Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Chilton Takes U.S. Strategic Command Helm

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Oct. 17, 2007 - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today praised
Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton as the general ceremonially took the reins of U.S. Strategic Command. Gates said Chilton, who began his tenure at STRATCOM on Oct. 3 after having commanded Air Force Space Command, has the skills and experience to lead the command forward in its critical role in the fight against terrorist threats.

Speaking at today's assumption-of-command ceremony at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., the secretary pointed to Chilton's long, trail-blazing career as prime experience for the STRATCOM job. Chilton was a test pilot on the F-4 Phantom II and F-15 Eagle aircraft, laid new groundwork during assignments at
Air Force Space Command, and served as an astronaut aboard three space shuttle missions.

Chilton will tap into this experience to help the United States confront some of the most destructive threats it faces. These include
terrorist groups working to get control of weapons of mass destruction and potential adversaries who might leverage information and space technologies to threaten the United States and its interests.

Gates called space-based capabilities critical in stopping the proliferation of dangerous materials. "It is through space that we can monitor the weapons we already know exist," he said. "It is through space that we can track adversaries attempting to acquire these weapons and then do something about it. It is through space that our troops and our leadership monitor the battlefield and communicate with each other.

"Therefore," Gates continued, "it is space that we must protect, especially as we expand its use."

China's successful test of an anti-satellite weapon earlier this year reinforced the importance of maintaining unfettered access to space, he said. "This test and other developments show that our own near-earth satellites are vulnerable and must be protected," he said.

As a former CIA director, Gates said he understands the importance of a strong intelligence-gathering system and the need to analyze that intelligence and plan a U.S. response.

He told Chilton he's confident the general will be able to tackle the challenges ahead and build on the accomplishments Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright began during his three years at STRATCOM. Cartwright served as commander until August, when he became the eighth vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Cartwright "flattened the organization," speeding up information flow throughout the command, Gates said. He also introduced the Global Innovation and Strategy Center, which brings together outside experts to focus on a specific issue, brainstorming solutions and developing recommendations for STRATCOM
leaders to follow up on.

Gates said he knew filling Cartwright's shoes at STRATCOM would be challenging, but that he believes Chilton is the person to take the command forward. "General Chilton, we look to you for the way ahead during these turbulent times," he said.

Chilton said he feels honored to lead the organization that is "called on to be the most responsive combatant command in the U.S. arsenal."

He noted STRATCOM's broad responsibilities. "We are responsible today for providing the secretary of defense time-sensitive planning to conduct global strike operations anywhere on the planet. We are tasked to conduct operations in support of the global fight we are engaged in today," he said. "And we are tasked to be the masters and defenders of domains that have become ever more critical, not only to the way we fight as a nation, but to our way of life as a nation ... -- the domains of space and cyberspace."

With the "tsunami change" that ushered in STRATCOM's reorganization and adoption of a 24/7 operational mission beginning to settle, Chilton said, he's ready to increase the command's focus on future threats as well as today's fight.

"The type of combat we will face in the 21st century will go beyond the physical force on force and the battles of centuries gone by," he said. It will require "innovation, ... speed, agility and focus."

He called the men and women serving at STRATCOM "just the team America needs to defend her today and tomorrow."

"I am excited and proud and humbled to join this great team in our noble endeavor," Chilton said.

West Virginia Group Boosts Troop Morale

By Toni Maltagliati
American Forces Press Service

Oct. 17, 2007 - From stocking hats to shower shoes, a
West Virginia-based group is actively filling requests from U.S. troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, sending them about 50 boxfuls of care packages each week. "'Boatsie's Boxes' began when my son, Patrick, a master sergeant in the United States Air Force, forwarded an urgent personal request from the deputy director of programs in Baghdad asking for our help," said Gail "Boatsie" Van Vranken, president and founder of Boatsie's Boxes Inc. "We will continue to support our troops in whatever way will bring them comfort."

Boatsie's Boxes is a supporter of America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and corporations with
military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad.

Van Vranken and her family, along with volunteers in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, began gathering supplies to send to servicemembers in 2004.

"Our boxes are going to several hospitals, groups of young troops (deployed for the first time), and -- thanks to our very dedicated United States airmen, Marines, soldiers and sailors -- items are now reaching the forward lines of operation all over Iraq and Afghanistan," Van Vranken said.

Along with weekly care packages, Boatsie's Boxes conducts three seasonal projects each year. The first, a Valentine's Day campaign called "Hearts to Our Troops," is held to gather heart-shaped greetings and candy expressing support for
military members.

The second seasonal push, "Operation Jelly Bean Express," is held in the spring and ensures troops get a taste of home wherever they are serving.

