I just received the notes while I was working on my Asian e-mails, so it was easier for me to be able to finish up and start on this. I’d really like to get everything to you on time, and I am going to try to do better. 
If you would like to read the notes, you will find them here. Have a great weekend, and thank you for all that you do.
Guard, Reserve Get Top Marks from NATO Commander
Marine Gen. James L. Jones, commander of the European Command (EUCOM) and NATO supreme Allied commander for Europe, told the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves yesterday that the Guard and Reserves fill critical roles in the EUCOM’s headquarters and in operations around the world.
“Reserve-component forces are ever-present across EUCOM’s 92-country area of responsibilities,” he said at the Capitol Hill hearing. “The many skill sets and capabilities resident in the Guard and Reserves are of significant importance to the success of our theater security cooperation programs.”
Every day, about 4,500 Guard and Reserve troops serve in EUCOM’s region, performing missions such as command and control, airlift, airborne tankers, engineering, force protection, special operations and intelligence. In addition, members of the reserve components make up more than 10 percent of the uniformed personnel of the EUCOM headquarters, he said.
EUCOM is a major hub for troops and equipment deploying forward to U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, General Jones said. Guard and Reserve members are managing logistics requirements, flying airlift missions and operating on airfields to keep the flow of personnel and materials moving forward, he said.
General Jones particularly noted the tremendous analytical skills reservists bring to theater intelligence. More than 560 Reserve and Guard members support EUCOM’s joint intelligence operations center, intelligence mission operations center and the joint analysis center.
Reserve-component members at the joint analysis center produce more than 30 percent of the intelligence products in support of operations throughout the command, he said.
Fuel Prices Prompt Efficiency Exploration at DoD
John J. Young Jr., director of defense research and engineering, said Wednesday that the Defense Department is exploring ways to make weapons systems and facilities more fuel efficient and less vulnerable to market fluctuations.
DoD is the United States’ biggest energy consumer, using more than 300 million barrels of oil every day. At those levels, a $10-a-barrel price hike puts a $1.3 billion dent in the defense budget and the funds appropriated to support the fighting force.
“When oil goes up $10 a barrel, there’s a billion dollars in things we don’t get to do [for] the war fighter,” Mr. Young said.
But heavy dependence on oil has other repercussions for the military, too, he said. The United States imports 58 percent of its oil, so there’s no solid guarantee that it will always have access to the energy it needs.
A major goal in DoD’s energy program “is making sure we have multiple options in a changing marketplace for assured access to the energy that is required for the military to provide the nations security,” he said.
For deployed troops, oil dependence boils down to a basic vulnerability, Mr. Young said. The more fuel they need, the more convoys they need to put on the road to deliver it, and the more frequently they expose themselves to improvised explosive devices and other threats.
About three-quarters of DoD’s oil consumption goes toward keeping the military on the move: its aircraft conducting sorties, ships patrolling the seas and its wheeled and tracked vehicles patrolling Afghanistan and Iraq.
Military Personnel Can Become Rich through Proper lanning
Speaking and gesturing like a fired-up preacher selling salvation, Kelvin Boston is known for telling television audiences how they can realize their dreams of financial stability – or even become rich
“Everyone can become a millionaire,” said the host of PBS’ Moneywise program to 200 military and family members attending a Sept. 30 Defense Department-sponsored financial management seminar at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The catch, he said, is that most people don’t practice the necessary fiscal discipline and planning to achieve millionaire status.
People in bill-paying and credit trouble should seek out a financial counselor immediately to help them rectify their financial situation, he said.
Military members are fortunate, he noted, in that they can get such financial advice free of charge from trained counselors on their bases.
Most people make more than enough money over their lifetimes to realize financial stability if they manage their money properly, he said.
Accumulating unnecessary debt, with accompanying large interest payments, is the biggest threat to that, however.
Mr. Boston advised the audience to formulate a credit card debt elimination plan as quickly as possible.
He also encouraged putting money back each payday – it accumulates over time.
“The real issue is who is setting the economic policies in your house,” Mr. Boston said, and “finding the courage” to employ budgeting and other money management tools to become financially stable, or even, “the millionaire next door.”
Congressman to Receive Truman Award Oct. 10
NGAUS will present Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, the 2006 Harry S. Truman Award at a luncheon and reception hosted by the association and the Missouri National Guard Association at The National Guard Memorial Tuesday (Oct. 10).
The Truman Award, authorized by the NGAUS board of directors in 1968, is the highest recognition conferred upon an individual by the association. Recipients have made sustained contributions of exceptional and far-reaching magnitude to the defense and security of the United States in a manner worthy of recognition at the national level.
Although a single deed or action may be considered as qualification for this award if it is sufficient magnitude and significance, weight should be given to sustained contributions to the Guard and national defense
NGAUS elected officials, board of director members, state associations and adjutants general may submit written nominations for the award each year to the NGAUS president. The nomination letter should contain clear and detailed statement of the nature and magnitude of the nominated individual’s contributions to an improved defense posture.
NGAUS History
With the help of NGAUS, the National Defense Act of 1933 made the National Guard an Army component at all times, not just during war.
The act established that each member belonged simultaneously to his state Guard and the federal reserve force.
