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao, and Brig. Gen .Taur Matan Ruak, the country's chief of defense, during his first visit here since taking command of PACOM in March.
"I wanted to express to them our gratitude for the progress that is been made here for a new independent nation and to commit those resources we have that might help the president and prime minister and chief of defense move along in their important work," Keating told reporters after meeting with Gusmao.
By all accounts, Timor-Leste has faced serious challenges since breaking free of a brutal, 24-year Indonesian rule in 1999. It formally declared statehood three years later and has been struggling to build its new government ever since.
Progress has been hindered by a wide range of factors: weak institutions, political infighting, poor education, extreme poverty and violence. Gusmao called the Timorese government "fragile" and its 700-member military ill-prepared to provide the protection it needs or to confront smuggling, trafficking and other problems.
Long-simmering tensions led to widespread violence in April 2006 that sent some 155,000 people fleeing their homes. An estimated 28,000 Timorese remain displaced, living in more than two dozen refugee camps dotting Dili, the capital.
An International Stabilization Force, made up of Australian and New Zealand troops, has been deployed to Timor-Leste since May 2006 at the government's request. Australian Brigadier John Hutcheson, the joint task force commander, told Keating today the unit's mission is to "maintain a secure, stable environment for the East Timorese to get on peacefully and resolve their differences."
But more than a year after their arrival, Hutcheson told Keating that conditions in Timor-Leste "are still simmering" and that the country has "a long journey to go."
Despite the ISF presence, as well as that of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste, violence broke out again in August after no single candidate won a majority vote during national parliamentary elections, and Ramos-Horta appointed a coalition led by Gusmao to form a new government.
Today, Keating praised strides the Ramos-Horta and Gusmao government is making to advance democracy. "The challenges you have faced have been formidable," he said. "But through what you have done, you have created an opportunity for your fellow citizens to live in an independent country.
"We in Pacific Command appreciate that commitment," he said, promising additional U.S. assistance.
Keating said the United States recognizes the importance of sharing its resources with "the coalition of the willing" that shares the U.S. commitment to promoting democracy and creating stable conditions that discourage terrorist ambitions.
"We are intensely interested in cooperating. We are intensely interested in helping," Keating told the Timorese leaders. "We are as committed as you are to supporting freedom and democracy."
PACOM already provides support to the U.N. and ISF efforts in Timor-Leste through humanitarian assistance and training through the International Military Education and Training program. The command also provides strategic airlift to support Australia's ISF deployments.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice provides police training in Timor-Leste through its International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program.
Keating suggested that PACOM might be able to assist in additional areas, possibly through education, language training and additional humanitarian assistance.
But while promising as much help as possible, Keating conceded that there's a limit to what PACOM can do. He expressed hope that the United States' support for Timor-Leste will encourage other countries to step up to help.
Similarly, Keating said he hopes to move beyond bilateral U.S.-Timorese relations to multilateral relations that promote broader international cooperation.
Achieving Timor-Leste's goals will be "a long struggle that won't happen overnight," Keating said, but he expressed "reason for optimism."
Keating pointed to Ruak, who led the independence movement and now serves as the country's defense chief, as an example of what's possible in Timor-Leste. "It is a pleasure to meet someone who has contributed so successfully in such an important way to the independence of this country," the admiral said.
"There is a price for democracy," Ruak told Keating. "No democracy in the world (comes) without a price tag attached to it."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Arizona Organization Works to Help Vets
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 19, 2007 - An organization in Phoenix is offering individuals, including some veterans, a lifeline when it comes to meeting some of their needs, such as housing, employment or just a simple word of encouragement. "We're here if anyone desires a more positive road," said Jacque Harris, business developer for the group, "My Brothers Keeper." "We try to help people get on the right track as much as we possibly can, (to) be a support system, a lifeline for them."
Some of the training and development center's clients are trying to reintegrate into their communities after incarceration. Some, however, are veterans of past wars looking for a better lease on life.
"We service a lot of the vets when they come through needing assistance with jobs, skill development, (and) housing referrals," she said. "I think every week we have a vet or two in our different workshops.
"We've found (vets) to be looking for about the same thing (as other clients)," Harris added, referring to the 28 veterans the program has helped since March.
The center also offers substance abuse and anger management counseling, as well as parenting skill development. All of the programs are free to anyone over the age of 18.
My Brothers Keeper, which will celebrate its first anniversary on Oct. 16, currently serves only Maricopa County and is doing a lot of what Harris called "soft skill" job training. That includes customer service, inventory management, sales and telemarketing.
The staff also has just implemented a business plan class, which offers those thinking of starting their own business a few reality checks, including an assessment of personal finances, she said.
