Table of Contents

Special Report: New Tactics for Security

Hack's Target For The Week:

Secure Our Ports From Terrorists

By David H. Hackworth

Almost any cop in America, if he or she has a verifiable reasonable suspicion, can pull over a vehicle to search it. At any courthouse, federal building or airport, you and all your goodies are also subject to search.

Which is as it should be. We need to keep the streets safe, and we need to secure our government and air-travel facilities.

So why in the name of Tom Ridge aren't we applying this same procedure to ships that might be transporting nuclear mayhem toward our shores at this very moment? Think about it - you're reading this article in the comfort of a lifestyle that could soon become a distant memory if some foreign freighter succeeds in delivering our worst nightmare. And we're doing little or nothing to stop it.

Back when I was pounding ground, if anyone set foot in my area of operation and anything was out of place, you better believe the suspected perp would find himself face-down in the mud under guard until we knew everything we needed to know.

You might say, "Well, that was war!" Well, guess what? We are at war! Want to see the battlefield? Go look out your kitchen window. Want to see tomorrow's victims? Check out the kids playing next door. But while you're looking around, bear in mind that the enemy is using our shipping facilities and our porous borders to stockpile weapons of mass destruction to use against us.

And we're not doing more to secure our ports because the powers that be prefer to double-check obvious solutions by farming out "studies" to "institutes" to the tune of millions of dollars so that their pals - "the experts" - can eventually come to the same common-sense conclusions that the rest of us have already figured out.

We've got to make sure that kind of thinking stops and stops now, or it won't be the terrorists' fault when things blow, it'll be ours. Here's what needs to be done quicksmart to protect our country:

Write your congressional reps and show support for U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner's "Container Security Initiative" (fifth item). Either foreign ports play by our rules and get on board with good security, or we'll deal only with companies that use ports that comply. Foreign airports provide the same level of security we do, and their seaports should have to do the same.

Until we build offshore inspection stations, the U.S. Coast Guard must fulfill its original charter obligations "to enforce tariff and trade laws, prevent smuggling, and protect the collection of the federal revenue." Coast Guard duties include operating in times of peace "under the Department of Transportation, serving as the nation's front-line agency for promoting our laws at sea, protecting our coastline and ports, and saving life."

The Coast Guard needs to randomly stop ships to check logs and manifests, screen for unauthorized passengers and scope for anything on board that looks suspicious. And - in case you've been wondering why al Qaeda operatives have been so interested in scuba gear lately - they also need to copy the Israelis and sweep hulls to make sure a ship isn't being used as an unwitting Trojan horse. One of our dedicated Coast Guardsmen just told me he's been begging the brass to let him do exactly this. The answer he keeps getting from the land-based Perfumed Prince admirals? A resounding "No!"

So contact your congressional reps and light a fire. To preclude their ignoring you, tell them this: New York recently intercepted a two-ton shipment of cocaine coming in by ship. No way would the drug Mafia risk a shipment that big if the route hadn't worked before.

Considering that 7,500 foreign ships carrying more than 600 billion tons of goods come into the United States annually and that only 2 percent get searched, how many more tons of coke have made it in? And how much smaller is a crate of Stinger missiles or a small nuke - or a 1-pound container of smallpox culture - than a ton of white powder?

By now, I hope you're wondering, "But what if they switch to ships going to Canada or Mexico and smuggle weapons in from there?"

That's a cogent question that merits its own set of answers. So stay tuned.

http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831.

© 2002 David H. Hackworth

By Robert G. Williscroft

Remember back to a few short days following 9/11?

We were frightened, by what had happened and by what might happen. Only the brave and the foolish were flying commercial aircraft. People avoided high buildings, and often each other - especially when a person looked "suspicious."

I remember a conversation with a tenant in an apartment house I own. He is young, of Arabic extraction, a secular Muslim (like a non-practicing Catholic), studying medicine. I asked him how things were going for him personally following the attack. He said things were a bit tense, but that he really didn't mind. According to my tenant, he would rather be checked five times as much as his Anglo friends if this would help catch another bad guy.

My friend took no offense at all; he welcomed the intrusion as proof that somebody was doing something positive.

In summary, what are these positive things that we have been doing, have been trying to do, and want to do?

Airport security comes immediately to mind. I sense that nobody really objects to the delays we experience when flying now, so long as they appear to be effective. I think the same can be said for delays entering government buildings, and with the intrusions some of us experience with monitoring of e-mail and other oversight processes that the FBI and other agencies are undertaking as time passes.

The key concept here is that these procedures need to be effective - they have to work.

After 9/11, I proposed a solution to the airport security problem in two articles for DefenseWatch ("Airline Safety: Simple Steps for Better Security," Nov. 14, 2001, and "Security, Common Sense and Gen. Joe Foss," Feb. 20, 2002).

I suggested that airport security was a simple matter of not letting any bad guys or bad stuff on any aircraft. I then proposed that in order to accomplish this, we: (1) require all personnel associated with airport and airline operations to take random, unannounced flights to ensure that they do their jobs effectively; (2) inspect all baggage including hold baggage using initial computerized screening to speed up the process, augmented by hand inspections of items rejected by the initial screening; (3) match hold baggage to passengers using transmitting chips on baggage and boarding passes; (4) screen all passengers against databases of known suspects, applying the latest computer technology; (5) arm aircrew members with non-lethal weapons, or with weapons that will not threaten the integrity of the aircraft; (6) assign security responsibility to airports, not the airlines or feds; (7) have the feds pay the initial costs, but let passengers pay the final costs with a $25 per ticket surcharge (eventually reimbursing the federal government for all costs).

Let's review each item on this list. What have we actually accomplished?

(1) Mandatory flights by airport workers: This hasn't even been addressed, although it would absolutely ensure that personnel connected with flight operations in any manner would do their jobs efficiently and carefully. The only change we have made in the screening process is to hire as federal employees most of the incompetent screeners who couldn't do the job properly in the first place.

(2) Computerized baggage screening: This recommended first step in the screening process also has not even been addressed - even though the technology exists on the shelf right now for most of the process.

