FROM A YOUNG NAVY LT ABOARD CARL VINSON

The port call to Mayport, FL is delayed, at least. Carl Vinson will remain in the vicinity of Joint Operating Area Haiti (JOA-H) until further notice. I’ll reiterate - not the benign trip around the horn I was expecting. Many now anticipate that we will resume our transit around Valentine’s Day, but that is purely Lieutenant speculation. Later is a possibility. If it were just a matter of fuel and provisions we could stay on scene longer than anybody would care to continue reading my droning comments. The unfortunate truth is that the ship has many other obligations that are most commonly related to scheduled maintenance. Boring as it may seem, the laundry list of work to be completed prior to preparations for a traditional deployment is long, necessary, and right around the corner. Even in light of Haiti, that is not forgotten.

Like most men wearing eagles on their collars, my Captain, a 1982 Naval Academy graduate, is one of those discerning individuals who frequently attacks a situation with three solutions. It’s a bit of a mantra. He likes redundancy in his problem solving. Each evening when I take the bridge with my empty cup of coffee and two apples, task number one is to read the Captain’s night orders. They are bound in a black binder bearing the title of what they are. His hand written passage follows guidance from the Navigator, the status of the ship, and the plan for the day. It is not infrequent that CAPT Bruce Lindsey reminds us to always have a couple of contingency plans. In the night orders he is referring to options with respect to ship handling and the avoidance of precarious situations. That same mentality, however, is how he addresses considerations of how long we should remain, what events are worth sacrificing in order to remain, and what the best course of action is for Carl Vinson. Moreover, he balances those considerations against what is right for American interests and what is necessary to meet the mission in Haiti. Time, succinctly, is on everybody’s mind. (more…)

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TWO FLAGS, TWO SYMBOLS

by Fred Edwards

Feb. 19, 2010 — On Feb. 23, 1945, surviving Marines and Navy men wearily greeted D-Day Plus Four on a barren island shaped like a dragon, with an extinct volcano for its head and a deep lava flow for its body. Black volcanic sand covered the lava. The island spanned two miles wide and five and a half long. It was named Iwo Jima, but Marines and Navy men ashore called it Sulfur Island because of the stink. On February 19, four days earlier, 70,000 assault troops from the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions had eaten traditional steak and eggs for breakfast. Then at H-Hour they had stormed ashore unopposed on a beach only 3,000 yards wide. The volcano, Mt. Suribachi, looked down their flank from the left. At H Plus One, Japanese enfilade artillery and machine gun fire had opened up and hell began.

Iwo, 650 miles from Tokyo, was athwart the American’s direct flight path to Japan, so its Japanese lookouts flashed early warning to Tokyo every time American bombers flew overhead. The island also maintained Japanese fighter aircraft that U.S. bombers had to face coming and going. Iwo Jima’s seizure would provide an American refueling and casualty dropoff site. It had to be taken.

The island belonged to the Tokyo prefecture. This made the mayor of Tokyo also the island’s mayor. The Japanese believed that time began with the eruption of Mount Fujiyama, which created their home islands, including Iwo Jima. So Iwo was sacred. It had to be defended. (more…)

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A RESPONSE TO IVAN DUNN

Dear Mr. Dunn:

Thank you for writing to express your support for H.R.3631, the Medicare Premium Fairness Act. I appreciate hearing from you, and I agree with you.

You will be pleased to know that on September 24, 2009, the House of Representatives passed H.R.3631 by a resounding vote of 406-18. The bill was then referred to the Senate Finance Committee.

The Medicare Premium Fairness Act would protect seniors from unfair increases in their 2010 Medicare Part B premiums. Medicare Part B covers physician and outpatient care and is deducted from Social Security checks. Under current law, for nearly three-quarters of Medicare enrollees, their Medicare Part B premium cannot increase more than the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security. Because of the recession, there is no Social Security COLA this year.

The other 27 percent of Medicare enrollees have seen their Part B premium increase from $96 per month to as much as $120 per month, because Part B premiums are required by law to cover 25 percent of Medicare Part B’s costs.

H.R.3631 would extend the “hold harmless” policy to protect all Medicare enrollees from an increase larger than the Social Security COLA, so that the 2010 Part B premiums would return to $96.40.

Again, thank you for writing to me. Please feel free to contact me again about this or other issues of concern to you.

