-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Soldiers For The Truth Foundation "Our Common Purpose and Balanced Views" TABLE OF CONTENTS SITREP From The President - 23 MAY 2001 Through Zman’s Gun Sight - Vets... Common Heritage and Responsibilities HACK’s Target For The Week - Women At Infantry School – Say It Isn’t So The Big Picture: Article 01 – Iran to Buy Cruise Missiles from Russia Article 02 – Coast Guard Seizes Record 13 Tons of Cocaine Article 03 – Mutant Bacteria Bio-wars Threaten Apocalypse Now Voice of the Troops: Article 04 – Are Hack and Zimm becoming Commie Environmentalists? Article 05 – Yes – Green to Gold Commissioning Program Needs Help! Article 06 – Well trained Soldiers: 1 -- Expensive Toys: 0 Article 07 – The Military and Religious Freedom: Responses Article 08 – On Climate Assessments Article 09 – Setting the Wrong Example... Soldier of the Month Board Article 10 – History Remembered: Dien Bien Phu Article 11 – Military Health Care – The "Systemsuckers" Article 12 – Doctor Disobeyed Lawful Order on Anthrax Vaccine GI Humor: Article 13 – Endangered Species: Made in USA Memorial Day Special: Some Tears For My Brothers Medal of Honor: Article 14 – HOWARD, ROBERT L., Vietnam 1968 SITREP: SITUATION REPORT - 16 MAY 2001 Thanks for the responses to the recent questions. Please let me know if there are topics you’re interested or concerned about that SFTT should cover with a little burst of fire. I think we have a good momentum going and people are taking more notice of the voices of those who make things happen at the ground level. Please keep forwarding the word to your political representatives. Questions of the Week: 1. Tell us about your experiences with promotion and Soldier of the Month boards. 2. The Light armored vehicle remains in the crosshairs of many critics – give us your 10 cents worth. 3. What is the greatest threat to US national security? Support - Admin / Logistics: Help needed: Zimm is still taking applications for the position of assistant editor for Air Force and Space topics. Use of pen name is okay. Your chance to make a difference! Donations: Similar to many non-profit organizations, we have experienced a dip in donations for this quarter. Keep us in the fight and growing. Compare and read the AUSA magazine and check how many sergeants, vets and regular troops get a word in, compared to general officers and field grades. Consider making a secure online donation at: http://www.SFTT.org/donations.html. For Check or Money Order Contributions, make your check payable and mail to: Soldiers For The Truth Foundation Post Office Box 63840 Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3840 SFTT is a 501 (c) 3 Non-Profit Educational Foundation. The SFTT IRS EIN is 31-1592564. All donations to Soldiers For The Truth Foundation are tax deductible. How You Can Help: You can help with your continued financial support - Article Submissions - Forwarding SFTT Signals to your local papers and elected representatives. Sending Letters to the Editor and to Local News Outlets. And always feel free to send the "Truth" to Soldiers For The Truth Foundation (SFTT). Privacy Policy: We respect your privacy and will not compromise your identity, your e-mail address or your duty position. Your confidentiality is guaranteed. SFTT does not sell or give away our mailing list or any membership information. Please contact us for assistance on "Secure Communications Methods". POC on Network Security is "Top Viking" E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Contacts: Send Article Submissions & Information to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Talk to the Boss: If your message is urgent and you think Zimm needs to see it now, fire it directly to the President / Editor in Chief at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SFTT Contact Listing - www.SFTT.org/contacts.html Volunteer Editors: www.SFTT.org/volunteer.html SFTT Team Members: You are our most valuable asset. You are the frontline recruiters, information sources and intel gatherers for Soldiers For The Truth. Keep up the good work. Thank you for your support. Prepare for Action -- "Crew Ready! - LOAD SABOT - DRIVER MOVE OUT!" Ralf W. Zimmermann President / Editor in Chief E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Zman Through Zman’s Gun Sight Despite the Differences Vets have Common Heritage and Responsibilities By Ralf W. (Zimm) Zimmermann President, Soldiers For The Truth Foundation SFTT Dateline USA - 21 May 2001 After twenty years in tank turrets and now writing opinion columns, plus answering hundreds of veterans’ e-mails daily, I have noticed some differences between the generations of vets. It seems many of us "youngsters" are somewhat envious of the WWII experience -- things seemed simpler and more glorious. Despite their total victories, the WWII generation is comparatively realistic when sharing war experiences. Whenever the majority of them talk about war, it’s about close buddies and how they accomplished things as teams, squads and crews. Many of them readily admit that they weren’t all heroes and talk about their fears. A close friend and former Sherman tanker tells me that every Kraut tank in 44/45 rapidly morphed into a feared King Tiger and whenever he visits Peterson Air Base for his occasional shopping trip today, he salutes the an old P47 fighter-bomber on display there. Without them, he wouldn’t be here today. America went through WWII in a team effort, which included not only the men fighting on all fronts, but also the people who produced the overabundance of some of the finest equipment the world had ever seen. Somehow, the sentiments of team and national effort eroded with the notion of limited and politicized war, beginning with Korea. Especially our Nam generation today is still struggling with the fact that they bled in a war started by their fathers’ generation with the elusive objective of stopping communism, wherever it reared its ugly head. Despite the home front opposition, our soldiers who went to Nam, wanted to be like their fathers, believing they were doing the good work against evil. But something went terribly wrong at the highest levels. Conditioned to winning at any cost, despite the Korean stalemate experience, their leaders started "producing" victory by statistics and body counts. If you can’t capture your enemy’s capital, you had to somehow show you were winning. But war isn’t a football game, not everyone was Eisenhower and the home front didn’t care. With the lack of interest at home and the lack of recognition came disappointment and loss of purpose for our military. Instead of conquering heroes like their fathers, the Vietnam generation encountered a more complex world, where good and evil weren’t clear-cut any longer -- the enemy even appeared at