(3) Matching checked baggage to boarding passes: Again, this proposal has also not been addressed, even though the airlines could implement this process within a week or so by putting existing resources to the task.

(4) Screening passengers to computer databases: This Item has been partially implemented in a handful of airports with limited success, but interagency squabbles and legal challenges from attorneys looking to gain a reputation have stymied the process.

(5) Arming aircrew with non-lethal weapons: This item has been implemented on a very limited basis - as a test - just this past week, a full nine months after the 9/11 attacks.

(6) Shifting security responsibilities from the airlines and federal government to airports: This item has been completely ignored; rather, the security process has been federalized.

(7) Cover costs of security with a $25 ticket surcharge: This item has not even been discussed, let alone examined for its merits.

Why have these perfectly sound proposals met with little or no reaction?

Call it bureaucratic territorial imperative: "If it didn't originate from this office, then it has no merit."

It seems to me that we are dealing with the safety of all of us. I am not particularly interested in whether or not this or that bureaucrat gets credit for an idea or control over an operation. As a citizen and taxpayer, I want things done yesterday, not tomorrow! I don't mind paying my share of the cost either. The federal government obviously has the funds immediately available. Use them to put a revamped security system in play. Pay them back later, but get them active now.

Airport security managers are most familiar with their unique security situations. Put them in charge and give them the funds to accomplish the necessary. Why are we still fiddling around with this stop-gap, with that interim solution? This is crazy! We are all at risk - let's get the job done now, with federal money, and make the beneficiaries ante up later.

Don't tell me we can't manufacture the necessary equipment for several months. Put enough people in the production pipeline, and you can equip every airport in the country within a month. Sure it will be expensive, but what are a few billion dollars against the lives of thousands of Americans? Get off the pot, people! Do what needs to be done! Now!

We face another serious problem that currently is completely out of control. Every day, hundreds of thousands of shipping containers arrive on our shores. Each of these is large enough to contain a Hiroshima-type nuclear bomb, such as Iraq may already have tested and built.

A close personal contact of mine developed a method for absolutely ensuring that these containers have not been compromised or tampered with following their initial loading and sealing. His technique is foolproof, inexpensive, and easy to implement. He presented his proposal to several high-level industry and government individuals, but was brushed off.

According to my friend, the officials with whom he spoke told him that his solution was impractical since the real problem lay at the source, during the initial loading process. This is patently self-serving BS. My contact's plan called for industry footing part of the bill for this system. By demonstrating the "impracticality" of such a system, they were off the hook for their share of the cost.

In fact, it would be relatively simple for the United States to implement an immediate policy that requires a U.S. inspector to personally certify the contents of any container destined for the United States. Granted, this would take a relatively large number of inspectors, thousands of them, in fact, but it is doable, and can be implemented within a week or so. Use military personnel initially to provide the certifications. Then, as inspectors are hired, replace the soldiers and sailors with civilian inspectors.

Bottom line, if you wish to ship a container to the United States, one of our guys must inspect it immediately prior to its being sealed. Thereafter, the system devised by my acquaintance will ensure that nothing violates the container integrity until it is opened at its destination.

Is it expensive? Sure! But it beats seeing Long Beach Harbor, or the Port of New York disappearing in a nuclear blast.

Vested interests and bureaucratic turf fights are the only thing holding this plan back - and create a real hazard for millions of Americans. What would you call someone who threatened your family and friends with death and destruction?

We heard last week that a credentialed committee has decided not to vaccinate every American against smallpox. Their ostensible reason is that some individuals may get sick and even die from the vaccination. Let me see if I understand this correctly: When smallpox was a recognized threat, receiving a vaccination as a small child was not an option; you had to do it. It was the law.

Smallpox is once again a recognized threat - am I missing something here? If we used to vaccinate people when the threat was real, then why are we not now vaccinating people, since the threat is once again very real? If we require individuals with the financial means to pay for their vaccinations, we can keep the cost relatively low.

Vested interests that exercise control over people's lives and health seem to be operating here. My response is, if you have something I need to remain alive, and if you refuse to give it to me (or sell it to me), that makes you my enemy.

We can have total airport security within a month, with relatively little disruption of travel. We can absolutely prevent the importation of shipping containers carrying weapons of mass destruction within a month or less. Within a week we can provide a significant degree of protection from a deadly biological threat at almost no cost.

So what is the problem? Why is none of this happening? If your representative in Congress is not doing anything about this, it's time to send him or her a clear message. These people have a clear responsibility to make these things happen now, and to do so without any reference to their own personal territorial imperatives.

President Bush said it very clearly immediately following the 9/11 attack: "If you're not with us, then you are with them."

Those who hold up measures like those proposed in this article are part of the problem, and we need to rid ourselves of their kind. Those elected officials who ignore the ugly spectacle of this bureaucratic inertia deserve the same harsh treatment. We should be ready to to take this to the ballot box this fall.

Robert G. Williscroft is DefenseWatch Navy Editor. He can be reached at dwnavyeditor@argee.net.

By John M. Szelog

As everyone knows, Osama Bin Laden has disappeared since the war on terrorism began. Whether he is even still alive or not is open to debate, but at this point, it no longer matters.

It is well known that al Qaeda conducts operations through the use of cells, which are small groups of independent, anonymous personnel. The concept of operating in cells was developed to provide a means of conducting political and/or military operations in an extremely hostile environment, most often in underground resistance or subversive organizations. The French Underground in World War II is perhaps the best-known example of this type of organization.

Each cell is composed of one or more individuals who have a certain mission such as intelligence collection, propaganda dissemination or conducting attacks. In most cases, the members of separate cells don't even know that other cells exist, who the members of those cells are, or what their mission is. This is done so that the capture or compromise of one cell does not jeopardize the entire operation or organization.

It's also well known that large numbers of personnel were trained in the al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and other areas, and pipelined to cells around the world. Bin Laden and the other leaders of al Qaeda are products of the Mujahadeen war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. From that experience, they certainly know that decentralized control is critical to successful operations, whether it's against the Soviet Army and KGB in Afghanistan, or against the intelligence agencies and militaries of various Western countries.