Summer brings "Beat the Heat," a drive for donations focused on products to help protect troops from the harsh sun and sand.

Boatsie's Boxes currently is conducting its annual "Operation Christmas Stocking." Through this project, the group will send 20,000 gift-filled stockings overseas this December.

Bush, Commission Urge Congress to Fix Troop Health Care

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

Oct. 17, 2007 - President Bush urged Congress today to pass legislation that will realize recommendations made by a bipartisan commission tasked to fix problems with wounded servicemembers' care. Meanwhile, the group's
leaders are slated to testify on the matter before lawmakers. At a White House news conference today, Bush urged Congress promptly to consider a legislation package he submitted yesterday "so that those injured while defending our freedom can get the quality care they deserve."

In the wake of reports that troops at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center here were receiving sub-par treatment, the president created the nine-member panel in March, citing a "moral obligation" to provide the best possible care to men and women in uniform. Joined yesterday by commission co-chairs Donna Shalala, a former secretary of health and human services, and former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, Bush endorsed the group's comprehensive findings.

"My administration strongly supports the commission's recommendations," Bush said during a news conference at the White House Rose Garden. "We've taken steps to implement them where we can through administrative action, and today we're sending Congress legislation to implement the recommendations that require legislative action."

The Bush administration has implemented 90 percent of the recommendations outlined last summer in a 29-page proposal; the remaining 10 percent require congressional approval. According to a fact sheet published by the White House yesterday, the administration is working with lawmakers to fully implement suggestions from six categories:

-- Modernizing and improving the disability and compensation systems;

-- Aggressively preventing and treating
post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury;

-- Significantly strengthening support for families;

-- Immediately creating comprehensive recovery plans to provide the right care and support at the right time in the right place;

-- Rapidly transferring patient information between the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs; and

-- Strongly supporting Walter Reed by recruiting and retaining first-rate professionals through 2011.

Shalala and Dole today are expected to testify before Congress and implore lawmakers to further implement their panel's recommendations beyond the limits of administrative action.

"More than anything else, Congress now ... must modernize the disability system," Shalala said during yesterday's news conference. "It is old-fashioned; it doesn't reflect modern medicine; it's too slow; it's too confusing. We need a system in which any soldier, any sailor, any Marine, any member of their family understand it and can make it work."

The former health and human services secretary said she shares Bush's optimism that Congress will wholly endorse the panel's recommendations. "Our commission members believe we can do it; the young Americans who have been injured, many of them severely, believe we can do it. And we must do it," she said.

Dole said the mission of the commission -- which boasts four members who themselves are injured veterans -- transcends partisanship or political biases.

"Whatever your views may be on the war, we have one common view on taking care of those who are wounded or injured: whatever it takes," he said.

Sea Services Unveil New Maritime Strategy

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Oct. 17, 2007 - The new U.S. maritime strategy elevates war prevention to the same level of importance as warfighting. Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations; Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the
Marine Corps; and Adm. Thad W. Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, today unveiled "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower" at the International Seapower Symposium, in Newport, R.I.

Representatives from 98 countries attended the symposium. Roughead said it was fitting that the new strategy was briefed at the event, because it is an outgrowth of talks with allies that began at the symposium two years ago.

"The American people expect -- demand -- that we as a
Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard remain strong," the admiral said. "They also expect our services to defend their territory and to be able to protect our citizens."

This is the traditional mission of a maritime strategy, but the American people also expect U.S. naval forces to cooperate with maritime forces of other nations. U.S. security and prosperity "is completely linked to security and prosperity of other nations around the world," Roughead said.

The new maritime strategy calls on the
Navy to develop certain strategic imperatives. "We believe we must be a global force, a globally positioned force," the Roughead said.

U.S. maritime forces must have credible combat power "that can limit various regional issues, that can deter conflict, and that can fight and win when called upon to do so." The
Navy must be able to work with others, but also must be able to fight and win without allies, if needed, he said.

U.S. naval forces will be globally distributed but will be concentrated in two general areas: the western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean region. Those forces must be able to be moved, brought together, shaped and structured so the
U.S. Navy can conduct operations around the world, Roughead said. They also need to be able to work with long-standing allies and new partners.

Maritime forces must be able to conduct sea-control operations, and they must be able to project power. "When access is denied, we must have the capability to project power and to maintain those capabilities as enduring capabilities," the admiral said.

But in addition to maritime security, the strategy calls for an expanded core capability: disaster response and humanitarian assistance. The Indonesian tsunami that ravaged the Indian Ocean basin in 2004 is a case in point for the need for this capability. Maritime forces of many nations converged upon the area and saved countless lives.

