Senate to Vote on Flag Burning Ban
By Bobby Eberle
Talon News
July 22, 2004
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- A joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to prohibit physical desecration of the U.S. flag was passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday by a vote of 11-7. Republicans expect to bring it to a vote in the full Senate before the summer recess.

The resolution was introduced in 2003 by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and states, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

"I think we really have an opportunity to get the 67 votes necessary to pass the constitutional amendment," Hatch told the Deseret News.

The resolution has 56 Senate cosponsors and follows closely on the heels of a failed attempt by Republicans to pass a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. That effort failed when Democrats successfully filibustered and prevented Republicans from bringing the issue to a vote.

"I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Flag Protection Amendment, because I firmly believe that the flag occupies a unique place in our nation and deserves constitutional recognition as such," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

Mentioning the role the flag plays in every military ceremony, Cornyn said, "The United States flag is more than a piece of cloth. Moreover, the flag plays a unique role in honoring the men and women of the Armed Forces who died for those ideas."

"This amendment gives Congress the right to do what it was able to do back in 1989. It offers a way to return the nation's flag to the protected status it deserves," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told reporters on Tuesday.

Sen. John Edwards, presumed Democratic vice presidential nominee, voted against passing the resolution out of committee. He was absent from the Senate and voted by proxy.

The resolution enjoys support on both sides of the aisle but opponents say that there will not be enough support in the full Senate for it to pass this year.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) said, "Thankfully, they do not have the votes to pass it on the floor so this becomes something of a political exercise in an election year."

"The Constitution is being misused for partisan purposes," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
Such charges brought a sharp response from Hatch.
"I do particularly resent the comments that this is just a political exercise because there are a lot of sincere people who believe that a constitutional amendment is the only way to redeem this situation," Hatch said. "And it is bipartisan."

An amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate. It must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states before it can become part of the Constitution.

The amendment also faces opposition outside of Congress.
Dennis Archer, president of the American Bar Association, was quoted in the Denver Post as saying, "We are engaged again in debating a constitutional amendment banning the physical desecration of the flag -- an amendment that, if it were to succeed, would restrict freedom of speech, and for the first time in our country's political history revise the Constitution to limit, not expand, the liberties that are the fabric of what it means to be an American."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the flag was a protected right of free speech in 1989 and in 1990 overturned a law passed by Congress to protect the flag.

Before the '89 Supreme Court decision 48 states had laws to protect the flag with a federal law being passed in 1967.
Since then Congress has debated the issue nearly every year with the Senate falling short by only 4 votes in 2000.
The House has repeatedly passed flag protection legislation only to see it fall short in the Senate. Most recently an amendment to protect the flag passed the House in 2003 on a vote of 300 to 125.

State legislatures from all 50 states have passed resolutions requesting that Congress pass an amendment to the Constitution so that they may vote on ratification.

The Flag Protection Amendment is supported by Citizens Flag Alliance, the American Legion, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, AMVETS, the Knights of Columbus, the Alliance of Women Veterans, and numerous other groups.

The Senate resolution is S.J. Res. 4.
Posted July 22, 2004
$45,000 raised for phone calling cards for National Guardsmen
the reporter staff
"Operation Airtime," a project to get telephone calling cards to members of the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 32nd Military Police Company, will not end with the return of the 32nd to Wisconsin this week.

The American Legion, American Legion Auxiliary and Sons of the American Legion raised more than $45,000 after word was received that the 32nd could not connect with family and friends from remote locations in Iraq. Special phones and phone cards were needed for the task.

Unused funds will be transferred to other units from Wisconsin needing similar assistance.
The 264th Engineers, one 128th Infantry Battalion and the 139th Public Affairs Detachment are listed as Wisconsin units serving overseas.

Persons wishing to contribute to the Wisconsin American Legion family's efforts may do so by sending donations to Project Airtime, P.O. Box 388, Portage, Wis. 53901.