NGAUS worked long and hard to maintain the strength and readiness of the Guard in its dual role, but the United States withdrew into isolationism, and funding was cut as the nation slipped into the Great Depression. However, the looming onset of war in Europe would lead to the rebuilding of the nation’s military.
This Week in Guard History
Oct. 6, 1918: After several days of intense fighting along a 20-mile front in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France, Allied attacks stopped to consolidate gains, rest troops and allow replacements to catch up. Phase Two, which included eight Guard divisions, began Oct. 5.
When a battalion from the non-Guard 77th Division became lost in a wooded area ahead of the American lines, several observation aircraft were sent to locate and rescue it. In the plane that found the “Lost Battalion” was 1st Lt. Erwin Bleckley, a Kansas Guardsman who volunteered for aviation duty as a rear observer and gunner. After reporting the unit’s location, Lieutenant Bleckley’s aircraft made two low-level supply drops to get food and medical supplies to the beleaguered troops. During its second pass his aircraft was hit by enemy ground fire and crashed killing the lieutenant and his pilot.
For showing the “highest possible contempt of personal danger, devotion to duty, courage and valor” Lieutenant Bleckley received the Medal of Honor, the first Guard aviator so honored.
Darfur in grave danger, says Annan
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday Darfur was close to a catastrophe, as the United States sought to rebuke Sudan for trying to scare off potential U.N. troop contributors.
Annan, in his monthly report on Sudan’s vast Darfur region, said violence, rape and insecurity were on the rise, despite a peace agreement between the government and one rebel group.
“The region is again on the brink of a catastrophic situation,” he wrote.
Fighting among armed rebels, militia and bandits has continued, despite the Khartoum government’s decision to send more troops to Darfur. Khartoum has refused a U.N. takeover of the cash-strapped and struggling African Union force in Darfur.
“Unless security improves, the world is facing the prospect of having to drastically curtail an acutely needed humanitarian operation,” Annan said.
The United States demanded that the Security Council respond to Sudan’s warning that any nation pledging U.N. troops for Darfur was committing a “hostile act” and a “prelude to an invasion.”
The warning came in an unsigned letter on Thursday from Sudan’s U.N. mission to dozens of countries, many of whom attended a meeting on September 25 on potential pledges of troops to a U.N. force in Darfur.
“In the absence of Sudan’s consent to the deployment of U.N. troops, any volunteering to provide peacekeeping troops to Darfur will be considered as a hostile act, a prelude to an invasion of a member country of the U.N,” the letter said.
In response, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton circulated a draft statement, obtained by Reuters, that Security Council members will consider on Friday.
U.S. ‘deplores’ Sudan letter.
It says the council “deplores” the Sudan mission’s attempt “to intimidate potential troop-contributing countries volunteering forces for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur.”
“This aggressive gesture by Sudan directed at fellow member states challenges the will of the Security Council,” which has authorized up to 22,500 troops and police for Darfur, and “is unacceptable behavior by a member state of the United Nations.”
Bolton noted that the diplomatic note was inconsistent with a polite letter Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir wrote to Annan this week welcoming U.N. logistics and other support to the AU mission in Darfur.
The AU’s under-financed 7,000 troops and monitors have been unable to stop the violence that has driven 2.5 million people from their homes and left at least 200,000 dead since 2003.
For the Security Council to adopt Bolton’s statement, agreement is needed from all 15 members and Qatar, the only Arab delegation on the council, has consistently backed Khartoum.
Greece’s U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, said he had also received the letter. “For me what is important is how we find a solution to save lives. That is the most important thing,” Vassilakis said.
Asked if the letter was a threat to attack any U.N. soldier in Darfur, he said, “Before they do, they will think twice.”
The U.N. peacekeeping department on September 25 organized a meeting to discuss troops for any future force in Darfur so the world body could move into Darfur as soon as Sudan agreed.
At the moment, the world body is trying to reinforce the African troops by sending 100 personnel to run communications and other equipment as a prelude to a U.N. operation.
Some diplomats as well as Jan Pronk, the top U.N. envoy in Sudan, have suggested that countries should push for a prolonged and beefed up African Union force.
But so far the Security Council and top U.N. officials have rejected this plan.
Written by CNN.
BAGHDAD – Coalition forces detained a former driver and personal assistant of Abu Ayyub al-Masri along with 31 others during a series of 11 raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq activities in the Baghdad area Sept. 28.
This is the second close associate of Abu Ayyub al-Masri captured in September, also believed to have been one of his personal drivers. Intelligence indicates his participation in the 2005 bombings of the Sheraton and the Al Hamra hotels in Baghdad that killed a total of 16 people and injured 65 others.
Three days after this operation, the Iraqi government released a video of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the al-Qaida in Iraq leader, instructing terrorists on how to build vehicle borne improvised explosive devices from the inside of a tanker truck. Intelligence indicates the suspected terrorist captured was working directly for Abu Ayyub al-Masri when the video was created.
Coalition forces identified and detained the suspected terrorist without incident. Testimony from the Abu Ayyub al-Masri associate detained in Baghdad Sept. 12 led to the capture of this suspected terrorist. Coalition forces recovered multiple weapons to include several IED-ready mortar rounds and other munitions during the raids.Operations by Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to contribute to the disorganization and disruption of al-Qaida in Iraq.
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