That being the case, it only makes sense that the cells that were organized in the years before 9/11 were trained to operate independently of instructions from the al Qaeda leadership. Likewise, with just about every country on earth on the lookout for al Qaeda members and cells, it would seem logical that bin Laden and everyone else involved in the planning and organization of al Qaeda would halt any direct communications with any of the cells so that there is less likelihood of compromising the organization.

This, of course, brings to mind Abu Zubayda, the senior al Qaeda member who was captured in Pakistan. I believe it safe to assume that he was given to us. That may sound crazy, but think of it in the context of trying to run a terror campaign. Zubayda was captured in the last week of March 2002, six months after the attacks. Other than him, we haven't been able to locate (as far as we know publicly) any other senior member of al Qaeda, and we haven't even been able to verify who's still alive.

Then, suddenly, Zubayda was picked up in a raid by Pakistani police, partly the result of an intercepted telephone call. Remember that Pakistan still has many al Qaeda and Taliban sympathizers in the general population, as well as in its military, police and intelligence services. In addition, we know that as the result of a leak in our government, al Qaeda has been well aware for some time that their telephone communications have been compromised.

Six months would be sufficient time to isolate someone from the organization to the point that any information he had would be very old from an intelligence standpoint. However, because of his position in the organization, it has to be assumed that anything he says could be true, and must be investigated. Nevertheless, confirming or denying the accuracy of his information ties up valuable resources that would otherwise be dedicated to hunting down cells and individuals who pose a more immediate threat.

At this point it is safe to assume that bin Laden and the remaining al Qaeda hierarchy have isolated themselves from the network's current operations in order to reduce the risk of being compromised, and to reduce the value of any intelligence they might release in the event of capture. It's highly probable that they are making plans for future operations, but keeping quiet in the meantime.

Reports based on information retrieved from al Qaeda members recently captured in Morocco have indicated that their instructions came directly from bin Laden. However, how many levels those instructions passed through, and when they were originally given is not something currently known. It has been reported that after the U.S. strikes began in Afghanistan, and especially after the operations near Tora Bora, al Qaeda members slipped across the border into Pakistan, were given instructions, and then sent to various parts of the world.

This would seem to have been the likely time and place for cell leaders and planners to be given final instructions on how and when to proceed with their future missions.

Many people suggest that the ongoing military and intelligence campaign against al Qaeda may have forced its leaders into running, and that the counter-terror campaign has disrupted their ability to plan and communicate as a result.

I would suggest a theory that al Qaeda planned on operating this way from the outset. Bin Laden isn't stupid - he most certainly would have expected massive retaliation from the United States in response to the 9/11 attacks. With this in mind, we should expect that he has set in motion plans for attacks to continue without further input from the al Qaeda leadership.

Our response should be to shift attention away from looking for bin Laden and other high level leaders of al Qaeda, and start looking harder for the cells that are operating in and around our country.

John M. Szelog is a Contributing Editor to DefenseWatch. He can be reached at streetgang52@hotmail.com.

By Patrick Hayes

The U.S. Marine Corps, flush with success in the initial combat against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, is poised to launch a revolution in its own approach to war. Recent news reports suggest that senior Marine Corps leaders are considering the creation of a special operations or "commando" element to undertake special operations missions in the ongoing campaign against terrorism.

While such a concept will be unpalatable to many in the Corps because it appears to violate the time-honored belief that "every Marine is a riflemen" - that is, in the Marine Corps, every Marine receives identical training to get the job done and achieve the objective - the Corps leadership seems aware that this highly unconventional war against terrorism may require an unprecedented re-examination of basic Marine Corps organization, structure and warfighting tactics.

The current war on terrorism is demanding new approaches as the U.S. military responds to a deadly enemy that is not a military force established by a nation-state, but rather a terrorist network dispersed in about 60 countries worldwide. The Marine Corps leadership is obviously mulling the creation of small-unit shadow warriors to supplement the larger, self-contained Special Operations Capable MEUs (comprising 3,000 Marines with artillery, aircraft and ground equipment), or the even larger 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (Anti-terrorist), which was activated at Camp Lejeune N.C. in September 2001 with a maximum "scalable total strength" of over 4,800 Marines and sailors.

At this juncture, the "Marine commando" concept is just that - an idea requiring experimentation, analysis and review. The Marine Corps plans to take a first concrete step in that direction this fall when it assigns several dozen Marines, believed to be from Force Recon, to the Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. These Marines, already qualified in scuba and parachuting (HALO and HAHO jumps), will go through training similar to what they have already experienced, but will include a more aggressive, target-oriented approach, similar to the tactical operations performed by Navy SEALS, rather than an emphasis on "behind-enemy-lines" reconnaissance. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James L. Jones is personally involved in the process of examining the feasibility of adding such elements to the Corps structure.

However, before these changes become fact, there are hurdles to overcome, both inside and outside the Marine Corps. Other branches with their own "commando" elements are crying foul, seeing the addition of specwar units to the Marine Corps as an encroachment into their own turf.

Before Marine traditionalists cry foul, some Marine Corps history is in order: The Corps does, after all, have a long track record of carrying out military missions that conform to the definition of "special operations."

On March 3, 1776 - less than four months after the formal creation of the Marine Corps on Nov. 10, 1775 - Capt. Samuel Nichols landed with 268 Marines at Fort Montague on New Providence Island in the Bahamas to capture arms and gunpowder desperately needed by Washington's Continental Army. The Marine action was one of the first commando-style raids in U.S. military history.

A short time later, American Marines fought from the fighting tops of John Paul Jones' ship, Bonhomme Richard, helping to take the British man-of-war, Serapis, during a life-and-death sea battle between the two warships. Those Marines also landed with Jones along the English and Scottish coast to conduct raids, particularly at Whitehaven, where they captured the fort, spiked the battery of 36 British guns and set fire to ships, conducting the only attacks made on British soil during the Revolutionary War.

Commandos themselves are not a new concept to the Corps either. During the World War II island-hoping campaign, Marine Raider Battalions were organized as commando units. They were drawn from Marines from other units, some of whom had seen combat in China, during the Banana Wars of Latin America and elsewhere. They were trained for lightening raids on enemy held islands to disrupt and destroy enemy supplies, support, communications, and morale.

