Vol 2001, Issue 10

There Is No Substitute For Victory

Taps and Infirmary

November Calendar

Legislative Update

President's Page

Special points of interest:

THE TOTAH CHAPTER NEWSLETTER

An affiliate of The Retired Officers Association

Volume 2001, Issue 10

	In This Issue:

	There Is No Substitute For Victory
	Taps and Infirmary
	November Calendar
	Legislative Update
	President's Page

	The membership will hold elections for officer and directors during the Nov 16 meeting
	The General Membership Meeting will be held at the Best Western Inn beginning at 6:30 P.M.

By John McCain, a Republican Senator form Arizona

[From the Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2001.]

War is a miserable business. The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted, economies are damaged. Strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that will be lost when war claims its wages from us. Shed a tear, and then get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly as we can, and as ruthlessly as we must.

Complete Destruction

There is no avoiding the war we are in today, any more than we could have avoided world war after our fleet was bombed at Pearl Harbor. America is under attack by a depraved, malevolent force that opposes our every interest and hates every value we hold dear. We must expect and prepare for our enemies to strike us again. As in all wars we must endure before we prevail. Only the complete destruction of international terrorism and the regimes that sponsor it will spare America from further attack.

AH-64 In The Mirror As the president has explained, this war will have many components. But American military power is the most important part. When it is brought to bear in great and terrible measure it is a thing to strike terror in the heart of anyone who opposes it. No mountain is big enough, no cave deep enough to hide from the full fury of American power. Yet our enemies harbor doubts that America will use force with a firm determination to achieve our ends, that we will use all force necessary to achieve unconditional victory. We need to persuade them otherwise, immediately.

Fighting this war in half measures will only give our enemies time and opportunity to strike us again. We must change permanently the mindset of terrorists and those parts of Islamic populations who believe the terrorist conceit that they will prevail because America has not the stomach to wage a relentless, long-term, and, at times, ruthless war to destroy them. We cannot fight this war from the air alone. We cannot fight it without casualties. And we cannot fight it without risking unintended damage to humanitarian and political interests.

The United States is not waging war against a religion or a race. For too long our enemies have been allowed, even by America's purported friends in the region, to sow their hatred of us throughout the Islamic world. Should the conduct of our war incidentally help inflame that hatred it may indeed increase the threat to regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere whose stability is a strategic interest of the United States. But that threat will be infinitely greater should we fail in our mission or delay victory by one day longer than necessary.

We must reject appeals to suspend military operations to accommodate the religious practices of affected populations. Fighting during Ramadan is no more a war against Islam than fighting during Hanukkah and Christmas is a war against Judaism and Christianity. Nor should we agree to a cease-fire to feed starving Afghans. It wouldn't work anyway. The Taliban have no interest in feeding their people. Their only aim is to prevent our victory, and only our victory will alleviate the suffering of innocent Afghans.

It is clear that to destroy bin Laden and his associates we will first need to destroy the regime that protects them. To achieve that end, we cannot allow the Taliban safe refuge among the civilian population. We must destroy them, wherever they hide. That will surely increase the terrible danger facing noncombatants, a regrettable but necessary fact of war. But it will also shorten the days they must suffer war's cruel reality.

Nor should we delay or shrink from helping those Afghans committed to the destruction of our enemies. The Northern Alliance wants to destroy the Taliban regime. So do we. That is reason enough to give them all the air support and other assistance they need to take Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul and any other Taliban territory they can conquer just as quickly as possible.

We have been sparing in the amount of ordnance we have dropped on the Taliban front lines. We have not yet employed B-2s and B-52s, the most destructive weapons in our airborne arsenal, against them. We shouldn't fight this war in increments. The Taliban and their terrorist allies are indeed tough fighters. They'll need to experience a more impressive display of American firepower before they contemplate surrender.

Munitions dumps and air defenses are necessary targets. But so are the Taliban soldiers. Those soldiers and their commanders will not become dispirited, abandon the regime, and become intelligence assets in our war against terrorists until a great many of their comrades have been killed by the United States armed forces.

The president of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has been our good and steadfast ally in a war that would, if unsuccessful, threaten his regime. Pakistan has a legitimate interest in who rules its chronically unstable eastern neighbor. But al Qaeda and time, not the violence of our campaign, nor the ups and downs of Afghan politics, are the greater threats to our friend's interests and to ours. Keeping our priorities straight will serve all our interests best.