More information is available by contacting the Wisconsin American Legion headquarters at 1-608-745-1090.
The 32nd Military Police served more than 16 months on active duty, with 14 months service in Iraq.
The entire company is scheduled to return today to Volk Field Air National Guard base. The company will return without soldier Michelle Witmer of New Berlin, the first female soldier killed in action in Wisconsin National Guard history.

Donations are also being accepted for the 32nd Military Police and may be sent to 32nd MP Co., Family Support Group, 17125 CW Bluemound Road, Brookfield, WI 53005.

Suggested donations include free hotel stays, bottle of wine, merchant coupons, movie tickets, cigars, chocolates, cookies, candy, cheese, gift bags or baskets or monetary donations.

Budding politician ready to represent Kentucky
EHS senior to portray senator at Boys Nation
By JOHN FRIEDLEIN
Johnathon Boles might one day be governor.
Like most budding politicians, the Elizabethtown High School senior must start small and learn the system.
Next week will be a good opportunity for just that. Starting Friday, Boles will represent Kentucky in a mock Senate in Washington, D.C., which is part of the American Legion Boys Nation program.

At a recent state gathering, legionaries picked Boles and a Florence boy out of a group of 93 to serve as senators. They based their decision on qualities such as character, scholarship, leadership, service to schools and loyalty, according to a press release.

Boles sees next week as an opportunity to see how government really works - "not so much what's portrayed on TV," he said.

Once they arrive in Washington, the boys will have a caucus, elect officials and then divide into committees and decide on legislation.

Boles will propose a bill about affirmative action. "I'm trying to make it more equal," he said. For instance, financially struggling students can get help to attend college regardless of race.

Also, Boles hopes to meet President Bush, who has spoken at the American Legion event the past three years. "I'd thank him for all the hard work he has done," Boles said. "He works for the American people."

In addition to politics, the boys will take in sights, such as national landmarks, and listen to speakers including the director of the Peace Corps and a Holocaust survivor.

American Legion Post 113 in Elizabethtown will sponsor Boles' trip.
During the American Legion Boys State at Morehead last month, Boles headed the Federalist Party during a mock legislative session, but he lost a bid to be state auditor. He ended up with a Senate seat and was elected clerk. During the session, he passed a resolution to name a street near Towne Mall the Hardin County Veterans Highway. Coincidentally, Elizabethtown City Council recently approved the name Veterans Way for that stretch of road.

He also wrote a local politician about the value of a downtown history museum before one was built.
Boles seems destined for public service. "His whole background pointed toward something like this," said his dad, Charles, about the trip.

Boles is president of his school's student council and president of the Interact Club, a community service group the Rotary Club sponsors.

Boles, who teaches American citizenship to Boy Scouts at Camp Crooked Creek in Bullitt County, became an Eagle Scout two years ago.

He plans to attend Western Kentucky University, where he will study political science and social studies. After that, he plans to teach at Elizabethtown High School before he begins politicking. This will include a run for state representative and state senator before his gubernatorial bid, he says.

Boles is a member of the Hardin County Teenage Republicans, a group that started at his school this year. He got a taste of party politics election night when he hung out at headquarters. "Very exciting stuff," he said.

washingtonpost.com
Army IG Found No 'Pattern' to Detainee Abuse
By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 22, 2004; 3:20 PM
An Army investigation has concluded that the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq was the result of individual acts of indiscipline, not of any systemic problem or flawed policy.

Lt. Gen. Paul T. Mikolashek, the Army's inspector general, told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that while his review of 94 confirmed cases of abuse found some "shortcomings and flaws," particularly in Army training of military police, overall there was no sign of a "pattern" of abuse that would suggest "any systemic failure."

Nor, he testified, did he find any major failure of Army doctrine concerning detention and interrogation.
Mikolashek's report, ordered up after reports of detainee abuse surfaced last spring from Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, was released today.