On Guadalcanal, the First Raider Battalion under the command of Col. Merritt "Red Mike" Edson, held the line near the American toehold of Henderson Field with its VMF-223 "Cactus Air Force" of Marine Grumman F4F fighters, consistently repelling the numerically superior Japanese forces. The Japanese launched repeated attacks under the supporting fire of their naval guns, but were unable to dislodge the Marines and were beaten back, suffering incredible losses.

Col. Evans Carlson's Second Raider Battalion led the most famous commando raid during the war against Makin Island in the Gilbert chain. The Marine Raiders put ashore from two submarines off the coast and subsequently destroyed the Japanese garrison, its radio station and supplies.

But the Marine Corps leadership, uncomfortable with the concept of "specialized Marines", quickly moved to disband the Marine Raider units after World War II. However, in the intervening years, specialized training has continued without fanfare. Marine Reconnaissance units have been with the Marine Corps since World War II, when Amphibious Recon Marines went ashore on Tinian before the invasion to scout approaches, obstacles and landing beaches. Both Force and Battalion Recon units were particularly active in Vietnam.

Adapting to a world of complex operations, Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) were formed - each unit undergoing the training necessary to become certified as Special Operations Capable (SOC). Fully equipped and self sufficient, these units can conduct a variety of operations ranging from lightening raids by small units against enemy targets, to a full MEU landing against an opposing force, or to provide humanitarian assistance.

In 1987, the Marine Corps went a step farther when it established Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Teams (or FAST Companies). Highly trained in SWAT-type tactics and close-quarter combat, their mission is to respond quickly and decisively to terrorist threats against American targets around the globe, from bases in Bahrain, Italy and Japan, in addition to those in the United States.

Also, the Marine Corps activated an anti terrorist brigade (the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade - Anti-Terrorism), based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The brigade will include three MEUs and additional units such as the Chemical-Biological Incident Response Force and FAST Companies, using many Marines experienced as Marine Security Guards from embassies around the globe as well as traditional SOC infantry units. The brigade's primary mission will be to respond to major terrorist incidents virtually anywhere in the world.

Regardless of specialized training, assignment or particular skill, the Marine Corps continues to maintain the bond that has made Marines a unique fighting force since 1775. Lt. Col. Giles Kyser, a Marine officer familiar with the decision to assign Marine forces to SOCCENT in Tampa, said the move will create a "delicate balancing act" between the need for innovation and the importance of preserving the core essence of a Marine fighting unit.

"We need to change our training and procedures (to meet new demands), while at the same time holding onto things that make us Marines," Kyser said.

With the smallest budget of the U.S. uniformed military services, the Marine Corps is and has been an adaptable force, ready to take on any mission at any time throughout the country's history. Fortunately for the Corps and for the nation as a whole, that flexibility and spirit of innovation is in itself a deeply rooted characteristic of the Marine Corps.

Patrick Hayes is a contributing editor to DefenseWatch. He can be reached at gyrene@sftt.us.

By Maj. Anthony F. Milavic USMC (Ret.)

In the name of transformation for the 21st century, the Department of Defense (DoD) is all ears for programs such as the Crusader howitzer, MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and Joint Strike Fighter, while it continues to lend a deaf ear to its warriors on the most fundamental issue in need of change - the 5.56-mm. rifle bullet used by its infantrymen.

For over 36 years, Americans on the field of battle have reported hitting enemy soldiers with multiple rounds of 5.56-mm. ammunition and watching them continue to advance while firing their weapons. In spite of these field observations, the DoD is developing its future infantry weapon - the Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW) - to fire this same impotent cartridge.

This deficiency was reported as early as Dec. 9, 1965, in the official after-action report of the Ia Drang Valley battle popularized by the movie and book, We Were Soldiers Once … and Young, by Joseph L. Galloway and Lt. Gen. Hal Moore USA (Ret.).

Moore, the commanding officer of the battalion engaged there, writes of assaulting enemy soldiers being hit by 5.56-mm. rounds: "Even after being hit several times in the chest, many continued firing and moving for several more steps before dropping dead." Later in that war, a similar experience is voiced by Col. John Hayworth, USA (Ret.): "In one fire-fight, I saw my RTO place three rounds [of 5.56-mm.] in the chest of a charging NVA regular at 50 yards. He kept firing his AK and never slowed down. At 30 yards, I hit him with a blast of double-ought buck. It picked him up off his feet and he didn't get up again."

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the DoD increased the weight of the 55-grain bullet (M193) to 62 grains and increased its length to accommodate a steel "penetrator." These changes resulted in a new 5.56-mm. bullet with the designation M855.

The Pentagon then sent its warriors to the Gulf War in 1991. Maj. Howard Feldmeier, USMC (Ret.) was there: " … several Marines commented that they had to shoot Iraqi soldiers 2-3 or more times with the 62-grain 5.56-mm. green tip ammo before they stopped firing back at them …. "

That report is exemplified by one of an Iraqi officer who was thrown from his vehicle and set afire by an explosion: "Somehow he managed to hold on to his AK-47. He also got up, still on fire, faced the firing line of Marines and charged forward, firing his weapon from the hip. He didn't hit anyone but two Marines each nailed him with a three-round burst from their M-16A2s. One burst hit him immediately above his heart, the other in his belly button. [He] … kept right on charging and firing until his magazine was empty."

"When he got up to the Marines, two of them tackled him and rolled him in the sand to put out the fire …. He was quickly carried back to the battalion aid station …. The surgeons told me he certainly died of burns, but not necessarily from the six 5.56-mm. wounds …. "

In spite of the above "lesson learned," the DoD dispatched its warriors to combat in Somalia in 1993 with the same flawed 5.56-mm. "green tip" cartridge. As testified in Mark Bowden's book, Black Hawk Down: "His weapon was the most sophisticated infantry rifle in the world, a customized CAR-15, and he was shooting the Army's new 5.56-mm. green tip round. The green tip had a tungsten carbide penetrator at the tip, and would punch holes in metal, but that very penetrating power meant that his rounds were passing right through his targets …. The bullet made a small, clean hole, and unless it happened to hit the heart or spine, it wasn't enough to stop a man in his tracks. Howe felt he had to hit a guy five or six times just to get his attention."

