Nothing to BLOG today!

Recieved Another SITT Team Request

Chuck Cobb received a SITT Team request today. We'll process it quickly and quietly and pass the results along.

More TTP and Manual Downloads...I just can't get enough info!!!

I downloaded many more TTPs and Manuals.

Soldiers and Sailor's Act

I downloaded the Soldiers and Sailors act so that I could use it to brief the families at our next drill.

DET 1, HHC, 2nd BATTALION 198th ARMOR - May, 2004 Newsletter

I received the Batesville unit newsletter today. Here it is:



DET 1 , HHC, 2ND BATTALION 198TH ARMOR

MISSISSIPPI ARMY NATIONAL GUARD
POST OFFICE BOX 1508
BATESVILLE, MISSISSIPPI 38606



ATTENTION DET 1 SOLDIERS

REPORT FOR DRILL

0730 JUNE 5TH AND 6TH 2004



MESSAGE FROM SGT. TWILLEY:

Remember to bring all your equipment Saturday June 5th for a 100% inventory. This means everything. If you are not sure whether or not to bring it, then bring it. If you have not turned in your gas mask, be prepared to drill for free.



Prepare for mobilization:

Everyone needs to start preparing for activation. This includes updating your records. Anyone who has gotten married, divorced, moved, birth of children, etc. needs to bring in information to the unit. This means marriage license, divorce decree, birth certificates, etc. Everyone needs to check over their records and make sure they are in order, but there are few folks that we know for sure need certain things:

FLOYD, JOSHUA

Spouse birth certificate

Childs birth certificates (Joshua A Jr.)

BLALOCK, TOMMY

Childs birth certificates (Cortine D Smith., Arren J )

COLE, LELAND

Childs birth certificates (Anthony D.)

CLARK, ROGER

Marriage license

Spouse birth certificate

Childs birth certificates (Garret L., Ashley M.)

BANKS, ROOSEVELT

Spouse birth certificate

Childs birth certificates (Cedric, Nicole)

CHRESTMAN, RICKY

Spouse birth certificate



If your name does not appear above, you still may need to bring in these types of documents to add to your file.



Also everyone needs to bring in your rental and mortgage agreements. This is concerning YOUR money so don’t forget.



Family support group:

We are meeting at 10:00 a.m. on June 5th at the armory to establish the family support group. Mrs. Whitfield, the region 1 family support representative for the state, will be here to help us setup the group. Please attend this meeting if you want to be a part of the family support group.

White House Ignores Critics, Voices Iraq Optimism

I downloaded this newspaper article today:

White House Ignores Critics, Voices Iraq Optimism
Tue May 25, 2004 06:41 PM ET
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration sought on Tuesday to project a unified, optimistic view of its plan to hand over power to an interim government in Iraq, even as President Bush faced criticism over a strategy many find lacking in crucial details.

In a televised speech on Monday, Bush tried to convince Americans he had a workable plan for transforming Iraq from a war-torn occupied nation into a beacon of democratic reform for the whole Middle East region.

His remarks, and a U.N. draft resolution backed by the United States and Britain, quickly came under fire from Democrats, European leaders and the American press barely a month before the June 30 deadline for transferring power to a caretaker Iraqi government.

French President Jacques Chirac, whose country led opposition to the Iraq war, told Bush by telephone the resolution would need to make clear an interim Iraqi government will have a say in the actions of U.S.-led forces to win France's support in the U.N. Security Council.

Bush, who wants U.S. troops to remain under American command as part of a U.N.-authorized multinational force, told reporters during an Oval Office meeting he and the French leader were in broad agreement.

"I had a great conversation with President Chirac. We share the same goal, a free and stable and peaceful Iraq," the Republican president said.

"What President Chirac and others have said is they want to make sure that the transfer of sovereignty to the interim government is a real transfer. And that's what we want."

Iraq has proved a liability for Bush's re-election prospects this November. His job approval ratings are at the lowest point of his presidency and opinion polls show a clear majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation there.

MIXED REACTION TO SPEECH

Analysts saw his speech as an effort to counteract daily news of violence and scandal in Iraq by speaking directly to the American people about the nobler aspects of the mission.

"I think he succeeded in explaining that there's going to be a long protracted mess but that in the end we're doing the right thing," said Tripp Baird, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

But Bush's half-hour speech won few admirers in Iraq, where weary residents are bitter after a year of chaos, and drew a mixed reaction at best in the United States.

White House aides mounted a message-control effort on Tuesday with a series of interviews and administration background briefings on Iraq and likely U.S. relations with the emerging interim government.

"I'm comfortable that arrangements have been worked out between all of the departments of government and we will have a unified approach," Secretary of State Colin Powell told NBC's "Today Show."

Another senior administration official took issue with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's remark that U.S.-led forces in Iraq would need the consent of Iraqi leaders before entering a city like Falluja, where American forces have fought prolonged battles against insurgents.

"Obviously, consent is important. But look, we know how to do this and I really don't think that hypotheticals are very helpful," said the official,

Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, welcomed the one new element in Bush's address -- a U.S. proposal to demolish the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. He dismissed the rest of the speech as a repackaging of old material that included misplaced confidence in the viability of Iraqi security forces.

Susan Rice, an assistant secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton, said Bush's speech suggested his administration did not fully comprehend the security issue.