The Army's long-awaited conclusions supported statements by President Bush and top military officials, who have said the acts of mistreatment of prisoners were aberrations rather than the product of any policy, implicit or explicit, or of a culture in the Army.

But the conclusions were at odds with a report presented to the military last spring by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Red Cross suggested that there was indeed a pattern in the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners, who were made to strip naked, perform humiliating sexual acts and were threatened by dogs on leashes, among other things. Abu Ghraib, the inspector general said, was "the most egregious" of the abuses studied.

Mikolashek said his findings were based on interviews with 630 members of the Army at all levels at bases in the United States and at detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said his investigators also looked at written reports of ongoing criminal cases stemming from abuse, but did not interview the people involved in those cases.

Since October 2001, he said, the Army had detained a total of 50,000 people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As of June, he testified, there had been 125 cases of alleged abuse -- defined as "wrongful death, assault, sexual assault or theft" -- of which 94 had been confirmed. That number was higher by three than figures previously reported.

Of those 94, he said, 45 occurred at the "point of capture," 19 at detainee "collection points" throughout battlefield areas and 21 at detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib. The location of another nine cases had not been determined, he said.

Of the total confirmed cases, Mikolashek said, about half involved "some element of physical abuse," while others involved theft or other infractions.

All the cases, Mikolashek said, were the result of "actions by a soldier or soldiers who failed to maintain self-discipline or failed to follow procedure," or of failures of officers to maintain proper oversight.

Generally, Mikolashek said, "our soldiers and leaders do understand the requirement" to treat detainees humanely, "and they do." They are also aware that they are to report abuses, he said, "and they do."

Where abuse occurred, he testified, "it was the result of an individual failure of discipline or compounded by the actions or failure of actions of a leader at the tactical level to enforce those standards of discipline, provide the right kind of oversight and supervision."

Contrary to some outside critiques of the abuse and to the claims of defense lawyers for the soldiers charged in the seven courts martial produced by the Abu Ghraib investigation , Mikolashek said he found no "direct relationship" between techniques of interrogation and abuse.

But, he said, "the cases we looked at were outside the confines of interrogation."
Scouting jetliners for new attacks

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.
At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.

"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said.
Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.
"It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said.
A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.
The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent.
"I've never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid," said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women's Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight.
The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said.
One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms.
Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found.
"The FAMS never broke their cover, but monitored" the activity, Mr. Adams said. "Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice."
A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling "ready-to-build" bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms.
On many overseas flights, airlines have issued rules prohibiting loitering near the lavatory.
"After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together and eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified," Mrs. Jacobsen said.
"One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves ... one of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down."
In an interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mrs. Jacobsen said she was surprised to learn afterward that flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the situation that happened on her flight.
"I absolutely empathize with the flight attendants. They are acting with no clear protocol," she said.
Other passengers were distraught and one woman was even crying as the events unfolded.
The plane was met by officials from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Federal Air Marshal Service and Transportation Security Administration. The Syrians, who were traveling on one-way tickets, were taken into custody.
The men, who were not on terrorist watch lists, were released, although their information and fingerprints were added to a database. The group had been hired as musicians to play at a casino, and the booking, hotel accommodations and return flight to New York from Long Beach, Calif., also checked out, Mr. Adams said.
"We don't know if it was a dry run, that's why we are working together with intelligence and investigative agencies to help protect the homeland," he said.
Mrs. Jacobsen, however, is skeptical the 14 passengers were innocent musicians.
"If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?" she asked in the article.
The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen's experience was "terribly alike" what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight.
He said there is "widespread knowledge" among crew members these probes are taking place.
A Middle Eastern passenger attempted to videotape out the window as the plane taxied on takeoff and, when told by a flight attendant it was not permitted, "gave her a mean look and stopped taping," said a written report of the San Juan incident by a flight attendant.
The group of six men sat near one another, pretended to be strangers, but after careful observation from flight attendants, it was apparent "all six knew each other," the report said.
"They were very careful when we were in their area to seem separate and pretended to be sleeping, but when we were out of the twilight area, they were watching and communicating," the report said.
The men made several trips to the bathroom and congregated in that area, and were told at least twice by a flight attendant to return to their seats. The suspicious behavior was relayed to airline officials in midflight and additional background checks were conducted.
A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period.
The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side.
The second pilot said terrorists are "absolutely" testing security.
"There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines," the second pilot said.
Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said there is no "central clearinghouse" for them to learn of suspicious incidents, and flight crews are not told how issues are resolved.
She said a flight attendant reported that a passenger was using a telephoto lens to take sequential photos of the cockpit door.
The passenger was stopped, and the incident, which happened two months ago, was reported to officials. But when the attendant checked back last week on the outcome, she was told her report had been lost.
Recent incidents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport have also alarmed flight crews. Earlier this month, a passenger from Syria was taken into custody while carrying anti-American materials and a note suggesting he intended to commit a public suicide.
A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers.
"It's a probe. They are probing us," said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.