The Pentagon remained unmoved by that experience of its warriors and continues to send them to war under-powered. On Apr. 4, 2002, I received an e-mail from a trooper in Afghanistan who appeals, in part: "The current-issue 62-gr 5.56-mm. (.223) round, especially when fired from the short-barreled M-4 carbine, is proving itself (once again) to be woefully inadequate as [a] man-stopper. Engagements at all ranges are requiring multiple, solid hits to permanently bring down enemy soldiers. Penetration is also sadly deficient. Even light barriers are not perforated by this rifle/cartridge combination."

These reports are consistent with my own experience during three tours of duty in Vietnam from 1964 to 1969; experience that repeatedly reminded me that this 5.56-mm. cartridge was nothing more than the full metal jacket military version of the commercial .223 Remington cartridge. The .223 Remington was and is today commercially advertised and sold as a "varmint" cartridge for hunting groundhogs, prairie dogs and woodchucks. The cartridge is offered with soft point, hollow point, fragmentation, or projectiles incorporating two or more of these attributes to enhance its lethality and assure a "clean kill" on varmints: one-round knockdown power.

States such as the Commonwealth of Virginia do not permit it to be used for hunting deer because its lethality - with or without those enhancements - does not assure a "clean kill" on deer. Yet, its full metal jacket military counterpart continues to be issued to American warriors for the purpose of knocking down an enemy soldier and causing him to stop shooting. As heard from the above testimony, this varmint cartridge fails to do that even with multiple hits.

In desperation, some troopers in Afghanistan are using the commercial .223 Remington 77-grain Sierra MatchKing hollow point bullet loaded by Black Hills Ammunition. Ironically, even this extreme effort has not fixed the problem: "Its performance on enemy soldiers is not much better, but it does penetrate barriers. We're fighting fanatics here, and they don't find wimpy ammunition particularly impressive!" cries a voice from Afghanistan.

From 55-grain (M193) to 62-grain (M855) to 77-grain (Sierra MatchKing), these changes in the weight and composition of the 5.56-mm./.223 Remington bullet have failed to increase lethality to that needed in combat: one-round knockdown power on an enemy soldier. Curiously, the DoD has ignored just such a cartridge for over 36 years; listen again to its lethality as recounted by the American warriors in Black Hawk Down:

"They used to kid Randy Shughart because he shunned the modern rifle and ammunition and carried a Vietnam era M-14, which shot a 7.62-mm. round without the penetrating qualities of the new green tip. It occurred to Howe as he saw those Sammies keep on running that Randy was the smartest soldier in the unit. His rifle may have been heavier and comparatively awkward and delivered a mean recoil, but it damn sure knocked a man down with one bullet, and in combat, one shot was all you got. You shoot a guy, you want to see him go down; you don't want to be guessing for the next five hours whether you hit him, or whether he's still waiting for you in the weeds."

Milavic, a retired Marine Corps major, is coordinator of the MILINET information network. He can be reached at majusmcret@aol.com.

By Jerry West

In his article titled "Wage War Against Terror With Maximum Force" (DefenseWatch, June 12, 2002), Patrick Hayes quotes Carl von Clausewitz to justify torture and other acts of brutality in pursuit of victory in the so-called "War against Terrorism." In effect, he is telling us to fight terror with terror, thus making us that which we seek to destroy. This kind of rationalization can start us down the path to death camps and final solutions.

There are several things to consider here. At least on paper, our society has been built on a philosophy that respects life and human rights. After World War II we even held trials to judge and punish our opponents who did not. To engage in acts which we have held others to account for, and to abandon the principles and moral standards for conduct that we have developed and held up as an example to the world, would be a moral victory for those we seek to defeat.

Another item in Hayes' article is the fact that focusing on battlefield techniques in this kind of war as the path to victory is like treating the symptoms of a disease instead of its causes. As should be obvious by now, the war against terror will not be won alone by violence. Rather, it will be won by understanding the conditions that provide fertile ground for terrorists in large populations, then changing those conditions. To paraphrase Mao Tse-tung, the people are like water and the terrorist are like fish.

Without the support of populations, terrorists would be fish on the beach and easily dealt with. With popular support, or merely toleration, they are near impossible to eradicate. What I find telling in Hayes' example of Algeria is the fact that despite the terrorist activities of the French to stamp out the Algerian terrorists, in the end the Algerians won. Much the same can be said for Vietnam, and for the British experience in the American colonies.

For a few zealots there may never be an acceptable compromise, but most folks are not zealots and are generally satisfied when they are respected and their basic material needs are adequately met. A few isolated zealots would be easy to deal with, so the solution before us is to provide the conditions that will create prosperous societies where there is little opportunity for terrorists to thrive.

There are no quick fixes to the problem of terrorism today, and a military response is only a bandaid on a sucking chest wound. In order for this war to end, the underlying causes must be addressed and steps taken to alleviate the grievances that make it possible for terrorists to play upon the sympathy of entire societies. Failure to do so will be a victory for terrorism as we destroy what we are in order to protect us.

West is a former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant who spent 18 months with the Third Marine Division in Vietnam.

By Ed Offley

The six-term congressman entered a small, windowless meeting room and smiled at the crowd of three dozen people, waving down their applause.

At first glance, the crowd presented a visual anomaly: middle-class men and women in business attire, interspersed with a handful of others garbed in motorcycle clothing, jack boots and hippie wear, cheering an elderly congressman. But appearances are deceiving.

The small crowd gathering on a morning in late June - congressman, matrons and bikers alike - represented a nationwide movement of more than 10,000 people who have battled U.S. government nonfeasance, foreign governmental stonewalling, news media inattention and public apathy for nearly a third of a century.

Twenty-seven years after the fall of Saigon and nearly a decade after the Clinton administration formally opened diplomatic relations with the communist government of Vietnam, the POW/MIA movement refuses to disband or give up. In fact, it has expanded to include those missing in conflicts ranging from World War II to the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"The POW/MIA issue is not going to go away until we get it all resolved," says Rep. Sam Johnson, R-TX, a former career Air Force fighter pilot who flew in both Korea and Vietnam and was a prisoner of war in Hanoi for seven years.

