The two teams of four covert attackers infiltrated the United States on a mission of sabotage and murder. Wearing civilian clothes to blend in with the population, they carried disguised explosive devices and planned to attack key industrial plants and railroad facilities and their civilian workers.

Fortunately for the United States – still reeling after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier, and an ongoing German U-Boat anti-shipping campaign that was lighting up the eastern Atlantic with the fires of torpedoed oil tankers from Maine to Florida – the German saboteurs were quickly rounded up by the FBI just days after they came ashore in mid-June 1942.

It is how the U.S. government dealt with these enemy agents that lies at the heart of a budding controversy in the ongoing war against terrorism.

Several weeks after the German teams (which included two naturalized American citizens who had returned to Nazi Germany and later volunteered for the sabotage mission), President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that anyone planning to commit sabotage or espionage would be “subject to the law of war” and turned over to military jurisdiction instead of facing indictment and trial in the federal judiciary system.

In this case, justice was swift. Three weeks after they came ashore on Long Island and in Florida, the eight saboteurs faced a closed military tribunal of seven general officers appointed by the president. U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle and Maj. Gen. Myron C. Cramer, the War Department’s judge advocate general, prosecuted the case and two Army colonels defended the accused. The proceedings ended on Aug. 4, 1942, and four days later Roosevelt announced that all eight had been convicted and six had already been executed in the District of Columbia’s electric chair. The other two – who authorities credited with assisting the FBI in arresting the rest of the two team members – had their death sentences commuted to lengthy prison terms at the request of Biddle and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Ten weeks after al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners and destroyed the World Trade Center and heavily damaged the Pentagon, killing thousands of civilians, President Bush has issued a military order that directs Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to establish a similar tribunal with the authority to try, convict and execute surviving terrorists or their supporters involved in the Sept. 11 attacks and earlier incidents.

To no one’s surprise, the president’s order has sparked criticism from both liberals and conservatives who decry what they believe is an unconstitutional measure.

Liberal columnist Nat Hentoff this week derided Bush for “abandoning more and more of the fundamental rights and liberties that he – and his unquestioning subordinates – assured us they were fighting to preserve.” On the right, New York Times columnist William Safire criticized the administration for having “assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens … [a] replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts …. ”

It is the relaxed legal processes of the military tribunal that have sparked this bipartisan opposition: the trials may be held in secret; there will be no independent jury (with its rigorous selection and membership challenge process); a guilty verdict will not require a unanimous decision, but only two-thirds of the military officers on the tribunal; rules of evidence will be relaxed in contrast to current federal court rules; and there will be no appeals allowed upon conviction.

In normal times, the arguments against creating such a process would be compelling and cogent.

But the opponents of the military tribunal concept seem to be omitting a single, compelling fact that undercuts their position: We are at war with an organized enemy who slaughtered thousands of innocent lives in a pre-meditated operation that violates every civilized precept including the law of war itself.

For the past three decades, the U.S. government has wavered between responding to terrorism as a criminal event or dealing with it as a quasi-military threat. Despite former President Clinton’s willingness to throw Tomahawk cruise missiles at empty Iraqi intelligence buildings or Afghan caves, it was still the FBI that responded in force to Yemen last year after al Qaeda suicide bombers nearly sank the USS Cole.

What Mohamed Atta and his fellow thugs finally did on Sept. 11 was to provide the United States with unavoidable proof that al Qaeda was waging war against every American – military or civilian, man, woman and child – whether or not we recognized it as such.

Our fight to protect ourselves from further terrorist strikes calls for effective means to do so. And despite the critics, there is a record of law that supports such a stark legal approach as this.

The U.S. Supreme Court “has made it clear that the protections given the American people under the Constitution do not apply to people outside our boundaries,” one legal expert told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper this week. University of Virginia law professor Robert F. Turner, associate director of the school's Center for National Security Law, added that the closed proceeding is also important in order to “safeguard some of your secrets and sources” used to locate and apprehend the terrorists.

The military tribunal is a legitimate weapon of war. Use it wisely.

But use it.

Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch.

