Thursday, December 06, 2007

Navy's Medical Support Vital to Operations, Surgeon General Says

By Sgt. Sara Moore, USA
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 6, 2007 - Throughout the Middle East, the
U.S. Navy provides vital medical support to U.S. troops serving in the war on terror, the Navy surgeon general said today during a visit to the region. Navy Vice Adm. Adam M. Robinson Jr. spoke to online journalists and "bloggers" from Iraq, where he was midway into a trip touring medical facilities in the region. Robinson has visited U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, in Bahrain; Camp Arifjan, Kuwait; and Camp Buehring, Kuwait, which is 50 miles from the Iraqi border.

In Camp Arifijan, Robinson visited the 44-bed U.S.
Military Hospital Kuwait, staffed by Expeditionary Medical Facility Kuwait, which includes about 370 Navy medical personnel from 30 different health care facilities. Medical professionals there provide care to the 20,000 coalition forces in Kuwait using modular shelters that are set up in less than 48 hours.

"By providing world-class medical care to the
U.S. Army Central and the 1st Sustainment Command, which has command and control of logistics in the entire (U.S. Central Command area of responsibility), Expeditionary Medical Facility Kuwait is playing a vital role in supplying and sustaining combat operations," Robinson said.

In Camp Arifjan, Robinson said his staff also toured the warrior transition mall, which is offered to all
Navy individual augmentees returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. The warrior transition mall gives sailors three to five days to acclimate out of combat operations and decompress, he said. Multidisciplinary teams of health professionals, including mental health professionals and chaplains, screen the troops for any operational stress issues that may be confronted as they return home.

Camp Buehring serves as the last training and staging base for tens of thousands of Iraqi-bound troops, and Expeditionary Medical Facility Kuwait provides primary care to about 10,000 soldiers there, Robinson said.

This weekend, Robinson and his staff are flying to Landstuhl, Germany, to observe the medical system and the casualty evacuation system, he said. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center can accommodate 75 seriously wounded servicemembers airlifted from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and is just a part of the continuum of care for those wounded in combat, he said.

"Combat casualty care is a continuum of care, which begins with the corpsmen in the field, alongside whatever warrior is there. In this instance, corpsmen are always with our Marines," Robinson said. "It progresses to forward resuscitative care units, which are in theater, and it culminates in care provided through en-route care of our patients as they're evacuated to the rear and our
military hospitals."

Robinson said the
Navy has plenty of medical professionals to treat combat veterans. The service's challenge is to properly screen troops for physical or mental problems and make sure they get treatment they need, he said.

Foreign Area Officers Help Bridge Cultural Divides

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 6, 2007 - A cadre of
military officers with special foreign language training and cultural expertise are helping the Defense Department and U.S. military bridge gaps between American allies and local foreign populations. More than 1,400 foreign area officers, or FAOs, possess a vital foreign language, regional expertise and cultural awareness that are integral to the Defense Department's warfighting capability, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Plans said at the Pentagon today.

"Foreign area officers are an extraordinary group of people who have in-depth knowledge of cultures, of regions of the world and languages of the world, sometimes the more difficult and strategic languages, who play an incredibly important part in our ability to communicate and work with other countries," said Gail H. McGinn.

Strategic languages identified by the Defense Department include Arabic, spoken by an estimated 206 million as a mother tongue, and 246 million as a second language; Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's primary languages; and Chinese dialects.

FAOs work in the Pentagon on the joint staff, service staffs, and with the defense agencies as regional desk officers, planners and policy officers. They also work at combatant commands and U.S. embassies around the world, advising commanders on a region's cultural aspects and geopolitical issues, and enhance
military-to-military relations.

U.S. Africa Command, which is slated to become fully operational next October, will benefit greatly by having FAOs in place from the start, McGinn said.

"Those foreign area officers will know parts of Africa, they will know some of the languages of Africa, they will be able to be in the African community, talking with the leaders and advising," she said, noting that other Combatant Commands have requested additional FAOs.

McGinn -- who has a language background in French, German and Danish -- said the Defense Language Institute is establishing a broad curriculum to address the steady demand for trained linguists across the globe. She noted that that by 2012, some 1,000 officers are expected to join the ranks of FAOs.

McGinn said the Defense Department and all
military service branches established standards for FAOs several years ago. Officers seeking to become FAOs first must successfully perform their military specialty, speak a strategic or dominant language in their area of concentration, possess a graduate level education that focuses on their region of expertise and have experience and in-country training in the countries and region of their specialty.

"The personal touch of (FAOs) being able to understand and communicate in the language of the country you are situated in is a sign of respect for the country, and a sign that the United States is aware of the fact that we need to be able to communicate and operate in other places," McGinn said. "It isn't all about us being Americans and (speaking) English."

FAOs are "key links" in building coalition partnership in regions across the world, McGinn said. "It is our corps of individuals who have professional foreign language capability, ... (who are) our ambassadors, they can help us with alliances, they can help us understand parts of the world we find ourselves in," she said.

Language has the unique ability to connect U.S. operators with people of other countries, McGinn said.

"To be able to communicate with the people, to understand what they're saying, to understand what they're thinking, to understand what they're habits are and the correct way to interact with people ... is incredibly important," she said.

Marine Missing From Korean War is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Pfc. Donald M. Walker,
U.S. Marine Corps, of Springfield, Ky. He will be buried Dec. 7 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

Walker was assigned to the Service Company, 1st Service Battalion, of the 1st Marine Division deployed near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. On Nov. 27, 1950, three Communist Chinese divisions launched an attack on the
Marine positions. Over the next several days, U.S. forces staged a fighting withdrawal to the south, first to Hagaru-ri, then Koto-ri, and eventually to defensive positions at Hungnam. Walker died on Dec. 7, 1950, as a result of enemy action near Koto-ri. He was buried by fellow Marines in a temporary United Nations military cemetery in Hungnam, which fell to the North Koreans in December 1950. His identity was later verified from a fingerprint taken at the time of the burial.