If there is one thing that these activists and Pentagon officials can agree upon it is that the campaign to determine the fate of thousands of American servicemen missing in action is not over.

The numbers remain equally compelling and horrifying: Thousands of American GIs in World War II - the majority of whom were prisoners in Nazi POW camps "liberated" by the Red Army in 1945 - are known to have vanished in Soviet custody following V-E Day. More than a hundred Air Force and Navy airmen engaged in risky border surveillance missions during the Cold War were shot down and are believed to have vanished into the Soviet gulag. More than 8,000 GIs, Marines and aviators disappeared during the Korean War and credible intelligence reports indicate a great many of them were secretly shipped through North Korea and China to an uncertain fate in Siberian prisons. More than 1,900 soldiers and airmen from the Vietnam War remain missing in action.

And now, one Navy flier from the 1991 Persian Gulf War - Cmdr. Scott Speicher.

"If there is one American around the world in trouble, it is our duty to go help him," Johnson tells the National Alliance of Families meeting. "What kind of message does that send our military today if we don't?"

Founded 12 years ago by relatives of missing servicemen and concerned activists, the National Alliance of Families is dedicated to pressuring both the U.S. and foreign governments - in particular, North Korea, China, Russia and former Soviet republics - to open up their secret archives so that a full accounting of these tens of thousands of missing servicemen can be made.

Their current mission, says alliance national chairperson Dolores Alfond, is to continue to add pressure to the Pentagon and Bush administration to determine whether Speicher, an F/A-18 pilot shot down on the first night of the Gulf War, is indeed alive in an Iraqi prison as several defectors from the Baghdad regime have alleged.

Alfond has spent more than half of her own life searching for answers to the fate of her brother, Air Force pilot Capt. Victor J. Apodaca, whose aircraft went down over North Vietnam on June 8, 1967. Throughout the past three decades, she and two of her sisters have waged a relentless campaign along with thousands of other POW/MIA relatives to reverse what they charge as a Pentagon "mindset to debunk" live sighting reports of Americans still held in the Soviet gulag and other places.

In the case of Scott Speicher, the National Alliance of Families is unavoidably challenging the actions of Vice President Dick Cheney, who as secretary of defense in 1991 publicly stated within a day of the Jan. 17, 1991 incident that Speicher had been killed when his aircraft was struck by an air-to-air missile (the formal Pentagon declaration determining his death followed four months later).

However, since 1995, a number of troubling developments have occurred, including discovery at the aircraft crash site that the pilot had successfully ejected from his fighter before it impacted the ground, as well as a stream of leaked intelligence reports that indicate Speicher survived the shootdown and has been imprisoned since then.

The case has become so troubling that the Navy last January took the unprecedented step of changing Speicher's status back from "killed in action/body not returned" to "missing in action." Today, the National Alliance of Families is pressing support of proposed legislation that would move the case one step forward, by formally certifying the pilot's status as a prisoner of war.

So while the greater Washington, D.C. area sweltered in a heat wave last week, Alfond and her fellow activists deployed to Capitol Hill, seeking to increase the number of U.S. Senators as co-sponsors of Senate Bill 1339. This proposal, introduced by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-CO, extends legislation passed last year that provides for the granting of refugee status for any foreign national who brings an American MIA home alive to the Speicher case.

As of today, the bill's congressional sponsors and their National Alliance of Families supporters have obtained 35 co-sponsors and are pressing for a majority of 51 before it comes to a final vote.

Meanwhile, Alfond and her movement continue to press on other fronts. A Joint U.S.-Russian Commission to examine allegations of Americans held in the Soviet Gulag continues to meet regularly and exchange information (this particular panel sparked worldwide headlines several years ago when it discovered a Soviet-era document apparently confirming a Moscow plot to secretly ship Vietnam POWs to the Soviet Union).

And Johnson, an active member of that panel, said he hopes to make progress in the next year with Chinese government officials in Bejing, who have long insisted that no Americans prisoners were ever held in China. Johnson recounted one recent meeting with a senior Chinese Politburo member who repeated the old denial.

"I told him, 'I flew in Korea and Vietnam, and I flew across China every day. I saw planes shot down so I know you had people on the ground.' "

Johnson exhorted the alliance to continue pressing the Pentagon for action on all of the unresolved MIA cases.

"It's the [U.S. government] bureaucracy that is fighting us," Johnson said.

(Editor's Note: For more information on the National Alliance of Families, contact their website. The Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) also has a website with detailed databases on POW/MIA cases. The Virginian-Pilot newspaper website also has an in-depth report on the Speicher case published last January.)

Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.

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ARTICLE 07

A Vietnam Hero - the 'Incredibly Stupid' Sailor

By J. David Galland

His North Vietnamese captors called him "the incredibly stupid one." To the U.S. Navy, his ship and its crew, he was just known as Seaman Apprentice Douglas Brent Hegdahl III.

But the young enlisted man from South Dakota turned out to be a true hero of many American POWs held captive by North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Like many of us in the mid 1960s, Hegdahl was unsure of his future, so upon graduating from high school in the summer of 1966, he entered the Navy recruiting office in Clark, S.D., where a recruiter was pleased to process a motivated high school graduate with a spotless record. Hegdahl entered the Naval Training Center at San Diego, Calif., and upon graduation from boot camp received orders to the USS Canberra, a 23-year-old heavy guided missile cruiser assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Commissioned in 1943 in time to see action in the Pacific during the last two years of World War II, the Canberra by the mid-1960s had been heavily modified, now carrying a combination of six 8-inch guns forward and two twin Terrier surface-to-air guided missile launchers on the aft deck, as well as five twin 5-inch gun turrets.

Deploying to Vietnam in October 1966, the Canberra joined what was then known as the "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" patrolling the South China Sea in the waters contiguous to North Vietnam, a six-month deployment that would see the cruiser fire over 25,000 rounds of gunfire support ashore. (The Canberra would also become one of the few U.S. Navy warships to be struck by enemy gunfire, receiving two hits amidships on March 2, 1967 while shelling a North Vietnamese artillery blockhouse.)