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Hack’s Target For The Week: It’s Time to Set the U.S. Army Straight

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By David H. Hackworth

It was only two weeks ago that the media armchair commanders and the likes of Sen. John McCain were saying George W. Bush had followed LBJ's dark path into the swamps and that – as with Vietnam – huge numbers of conventional ground troops would be needed to nail the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

Thanks to the Big Ranger in the sky, they were all dead wrong.

But what frightened me to the core was that maybe naysayers like McCain, with access to classified info, might be right. And that our wonderful grunts, sergeants, lieutenants, captains and majors who regularly give me the real skinny were firing blanks.

Another pundit, retired Gen. Robert Johnson, said, “To have any success in Afghanistan ... you need conventional forces to secure territory.” Johnson, a former Marine commander of our beleaguered forces in Somalia (who, by no coincidence, resembles an antagonist in my book The Price of Honor), suggested that at least 100,000 U.S. fighters would be needed.

This would mean that U.S. Army divisions such as my beloved 101st Air-Assault, the 82d Airborne, the 25th, the 10th Mountain and the once-vaunted 1st Cav would soon find themselves slugging it out in Afghanistan. If so, they'd be instant walking body bags, made dying soft by eight years of presidentially imposed political correctness that's clobbered combat standards and training priorities.

Sure these units still have many good soldiers and leaders, but their fighting starch and skill, warrior ethic and willingness to take the risks that fighting wars are all about are now duller than a plastic spoon. President Bill Clinton wanted to build a global village and guard it with kinder, gentler cardboard soldiers who no longer have the right stuff to close with and destroy the enemy. Unfortunately, he, Hillary and other do-gooders like former congresswoman Patricia Schroeder have almost accomplished their mission.

Now that our air and unconventional Special Ops warriors – who only just escaped a similar gutting because they're all male – have easily zapped the foe, conventional units will be deployed to Afghanistan. And they'll be OK securing the rear – they have lots of experience directing traffic in Bosnia and Kosovo and can squat behind a barricade or man roadblocks with the best of U.N. Robo Cops.

But Afghanistan is just Round One of this war. Bet your boots that before you take your Christmas tree down, some of the units I mentioned will be significant players in zapping another terrorist state.

And after the next round of this long war against terrorism, there'll be still other swamps to drain and snakes to kill, all requiring the sharp standards, skill, discipline and levels of proficiency that our soldiers' brothers, cousins, fathers and grandfathers displayed so well from Desert Storm to Overlord and now in Afghanistan.

In six months, our Regular Army could be turned around and made combat hard and ready to fight. GWB should appoint a commission of retired warriors – the Stormin' Normans, Hal Moores and Hank (the Gunfighter) Emersons – to assess ASAP what needs to be done and report back directly to our no-nonsense defense secretary.

We're at war, and there's no room for social experiments that produced the likes of retired Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, whose final contribution to the New Army was to take great pride in saying it was no longer “Your father's Army” – you know, the guys who won so many of our battles because they trained life-or-death hard. Claudia's other infamous parting gift was charging another general with hitting on her two years after the alleged incident because – as she admitted in a hissy fit – she didn't want to see him promoted to her three-star grade.

There will be those fans who'll say I'm picking on the poor Army again because I didn't get a star. Hey, I refused attendance at War College and finally quit after six months in grade as a 40-year-old full colonel because I saw so much senior self-serving incompetency in Vietnam, which was directly responsible for the deaths of so many fine young men, that it flat broke my heart.

Fortunately, today's senior leaders, who didn't resign when they saw their forces' fighting ability being emasculated by the Clintonistas, have a chance to set things right before more American boys die needlessly.

Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831.

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ARTICLE 01 – Oh No, Not the ‘Tuesday Lunch Bunch’ Again!

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By Paul Connors

Why don’t we just call it Vietnam Redux? It’s happening again, and this time the stakes are higher. The methods are the same though, and they include micromanagement from the highest levels in the military and civilian chains of command.

According to a major investigative report in The Washington Post on Nov. 18 (“Target Approval Delays Cost Air Force Key Hits”), as many as ten times in the last six weeks, the Air Force had senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders in their bombsights but couldn’t get permission to fire in time to effectively take them out of the picture. Senior Air Force officials have stated that the problems in decapitating the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership stemmed from an extraordinarily cumbersome approval process that stretches from the theater of operations all the way back to Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.

