America Supports You: Summit Participants Motivated to Thank Troops

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2006 - Clutching a camo-clad teddy bear named "Hero" that she received from a soldier in Iraq, fifth-grader Bailey Reese stood out among the troop-support organization leaders who gathered at the Pentagon today for the second annual America Supports You Community Group Summit.

America Supports You is a Defense Department program that spotlights and facilitates support for the nation's servicemembers and their families by the American public and the corporate sector.

Representatives from more than 80 of the program's 234 nonprofit grassroots organizations met with DoD officials, coordinated their troop-support functions and shared their stories.

After a hurricane hit her hometown of Niceville, Fla., 10-year old Bailey started "Hero Hugs," an organization that sends care packages to troops.

"We were without power, so we went to one of the checkpoints and (Bailey) saw people snapping at the soldiers and complaining about the lines being too long," said Bailey's mom, Diana Calvert-Reese. "Nobody was telling them 'thank you.' She was really bothered by that, so she made it her mission to see that soldiers were thanked."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who later was presented with an America Supports You poster signed by each of the participating partners, addressed the group. Rumsfeld's comments were followed by feedback sessions which gave the troop-support organization leaders the chance to discuss what they enjoy about the program and what could make it even better next year.

Strengthening the community of support for the nation's men and women in uniform is next year's goal, said Calvin K. Coolidge of Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships and grants to children whose parents have been killed or permanently disabled in combat.

Other ideas mentioned in feedback sessions included reducing shipping costs on items sent to troops abroad, and harnessing new media - such as blogging, virtual forums and chat rooms -- to keep America Supports You partners and their donors connected, said Allison Barber, assistant secretary of defense for internal communications and community outreach. Barber conceived of the America Supports You program, which was launched in November 2004.

Meeting with congressional representatives to explain their programs on Capitol Hill would also be helpful, several participants said.

"We welcome the scrutiny and the honesty and your critique, because it will make a stronger organization," Barber said to the auditorium of America Supports You partners. "We want to know what's on your mind, and we will help facilitate that. ... It's a great use of our time."

Discussion turned to the annual Freedom Walk, an America Supports You initiative designed to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and to honor the nation's veterans, past and present. Freedom Walks took place in all 50 states this year in addition to the national event held in the nation's capital.

"The Freedom Walk is a nice opportunity for people to get together and show our consolidated support for the military," said Linda Davidson, director of OMK, a McLean, Va., nonprofit organization that provides grants for extracurricular activities to children of deployed soldiers. Next year's Freedom Walk will be a good way to show support for military families too, Davidson said.

The annual summit underscores the participants' desire to honor and respect America's servicemembers, Coolidge said.

"Our troops need to know that they are supported by the American people; the America Supports You program helps them get that message, wherever they are," he said.

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Video E-mail Launches for Deployed Soldiers, Families

By Margaret McBride
Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2006 - Soldiers and families can now communicate by video e-mail through the Army Knowledge Online intranet portal. On the first day, more than 3,500 video e-mails were transmitted.

"Thank you, that's all I can say," Pvt. Brenden Teetsell of the 44th Signal Battalion e-mailed on Dec. 6. "Thank you for allowing me to see my family. Your technology helps boost not only my morale, but thousands of soldiers a day."

AKO video messaging allows all deployed active-duty, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers to create video messages on a computer with a Web cam. The message is then stored on a server and sent to the recipient via a link.
Upon opening an e-mail, the user clicks on the link to get streaming video and sound. The video-streaming software allows a soldier to hear and view video e-mail even in limited bandwidth environments, but the link can be accessed any time from anywhere.

Instructions are on a link on their AKO home page. Soldiers must follow the same Defense Department security measures used for standard e-mail and are not allowed to use Web cams in secure areas.

Families with an AKO account can send video e-mails from home with a personal computer and a Web cam. They can also use Web cams in many of the yellow-ribbon rooms on military bases. Military bases in deployed locations typically have Web cams available at cyber cafes, officials said.

"Families no longer need to coordinate times to ensure everyone is available to see each other," said Gary L. Winkler, director for governance, acquisition and knowledge in the Army Chief Information Office, who initiated the project.

"This will help geographically separated families stay closer during deployment, and we also expect other benefits from this capability as users become more familiar and comfortable with it," he said.

In the future, Army video e-mail applications could also be used for distance learning and training, recruiting and telemedicine, officials said.

(Margaret McBride serves with the Office of the Army Chief Information Officer.)
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New Evaluation Brigade to Test Emerging Warfighter Technologies

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

FORT BLISS, Texas, Dec. 12, 2006 - A new brigade here will test some of the most revolutionary concepts and systems being developed for future warfighters, report how they operate under field conditions, and ultimately speed their fielding to troops on the battlefield.