Barbara Boxer United States Senator

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SENATOR BOXER RESPONDS TO IVAN DUNN’S LETTER

Dear Mr. Dunn:

Thank you for writing to me about the need to fix the Medicare Physician Payment Formula. I appreciate hearing from you, and I agree with you.

You will be pleased to hear that Congress has enacted legislation to delay by two months the 21 percent fee reduction that had been scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2010. We now have an opportunity to make long-overdue, sustainable changes to the Medicare physician payment system, and I hope that we can do so.

On October 21, 2009, I voted in favor of a motion to begin Senate consideration of S.1776, a bill to replace the current physician payment formula with a more stable system that ends the cycle of looming fee cuts followed by short-term patches and budget gimmicks. Unfortunately, this motion to proceed failed, and the bill was put aside for the time being.

Again, thank you for writing to me. Please be assured that I will work with my colleagues to enact legislation to reform the Medicare physician payment system.

Barbara Boxer United States Senator

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AIR GUARD CREWS SAVE SNOWSHOER IN CALAVERAS COUNTY

MOFFETT FEDERAL AIRFIELD, Calif. - Air National Guardsmen from the 129th Rescue Wing, recently back from a deployment to Afghanistan, conducted a successful search and rescue mission of a missing snowshoer in Calaveras County yesterday.

Responding to the call from the Calaveras County Sherriff’s office, pararescue teams and two HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopters departed here at 10:20 am. Shortly after the helicopters arrived in the Camp Connell vicinity near Dorrington, Calif., they made contact with a ground search party that found the snowshoer’s tracks. The 29-year-old male went missing Saturday near Camp Connell after departing on a snowshoe trip.

A ground search party representative flew with 129th crews while another followed the snowshoer’s path. The ground party eventually found the snowshoer and led him to a location where the helicopters could safely pick him up. The mountainous terrain was socked in with dense fog. (more…)

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GATES: NO TRICARE HIKE IN 2011 BUDGET REQUEST

By Donna Miles/American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2010 - Tricare recipients will see no increase in their premiums next year, if Congress approves that provision of the fiscal 2011 defense budget request, as expected.

However, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters yesterday he wants to work with Congress to find ways to help control escalating military health-care costs that are consuming an ever-increasing chunk of the budget.

Noting the skyrocketing costs of the military health-care system – from $19 billion in 2001 to $50.7 billion in the fiscal 2011 budget request — Gates questioned during yesterday’s Pentagon briefing how sustainable the program can remain without cost controls or higher premiums. (more…)

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PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH

by Fred Edwards

Feb. 5, 2010 — When considering the rationale for dumping the F-22 in favor of the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35, it’s easy to skew the reasoning with dollar tradeoffs. By some estimates a single F-22 costs $350 million including developmental and other costs. One F-35, on the other hand, might cost only $200 million. The $150 million savings per aircraft gets attention. I am not agreeing with those in the Department of Defense who opted to dump the F-22. I’m using it only as an example of cost comparison. But think of this: For the savings on one aircraft, we could operate the entire LORAN-C system for more than four years. But the Department of Homeland Security has ordered the Coast Guard to shut down all LORAN stations February 8.

So what? Doesn’t the Global Positioning System (GPS) do the same thing and better? It guides unmanned aerial vehicles, tells troops and their supporting arms exactly where they are, synchronizes time and cell-phone antenna, navigates ships, and helps us drive to the nearest McDonalds. Sure it does, unless it fails, or an enemy disables it. Then what would we do? A good answer is to keep a backup LORAN system, and even upgrade it to the enhanced version, eLORAN, which had been planned. (more…)

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BRIGADIER GENERAL MARY J. KIGHT APPOINTED AG CALIFORNIA GUARD

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of Brigadier General Mary J. Kight as the first female adjutant general of the California National Guard and first African-American female National Guard adjutant general in the nation. He also thanked General William H. Wade II for his years of dedicated service.

“Brigadier General Mary Kight is a proven courageous, loyal and honorable leader. She has a long and distinguished history of service to our state and nation and I am proud to have her as the first female adjutant general of our military forces here in California,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “I am confident that with General Kight’s leadership, the California National Guard will continue to be fully prepared, standing ready and able to assist our local communities and our country when called upon in times of emergency.” (more…)

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