Does this sound familiar? Doesn’t it recall President Lyndon B. Johnson’s infamous “Tuesday lunch bunch” meetings where he personally selected bombing targets for the Air Force and Navy during the Vietnam War?

Air Force commanders in the theater were quoted in one news report as saying, “We knew we had some of the big boys.” But, one official added, “The process is so slow that, by the time we got clearances and everybody had put in their two cents, we called it (the mission) off.” Some Air Force officers even argued that the effect of the slow decisions had prolonged the war.

They further added that U.S. Special Operations troops now needed to conduct their searches for terrorist leaders on the ground and at great personal risk when the key enemy leaders could have been killed earlier from the air. The officials lamented the tampering in operational planning and mission conduct by politicians and appointees thousands of miles from the fighting.

One Air Force four-star general actually blamed some of the problems on the micromanagement of the war by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his advisers at the Pentagon. The general said, “The execution of the war was military amateur hour.” He added, “The worst thing is the lack of trust at senior leadership levels.” He did not mean the military’s senior leadership, he was specifically referring to the civilian hierarchy within the Defense Department.

Despite what would appear to be a repeat of many of the problems faced by senior Air Force and Navy commanders during the Vietnam War, the current generation of Air Force leaders seems to face most of their frustrations in getting approval for air strikes from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters. CENTCOM, which is run by Army General Tommy Franks, would seem to be a “black hole” when it comes to air mission taskings and approvals for targeting.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Wald, who until recently was air commander for the current campaign, reportedly complained about the clearance and approval process to Franks more than a dozen times since the military campaign began on Oct 7. General Wald was explicit and blunt when he told his superiors in the Air Force that he never received a response from General Franks.

What added to an already difficult campaign plan was that CENTCOM, which has its headquarters at MacDill AFB, Fla., retained for itself the authority to clear attacks against sensitive targets, rather than delegating that authority to commanders based at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

Although many have questioned Air Force assertions that campaigns can now be won from the air with minimal need for ground troops, the Air Force described CENTCOM as a bottleneck. Every significant target would require either CENTCOM approval or clearance by more senior officials in Washington. One Air Force officer described the delays and obfuscations as almost too numerous to count. He also added, “Imagine you have a target in sight, you have to wake up people in the middle of the night and they say, ‘uhhh.’ ” Another officer’s comments were more succinct. He stated, “It’s a scandal.”

General Franks appears to the Air Force and other observers to be far too cautious. Like many who grew up in the politically charged atmosphere of the Vietnam War and its aftermath, he wants to be absolutely certain of each move before he makes it. As his less-than-stellar predecessors before him did, Franks seeks to dodge any blame for mistakes that “might” occur and manipulates the outcome so that none will on his watch.

A recent example of Franks’ lack of decisiveness and wanting conclusive proof arose when a viable target was identified and pinpointed by real-time imagery from a drone reconnaissance aircraft. The Air Force operations center in Saudi Arabia called for a quick strike against the target but was overridden by officers in Tampa advising Franks who asked for a second source of data. The Air Force planners in Saudi Arabia were beside themselves. One officer offered this comment, “It’s kind of ridiculous when you have a live feed from the ‘Predator’ and the intel guys say, ‘We need independent verification.’ ”

When President Bush was elected and picked his advisers, many in the military breathed a sigh of relief because they thought the meddling by the amateurs (from the Clinton years) was behind them.

But it would seem that political propinquity and sycophancy know no party boundaries and the disease of civilian micromanagement has carried over into the new administration.

Let’s face it: This war is not the Vietnam War and it isn’t Operation Desert Storm. Vietnam was unpopular and raised the level of discord in America to previously unseen levels. The Gulf War had the backing of most of the American people and it was fought and won swiftly. This conflict, which could very well be one that will determine our future as a free nation, is being hampered by the same lackluster amateurishness that has haunted the American military since the days of LBJ.

When will the politicians learn? When it comes to warfare, the generals and the admirals are our supposed experts. Let them do their jobs and finish off the enemy wherever and whenever they are found. Quick and aggressive action is much more likely to achieve a desirable outcome than the waffling of bureaucrats and politicians far from the action. The message we should be sending here is, “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.”

To General Franks and his advisers at CENTCOM I can only say, “Shame on you. You are military and should know better!” To Secretary Rumsfeld I offer this advice: Try trusting your field commanders. They’re the ones with the training and expertise to handle warfare. Also, trust is a two-way street; if you want the commanders to trust you, you have to trust them.