The new Evaluation Brigade Combat Team being stood up here will test 18 major systems being developed for the Army's Future Combat Systems program, explained Col. Michael Wadsworth, chief of training and leader development for the Future Force Integration Directorate here.

"This is the most ambitious and far-reaching modernization the Army has had since World War II," he said.

The program's goal, Wadsworth explained, is to tap into the most advanced technologies possible "to enable soldiers and leaders to see the enemy first and understand his intentions.

"And once we understand what the enemy is going to do," he added, "we can act first and finish decisively, which is the whole notion of the Future Combat System."

The FCS will offer soldiers detailed battlefield information, provided through an advanced data and communications network to give them the upper hand in combat. By knowing what the enemy is up to, FCS-equipped brigade combat teams will be able "to act first on their own initiative to defeat the enemy on terms favorable to us," Wadsworth said.

The Future Force Integration Directorate is establishing a blueprint for that future force as it stands up the new Evaluation Brigade Combat Team and uses it as an operational test bed for new systems. Within the next six months, the brigade team is expected to reach its full strength of just under 1,000 troops.

"Basically, we're standing up an organization to inform the Army if (the FCS program) is doing what we think it will do," Wadsworth said.

As the evaluation brigade, the Future Force Integration Directorate is developing the doctrine, organizational structure, training programs, and tactics, techniques and procedures it will need to operate. Like the systems the brigade is testing, this groundwork will be tweaked along the way to ensure it's on target, Wadsworth said.

"We'll hand the brigade the concepts, get feedback and move forward," he said. "The beauty of this is that we'll have actual soldiers on the ground with the equipment, and these soldiers will advise us as we move this concept forward."

The Evaluation BCT will use a mixture of live training, experimentation and simulation to test systems ranging from sensors to automated systems to manned vehicles over the next 10 to 12 years. Testing will be conducted, both here and at neighboring White Sands Missile Range, N.M., through four "spinouts" that will enable the Army to build the new technology over time, Wadsworth said.

During Spinout 1, in fiscal 2008, the evaluation brigade will evaluate five new systems. These include the Intelligent Munitions System; the Tactical Unmanned Ground Sensor, which detects and reports on ground movement; the Urban Unmanned Ground Sensor, which detects motion inside a building; the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System, nicknamed "rockets in a box"; and a battle command surrogate.

The second spinout, in 2010, will test a series of unmanned aerial vehicles. Spinout 3 will test six varieties of unmanned ground vehicles. The final spinout will evaluate eight kinds of manned ground vehicles that operate from a common platform, as well as the network.

The network is evolving incrementally, with additional sensors added to it with each spinout, Wadsworth explained. The goal is a fully capable, fully equipped Future Combat System brigade combat team supported by a state-of-the-art network in 2014.

But the Army doesn't intend to wait until then to get some of the best new technologies being developed to warfighters in the field, Wadsworth said. Some, including unmanned aerial vehicles that can be carried in a backpack and small unmanned ground vehicles that can carry sensors into buildings, caves and other dangerous spots, are already in limited use in the combat theater.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, emphasized the importance of the Future Combat System, and of getting its capabilities into the operational force as quickly as possible, in October during his keynote address at the Association of the U.S. Army convention in Washington.

"The goal is to enable the soldiers to see first, understand first, act first and finish decisively," Schoomaker said. "I want there to be no doubt that we are totally committed to fielding the future force, enabled by the FCS."
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Police, Soldiers Respond to Explosions Near Baghdad Mosques

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2006 - Iraqi police responded to several explosions at both Sunni and Shiite mosques in Baghdad today.

A car bomb exploded across the street from the Kamalia mosque, a Shiite mosque in the New Baghdad section of eastern Baghdad, around 9:45 a.m.

Forces from 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division, supported by coalition forces, were on the scene for support. U.S. soldiers from 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, were also called for support to conduct a damage assessment on the mosque, U.S. officials said.

Later in the day, U.S. soldiers from 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, responded after hearing an explosion at the al-Samouri mosque, a Sunni mosque in the eastern part of the city, not far from the Kamalia mosque. The soldiers had been conducting operations nearby. The patrol confirmed that two car bombs detonated in the street.

The unit assisted the Iraqi police in securing the area and reported that the explosions did not damage the mosque.

Elsewhere today, coalition forces detained six suspected terrorists and seized a weapons cache near Tikrit while seeking a terrorist associated with al Qaeda in Iraq. Intelligence reports also indicated that insurgents were producing improvised explosive devices in the targeted area.