U.S. team concludes Navy pilot died in Gulf war

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Members of the U.S. team investigating the fate of Capt. Scott Speicher have concluded that the Navy fighter pilot is dead, according to sources close to the mission.
But his remains have not been found. A promising lead to finally resolving the matter vanished recently when buried remains thought to be Capt. Speicher's turned out not to be of the downed pilot.

The sources said Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, the former director of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), has told officials in recent days that investigators now believe the pilot shot down in 1991 over Iraq is not alive.
The conclusion is based largely on the fact that all leads to Capt. Speicher's whereabouts have turned up no evidence he is alive.
"What I have heard [Gen. Dayton] say is there is no evidence he was ever in captivity," said a senior defense official.
ISG officials now believe Capt. Speicher either died in the crash or shortly thereafter in Iraq's vast western desert, a second official said.
Capt. Speicher's F-18 Hornet was shot down on the first night of Operation Desert Storm on Jan. 17, 1991. The canopy on his crashed jet was photographed some distance from the crash site west of Baghdad, giving rise to hope that he had ejected and was alive.
Later, an Iraqi defector claimed to have seen him alive, prompting the Navy to change his status from killed in action to missing-captured.
But the ISG's investigation since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 has failed to find any evidence he is alive. Two once-promising tips failed to resolve the matter.
In one case, Bedouin tribesmen said they believed Capt. Speicher was buried near the crash site.
"There are Iraqis who believe he died in the desert," said the defense official.
The ISG went to the site and unearthed remains, heightening hopes that the Speicher mystery had finally been solved. The remains were sent to Dover Air Force Base, Del., home to a military mortuary. But a DNA examination determined the body was not Capt. Speicher's, officials say.
In a second lead, a Bedouin claimed to have the pilot's handgun and was willing to turn it in. But the Bedouin never appeared with the gun. Investigators are speculating that the tribesman may have been threatened by Iraqi insurgents or foreign fighters and thus disappeared.
Navy Secretary Gordon England changed Capt. Speicher's status to missing-captured, and would be the official who would decide whether to change it back to killed in action.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is expected to deliver a report on the pilot's status to Mr. England in the coming months, after the ISG files its assessment.
When Mr. England changed the status to "missing-captured" in October 2002, he said in a memo:
"While the information available to me now does not prove definitively that Capt. Speicher is alive and in Iraqi custody, I am personally convinced the Iraqis seized him sometime after his plane went down."
The Washington Times previously reported on a secret DIA written report that cast doubt on the truthfulness of the defector who claimed to have seen Capt. Speicher alive in 1998.
The report refers to defector No. 2314 who had worked in Saddam Hussein's Special Security Organization (SSO), the branch that enforced loyalty to the Ba'ath Party.
Labeled "secret. no foreign," the report states that the military "has debriefed several doctors whom 2314 indicated should have knowledge of Speicher. All denied having any knowledge. Two have passed a polygraph exam. ... None of the information provided by 2314 has proven accurate."
The June 23, 2003, DIA report adds that the military "has searched every known location associated with Speicher. Other than at Hakimiyah prison, where U.S. forces found the initials 'MSS' carved in a cell wall, no significant evidence of his status has been discovered."
The Iraq Survey Group has devoted a number of personnel to the Speicher search. But its main goal is to find out what happened to Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