Paul Connors is DefenseWatch Air Force Editor.

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ARTICLE 02 – ON THE RECORD: Rumsfeld Response to Targeting Controversy

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The following are excerpts of a press briefing by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon on Monday, Nov. 19, 2001.

Q: If we are to believe The Washington Post, some of these critics are right here in this building. Could I just get your reaction to the Post story of yesterday, which said that red tape was in some cases preventing effective targeting? And apparently, one anonymous four-star general accused you of micromanaging the war.

Rumsfeld: I – when [Central Command Commander] General [Tommy] Franks was here, he responded to that question. He was asked if he was getting targeting advice, I believe, from the Pentagon, and he allowed as how he was not. And I intervened and pointed out that, in fact, he was – that we were encouraging him to attack the enemy vigorously. …

But the – think about what takes place. What takes place is, the president says, “Go after terrorists.” I sit down with the defense establishment, and a plan is developed. And we – General Franks is in charge of that. And he then presents that plan to me, and we talk about it with the advice of the chiefs and the chairman and the vice chairman, and then, at some point, we present it to the National Security Council and the president. He then goes off and implements that plan. …

And he then goes out and makes a series of very tough calls – he and the people under him. And I delegate to him the authority to strike targets, and he does. He goes and uses that delegation of authority, makes his judgments.

And he has to balance the question of doing the maximum amount to kill people on the ground, who might be part of the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, against trying to avoid so much collateral damage and blowing up of mosques and the like that he ends up creating a feeling against the United States and the coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan, and/or spreads the conflict to other countries by virtue of the seeming lack of interest in the extent to which collateral damage is imposed on the people on the ground. So he makes a series of judgments.

Now then you're going to have a bunch of people around the site who aren't the CINC (commander-in-chief), and they're going to look at it. And they're going to say, “Well, gee, if I'd been doing it, I would have done this. I would have done more of that or a little less of this, or I would have done it faster or slower.” There has never been a conflict where people didn't sit down and say, “Gee, the CINC should have done this,” or “the CINC should have done that.”

And my attitude is, Tommy Franks is doing a darn good job, and I think most of the people in this building believe that. And the fact that there are one or two anonymous people who seem to at some point have observed something that they might have done differently ought not to surprise you at all ….

Q: Mr. Secretary, could I follow up on Jamie's initial question? Were there any instances where the U.S. held its fire, where they had al Qaeda or Taliban leadership in its sights and held its fire for fear of collateral damage? Or, if indeed they got Taliban or al Qaeda leadership in their sight, would the U.S. be told to hold its fire, for fear of collateral damage?

Rumsfeld: Look, those are decisions that are made by the CINC and the people under the CINC. And I am sure there are instances where a target was sighted, and it was thought that it would be a good target, but the only weapon available was one that was indiscriminate and would have caused considerable collateral damage, and that they made a judgment that they would wait until the people moved and go after them somewhere else. I suspect that's the case. I'm quite sure that's the case. And those are the kinds of judgments they make all day long. Pilots make those decisions. …

Q: But then isn't it understandable that some might think, then, that they are fighting this war with one hand tied behind their backs?

Rumsfeld: Certainly not. In any war, people have made exactly those same kinds of judgments, and nobody's generally felt that – there's certainly no one in Washington holding anyone's hands behind their back; I can tell you that – not the president and not this person.

The – but we – In no conflict have we just gone in and indiscriminately bombed cities because we thought that was a nice thing to do that day. We have a goal. The goal is to get that [al Qaeda] leadership. We're trying to get them, and we're pursuing them, and we make calculations about what the cost-benefit ratio is. What do you gain by hitting a location … what do you gain by hitting that location if in the process you're going to blow up three hospitals and four orphanages and three schools to get four people?

(Transcript prepared by The Federal News Service Inc., and released by the Defense Department.)

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ARTICLE 03 – The Terrorist Threat and the American Left

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By Patrick Hayes

The time for burying heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away has passed. It is now time for decisive, aggressive and brutal action, but are we as a nation prepared to go all the way in this war on terror?