"We teach them actually how to write their business plan and about projections and how do you project what's really your direct cost?" Harris said. "We also have referrals for funding small business loans, which we're really excited about."
Part of that syllabus includes a financial literacy workshop taught by a local bank executive. Students learn proper use of credit, how to look at interest rates, how to read a credit report, and how to spot fraudulent activity on that document.
All of this is done in the interest of placing veterans and other clients in jobs. Most have been unemployed for awhile and might be placed in several jobs before finding one that's mutually beneficial for employer and employee.
"We always encourage people, 'Don't quit. Allow us the opportunity to find you something else if this is not a good fit,'" Harris said. "We have built relationships with employers where we can really ... help them find (gainful) employment."
But My Brothers Keeper doesn't walk away after a vet is placed in that perfect job. The new employees are followed for 90 days to ensure their success, she said.
"There's accountability along the way," Harris said. "We're referring people to employers that we have relationships with, and we want to place other people there so it's important that we're there and involved."
Harris' goal for the next year is for My Brothers Keeper to open three more locations in Arizona.
"Then we want to go to California, (and) I don't know from there," she said. "Definitely the West Coast over the next two years is the plan."
If some have their way, My Brothers Keeper will eventually become a national organization. Harris already has received inquiries from people in Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Texas who heard about the program and hoped it was operating in their state. "That's encouraging," she said.
Each week between 15 and 20 people begin the weeklong orientation process, and while interested parties can walk into the Phoenix-based office, Harris suggests calling (602) 344-7504 to make sure there's space available that week.
Editor's Note: To find out about more individuals, groups and organizations that are helping support the troops, visit www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil. The Defense Department's America Supports You program directly connects military members to the support of the America people and offers a tool to the general public in their quest to find meaningful ways to support the military community.
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 19, 2007 - An organization in Phoenix is offering individuals, including some veterans, a lifeline when it comes to meeting some of their needs, such as housing, employment or just a simple word of encouragement. "We're here if anyone desires a more positive road," said Jacque Harris, business developer for the group, "My Brothers Keeper." "We try to help people get on the right track as much as we possibly can, (to) be a support system, a lifeline for them."
Some of the training and development center's clients are trying to reintegrate into their communities after incarceration. Some, however, are veterans of past wars looking for a better lease on life.
"We service a lot of the vets when they come through needing assistance with jobs, skill development, (and) housing referrals," she said. "I think every week we have a vet or two in our different workshops.
"We've found (vets) to be looking for about the same thing (as other clients)," Harris added, referring to the 28 veterans the program has helped since March.
The center also offers substance abuse and anger management counseling, as well as parenting skill development. All of the programs are free to anyone over the age of 18.
My Brothers Keeper, which will celebrate its first anniversary on Oct. 16, currently serves only Maricopa County and is doing a lot of what Harris called "soft skill" job training. That includes customer service, inventory management, sales and telemarketing.
The staff also has just implemented a business plan class, which offers those thinking of starting their own business a few reality checks, including an assessment of personal finances, she said.
"We teach them actually how to write their business plan and about projections and how do you project what's really your direct cost?" Harris said. "We also have referrals for funding small business loans, which we're really excited about."
Part of that syllabus includes a financial literacy workshop taught by a local bank executive. Students learn proper use of credit, how to look at interest rates, how to read a credit report, and how to spot fraudulent activity on that document.
All of this is done in the interest of placing veterans and other clients in jobs. Most have been unemployed for awhile and might be placed in several jobs before finding one that's mutually beneficial for employer and employee.
"We always encourage people, 'Don't quit. Allow us the opportunity to find you something else if this is not a good fit,'" Harris said. "We have built relationships with employers where we can really ... help them find (gainful) employment."
But My Brothers Keeper doesn't walk away after a vet is placed in that perfect job. The new employees are followed for 90 days to ensure their success, she said.
"There's accountability along the way," Harris said. "We're referring people to employers that we have relationships with, and we want to place other people there so it's important that we're there and involved."
Harris' goal for the next year is for My Brothers Keeper to open three more locations in Arizona.
"Then we want to go to California, (and) I don't know from there," she said. "Definitely the West Coast over the next two years is the plan."
If some have their way, My Brothers Keeper will eventually become a national organization. Harris already has received inquiries from people in Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Texas who heard about the program and hoped it was operating in their state. "That's encouraging," she said.
Each week between 15 and 20 people begin the weeklong orientation process, and while interested parties can walk into the Phoenix-based office, Harris suggests calling (602) 344-7504 to make sure there's space available that week.
Editor's Note: To find out about more individuals, groups and organizations that are helping support the troops, visit www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil. The Defense Department's America Supports You program directly connects military members to the support of the America people and offers a tool to the general public in their quest to find meaningful ways to support the military community.