During Operation Glory in 1954, the North Korean government repatriated the remains of 2,944 U.S. soldiers and Marines. Included in this repatriation were remains associated with Walker's burial. The staff at the
U.S. Army Mortuary in Kokura, Japan, however, cited suspected discrepancies between the biological profile from the remains and Walker's physical characteristics. The remains were among 416 from Operation Glory subsequently buried as "unknowns" in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl) in Hawaii.

In April 2007, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command exhumed remains from The Punchbowl believed to be those of Walker. Although the remains did not yield usable
DNA data, a reevaluation of the skeletal and dental remains led to Walker's identification.

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) 699-1169.

U.S., China Agree to Strengthen Military Relations

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 5, 2007 - The United States-Peoples' Republic of China annual defense consultative talks ended yesterday with the two nations agreeing to increase
military-to-military ties, Pentagon officials said today. Defense spokesman Bryan Whitman said the delegations -- led by Eric S. Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, and Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, the People's Liberation Army's deputy chief of general staff for foreign affairs -- discussed U.S.-Chinese defense relations, regional and global defense issues and a "proposed dialogue on nuclear policy, strategy and programs."

The annual talks came a month after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited China and spoke to Chinese
leaders about better communications to enhance mutual understanding between the nations.

The talks also came after Chinese
leaders refused to allow the USS Kitty Hawk carrier battle group to make a port visit to Hong Kong over Thanksgiving. Whitman said the port call incident came up as part of discussions on the importance of improving overall military-to-military relations. "I've talked about this for some time," Whitman told reporters. "The United States has expressed its concern and its disappointment over this, and we have moved beyond it."

Representatives from U.S.
Strategic Command and China's 2nd Artillery Corps attended the talks to provide expertise on nuclear issues. "This led to a good, worthwhile discussion on a future dialogue on nuclear policy, strategy and programs," Whitman said.

U.S. officials brought up the issue of Iran and followed up on the proposal to implement a defense telephone link between Washington and Beijing, "with a goal of completing that in early 2008," Whitman said.

Both sides agreed to plus up defense exchanges between the nations, including increased interactions between mid-level and junior officers and increased exchanges between
military educational institutions. The two sides also agreed to cooperate more closely on opening Chinese archives to U.S. researchers seeking information on Americans missing in action in U.S. wars in Asia, Whitman said.

"Overall, we expressed our efforts to move forward with our defense relations with China and to promote a constructive and cooperative relationship," Whitman said.

Edelman and Ma agreed the two sides would continue the discussions at the Defense Policy Coordination talks in February.

Top Marine Explains Cut in Purchase of Mine-resistant Vehicles

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 5, 2007 - Improved conditions in Iraq and a desire to remain a light, mobile force caused the
Marine Corps cut its order for mine-resistant, ambush–protected vehicles, a decision that included careful assessment of its effect on safety of deployed forces, the commandant of the Marine Corps said here today. The Marine Corps has asked the Joint Requirement Oversight Council to cut the number of MRAP vehicles earmarked for the service from 3,600 to 2,300.

The safety of Marines and sailors in Iraq was paramount in planners' minds when making the decision, the commandant emphasized. "I am absolutely comfortable that no
Marine or sailor will experience additional risk in Iraq as a result of the recommendation," he said.

The need to keep the
Marine Corps light was part of the reasoning, he said. The vehicles weigh 48,000 pounds each, and the sealift and airlift needed for them would be excessive, he added.

Another part of the decision to reduce the
Marine Corps' MRAP order has to do with changes in conditions in Iraq, Conway said.

The September 2006 decision to replace every up-armored Humvee in Iraq with an MRAP was "absolutely the right thing to do" at the time, Conway said. "It's a moral imperative to protect our people as soon as we can, as soon as we can get those vehicles built," he said. At the time, the insurgency was at its height, and improvised explosive devices were pandemic in Iraq.

"What's happened since September of 2006 has been absolutely amazing by most counts," he said. The surge and the so-called "Anbar Awakening" have cut the number and lethality of attacks against the coalition.

"We have not lost nearly the numbers of vehicles that we were experiencing, because attacks have gone down dramatically," he said.

Also, the heavy vehicles cannot handle some of the off-road work that needs to be done and cannot navigate some of the narrower confines in many parts of Iraq. "So what we found is that (commanders are) mixing their convoys and their patrols with some MRAPs, maybe as route clearance, but also with some ... 7-ton vehicles and also with some up-armored Humvees," the commandant said. "So, that mix has also driven down our requirement."

Conway said cutting the Marines' MRAP order may speed up purchase of the vehicles for the Army.

The Marines still have a use for the smallest variant of the vehicle as an engineer combat vehicle, even in an expeditionary environment, Conway said. The service has tried for 20 years to develop an engineer combat vehicle, he noted. The MRAP could fill that bill with 360-degree protection and its V-shaped hull, which directs shrapnel away from riders.

"It can wage into a fight and protect those young men and women, in some cases, deliver them to whatever the obstacle is and in some cases even breach it," Conway said. "So we're going to have to develop that vehicle to its fullest, I think, as an engineer and (explosive ordnance disposal) combat vehicle."

Conway said the change in the
Marine Corps' MRAP order will not adversely affect industry. The service checked that the companies building the vehicles "hadn't laid in such quantities of steel and tires and transmissions that they were going to be left holding ... an expensive bag," he said. "So we're comfortable that our timing was pretty good and that no one is really being injured in the process."