We have a great many interests in the world that were, until September 11, of the first order of magnitude, and the central occupation of American statesmen. No longer. Now we have only one primary occupation, and that is to vanquish international terrorism. Not reduce it. Not change its operations. Not temporarily subdue it. But vanquish it. It is a difficult and demanding task that will affect many other important interests, favorably in the long run, but in short run, in some instances, unfavorably. That cannot be helped, and we should not make victory on the battlefield more difficult to achieve so that our diplomacy is easier to conduct.

Destroy Our Enemies

We did not cause this war. Our enemies did, and they are to blame for the deprivations and difficulties it occasions. They are to blame for the loss of innocent life. They are to blame for the geopolitical problems confronting our friends and us. We can help repair the damage of war. But to do so, we must destroy the people who started it.

Veterans of war live forever with the memory of war's merciless nature, of the awful things that had to be done by their hand. They did not recoil from their terrible duty because they knew that the freedom they defended was worth dying and killing for.

War is a miserable business. Let's get on with it.

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By Al Garcia

Taps�Major Nesbit Karl Maluf, USAF (Ret.) died on October 27, 2001 at the San Juan Regional Hospital. He was born on September 4, 1922 in San Diego, Cuba. He was raised and educated in the state of Texas. Served in W.W.II, and was very active in the Masonic movement. He and his wife, Mary, had been members of the Chapter for about six years. A funeral service was held on October 30, at the First United Methodist Church. Interment will take place on November 7, 2001, 2:00 P.M. at Memory Gardens Cemetery. VFW Post 614 and 2182 will conduct military honors.

Infirmary�Colonel Charles Keller had an accidental fall on the evening of October 16. He suffered a broken hip. Surgery took place the next day and he spend a few days at SJRMC. He is presently at the Rehabilitation Center for physical therapy. He appreciates visits.

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By Steve White

This is TROA�s legislative update for Friday, November 2, 2001

Issue 1: Final Push on Concurrent Receipt. Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) will hold a joint press conference on Monday, November 5 to announce a final push for concurrent receipt legislation.

Issue 2: Administration Opposes Key Retiree Initiatives. The Department of Defense has sent a message to House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders, formally objecting to concurrent receipt and health care choice proposals in the FY2002 Defense Authorization Bill.

Issue 3: Special Disability Pay Delayed for Some Retirees. A Department of Defense legal ruling means that some members retired from service for disability reasons also may have to apply for a VA disability rating in order to receive a newly authorized $100-300 per month special compensation for severely disabled retirees.

Issue 1: Final Push on Concurrent Receipt

Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-FL) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) will hold a joint press conference on Monday, November 5 to announce a final push for concurrent receipt legislation. The Senate version of the FY2002 Defense Authorization Bill would allow disabled retirees with 20 or more years of service to keep their retired pay as well as any VA disability compensation, as of Oct. 1, 2002. The House version would do the same but only if the President includes funding in next year�s budget. As indicated in the next item below, that is unlikely to happen.

Legislators have expressed overwhelming support (84% of House members; 74% of Senators) for Bilirakis� H.R. 303 and Reid�s S.170 concurrent receipt bills. But House leadership has hesitated at the $2.9 billion annual cost.

A final push by veterans and military associations and grassroots activists could be the difference in winning this important initiative.

You can help by:

*E-mailing your legislators via the �Action Alert� link on TROA�s Web site at http://capwiz.com/TROA/home/

*Using TROA�s toll-free line to Capitol Hill (1-877-762-8762) to call your legislators� offices to give them the following message:

�I urge my representative and senators to work to ensure the final Defense Authorization Bill retains the Senate proposal to end the disability offset to military retired pay. Disabled retirees shouldn�t have to fund their own disability compensation from their earned retired pay. 74% of senators and 84% of representatives have cosponsored corrective legislation. But expressions of support don�t help unless legislators actually make it happen.�

Issue 2: Administration Opposes Key Retiree Initiatives

As the House/Senate conference to decide final action on the FY2002 Defense Authorization Act was getting underway, the Department of Defense sent Armed Services Committee leaders a letter formally objecting to the Senate�s proposal to end the disability offset to military retired pay and to a House proposal that would prohibit the Administration from forcing military retirees to choose between using military or veterans health care programs.

We�re disappointed but not surprised at this turn of events, since the Administration has made no secret of its opposition to any change in the law that requires disabled retirees to forfeit a dollar of their earned retired pay for each dollar received in VA disability compensation.

Earlier this year, the President�s budget included a proposal to compel military retirees who are eligible for both military and VA care to give up one or the other. The Senate bill has no similar measure.