U.S. troops dying 2 per day since turnover in Iraq
ASSOCIATED PRESS
American troops in Iraq have been dying at a rate of two a day since Iraqis regained political control June 28 - a drop from the deadliest months of violence before the turnover but still about the same rate overall as in the 16 months since the U.S. invasion.

The U.S. military death toll has reached 900, and the number of American service members injured is approaching 6,000.
It is not possible to predict when the casualty count will begin to drop, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday. American troops will be less at risk when Iraq's own security forces become better trained and equipped to fight the insurgency, he said.
Fewer U.S. soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs and mortar attacks since the turnover, according to Pentagon figures. At the same time, at least 10 soldiers and Marines have been killed in vehicle accidents since then, compared with none reported earlier in June.
As of yesterday, 47 American troop deaths - hostile and nonhostile - had been announced in the three weeks since an interim Iraqi government took power. That was a marked increase from the 26 deaths reported in the three weeks before the turnover but less than in May and April.
The death rate since the transfer of authority has been almost exactly two a day, the same as recorded between January and July. The rate over the entire period since the invasion in March last year has been about 1.9 a day.
The worst months have been April 2004 with 135 deaths, November 2003 with 82 and May 2004 with 80.
In addition to the 900 reported killed, another soldier, Spc. Keith M. "Matt" Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, is listed as missing and two Defense Department civilians also have been killed.
There are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Mr. Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, said the insurgency is increasingly focusing its attacks on Iraqis who are cooperating with the American forces.
There are no independent figures on recent Iraqi deaths, but Gen. Myers said 100 Iraqi security officers and civilians have been killed and 250 have been injured since the transition.
A large portion of the American deaths since June 28 have occurred in Anbar province, an expanse of western Iraq that includes the restive cities of Ramadi and Fallujah and a portion of the Syrian border area. At least 17 Marines and four soldiers have died in the province since June 28.

General Criticizes Idea of Larger Army  Spending Money on Permanent Increase in Army Troops Would Hamper Modernizing Efforts, General Says The Associated Press        
 WASHINGTON July 21, 2004 - Spending money on a permanent increase in Army troops would hamper efforts to modernize the service, the Army's top general said Wednesday.  Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker renewed the Pentagon argument that the military can get through the current high level of deployments with temporary increases such as mobilizing more National Guard and Reserve forces and encouraging more soldiers to re-enlist at the end of their duty.
"We are growing the Army as fast as we can grow the Army," he told the House Armed Services Committee. He was speaking at a hearing into Army transformation the effort in recent years to switch from Cold War posture and make the service faster, lighter and more able to quickly deal with today's threats. Against Bush administration wishes, the Senate and House have voted to add tens of thousands of troops to an Army stretched thin when the war on Iraq was launched on top of the global war on terror. The two different bills must still be reconciled. The Senate wants to add 20,000 soldiers and the House 30,000 soldiers and 9,000 Marines to help solve the problem of an extremely high use of reservists as well as repeated and extended deployments for active duty and reserve. Some lawmakers say they've also heard constituent complaints about the use of stop-loss to bolster Army numbers that is, stopping troops losses by keeping in some after they have served their time. Schoomaker said the disagreement is not over whether the Army needs to be bigger, but over how to pay for it and whether "we should encumber ourselves ... in the out years with increased permanent" troop numbers. "If we are encumbered, we end up trading off ... our modernization and transformational capability," he said. Committee member Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif., disagreed after the hearing, saying the stop-loss action and recent call-up of former soldiers in the Individual Ready Reserve "are desperate tactics that will cause difficulties with recruitment and retention." "It is unconscionable that the Pentagon, instead of training additional new troops to replace those in the field, would continue to break promises to those soldiers already deployed, extending their stays time and time again," Tauscher said in a statement, adding it could lead to "a broken military."     
Thursday, July 22, 2004        
Many servicemembers feel alleged deserter Jenkins should be charged

