Multinational Seminar Examines Violent Extremism

By Jason Tudor

George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany – Professionals from 61 countries have gathered at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies here to share ideas about countering violent extremism across the globe.

A senior executive seminar titled “Beyond Al Qaeda: How to Understand and Counter Violent Extremism” gathers 98 ministers, parliamentarians, general officers and other senior leaders from around the world.

The forum provides a unique opportunity for senior policy makers to seek common understanding to a problem that doesn’t recognize borders, said Marine Corps Col. Philip Lark, the seminar’s deputy director.

“Participants are engaging in candid discussion of violent extremist ideology and activity,” he said. “The seminar is facilitating a comprehensive, cooperative approach to the problem.”

With 25 lecturers -- including Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe -- scheduled over eight days, the agenda is a busy one. Lark said the idea was to gather as many diverse points of view as possible.

“This problem has deep roots and is without borders,” Lark said. “The solutions we attempt to gather must be comprehensive.”

In his opening remarks to the group, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, Marshall Center director, said the time this group has together is vital and should be a shared experience.

“You will get out of this course what you put into it,” Dayton said. “There will not be a ‘sage on the stage’ who will give you wisdom and you walk out feeling much better. This is your course, and it is interactive.”

About 80 NATO senior enlisted advisors will work alongside the seminar participants, including Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Roy M. Maddocks Jr., U.S. European Command’s command master chief; and Air Force Command Chief Master Sgt. Richard T. Small from NATO Allied Command Operations.

Also among the attendees are 10 general officers from the National Guard and Air National Guard via the State Partnership Program sponsored by Eucom.

The Marshall Center staff conducts two senior executive seminars each year. A seminar in January dealt with the “Arab Spring” and revolution across the Middle East. Like that previous seminar, Lark said, this seminar centers on real-world happenings. The event’s lectures and smaller-group studies bring them into sharp focus, he added.

“Everything within the seminar is designed to deepen our understanding of the linkages between extremism, radical violence, globalization, and religious and cultural differences,” Lark said. “Participant expertise and experience will add context to these discussions. Extremists of all determinations pose a dangerous threat to global security and must be examined with equal diligence –- fighting extremism must be done with both determination and insight.”

Lark said the goal is for participants to return home with a deeper awareness of key issues that influence national, regional and international security; the factors that shape security strategy; and the components of cooperative security in an interdependent world.

Face of Defense: Book’s Profits Benefit Wounded Warriors

By Dan Thompson

U.S. Army Installation Management Command Europe

HEIDELBERG, Germany, Aug. 9, 2012 – Being an Army public affairs officer often means working irregular hours and constantly providing high-quality content for everything from newspapers to social media.

While it is a demanding, high-visibility profession, most PAOs could not imagine serving any other way. But for one civilian public affairs officer at U.S. Army Garrison Benelux, keeping service members and their families informed in Belgium and the Netherlands is not enough. He reaches for the stars.

Keith Houin is a "purple" PAO: a retired Air Force noncommissioned officer now working as a U.S. Army civilian. In his spare time, he also is one of the hosts of “The Science Fiction Show,” a weekly podcast about everything science fiction that has been downloaded more than 10,000 times since May 2011, according to Houin. The show is an outlet for Houin and his fellow hosts Jason Tudor and Michael Wistock, to share their passion for science fiction in film, television, books and other things. It also has become a way for Houin to share his love of science fiction, public relations, and charity.

Keith and his co-hosts, all Air Force veterans, have released a compilation of sci-fi stories in a book called "Battlespace" to raise money for the Warrior Cry Music Project charity.

"Choosing the right charity was a must," Houin said. "We wanted to donate the money from the book to the right cause, and helping wounded veterans was first on our mind. The Warrior Cry Music Project was high on our list, and we're excited to be able to do something with these folks."

The Warrior Cry Music Project helps wounded warriors in the Washington, D.C., area by donating musical instruments and lessons in a form of music therapy.

Houin said 100 percent of the profits from the book, which can be ordered online as a paperback or e-book, will be donated to Warrior Cry. The first donation is scheduled to be made tomorrow, according to podcast’s Facebook fan page.

"This has been a lot of fun to create and a lot of fun to read,” said Wistock, one of Houin’s co-hosts. “I hope the people that pick up this book will enjoy it as much as we have."