Pace Details Lessons He Learned From Young Marines
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 19, 2007 - The reason the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Chaminade High School here was on the wall as he entered the building today: a simple plaque with the names of graduates killed in combat. Midway down the list of 55 Chaminade graduates killed in combat was the name Guido Farinaro, Class of 1967, killed in Vietnam in 1968.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace came to this Catholic school to honor Lance Corporal Farinaro, the first Marine to die following 2nd Lt. Peter Pace's orders. The four-star general keeps a picture of the young lance corporal under the glass on his desk in the Pentagon to remind him of the sacrifices young servicemembers make.
Rev. James C. Williams, the president of the school, invited Pace to address the 1,700 students of the all-male school.
"This is selfish on my part to want to come here to Chaminade," Pace told the students. "I've been invited to several Gold Star Masses and have not been able to attend. I did not want to leave active duty without coming to the place from which the single most influential military person in my life graduated."
During Pace's talk, the normal restlessness of young men disappeared. You could hear a pin drop when the general told the student body that he wanted to come to the school "to have a chance to look you in the eye and tell you of just one of Chaminade's incredible graduates."
Pace wanted the students to know that their lives will make a difference. "I want you to know about one Chaminade graduate whose life made a difference," Pace said.
Guido Farinaro was a 1967 graduate of the high school, Pace said. "As with all classes in Chaminade, the vast majority went on to college, but Guido joined the Marine Corps," he said. "When asked why, he said he was born in Italy, raised in the United States and had the opportunity to attend this incredible school and felt the need to pay back the country before he did any more schooling."
Pace met the young lance corporal in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive in Hue City, Vietnam. Pace was the third leader of the 2nd Platoon, Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines in as many weeks. The platoon was a skeleton, with only 14 Marines left. "Guido was one of them," Pace said to the assembly. "He and I served together until July 1968, and I came to know Guido as a great young man."
The lance corporal's death also had a profound impact on the young lieutenant. "We were on patrol one day outside Da Nang, and Guido was killed by a sniper," Pace said. "As I stayed with him, a sense of rage came through me, and as the platoon leader, I started calling an artillery strike on the village where the round had been fired.
"My platoon sergeant, who was my age – 21 or 22 -- didn't say anything at all," Pace said. "He just looked at me. And I knew in the look that he gave me that what I was doing was wrong."
Pace called off the strike and led the platoon to do what he should have done in the first place – a dismounted sweep of the village. "We found nothing but women and children," he said. "Had that artillery strike been conducted, I do not know how I could have possibly lived with myself."
The lesson for Pace was immediate. "Regardless what you do in your life, hold on to your moral compass," he said. "When you are emotionally least capable of defending yourself is when the biggest challenge will come. If you don't have an idea of what you will let yourself do and what you will not let yourself do, you may find that you have done something that you would never believe yourself capable of doing."
He said his epiphany came in combat, but it doesn't have to. "I learned that day, to think through what was going to be happening each day thereafter, and to think through what I would allow myself to do and not do," he said.
It could come in a meeting, a test, a temptation, whatever. "If you have thought through who you want to be at the end of each day, you will see that person," he said. "But, if you have not, you may not like the person you end up being."
This was one way the lance corporal's life changed the young officer's life. Guido Farinaro and all the other Marines who died following his orders made Pace realize what he should do with his life.
Pace never received a scratch during his 13-month tour in Vietnam. Farinaro was standing next to Pace when he was shot by the sniper. Another Marine was walking in front of Pace when another sniper shot and killed that Marine instead of Pace. "Some died, others did not. I still truly do not understand," he said. "But because of Guido and the others I lost, I determined that I would continue to serve in the Marine Corps until I was no longer needed, and to try to serve in a way that paid respect to their lives."
Pace said he was determined to give those Marines and servicemembers in his charge what he could not longer give to the men he had lost, and that he built his military career around that idea.
And as he faces the conclusion of his four decades of service when he retires at the end of the month, Pace said that was the last lesson he learned from the young Marines he commanded.
"I'm very calm about what comes next because of what I learned from Guido and Guido's death, which is we don't control when we're going to die. We do control how we live," he said. "In every disappointment there is a new door of opportunity. Every time in my adult life, when something happened that I wished had not happened, or I did not get what I thought I should get, in retrospect has turned out to be a blessing.
"I am not a volunteer to leave the armed forces of the United States," he continued. "I still owe Guido and his fellow Marines, and now so many others, more than I can ever repay."
Pace told the young men that he has no idea what he will do in the future, but that it will include another opportunity to serve. He asked the young men to serve, too.
"I ask you to embrace the path that God lays out for you: do the very best you can on that path and take care of the people near you who look to you for leadership," he said.