For Doug Hegdahl, the cruise would become memorable for an entirely different reason: In the early morning hours of Apr. 6, 1967, he was knocked overboard by the shock of the cruiser's guns going off, and became the only enlisted man to become a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

Hegdahl's duties were in the aft ammunition handling room in the bowels of the ship. On that fateful day, he rolled out of his bunk at 0330 hours because he had to go on watch beginning at 0400 hours. The Canberra was steaming down the coast of North Vietnam firing its guns against targets of opportunity. Hegdahl decided to go up on deck for a little fresh air before manning his battle station.

When he arrived on deck the big guns were firing. What happened next is unclear, but apparently the shock waves of the guns going off caused Hegdahl to lose his balance. Several minutes later, the young sailor came to floating in the South China Sea, three miles from an enemy shore. He later recalled watching the Canberra steam off into the horizon as it continued to fire at the coastline.

By the time Hegdahl's shipmates discovered that he was missing, it was too late for a rescue. When the dawn broke, he started swimming in the opposite direction of the sun towards the coastline, recalling later that he could just make out a blurred haze of land ahead of him. After a long day of treading water and swimming, a North Vietnamese fishing boat came along at about 1800 hours and hauled him out of the drink.

Brought to shore, Hegdahl found himself in the same military prison system as the hundreds of Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps pilots who had been shot down in the previous three years. His captors quickly showed the young sailor confessions allegedly written by the "Yankee Air Pirates" in captivity.

Hegdahl guessed recognized that something was wrong but thought, they're officers; they must know what they are doing. He decided that his best strategy was to pretend to be stupid, and that falling off his ship in the middle of the night gave him a good foundation to convince his captors of his gross lack of intellect.

The communist cadres told him that he would have to write an anti-war statement for them. Hegdahl gladly agreed to do so, and his interrogators were dumbstruck over a POW relenting without being tortured. Out came the paper, ink and pens - then Hedgahl confessed that he was just a poor peasant, a farm boy who could neither read nor write.

Since Vietnamese peasants themselves were largely illiterate, his captors found this explanation quite plausible. So they assigned a Vietnamese teacher to instruct Hegdahl on spelling, penmanship, grammar and sentence structure. However, they soon gave up, concluding that he was truly an idiot incapable of learning to read or write.

Then the interrogators simply wrote a confession for Hegdahl and had him affix his signature. In the young seaman's declaration, he admitted to the war crime of shelling the presidential birthplace of Ho Chi Minh (quite a feat for a junior enlisted sailor). As later recounted by former POW Lt. Cmdr. Dick Stratton, who shared a cell with Hegdahl for two years, he signed the document as, "Seaman Apprentice Douglas Brent Hegdahl III, United States Navy Reserve, Commanding Officer, USS Canberra." (This piece of paper has never been released or viewed by the masses - Vietnamese or American).

For the next few weeks, Hegdahl was shuffled around from here to there as his captors tried to determine how he would fit into their propaganda strategy. Finally, they sent him to a POW camp where scores of American pilots were imprisoned. It was a serious mistake.

Hegdahl found himself a POW cellmate with Air Force 1st Lt. Joe Crecca, an F-4 Phantom II pilot who had been shot down on Nov. 22, 1966. Crecca himself had developed a method for creating an incredibly organized memory bank to record the names of pilots shot down and imprisoned in Vietnam.

Crecca quickly learned that Hegdahl was far from a dimwitted illiterate and meticulously helped the sailor memorize the names, Social Security numbers and other identifying information for 256 known POWs, including a technique for cross-referencing and retrieving the names. (The mental regime involved memorizing them to the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm.")

Stratton, Hegdahl's later cellmate (whose A-4 from the USS Ticonderoga had been shot down exactly two months before Hegdahl had fallen overboard), would later recall that one day Hegdahl asked him if he could recite Lincoln's Gettysburg Address backwards. Stratton could not and he wondered why anyone would want to recapitulate the speech in that manner. Hegdahl stunned the officer by rapidly reciting the Gettysburg Address from last word to first.

This unique talent would eventually prove to be incredibly valuable for U.S. military intelligence, which at that time had only a spotty and incomplete roster of American fliers who had survived being shot down. Having been determined to have virtually no propaganda value, the North Vietnamese decided to offer Hegdahl an early release from the Hanoi Hilton as part of a propaganda ploy against the United States. Hegdahl initially refused, even attempting to provoke his guard's ire by giving the finger to Tom Hayden during a prison visit by the anti-war activist.

However, Stratton and other senior POWs decided that Hegdahl was more valuable as a courier of the POW roster as well as confirmation of North Vietnamese torture practices, so they ordered him to accept the release, assuring him that he was helping rather than betraying his fellow prisoners.

On Aug. 5, 1969, the North Vietnamese literally threw Doug Hegdahl out of their country.

He brought home the 256 names he had memorized containing many names of POWs unknown to the U.S. government at that time. Eventually, he traveled to Paris at the behest of Texas philanthropist Ross Perot to confront the North Vietnamese delegation to the peace talks about the fate of servicemen still missing in action.

After leaving the Navy, Hegdahl entered the federal Civil Service and became a survival school instructor for the U.S. Navy at the James B. Stockdale Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Center [SERE] at Naval Air Station North Island, Calif. Today, he still can recite those 256 names.

As Stratton later wrote, Hegdahl was "my personal hero … the archetype of the innovative, resourceful and courageous American sailor."

J. David Galland, Deputy Editor of DefenseWatch, is a retired veteran of over thirty years of service in military intelligence who resides in Germany. He can be reached at defensewatch02@yahoo.com.

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ARTICLE 08

Airing the Concerns of Younger Veterans

By Andrea West

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the need for younger veterans to become active participants in matters affecting veterans and the armed forces ("A Call for the Newest Generation of Veterans to Step Up," DefenseWatch, June 12, 2002). A number of correspondents have since volunteered their thoughts on the matter, so I think it appropriate to address the concerns of younger veterans toward veterans organizations.