"Jason Tudor was the real workhorse behind putting all the material together, and without his talent this project may have never gotten completed," Houin added. Tudor is a Defense Department public affairs officer at the Marshall Center in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Airman Missing in Action from WWII Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Emil T. Wasilewski of Chicago will be buried on June 26 at Arlington National Cemetery.  On Sept. 13, 1944, Wasilewski and eight other crew members were on a B-17G Flying Fortress that crashed near Neustaedt-on-the-Werra, Germany.  Only one of the crewmen is known to have successfully parachuted out of the aircraft before it crashed.  The remaining eight crewmen were buried by German forces in a cemetery in Neustaedt. 

Following the war, U.S. Army Graves Registration personnel attempted to recover the remains of the eight men, but were only able to move the remains of one man to a U.S. military cemetery in Holland.  In 1953, with access to eastern Germany restricted by the Soviet Union, the remains of the seven remaining unaccounted-for crewmen -- including Wasilewski --were declared non-recoverable.  

In 1991, a German national who was digging a grave in the cemetery in Neustaedt discovered a metal U.S. military identification tag and notified officials.  German burial law restricted further site investigation until 2007, when the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) surveyed the area.  In 2008, the site was excavated and the team recovered human remains and military equipment.

Scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, including dental comparisons and Y-chromosome DNA -- which matched that of Wasilewski’s nephew -- in the identification of his remains.

At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans.  Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted for from the conflict.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1420.

Face of Defense: Berlin ‘Candy Bomber’ Receives Honor

By Air Force Airman 1st Class Tom Brading

Joint Base Charleston

WASHINGTON, June 18, 2012 – Retired Air Force Col. Gail Halvorsen’s legacy is built on chocolate, bubble gum and hope.

The military leadership here renamed the base’s C-17 aircrew training building after Halvorsen during a June 15 dedication ceremony in honor of the legendary “Berlin Candy Bomber.”

In 1948, the Soviet Union placed the German city of Berlin in a tight blockade, cutting the city off from the West. World War II had concluded a few years before, and its aftermath had left Berlin in ruins. Allied bombings during the war had reduced the city’s buildings to large, thin fingers pointing toward the sky. The streets, once filled with busy urban life, were left littered with debris. Berlin’s people were scared, homeless and hungry.

The United States and its allies quickly devised and launched an airlift to get supplies to the city’s stricken populace.

In those days, a hungry German boy might have cried for help, and the sound of his voice may have echoed faintly into silence, as if no one could hear his plea. But then, through the darkness of clouds and smoke, a tiny parachute attached to a candy bar might fall softly to the ground at the boy’s feet as a subtle reminder that somebody knew he was in trouble and that somebody cared.

That somebody was then-Air Force Lt. Gail Halvorsen, forever referred to as “The Candy Bomber” in Germany for his actions during the 1948 Berlin Airlift, known as “Operation Vittles.” The airlift helped to end the Soviet blockade.

Halvorsen’s simple act of kindness gave hope back to the children of a war-torn Germany.

“When I first flew over Berlin, I could look through the buildings,” Halvorsen said. “I didn’t understand how 2 million people could have lived there.”

Halvorsen dropped candy from his C-54 aircraft for the German children below. His kindness inspired other crews to do the same. Halvorsen, along with more than 20 other candy bombers, dropped more than 3 million pounds of chocolate, gum and other candies for the German children.

“Colonel Halvorsen is, in large part, a symbol of hope and kindness for an entire nation,” Air Force Col. Erik Hansen, commander of the 437th Airlift Wing, said during the building dedication ceremony. “His greatest accomplishment was found, not only from his extraordinary aviation skill, but also from his compassion.”

Halvorsen’s compassion sparked a flame of inspiration throughout Berlin. The inspiration eventually caught on with American children, who made their own parachutes and donated candy for the German children.

“Halvorsen’s kindness provides the ‘why’ to what we do day in and day out as an airlift wing,” Hansen said. “His inspiration played a major role in saving Berlin and proved the concept of airlift as a strategic tool during the Cold War years and beyond.”

Although Halvorsen is an Air Force legend, he remains humble and wishes for the training building to be a reminder of those who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom.

“There are 31 American heroes and 39 British heroes of the Berlin Airlift,” Halvorsen said during the building dedication ceremony. “And I’m not one of them. Today’s dedication is not mine; the dedication is for those that gave their all for the cause of freedom. So, I’m not here for myself. I’m here to represent them.”

Halvorsen also spoke about the importance of heritage to America’s future generations.

“It’s important young people know their heritage and why they have freedoms and blessings that others are denied,” Halvorsen said. “The United States is dedicated to freedom today, like our forefathers were yesterday.”

According to Halvorsen, those freedoms are provided, in large part, by the U.S. military’s humanitarian missions of yesterday and today.