Terrorism is, by definition, a means by which any disaffected group can cause fear and instability in society. Best defined by Britain in its UK Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1976, as “the use of violence for political ends [including] any use of violence for the purpose of putting the public or any section of the public in fear.”

By their very nature, open democratic societies have varying degrees of discomfort dealing with terrorism, but none more so than the United States. The balance, it is argued, must be met between civil rights and national security. However, following the calculated and cold blooded murder of 5,000 plus innocent civilians in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon in Virginia on Sept. 11, complacent Americans, most of whom have never had to consider the personal threat of terror, have to wake up to some harsh realities – fast. Others have.

Americans must face the realities of not just living, but surviving in the real world of the New World Order. To Osama bin Laden and others like him, we are soft and unaccustomed to discomfort (where’s the remote?), much less bloody masses of flesh and bone in our streets. Many have been pampered for too long, unaware of the changing world outside, guided in a simplistic “love and peace” view of the world by the American Left. However, Sept. 11 was a loud, brutal wake-up call to reality. We are not loved and there is no peace!

Terrorism must be dealt with in an expedient, aggressive and singularly decisive manner that the Left will oppose at every turn. However, the government must act to defend national security not only against the onslaught shadowy terrorists, but also on another front: the hand-wringing Left, many with good intentions, but many more of questionable loyalty and character whose concern automatically reaches out to the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

Activities like torture, killing and the “disappearing” of terrorists was, we are told, the realm of totalitarian governments when agents of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany or the KGB in the Soviet Union took action against individuals and groups to ensure “state security”. However, democracies have also engaged in state-sanctioned counter-terrorist activities. France for example, when dealing with Algerian terrorists in the 1960s, and later with Action Directe in the 1970s, pulled out all the stops, including the use of torture and assassination.

Britain, considered by Americans to be the epitome of staid and proper behavior, has also conducted assassinations against IRA members or other perceived threats to their national security. Under the Official Secrets Act, virtually anyone considered a threat to the Crown could be dealt with in the harshest manner, out of public view or knowledge.

Germany reacted to the bloody massacre by Black September terrorists of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by organizing the very aggressive and deadly Grenzschutzgruppe 9. GSG-9 also dealt with terror perpetrated by the Badder-Meinholf’s Rott Armeé Fraktion.

Israel, the only democratic state in the Middle East, has a history of assassinating those considered to be potential threats or agents of terror, which continues to this day. Following the Munich massacre of the Israeli team, Prime Minster Golda Meir directed agents of the Mossad to track down and kill the Palestinian Black September terrorists responsible, which they did, using terror tactics.

More recently, Shabtai Shavit, the former head of Israel’s Mossad and a 40 year veteran of dealing with terrorists, said, “It may sound dramatic, but life in America is not going to be the same as it used to be before Sept. 11. In order to be able to go on living, you have to be aware of the fact that you are going to have to give up some of your formal liberties, and you have to be ready to give up some of your pleasantries and conveniences.”

Even the United States has a history of aggressive anti-terrorist activities, including torture and assassination. Best known is, perhaps, the CIA’s Phuong Hoang, or Phoenix Program, in Vietnam. Initially successful in routing out and destroying much of the National Liberation Front’s infrastructure, once it became public in 1971, the American Left argued it as another political anomaly of the Vietnam War.

The reality is that fighting terrorism is not pleasant. It is not clean, but brutal and bloody. It is, in effect, the epitome of kill or be killed. There is no middle ground and the American Left will have to come to terms with this new reality.

As the French did in Algiers and the British in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, the United States will have to take the gloves off and get dirty, without concern for political correctness. An untold number of terrorist “suspects” languish in U.S. prisons, enjoying the rights and privileges of other prisoners. But they are not other prisoners. Many of these people are either would-be terrorists, or the supporters of terrorists. Some have information vital to U.S. national security dealing with cell structure, planning, names, locations, funding sources, equipment, etc. And they refuse to talk!

As of Sept. 11, the threat for Americans has gone far beyond car bombings, or the occasional shooting of diplomats in the street. The murders of Sept. 11 were devastating, but are only glimpses of what can come with the threat of “dirty” nuclear devices, or mass biological and chemical attacks, unless Americans have the stomach for direct and aggressive action to prevent it. Constitutional protections for terrorists ended on Sept. 11. When asked how bin Laden should be dealt with, Shabtai Shavit said, “I personally wouldn’t give him the chance to be brought to trial. This guy should be eliminated.”