Perhaps the most common concern younger veterans have is the perception that their contributions to the national defense are not valued. A number of veterans have told me that they feel put down for not having served in World War II, and that their service in other wars has been viewed with condescension. (Several representative letters have been published in the Feedback section of www.sftt.us in the last two weeks.)

I personally have never experienced this. I am sure that the veterans of World War II, justly proud of their gallant service in our nation's greatest war, are for the most part far too big-hearted to engage in this kind of petty measuring contest, and I hope that the incidents related to me by my fellow veterans represent unfortunate exceptions to the general rule.

The second concern voiced by younger veterans concerns the direction of the veterans' organizations. Some correspondents feel that efforts to introduce new ideas into their outfits meet with extreme resistance, usually along the lines of, "Our dads did it this way, and we do it this way, and we're not going to change it."

Now, it is natural for those who have taken over an organization started by their fathers to want to see it run properly, especially when the organization in question has grown substantially over the last few decades and enjoys a sterling reputation. It is an unfortunate reality that if new members feel that they are being told to "sit down and shut up," they will be less willing to participate in the organization's activities.

This becomes all the more apparent when the activities in question concern alcohol. In all fairness, the liquor licenses owned by various veterans' outfits are a major source of revenue for the posts. Many older veterans do socialize in their post bars, as they have for decades. Provided these veterans are not destroying themselves or their families by that chosen form of socializing, they should not be expected to change their ways on someone else's say-so. But neither should they expect younger veterans with families and children to spend much time (or indeed any time at all) in the bar.

In addition, many younger veterans have to work two jobs to make ends meet. All of this means that they are less likely to have the time or inclination to spend socializing in the post, and they should not be looked down upon if they don't.

One very serious complaint that emerged with veterans' organizations concerns allegations of racism and racist statements toward veterans who are minorities. One of my correspondents mentioned a young African-American Navy veteran who joined a particular organization and was badly treated. According to my correspondent, this veteran decided that that organization was not for him after he had overheard a racial slur on several occasions.

Incidents of this nature are absolutely appalling. Veterans of good will, out of love for their brothers in arms and a heartfelt respect for their service, will not and should not tolerate this behavior. Any veteran prone to this behavior must understand that this point is not negotiable. To their credit, most veterans' organizations are highly intolerant of racism and will deal with it immediately when incidents are brought to their attention.

Statements concerning female veterans are of a similar vein. It is one thing to state that you don't think that women should serve in combat (which is, after all, only an opinion), and quite another to make advances to a female veteran in the organization, or to treat her shabbily because she is a woman. Again to their credit, most veterans' organizations take a very dim view of any such offenses.

One thing that younger veterans should remember when trying to address abuses within an organization is the use of the chain of command. If there is no resolving the dispute directly with the offender, and especially if you feel that the person is hostile or may represent a threat to your physical safety, then move to the officers within the post.

Only move up the chain to state or national levels if you have exhausted all levels between it and your post. Complaints sent to the national level of an organization unavoidably take a long time to resolve.

Finally, it is important for all veterans to remember why these organizations exist: to foster the brotherhood, and promote the welfare of, veterans and the armed forces.

Andrea West is Veterans' Editor for DefenseWatch. She can be reached at defensewatchvet@yahoo.com.

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ARTICLE 09

On the Lighter Side: Who Reads What

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country and insist that the rest of the country know it.

3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.

6. Meanwhile, The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country. The parents did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who couldn't care less who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from any country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.

10. And The Miami Herald is read by people who run another country altogether, but still need the baseball scores.

--(Courtesy of MILINET)

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Medal of Honor

ARTICLE 10

Medal of Honor Recipient - Montgomery, Jack C. 1st Lt. USA

MONTGOMERY, JACK C.

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 45th Infantry Division.
Place and date: Near, Padiglione, Italy, 22 February 1944.
Entered service at: Sallisaw, Okla. Birth: Long, Okla. G.O. No.: 5, 15 January 1945.

Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on 22 February 1944, near Padiglione, Italy. Two hours before daybreak, a strong force of enemy infantry established themselves in three echelons at 50 yards, 100 yards, and 300 yards, respectively, in front of the rifle platoons commanded by 1st Lt. Montgomery.

The closest position, consisting of four machine guns and one mortar, threatened the immediate security of the platoon position. Seizing an M-1 rifle and several hand grenades, 1st Lt. Montgomery crawled up a ditch to within hand grenade range of the enemy. Then climbing boldly onto a little mound, he fired his rifle and threw his grenades so accurately that he killed eight of the enemy and captured the remaining four.

Returning to his platoon, he called for artillery fire on a house, in and around which he suspected that the majority of the enemy had entrenched themselves. Arming himself with a carbine, he proceeded along the shallow ditch, as withering fire from the riflemen and machine gunners in the second position was concentrated on him. He attacked this position with such fury that seven of the enemy surrendered to him, and both machine guns were silenced. Three German dead were found in the vicinity later that morning.

1st Lt. Montgomery continued boldly toward the house, 300 yards from his platoon position. It was now daylight, and the enemy observation was excellent across the flat open terrain which led to 1st Lt. Montgomery's objective. When the artillery barrage had lifted, 1st Lt. Montgomery ran fearlessly toward the strongly defended position.

As the enemy started streaming out of the house, 1st Lt. Montgomery, unafraid of treacherous snipers, exposed himself daringly to assemble the surrendering enemy and send them to the rear. His fearless, aggressive, and intrepid actions that morning, accounted for a total of 11 enemy dead, 32 prisoners, and an unknown number of wounded. That night, while aiding an adjacent unit to repulse a counterattack, he was struck by mortar fragments and seriously wounded. The selflessness and courage exhibited by 1st Lt. Montgomery in alone attacking three strong enemy positions inspired his men to a degree beyond estimation.

Editor's Note: Mr. Montgomery, 84, passed away on June 11, 2002 in his hometown of Muskogee, Okla.

Editor's Note: If you know of any MOH recipient who is hospitalized or has passed away recently, please email DefenseWatch MOH Editor Jim H. at moheditor@mindspring.com.