home. Decades later, even the drummed-up victory of Desert Storm, perfectly designed to exorcise the Vietnam ghost, couldn’t eradicate identity problems for the follow-on generations of Americans in uniform. We all wanted and still want to be heroes, liked like the WWII soldiers who freed Europe and Japan. The problem is that we can’t find the proper battle grounds or the right people to admire us, just like many commanders in the early eighties in Europe couldn’t fathom that the Germans weren’t constantly thanking us for US protection and liberation from the Nazis. I think many of our ill-feelings and struggles with how our military is perceived is based on our inability to recognize that the world, including our society is constantly changing, maybe too fast and not always for the better. Although it was harder to do your duty in the ill-defined Vietnam scenario than it was to serve in the occupation forces in Europe or the National Guard, every American generation in uniform has borne the cross that has guided the country into the future. WWII and the Normandy invasion won’t return, although I believe that given the circumstances, many young Americans could live up to the expectations of their ancestors, should our freedoms and lives be challenged. We’re living in a complex world that requires different approaches in addition to applying old lessons learned. Possibly, keeping the peace in the right places, to prevent a crisis from turning into Armageddon, is as important as landing in Normandy, although much less glamorous. Despite the winds of change, every generation of Americans in uniform has made a contribution that binds us spiritually as soldiers and veterans, total victory, or elusive victory. Good war, bad war or peacekeeping assignment, all are challenges a great nation must endure to shape its own and the world’s future. Since as vets, we have experienced different aspects of conflict, maybe we need to be more vocal to remind our oftentimes all-knowing political leaders of the lessons of the past, so they make better choices for our kids. The upcoming Memorial Day and Veterans Day 2001 are great opportunities for vets of all ages to rediscover our common bond and acknowledge the realities of what we have accomplished and its impact for the future. © R.W. Zimmermann, LandserUSA [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: This article is copyrighted by the author and requires his approval for other than newsletter further dissemination. HACK HACK’s Target For The Week Defending America Newsletter ___ Women At The Infantry School - Say It Isn’t So By Colonel David Hackworth OK, I confess. I work out three times a week with my wife and a bunch of other women. It's called the Bar Method, and you can sign up and do the drill in both Connecticut and California studios. I'm blowing the whistle on myself because my buddies at "Fox and Friends" were about to out me. Seems Steve and Brian, two young bucks, are a little peeved that I, at 70-plus, can whip them at push-ups. The Bar Method is the toughest fitness course I've struck -- including parachute training, which back in the Brown Shoe Army was four weeks of sheer torture. It's even harder than the routine I set for the Wolfhound Raiders, an elite commando like unit I led during the Korean War. I'm usually the only guy. Lots of strapping studs show up, but they don't stick around long. The strain and pain are just too much for these newbies, who start as alpha males but soon quit, normally after their first class. Makes a fellow ponder who's the superior sex. I wasn't around women soldiers in the Army. In my time, they did the doctoring and paperwork. Never saw a woman where the bullets flew in either Korea or Vietnam. But what this training has given me -- besides being push-up king at "Fox" -- is an even greater respect for women. They're tough and tenacious, with a triple issue of pure grit. Does this new awareness of the courage, strength and tenacity of women mean I'm now into women becoming combat warriors? No way! Matter of fact, I still think putting women in combat is flat nuts. Even doing the Bar Method daily, the average woman wouldn't have the upper-body strength to drag a casualty off a fire-swept field or pack a 100-pound rucksack -- or fly an aircraft that's lost its hydraulics. Imagine if our recon plane that's still hostage in Red China had women pilots flying that broken sucker instead of the two male hulks who look like they'd fit fine in the front line of the Giants! Billy Scott was a brave combat medic in my Hardcore Battalion in Vietnam. But his aid bag was almost as big as he was -- and his mates well knew he didn't have the strength to pull a wounded grunt to safety. Even though Billy had the right stuff, he couldn't cut it in the critical area of soldier trust. Paul Dillon, a rifleman in my platoon in Korea, was about Billy's size. Another liability. We left him behind with the cooks. My seven years of combat experience as an infantryman, from rifleman to squad and platoon leader to company and then battalion CO, screams that combat arms work isn't for women. And my years of covering nine conflicts as a reporter reinforces this view -- especially Desert Storm, where I saw women in all services fail the combat course. A study commissioned by George-the-Elder, then shelved when the Clinton gang put the woman vote over combat readiness, confirms my on-the-scene evaluation. The distraction factor can't be ignored, either. Unless you've been locked up in a prison all your life, you know that young men and women really lose it when they're around each other. If joy-riding civilians distracted one of our sub crews to the point where they sank a Japanese ship off Hawaii, can you imagine the havoc female submariners could cause? If the dozens of 50-year-old generals and admirals who've been fired in the past decade alone couldn't keep their hands off their female subordinates, what can we expect from the younger bloods? The U.S. Army Infantry School in Columbus, Ga. is now experimenting with women lieutenants attending the basic infantry officer course. Will this further lower the standards and be the final nail in the coffin to kill the development of hard charging warrior leaders? The Pentagon is currently determining how to transform the military into a more agile, lethal and stealthy force; a force fit to fight in the 21st century. Before it spends a dime on new wonder gear, it should dust off the Desert Storm study and decide whether the experiment to have our daughters become combat warriors will cost us the next war. David Hackworth's home page is at - http://www.hackworth.com Send mail to P.O. Box 5210, Greenwich, CT 06831. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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