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 19, 2007 - The reason the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Chaminade High School here was on the wall as he entered the building today: a simple plaque with the names of graduates killed in combat. Midway down the list of 55 Chaminade graduates killed in combat was the name Guido Farinaro, Class of 1967, killed in Vietnam in 1968.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace came to this Catholic school to honor Lance Corporal Farinaro, the first Marine to die following 2nd Lt. Peter Pace's orders. The four-star general keeps a picture of the young lance corporal under the glass on his desk in the Pentagon to remind him of the sacrifices young servicemembers make.
Rev. James C. Williams, the president of the school, invited Pace to address the 1,700 students of the all-male school.
"This is selfish on my part to want to come here to Chaminade," Pace told the students. "I've been invited to several Gold Star Masses and have not been able to attend. I did not want to leave active duty without coming to the place from which the single most influential military person in my life graduated."
During Pace's talk, the normal restlessness of young men disappeared. You could hear a pin drop when the general told the student body that he wanted to come to the school "to have a chance to look you in the eye and tell you of just one of Chaminade's incredible graduates."
Pace wanted the students to know that their lives will make a difference. "I want you to know about one Chaminade graduate whose life made a difference," Pace said.
Guido Farinaro was a 1967 graduate of the high school, Pace said. "As with all classes in Chaminade, the vast majority went on to college, but Guido joined the Marine Corps," he said. "When asked why, he said he was born in Italy, raised in the United States and had the opportunity to attend this incredible school and felt the need to pay back the country before he did any more schooling."
Pace met the young lance corporal in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive in Hue City, Vietnam. Pace was the third leader of the 2nd Platoon, Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines in as many weeks. The platoon was a skeleton, with only 14 Marines left. "Guido was one of them," Pace said to the assembly. "He and I served together until July 1968, and I came to know Guido as a great young man."
The lance corporal's death also had a profound impact on the young lieutenant. "We were on patrol one day outside Da Nang, and Guido was killed by a sniper," Pace said. "As I stayed with him, a sense of rage came through me, and as the platoon leader, I started calling an artillery strike on the village where the round had been fired.
"My platoon sergeant, who was my age – 21 or 22 -- didn't say anything at all," Pace said. "He just looked at me. And I knew in the look that he gave me that what I was doing was wrong."
Pace called off the strike and led the platoon to do what he should have done in the first place – a dismounted sweep of the village. "We found nothing but women and children," he said. "Had that artillery strike been conducted, I do not know how I could have possibly lived with myself."
The lesson for Pace was immediate. "Regardless what you do in your life, hold on to your moral compass," he said. "When you are emotionally least capable of defending yourself is when the biggest challenge will come. If you don't have an idea of what you will let yourself do and what you will not let yourself do, you may find that you have done something that you would never believe yourself capable of doing."
He said his epiphany came in combat, but it doesn't have to. "I learned that day, to think through what was going to be happening each day thereafter, and to think through what I would allow myself to do and not do," he said.
It could come in a meeting, a test, a temptation, whatever. "If you have thought through who you want to be at the end of each day, you will see that person," he said. "But, if you have not, you may not like the person you end up being."
This was one way the lance corporal's life changed the young officer's life. Guido Farinaro and all the other Marines who died following his orders made Pace realize what he should do with his life.
Pace never received a scratch during his 13-month tour in Vietnam. Farinaro was standing next to Pace when he was shot by the sniper. Another Marine was walking in front of Pace when another sniper shot and killed that Marine instead of Pace. "Some died, others did not. I still truly do not understand," he said. "But because of Guido and the others I lost, I determined that I would continue to serve in the Marine Corps until I was no longer needed, and to try to serve in a way that paid respect to their lives."
Pace said he was determined to give those Marines and servicemembers in his charge what he could not longer give to the men he had lost, and that he built his military career around that idea.
And as he faces the conclusion of his four decades of service when he retires at the end of the month, Pace said that was the last lesson he learned from the young Marines he commanded.
"I'm very calm about what comes next because of what I learned from Guido and Guido's death, which is we don't control when we're going to die. We do control how we live," he said. "In every disappointment there is a new door of opportunity. Every time in my adult life, when something happened that I wished had not happened, or I did not get what I thought I should get, in retrospect has turned out to be a blessing.
"I am not a volunteer to leave the armed forces of the United States," he continued. "I still owe Guido and his fellow Marines, and now so many others, more than I can ever repay."
Pace told the young men that he has no idea what he will do in the future, but that it will include another opportunity to serve. He asked the young men to serve, too.
"I ask you to embrace the path that God lays out for you: do the very best you can on that path and take care of the people near you who look to you for leadership," he said.
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