The DoD letter claimed that eliminating the disability offset would �allow retired military personnel to receive multiple payments for their military service�. DoD argues that Congress only intended that �military retirees with service-connected disabilities should receive no less than a veteran with disabilities who is not a retired member. This interaction allows a retiree to choose the larger of the two entitlements, provided he/she waives military retired pay on a dollar-for-dollar basis.�

In essence, DoD asserts the two compensations are substitutable. This refuses to recognize any fundamental right to receive retired pay earned by decades of service if a retiree has the misfortune to become disabled, or that the government owes anything additional (beyond a modest tax

break) to a retiree who also becomes disabled from a service-connected cause. We cannot agree, and Congress shouldn�t either.

As for the health care initiative, TROA and The Military Coalition strongly denounced the administration�s spring budget proposal to force military retirees to opt out of either DoD (TRICARE) or VA care.

Partially as a result of that campaign, the leadership of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees wrote Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (DoD) and Secretary Tony Prinicipi (DVA) opposing implementation of forced choice. The Administration maintains that forcing retirees to choose would �provide for better cost accounting when budgeting for that population�s health care costs.�

TROA disagrees strongly. If DoD and DVA are having budgeting problems, it�s their responsibility to work them out through better planning and programming rather than forcing benefit cuts on the backs of the beneficiaries who have earned and need access to the unique care options for each system. A retiree willing to drive 100 miles to the VA for special prosthetic or spinal injury care shouldn�t have to do that every time he gets sick, and shouldn�t be forced to give up that needed special care in order to use TRICARE to see a local doctor for routine care.

Issue 3: Ruling Delays Special Disability Pay for Some Retirees

A provision in last year�s (FY 2001) defense authorization act extends eligibility for a $100 to $300 monthly �special compensation� for members who served 20 or more years and were medically retired with a 70%

disability or higher, effective October 1, 2001. But a recent Defense

Department legal ruling that such members also must have a current VA disability rating to qualify for the special compensation will delay payments for some of the new eligibles.

The problem is that some members who receive high disability ratings from their parent service don�t apply to the VA for disability compensation, since their retired pay (which would be reduced by any amount of VA disability compensation under current law) already is not subject to income tax. For these members to receive the special compensation they are entitled to, they will have to be notified of the problem, apply to the VA, and wait several months or longer for determination of the VA rating. In the meantime, they will not receive the special compensation Congress authorized to begin on Oct. 1, 2001. If the VA makes the rating reTROActive, as often happens, qualifying members would get reTROActive special compensation.

TROA has alerted the House and Senate Armed Services Committee staffs of the problem in hopes of inserting corrective language in the currently pending defense bill, but there is no certainty that will be possible.

House and Senate conferee negotiations to work out the final design of the NDAA continue next week.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to TROA�s legislative update, send a request to legis-update@TROA.org (Provide your TROA membership number if you are a member, OR, your full name and full mailing address including city, state and zip code with a note stating NON-member if you are not a TROA member.

Without this information we CANNOT process your request.) Any requests received after Tuesday will not be processed until the following week.

If you have questions regarding the update, please address them to legis@TROA.org

Copyright � 2001, The Retired Officers Association (TROA), all rights reserved. Part or all of this message may be retransmitted for information purposes, but may not be used for any commercial purpose or in any commercial product, posted on a Web site, or used in any non-TROA publication (other than that of a TROA affiliate, or a member of The Military Coalition) without the written permission of TROA. All retransmissions, postings, and publications of this message must include this notice.

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6
Election Day

11
Veterans Day

12 Veterans Day (Observed)

22
Thanksgiving Day

By Al Garcia

The members present at the last general membership meeting, October 16, voted unanimously to accept the recommendations of the Scholarship Committee to invest our TROA Chapter of the Year award ($1000.00) at the San Juan College Scholarship Foundation. Bill Hall, spokesman for the Committee, made a presentation explaining how the program operates. It was decided that we will go ahead and draw up the necessary documents to establish the account and get started. This is being done before the next general membership meeting, November 16.

We are embarking on a very worthwhile project which should provide a vehicle for us to unite as a Chapter. One of our goals is to aid the JROTC program. This is helping the youth of the community prepare for future careers; hopefully some will chose the military. Creating a scholarship fund, then working to make it grow will allow us to help academically deserving students acquire college degrees. This aspect will take a few years to come to fruition but we can do it.

We all need to commend Steve and Eileen White who offered to make an excellent donation to the creation of the Totah Chapter Scholarship Fund. We are all eligible to follow their lead. Donations made to the Fund are income tax deductible. We plan to go out into the community and solicit donations from businesses and folks willing to invest in helping our youth.

This endeavor is a good one. I ask your support. I am not asking you to donate money, that's your decision. But we need to be united in our verbal support of the project. Can I count on each of you to consider that this is something we need to do?

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