By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, July 22, 2004

SEOUL - Though the subject of a media frenzy in Japan and South Korea, the plight of a former U.S. Army soldier labeled a deserter after spending the past 40 years in North Korea stirs little passion or sympathy among servicemembers in the Pacific.

Charles Jenkins, 64, disappeared during a patrol near the Demilitarized Zone in 1965; the U.S. military says he deserted his post. Family members in the United States say he was kidnapped and brainwashed to stay in North Korea ever since.

On Sunday, the ailing Jenkins arrived in Tokyo with his Japanese wife, who was abducted by North Korea in 1978. His wife was released to Japan two years ago. She was reunited last week with Jenkins in Indonesia, a country with no U.S. extradition treaty. U.S. officials said they are willing to defer prosecuting Jenkins until medical treatment was completed, but will not drop the possibility of charging him as a deserter.

Though the saga has been a nightly feature on Japanese and South Korean news broadcasts, the majority of U.S. servicemembers interviewed Tuesday don't recognize the name or have only a passing familiarity with the case. But for those who have followed the story, opinion is nearly unanimous: Jenkins should be charged, no matter how much time has passed.

"You can't just walk off the line and come back a bunch of years later saying, 'I want to come home now,'" said Sgt. Terri Mills, an 8th Army soldier shopping in the Itaewon district near Yongsan Garrison on Tuesday.

Of the half-dozen soldiers she was with, Mills was the only one who had heard of the case.
"If the military can prove that he's a deserter, then he should face whatever punishment is given to him. I mean, it's sad to see how poor his health is, and I'm sure he regrets some of whatever happened. But you can't start making exceptions for certain cases. You have to treat everyone equally."

At Misawa Air Base in northern Japan, airmen generally were unsympathetic toward Jenkins' plight.
"He should be court-martialed. He left his post. Dereliction of duty," said Senior Airman Jonathan West of the 35th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. "I don't care if he's old."

Tech. Sgt. Sean Murray, also of the 35th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, said Jenkins should be held accountable, but spared a stiff punishment because of his age and ailing health.

"He is a deserter, so I think we still need at least an explanation. You can't just walk off your post and decide I don't want to do this anymore."

Marine Lance Cpl. John Bilanco of Camp Foster, Okinawa, feels that Jenkins is no good to the United States except for intelligence.

"Jenkins is a defector," said Bilanco. "Let's bring this guy to the United States, question him and gather intelligence on North Korea," said Bilanco. "If he does not cooperate with us, let's confine him for the rest of his life to a U.S. jail."

At Yokota Air Base in Japan, some said the complexity of the case makes it hard to determine what's appropriate.
"He's probably too old, too crippled to be punished," said Master Sgt. Robert Martel of the 730th Air Mobility Squadron. "If he did desert, he should do the time. I'm sure that was his concern coming back, and I'm sure he's willing to accept that.

"But we don't know all the facts yet. There are reports saying he was kidnapped. Until we know the facts, I'm not sure what should be done, but all that aside, he's too old to be put in prison. He'll die there. He's ailing, and his kids won't get to see him. What do you do? Is there a middle ground for all of it?"

While Jenkins' failing health is a consideration, some say authorities remain obligated to address the case.
"You can't just forget about him," said Staff Sgt. Alberto Delgado of the 374th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. "If you let him go, it sets a precedent. Then what do you do? Forget about all those who fled to Canada, too?"