"The fundamental problem we see at present is security. We don't have sufficient security for elections. We don't have sufficient security for training up even those Iraqi police and military who are willing to work with us," she said.

"If Washington at the political level can't see we have a security problem, I don't know that they're paying close attention."

FedEx Core Team Meeting and Some Info About the 11th ACR

Had an SDR&A Core Team meeting today. Here are the notes:

PPE’s to Anita by today. - I'm Late!

Downloads (all) to be performed by Jerry.

Due Tues - list of all downloads, how and who accomplishes.
Update last report.
Audit NSC Tapes.
Send Madelyn a report documenting this action and enter into TSG.
Tweak TSG to ensure its being used properly.

Notification to Ron Wallace concerning InfoSec - Done

Contractor Release checklist from Ron Wallace - Done

Report for closure on DVX System Report – CC Bob Bryden - Done

Follow up with Chuck regarding COS Expense Report.

Vacation Requests – Done

Schedule a meeting with Joann and Anita regarding the new Interns.

Thursday June 3, 2004 10:00 – Do an orientation.

Server Setup and Maintenance – Jerry – Computer Repair/ Built own computers.

Training System – Jackie – Establish a skill set & communicate to Willie Brooks

(Internet Usage) English Grammar Skills/Graphic Design.

Download Automation – Mamata/Chuck

4th Intern to work with Norma.

What we do, international mission, what we do as a unit.

Travel and Vacation Schedule by the 15th for my and Joann’s Staffs.

Training schedule by mid-June.

Management/Leadership in AMA or LP1 at Express.

Proprietary Information Agreement for Contractors. NDA copies. Call Ariba people. Also call COS mgrs.

An Article Posted Today About the 11th ACR (from Ft. Irwin, CA)
I downloaded a newspaper article about the 11th ACR today. They are deploying with us. Here is the article:

Posted on Mon, May. 24, 2004

A few good men -- and a few more, and …

By Joseph Galloway

Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON - The Army is looking for a lot more than just a few good men, and it needs them in a hurry. Army manpower people are now looking at scraping everything out of the barrel to send to Iraq, because the Army is stretched thin and stressed to the max.

For the first time in recent history, a brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division (Mechanized) is being pulled out of South Korea and shipped off on a one-year rotation to combat duty. It will leave the division with just one combat brigade facing the Demilitarized Zone that divides South Korea from North Korea and Kim Jong Il's million-man army.

The soldiers who were six or eight months into their Korean tour -- itself classed as a one-year unaccompanied hardship tour -- are looking at 12 more months, this time under fire in Iraq.

"It reflects the fact that we are at war," a Pentagon briefer who can only be identified as a "senior military official" told reporters. He added that the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry would be taking some of its M1A2 Abrams tanks and its Bradley fighting vehicles to Iraq as well.

When the Korea brigade moves out, all 10 of the active-duty Army's 10 divisions will be involved in Iraq or Afghanistan. They're either there now or have recently returned and are preparing to go back.

Those who believed that the Iraq war was a spike, not a plateau, and that by now the American forces would be dropping to 110,000 were wrong. The force is going to remain at 135,000 to 138,000 for at least the next 18 months, according to the Department of Defense.

If things get worse -- always a real possibility in Iraq today -- that force may need to be further reinforced and expanded.

Now the Pentagon must find enough troops to take over for those stalwart soldiers of the 1st Armored Division who had finished their year in hell and were on the way to the airport and a ride home when they were turned around and told they'd have to do an additional 90 days.

In addition to the 3,600 troops being pulled out of Korea, Pentagon officials say they've pulled the files of 17,000 Individual Ready Reserve soldiers and are sifting and screening them for those who have crucial specialties. Under present authorization, the Army could be telling as many as 6,500 folks who thought they were home free -- finished with their enlistments and back on civvy street -- that they aren't.

Everyone who signs up for military service owes Uncle Sam a total of eight years. After a four-year, active-duty enlistment, that person still owes four years on the Ready Reserve list. No pay, drills or meetings -- a civilian, more or less. But these people can be called if they're needed. Some 7,000 of them already have been called since Sept. 11, 2001.

Even more surprising is the word out of the Pentagon that there's a plan afoot to shut down the Army's prized National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and to shuffle its vaunted Opposition Force (OpFors), the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, off to real combat.

America's stunning victory in the Persian Gulf War was born in the Mojave Desert around Fort Irwin, where the Army's heavy-tank divisions fought realistic war games against the 11th ACR. It's never been shut down since it was founded in the early 1980s.

Those who skinned the Army back from 12 divisions to 10 in the 1990s, and those who've refused to consider any significant increase in manpower despite the current crisis, bear equal responsibility for the burden they've placed on our soldiers and their families.

The civilians in the Pentagon, the same ones who were so eager to invade Iraq, don't want to restore those two Army divisions, in part because that's what their political nemesis, Secretary of State Colin Powell, recommended as the Army's base force.

We'll say it again: An army is a fragile institution. It can be broken by overwork and a lack of manpower, just as surely as it can be broken by a lack of money and the right equipment. And once broken, it takes a decade to repair and restore an army to greatness.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joseph L. Galloway is senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers. jgalloway@krwashington.com

More Mobilization Preparation Yesterday

These notes are for yesterday, May 22.

1. Made Compact Urban Ops Terrain Model Kit
2. Downloaded a large number of TTP's and Manuals