But there has to be a basis for those forces to come together. "We develop the relationships; we develop the procedures; we develop the methods that allow us to be more effective should something like that happen," Roughead said.

And this is not just an international issue, as the
military and maritime response following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 proves, he said.

The key to the maritime strategy is trust, Roughead said. "We believe that trust cannot be surged. Trust is not something that has a switch and you can turn on and off," he said. "Trust is something that must be built over time. Trust is built through discussions, operations, activities and exercises and through initiatives that each of us may undertake and bring others into. It is built on seeking opportunities to work more closely together."

The admiral said he especially wants young naval officers and sailors to participate in
military-to-military exchanges. Relationships with members of other navies must be developed so that when the maritime forces serve together it is not the first time the sailors have met.

Conway said the Marine Corps absolutely agrees with the new strategy. But, given the pressure of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it may be some time before his service can embrace it fully, he added. "We are closer to the
United States Army than we have been for a long, long time," Conway said. "We have been operating alongside them -- intertwined with them really -- over the last four, five years."

The
Marine Corps is an expeditionary force by nature, and having 26,000 Marines in a land battle in Anbar province takes some of that capability from the corps. "We go down to the sea in ships," he said. "But right now, we are very much taking on the profile of a second land army.

"We have to go through an expeditionary filter when we get out of there to get back to a lighter, faster, more hard-hitting capability that is deployable aboard our nation's ships."

Allen said the
U.S. Coast Guard completely subscribes to the strategy. "It reinforces the time-honored missions we carried out in this country since 1790," he said. "It reinforces the Coast Guard maritime strategy of safety, security and stewardship, and it reflects not only the global reach of our maritime services but the need to integrate and synchronize and act with our coalition and international partners to not only win wars ... but to prevent wars."

Allen called the new strategy a "convergence of ideas and
leadership" and said it represents a step "forward in a very uncertain future and an era of persistent, irregular conflict."

Roughead said the global system in place today requires this maritime strategy. The global system changes every day as changes occur among people, nations, economies, law and knowledge. "Change is a good thing, because change gives us the opportunities to make adjustments to pursue new initiatives, and that's what the strategy is about," he said.

San Diego Police Officers

Editor's Note: One of the authors is a former servicemember.

October 17, 2007 (San Dimas, CA) Police-Writers.com is a website that lists nearly 800 state and local police officers who have written books. The website added three
San Diego police officers.

Jay Farrington has been a police officer since 1995. He is a member of the San Diego Police Department where he has worked in assignments such as patrol, SWAT/Primary Response Team and a Graffiti Strike Force. He is a court recognized expert in gangs and graffiti related crimes. Jay Farrington is the author of the novel Domestic Terrorism.

According to the book description of Domestic
Terrorism, “Somewhere between reality and fiction lies the essence of Jay Farrington's compelling first novel, Domestic Terrorism. A real-life street cop, Farrington expertly tells the tale of Wes MacGregor - a street-wise law enforcement veteran whose prophetic vision of the degeneration of America's teenagers comes hauntingly true. Farrington introduces us to child armies who have turned away from their dysfunctional families, to gain the acceptance of a maniacal father figure, hell-bent on exacting his revenge on society in general, and Wes in particular. Ripped from real life events, Domestic Terrorism is a shockingly smart page-turner you won't soon forget.”

A twenty-five year veteran of law enforcement,
Kevin Means is a Flight Officer with the San Diego Police Department’s Air Support Unit. Kevin Means is also the past president of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association and the author of Tactical Helicopter Missions. According to the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, Kevin Means has published the “how to” book on tactical helicopter operations. The book covers everything from the basic to the complex tasks of law enforcement operations to enhance the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of the airborne operation. Means takes the reader along a very well organized journey from understanding technology to dissecting the various types of missions that airborne law enforcement units are now conducting.

Although the book is not all-inclusive, Means addresses the age-old problem with law enforcement operations in confronting the “we’ve always done it this way” attitude. Realizing that it would be unrealistic to think his book can and will work for all operations, Means gives us something to ponder about all facets of a safe airborne
law enforcement operation.”

Lieutenant
John Morrison served in combat as a Marine sergeant, and retired as a senior lieutenant from the San Diego Police Department, having served there as Director of Training, Commanding Officer of SWAT and division executive officer. He has taught, written and lectured widely on training, tactics and leadership. John Morrison is the co-author of Contact & Cover: Two-Officer Suspect Control.

Police-Writers.com now hosts 777 police officers (representing 350 police departments) and their 1660
law enforcement books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.