“It is easy to measure the military and diplomatic success through the vital supplies flown into Berlin,” Hansen said. “The statistics are clearly impressive and directly responsible for the eventual collapse of the Soviet blockade in Berlin. What can’t be measured is the hope, delivered symbolically by Colonel Halvorsen, and his impact on the global struggle for freedom.”

Today, at age 92, Halvorsen said he remains as optimistic about the idea of freedom as ever.

“In man’s search for happiness, sometimes he’ll chase for riches,” Halvorsen said. “But money doesn’t buy happiness. The only real reward you get in life is getting out of yourself and helping others, and that’s worth more than anything money can buy.

“As time goes by, we look in the rear view mirror of the past to learn,” he added. “But, you can’t look in the rear view for too long and wonder ‘What if?’ or else you’ll miss a turn on what you might become. We need to look into the windshield of the future and give hope to the young people of what their life can be.”

Hansen said naming the building after Halvorsen links today’s mission here to the ideals past heroes. “This training building will be an unbreakable link of the hope Colonel Halvorsen and his fellow airmen gave to the people of Berlin and the hope Team Charleston provides to people everywhere around the world today.”

New Malaria Task Forces Will Address Top Africa Killer

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 13, 2012 – Two new task forces being stood up by U.S. Africa Command have set their sights on one of the biggest killers on the continent: the mosquito.

Malaria -- that same affliction that decimated Roman legions, Revolutionary War and Civil War soldiers and was a scourge in the South Pacific during World War II -- continues to plague Africa, particularly the sub-Saharan region. Ninety percent of the world’s malaria-related deaths are reported in Africa, and the disease kills some 600,000 African children each year.

The toll is so devastating that it overshadows Africa’s other medical challenges, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, Army Col. (Dr.) John Andrus, Africom’s deputy surgeon and medical logistics division chief, told American Forces Press Service.

And beyond the pure humanitarian toll, there’s an operational one, too. Last year, during Africom’s World Malaria Day observance, a soldier from an African partner nation told Andrus malaria is one of the biggest concerns among his troops deploying for peacekeeping operations across the continent. “This was a real eye opener to us,” he said.

Africom incorporates malaria prevention into much of its theater engagement, distributing mosquito nets and teaching new diagnostic techniques during training events throughout Africa.

But at the African soldier’s suggestion, Africom went to work to establish regional task forces to help partner nations create a unified front against the problem. The command stood up the East African Malaria Task Force in December with plans to form a similar task force in West Africa by the year’s end, Andrus reported.

The East African task force includes Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Tanzania. The United States is a member, but has no leadership role, Andrus said. “The task force is led by the African partners who are members,” he said.

The task force plans to meet in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in late July to discuss their battle plan for combating the disease, Andrus said. They’re expected to identify ways to encourage self-protection while promoting improved surveillance, diagnosis and treatment.

“This will give them an opportunity to move forward against a very challenging disease in a very positive way,” he said.

Meanwhile, the first meeting of the new West Africa Malaria Task Force is scheduled for November.

Andrus called the task forces an example of the command’s goal of helping African nations confront African problems.

“This is a wonderful example of what it means to work with our partners, assist them in coming up with solutions to their own challenges, and then to be a partner with them as we move toward addressing those challenges,” he said.

Ultimately, this supports the concept of “stability through health,” Andrus said. Helping partner nations protect their military forces against disease supports the bigger goal of establishing professional militaries that are trusted by their populations and able to respond to crises, he explained.

It also builds confidence within partner-nation militaries that they will be taken care of when they are called on to carry out their missions, he said. “If they can deploy forward, knowing that they are able to receive the health care they need, it gives them confidence they need to be able to perform in a way that promotes stability on the continent,” he said.

While helping partner nations confront malaria, Africom also ensures U.S. service members who deploy to Africa are protected, Andrus said.

The Kelley Health Clinic here recently celebrated its one-year anniversary as a one-stop shop for Africom members traveling to the continent. It provides health screenings, immunizations, malaria prophylaxis and mosquito repellents.

"The first step is to get to know who you're fighting," said Lt. Col. (Dr.) Steven Baty, a veterinary epidemiologist for Public Health Command Region -- Europe. “If we can identify the mosquitoes in the area that are going to carry malaria, then we can look at prevention programs.”

Because Africom personnel often travel in small groups to the continent, officials recognize the importance of keeping them healthy.

“Each person is critical," said Army Lt. Col Jose Nunez, chief of the command’s health protection branch. “If you have one person go down, that person can't do his or her job.”

(Jan Wesner Childs of U.S. Africa Command headquarters contributed to this article.)