Tech. Sgt. Alfred Hough, of the 35th Communications Squadron at Misawa, was in the minority opinion. Hough said that while letting Jenkins go sends a bad message to other would-be deserters, he wonders if there shouldn't be a statute of limitations.

"If he deserted more recently, I'd say pursue it. But hell, how old is he now, 70? To me, it would just be a waste of our time and taxpayer dollars. If you're willing to hide out in another country for 30 some years and change your citizenship, who wants you as an American? Just let him go."

DOD is considering extending active duty for Guard units past two-year limit

By Mark Mazzetti, Los Angeles Times, and staff reports
European edition, Thursday, July 22, 2004
WASHINGTON - In yet another sign of the strains on the U.S. military in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war, the Pentagon for the first time is considering extending the mobilization of National Guard soldiers who will soon hit the federal limit of 24 months of active service, defense officials said Tuesday.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker was asked about the issue during a Wednesday House Armed Services Committee hearing on Army transformation.

Extending the Guard members' tours "is a decision in progress," that will ultimately need approval from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Schoomaker told the questioner, Arkansas Democrat Vic Snyder.

Pressed again by Snyder, Schoomaker quietly consulted with his deputy chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benjamin S. Griffin, and then reiterated, "I'm not aware that a decision has been made."

In a Wednesday news conference, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he has no plans to extend the deployments, but didn't shut the door to the possibility.

"No, we don't plan at the moment to extend people beyond 24 months," Rumsfeld said. "But one should never say never ... . The facts on the ground will determine what we do."

Initially, the decision would affect about 450 soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard who are in Iraq with the 39th Brigade Combat Team. The soldiers, mobilized after Sept. 11 and first sent to the Sinai Peninsula on a peacekeeping rotation, are the first group of National Guard troops to approach the 24-month limit that the Pentagon established days after the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Ultimately, however, waiving the limit in this case might lead to extended deployments for thousands of other reservists and National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan, and provide ammunition to critics in Congress who are pushing the Bush administration to increase the size of the military.

"Every day it seems to be another improvisational attempt to stretch forces that are already stretched very thin," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a former paratrooper with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and an advocate of bolstering the Army's ranks.

But the status of the soldiers, being considered by David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, has not yet been decided, Pentagon officials said.

"This is the first time this has happened; we're breaking new ground here," said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Defense Department spokeswoman.

Doing away with the 24-month limit would be certain to upset many long-serving soldiers and their families, who say they are increasingly bearing the weight of a military stretched beyond its capacity. Over the last year, the conflict in Iraq has forced the Pentagon to keep more than 100,000 soldiers and Marines in the country for months after the Bush administration had expected to draw down the troop presence.

The Pentagon has issued orders preventing military personnel from leaving active duty, extended the tours of thousands of troops when insurgent activity in Iraq crested in the spring, and pulled troops out of South Korea to fill out Iraq rotations.

Last month, the Army was forced to dip into its pool of Individual Ready Reserve soldiers - troops who are not members of a specific Reserve unit but have unexpired obligations to complete their military service - looking for roughly 5,600 to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a memo to top military officials dated Sept. 20, 2001, Chu established the 24-month policy to ensure that deployments abroad would not place an excessive strain on reservists and National Guard troops unaccustomed to a life of active duty.

The 39th Brigade Combat Team - made up of National Guard troops from several states - is a mechanized infantry unit currently based in Taji, about 10 miles north of Baghdad. When the unit went to Iraq in April, commanders were aware that hundreds of its soldiers would hit their 24-month limit while they were deployed there, most beginning in September.

As a result, Brig. Gen. Ronald Chastain, the brigade's commander, filed a request with the Pentagon to extend the soldiers' tours. Chu is considering that waiver request.

Since the 39th Brigade Combat Team entered Iraq, 13 soldiers from the unit have been killed by enemy attacks, said Capt. Kristine Munn, a unit spokeswoman.