The pacifists of the Left will decry aggressive action as violations of the terrorists’ “Constitutional rights.” However, the alternatives are clear. We are at war in which there is no surrender, no negotiations and no Geneva Convention.

Editor’s Note: Patrick Hayes joins DefenseWatch as a contributing editor with this article. He is a Marine Corps combat veteran of Vietnam and served as a police officer in southern California for 10 years with experience in counter-terrorism planning and operations.

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ARTICLE 04 – In Hand: A Revolution in Command and Control

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By Robert G. Williscroft

Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Jones is preparing for a three-day mission in Afghanistan. He and his fellow SEALS have spent hours reviewing maps and hundreds of details they must have immediately available during the mission. In front of each is a modified Palm©-driven Personal Digital Assistant (in the Navy they call them JPAs, for Job Performance Aids).

Each device is synched to the others and to a central PC by short-range broadband HF. As the final briefing proceeds, all seven JPAs receive the maps, directions, special individually tailored orders, and other information that used to be recorded in each warrior's Wheel Book and sometimes memorized as well. The memorizing still happens, but the Wheel Book is no more.

In the chopper on the way to the drop, Jones displays a nearly real-time satellite photo of the target area that just arrived in his JPA. Calling up a checklist from his digital field manual and the notes he took during the briefing, he makes sure that the drop site will still work, and annotates the photo with modified deployment positions based on this recent information for the other six. A tap on his screen transmits this data to the others.

Just before they disembark, Jones notes on his screen that each JPA is networked, that each SEAL is live on the audio link, that each SEAL has his assigned weapon suite, and that every team member JPA is loaded with team member-specific information, and the correct software including the SEAL Survival Manual and an English-Pashto translator. In the field, Jones uses his JPA to coordinate the team's actions, and to transmit digital photos and his exact position back to headquarters by satellite.

At the end of the mission, Jones transmits his current location and new pick-up coordinates to the incoming chopper. Since he can pinpoint his position with his Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) unit, and uplink it through his JPA by satellite directly into the chopper's navigation computer display, he does not need to use signal flares. Even though his team is deep inside enemy territory, functionally surrounded by enemy snipers, he can effect a complete extraction before the enemy soldiers are even aware of the chopper's presence.

Is all of this real? Almost, but not quite. Since 1999, JPAs have been issued to every newly commissioned Navy officer. Several Marine units are experimenting with the devices. So are selected Army platoons. Unofficially, thousands of officers and noncoms are going this route on their own. Several software firms run by retired military officers are competing to supply off-the-shelf software to meet their distinctive needs.

Still missing is a battle hardened version of the devices, standardized networking and up- and down-links, and standardized audio links. Further in the future, but within easy reach of today's technology, are personalized heads-up displays that place desired information, photos and drawings directly before each trooper on helmet-mounted transparent drop-down face shields. This will enable the officer in charge to coordinate the actions of his men by voice and image with unheard of precision and accuracy.

The effect of applying this technology universally across the spectrum of forces in the field and aboard ships and aircraft is to enhance the effectiveness of command and control to heights never before experienced. Past snafus, especially linked to SOF operations, have seriously compromised many missions. With this technology in place, these operations will run significantly better with enhanced probability of success.

Shipboard, Division Officers will have at hand all the time details of their personnel, and of their divisional budget, capabilities, shortcomings, training, schedules, etc. With the complete integration of JPAs throughout the fleet, orders coming down the chain of command and responses moving back up will no longer be subject to “word of mouth” or written transmission and its inherent delays.

Eventually, with complete downward integration of the concept to each individual sailor, the chain will be complete, and shipboard operations will significantly increase efficiency. For example, the Plan of the Day will appear on every JPA each morning. When a change to these orders is promulgated, it instantly displays on every shipboard JPA. Senior Petty Officers distribute individual work assignments and follow their progress by JPA.

Eventually, a failing machine will signal its failure directly to the JPA of the sailor tasked with its repair, and to his supervisor (and perhaps Division Officer). I even envision a machine about to fail transmitting its condition to the appropriate individual so that preventative maintenance can forestall the actual failure.