When ground forces searched the targeted building, they discovered a weapons cache consisting of machine guns, pistols, rocket-propelled-grenade boosters, and a sniper-rifle scope. The forces also found the equivalent of more than $200,000 in Iraqi dinar and more than $160,000 in U.S. currency.

In other news from Iraq, an Iraqi army patrol accompanied by coalition forces discovered three vehicle bombs in the Mansour district of western Baghdad yesterday. Soldiers of 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, teamed with U.S. soldiers from 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, were searching a building when they found one car bomb and two motorcycle bombs. They also discovered additional vehicle-bomb-making materials and five rifles. An explosive ordnance disposal team disabled the bombs.

A day earlier, Iraqi troops from 2nd Battalion, 6th Iraqi Army Division, arrested five suspected terrorists for criminal activity near a pharmacy college in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Rusafa on Dec. 11. The Iraqi unit was sent out to investigate a report of the kidnapping of several university students. During the patrol, the soldiers spotted and detained five men engaged in illegal activity at the university.

The men were armed with pistols and ammunition. The men also had fake university police badges. The detainees said they were university police, but were spotted carrying weapons, and the car they were using had civilian license plates.

Also on Dec. 11, an Iraqi National Police sentry destroyed a suicide car bomb as it attempted to enter the police barracks in Baghdad's Jazar neighborhood. Brig. Gen. Ghazwan Sharif Abd-al-Hamid, the national police commander in the area, said a blue van approached the entrance to the barracks during the morning attack and failed to stop when the sentry signaled it to do so. The sentry fired into the speeding van, which ran into two parked police vehicles and exploded.

Six policemen were injured and two police vehicles destroyed in the attack. Officials estimated ¬that the van contained more than 300 pounds of explosives.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational Force Iraq news releases.)

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Bush: U.S. Will Stand by Iraqi Government

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2006 - Discussions on Iraq between President Bush and military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon today were "candid and fruitful," Bush said after the meeting.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, his successor Robert M. Gates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney in "the Tank," the room where the Joint Chiefs routinely meet. The men discussed a new way forward that will help the Iraqi government confront and manage problems within Iraq.

"We all agree it is in our nation's interest that we help (the Iraqi) government succeed," Bush told media members after the meeting. "We recognize there are enemies that would like to topple this young democracy so they could have safe haven from which to plot and plan attacks against moderate nations in the Middle East, as well as attacks against the United States."

Bush said the violence in Iraq has been horrific and that he is saddened by the loss of every life to this violence. U.S. personnel are paying the price, he noted, especially in Anbar province and Baghdad. "Our commanders report that the enemy has also suffered," Bush added. "Effective operations by Iraqi and coalition forces against terrorists, insurgents and death squad leaders have yielded positive results. In the months of October, November and the first week of December, we have killed or captured 5,900 of the enemy."

The enemy is far from defeated, the president said, but he stressed that the Iraqi government and coalition forces are taking the fight to the enemy.

In the midst of the strategic review the administration is undertaking, military operations are still taking place day and night in Iraq, the president said.

Bush also shared his thoughts on U.S. servicemembers. "The men and women in uniform are always on my mind," he said. "I am proud of them; I appreciate their sacrifices; and I want them to know that I am focused on developing a strategy that will help them achieve their mission."

He said troops pay attention the debate at home over the mission in Iraq. "They hear I am meeting with the Pentagon or the State Department or outside officials," the president said. "(They hear that) my national security team and I are working closely with Iraqi leaders, and they wonder what that means.

"It means that I am listening to a lot of advice to develop a strategy to help you succeed," he said.

Bush reiterated that he will tell the country what his changed strategy will be after due deliberation and that he wants Gates to have time to contribute to the discussion. Gates is scheduled to take office Dec. 18.

The United States remains committed to a strategic goal of a free Iraq that is democratic, and that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself, and be a strong ally in the war against radicals and extremists, Bush said.

"The troops deserve the solid commitment of the commander in chief and our political leaders and the American people," he said. "You have my unshakeable commitment in this important fight to help secure the peace for the long term."

Bush pledged to work with the new Congress to forge greater bipartisan consensus. "I will continue to speak about your bravery, your commitment and the sacrifices of your families to the American people," he said, in a message directly to the troops. "We're not going to give up. The stakes are too high and the consequences too grave to turn Iraq over to extremists who want to do harm to the American people."

Military members present at the meeting were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Peter Pace, Vice Chairman Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, and Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway.

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