Five were killed in a single weekend, four of those when mortar rounds hit the brigade's compound in Taji.
If the Defense Department retains the 24-month limit, those Arkansas National Guard troops whose active-duty commitments are set to expire would be free to return home. They also would have the option of volunteering to remain in Iraq on active duty, defense officials said.

In the corridors of the Pentagon, a major concern is that the tempo of deployments since the Sept. 11 attacks will ultimately take its toll on retention and recruitment both in the active service and the Reserves. Thus far, the Army has been able to meet recruiting goals for the active force, but is falling short of its 2004 target numbers for the National Guard.

There are now more than 131,000 Army National Guard troops and reservists on active duty, in most cases for 15- to 18-month stints.

Yet even as the Pentagon struggles to meet its global commitments, top defense officials repeatedly have said that there is no cause to expand the size of the military, as some lawmakers from both parties have been urging.

"There's folks in the Pentagon who refuse to admit that we're in for a long time in Iraq and Afghanistan," Reed said.
The Senate last month voted overwhelmingly to increase the Army by 20,000 soldiers, and the House voted for a 30,000-troop increase. The White House maintains its opposition to a permanent increase.

States Look for Ways to Support Military Families
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2004 - Big or small, many deployed troops or few, states' concerns for the families of deployed service members are very similar.

Joint hearings with the Senate Personnel and Children and Families subcommittees were held July 21 to determine what state governments are doing in support of the families who face unique challenges because of deployment of a family member.

Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Charles Abell echoed many initiatives discussed during the hearing. "We're busy working every day on programs to assist military families," he said.

DoD is focused on programs that would grant military families in-state tuition based on where they are stationed. There also is a focus on enhancing opportunities for spousal employment to recognize certifications, licenses and qualifications earned in another state and a new initiative to find jobs and rehabilitate disabled veterans. These are only a few of DoD's efforts to support military families that Abell mentioned.

"The key to these programs is communication. We can have the best, most comprehensive programs in the world, but if our military families don't know about them then we really don't have anything," Abell said.

Dissemination of information on the programs is extensive, Abell said, citing Web sites, and print and news media as sources.

Information on "promising practices" is also available on two DoD Web sites. Promising practices identifies programs states have implemented and publishes them so they can be copied or modified for use elsewhere.

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander opened the hearing. "We have learned that several of the important issues families struggle with can be more easily addressed by the states and by the governors and across state lines," Alexander, said, adding that considerable progress has been made.

Through similar hearings, education, child care, health insurance and career support for spouses have been identified as top issues for military families.

"The re-enlistment decision will often be made at the kitchen table," Alexander said. "To continue to attract a talented volunteer force, we must make sure our families' needs are addressed."

Alexander expounded briefly on federal measures taken to protect military families eligible for certain federal benefits like the school lunch program and Head Start. An amendment passed ensures these families don't lose their eligibility when a service member receives extra pay for deployment. TriCare health insurance has been expanded to include activated National Guardsmen and reservists.

Nationally, the National Association of Childcare Referral Services has launched Operation Childcare. More than 5,000 child-care providers have pledged free child care to guardsmen and reservists while they're home on leave.

The two states represented at the hearing, Florida and Indiana, have strikingly different military situations. However, they are tackling issues facing military families in strikingly similar ways. The issues at the state level center on education, spouses' career portability, and financial protection and services.

Continuity in school requirements in state-to-state transitions are helping to make moves easier on school-aged children. Both states offer tuition assistance and reimbursement programs to qualified family members. Both also are taking steps to assist with child care.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said his state has also implemented an endorsement program to allow a spouse with previous certification to seek employment in a more timely fashion. And provisions on financial issues that affect service members have been implemented or are being more strictly enforced.

Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan stressed his state is working on family outreach and readiness. It is also asking for longer lead times to allow families to prepare and for shorter deployments - nine months instead of 12 months. Kernan said that with the necessary training included, some deployments are stretching into 14 months.

Joe March, Director
National Public Relations
The American Legion
(317) 630-1253