The same principle applies to aircraft and their associated groupings of men and machine, both in the Navy, the Air Force, and the other military air branches. With the eventual inclusion of shore stations, the web will be complete, and we should see a transformation of command and control within our armed forces like nothing ever experienced before.

Robert G. Williscroft is DefenseWatch Navy Editor

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ARTICLE 05 – FEEDBACK: States’ Response for Homeland Security

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I propose the following actions for state governments to strengthen homeland security:

1. Each state should form a state guard under its adjutant general with the mission for community support. State adjutants general should consider placing a senior National Guard officer in charge of the state guard and provide them with training and equipment. These are mostly veterans or people who want to volunteer with a state organization. The state defense forces were created by the U.S. Congress with the express purpose of providing a homeland defense during a period of national crisis. That crisis is here.

2. The Civil Air Patrol should be moved from a national auxiliary status to the control of the state adjutant general and be a regional part of the Air National Guard.

3. The U.S. Coast Guard auxiliary should be placed under each state adjutant general and be utilized as a regional coastal and inland water patrol for the various states.

4. Fire Departments and police or sheriff's reserve units should be utilized to the maximum extent possible. Volunteer fire departments should be brought under one central control unit in each county so that there are no unsupported units. Each county would have a fire district and all departments whether paid or volunteer would be controlled by that entity.

5. Sheriff reserve and police reserve units should be activated.

-- Warren Graef

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ARTICLE 06 – Medal of Honor Recipient – COLE, ROBERT G. Lt. Col. USA

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Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 101st Airborne Division.

Place and date: Near Carentan, France, 11 June 1944.

Entered service at: San Antonio, Tex.

Birth: Fort Sam Houston, Tex. G.O. No.: 79, 4 October 1944.

Citation: For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty on 11 June 1944, in France. Lt. Col. Cole was personally leading his battalion in forcing the last four bridges on the road to Carentan when his entire unit was suddenly pinned to the ground by intense and withering enemy rifle, machine-gun, mortar, and artillery fire placed upon them from well-prepared and heavily fortified positions within 150 yards of the foremost elements.

After the devastating and unceasing enemy fire had for over one hour prevented any move and inflicted numerous casualties, Lt. Col. Cole, observing this almost hopeless situation, courageously issued orders to assault the enemy positions with fixed bayonets. With utter disregard for his own safety and completely ignoring the enemy fire, he rose to his feet in front of his battalion and with drawn pistol shouted to his men to follow him in the assault.

Catching up a fallen man's rifle and bayonet, he charged on and led the remnants of his battalion across the bullet-swept open ground and into the enemy position. His heroic and valiant action in so inspiring his men resulted in the complete establishment of our bridgehead across the Douve River.

The cool fearlessness, personal bravery, and outstanding leadership displayed by Lt. Col. Cole reflect great credit upon himself and are worthy of the highest praise in the military service.

Editor’s Note: If you know of any MOH recipient who is hospitalized or has passed away recently, please email MOH Correspondent James H. Also, if you would like more info on MOH recipients and their stories, please email James H at bulldogleader@mindspring.com.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Article Submission Procedures/Subject Editors Sought
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1. Try to keep articles to 750 words or less. SUBMIT IN MS WORD FORMAT, if
possible!

2. Submit your piece to one of the following editors:

Ed Offley, Editor

defensewatch@aol.com

J. David Galland, Deputy Editor

defensewatch02@hotmail.com

DefenseWatch is looking for volunteer subject editors willing to assist in screening and editing article submissions. We are looking for experts in the following areas: U.S. Army, U.S. Coast Guard, Special Operations forces/counter-terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and veterans affairs. If interested in joining the DefenseWatch team, please contact Ed Offley at defensewatch@aol.com.

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GLOSSARY OF MILITARY ACRONYMS:
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We've had numerous requests from troops in different branches of the
military to establish this link so that we will all know how "all you
others" talk that talk. The DoD site is not working but the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists has an excellent online acronym roster. Please see below:

http://www.fas.org/news/reference/lexicon/acronym.htm

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HACK BOOK SALES

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Hack's books, About Face, Hazardous Duty, The Price of Honor and The
Vietnam Primer can be found at www.hackworth.com. They make a great addition
to any library. Hack is offering them at a special SFTT price.

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