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I try to scan every article that appears in the newsletter. But those that are printed too small or do not scan well and require excessive editing are not included.

Hey, is anybody reading these??
Let me know at qlp@qlpconsulting.com
It takes more time to post these than the rest of the newsletter. If nobody out there then I am going to stop posting these.
Chuck
I posted this note on or about 3/04 and as of 2/04 have not heard from anyone.
Based on that, as of 3/05 this page will be discontinued due to lack of interest.
 

Jonathan Evans is a Chief Warrant Officer 2 in the US Army stationed at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, as a pilot-in--command of a UH-60 Blackhawk for the 12th Aviation Battalion. The views expressed here are his own.

Ask William Reynolds any trivia questions about American presidents and you will likely get more than you bargained for.

You may receive an unsolicited, highly detailed dissertation on first family pets. Or you might get a short treatise on Chester A. Arthur and how this somewhat forgettable president of the late 19'h century happened to have a summer home in Ossining.

Testing his vast storehouse of knowledge, I once asked Reynolds how tall James Monroe was. Without hesitation, he replied "5 feet I I inches." As Reynolds will tell you, he knows his "stuff." As an amateur historian and political junkie, he absorbs everything presidential. Nothing would please Reynolds more than to take a day trip to, say, Martin VanBuren's grave in Kinderhook, N.Y.

"You should see my wife, he said yesterday. "If I try to go into a bookstore, she pulls me the other way. It's ironic. Every time I flip through the pages of a book, somehow I'll find a mistake. It's unreal."

No one's safe from scrutiny. Reynolds even corrected noted author and popular historian Geoffrey Ward, who reported in a comprehensive book on the Civil War that the aforementioned Chester A. Arthur did not serve in the military during the conflict.

Not so, said Reynolds. Though he may have been in the rear with the gear, the future president was appointed quartermaster general. Ward graciously sent Reynolds a handwritten letter of apology.

"I know my stuff," said Reynolds.

Arthur, as it happened, was arguably the least heroic of a long run of six presidents who served in some capacity during the Civil War. Starting with Ulysses S. Grant in 1876 and ending with William McKinley in 1896, every president had a military resume - except one. The exception was Grover Cleveland, as Reynolds can tell you at the drop of a hat.

"Grover Cleveland had actually paid a substitute to do his military service for him and that was a common practice," he said. "Men of wealthy means did it, like Andrew Carnegie and the fathers of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt - and the reason why Grover Cleveland did it was because he was the sole support of his widowed mother."

Though Cleveland may have had a legitimate excuse to avoid the draft (a Polish immigrant was paid $150 to take his place), the decision was not without political consequences. "Sure enough," Reynolds said. "They used that against him 20 years later when he ran for president in 1884."

Cleveland won the election anyway, but the campaign of 1884 proved how vulnerable a presidential candidate could be to public scorn if he couldn't claim service to the Union in a war that Abraham Lincoln successfully elevated to a holy cause.

The parallels to the post-Vietnam presidential landscape are obvious. Bill Clinton survived similar attacks that he was a draft dodger when he ran in 1992. Ever since then, in varying degrees, the question of "What did you do in the war?" has followed candidates who were of draft age during the Vietnam debacle. The Vietnam War allowed a legal "out" for young men of wealth and privilege either through deferments or preferential assignments to National Guard units that were unlikely to be assigned overseas duty.

The Vietnam-service issue has been especially intense during this presidential campaign because of comparisons drawn between the Democratic front-runner, John Kerry, who was a twice wounded Navy officer, and President Bush, who was in the Texas Air National Guard. This has taken a nasty tone at times.

Bush has been slapped with the Cleveland-Clinton treatment as well as with unproven allegations he went AWOL. Kerry is a bona fide hero but has been tarred with nearly hysterical charges that he betrayed his fellow servicemen when he returned home and protested the war.

The sad thing about all this is that more attention has been paid to the political sport of what Bush and Kerry did or didn't do in the war than to the health-care issues facing those veterans who are struggling every day with physical and psychological injuries.

Dan Griffin, executive director of the Westchester Chapter, Vietnam Veterans of America, recognizes the disconnect between a government that asks its young people to right in Iraq while cutting services for aging and elderly veterans at home.

"Every year, we have to go on a bended knee and beg Congress for money," Grifflin said. "And every year it gets cut, or flat-lined."

Griffin has been waging a tough battle to prevent the in-patient psychiatric unit and nursing home at the hospital in Montrose from moving to Dutchess County.

Griffin said that services have been systematically cut at Montrose to the point where veterans and their families have to travel farther and farther to get basic care. He compared Montrose to a ghost town.

Presidential candidates should stand up for veterans "and make sure they have mandatory funding, so they don't have to scramble for money," Griffin said.

In other words, veterans should be a campaign issue, not a trivial pursuit.

Fathers empathize with their daughters, sons fighting in Iraq
Paul Piazm imagines the time will come when his son, Marine -Sgt. Christopher Piazza, will want to talk about his experiences in Iraq.
But the Air Force veteran who saw action in Vietnam, a war that scarred a generation and bitterly divided the United States, said he won't push his son to talk.
"I think it's going to be at his prompt as to whether we sit down and speak about it," said Piazza, 52, a Patterson resident. "I've got to give him the space to deal with it, but at the same time, I've got to be here for him."
Piazza said his combat experience in Vietnam gave him a newfound respect for his own father ' a World War H veteran, and he hopes that his son, still in Iraq, gains a similar respect for him.
Father's Day 2003 brings a new perspective for Vietnam veterans with sons and daughters serving in Iraq. They know that their children have seen the horrors of war and that it may change them forever. But they also hope that their own war experiences will help them understand what their children have been through and that it will bring them closer.
,11je newer veteran now understands what dad went through. I didn't know exactly what my father went through in World War H but, after Vietnam, I felt different about him. I ,understood him better," said Carroll Williams, director of training and operations at the American Legion's national headquarters in Washington and a Vietnam veteran. "War is war, no matter where it is. People get killed, people die, people suffer - and soldiers who have experienced that share a common bond."
"I think it opens up a whole new arena of shared experiences because it's something you don't necessarily talk about," said Mahopac resident Dennis DiRaftaele, who served in the Army in Vietnam and whose son, Staff Sgt. Matthew DiRaffaele, is with the Marines in Iraq.
"One tends to be more subdued in light of real combat experience and real combat situations. It's not like in the movies," said DiRaffaele, 60. "When my son comes back, it will be something we will be able to share, without words if necessary. If you've been through it, you don't have to explain it."
Former Marine Dwight Keith of Carmel, whose son, Navy Petty Officer Timothy Keith, is aboard the USS Tarawa in the Middle East agrees they may never discuss their war experiences.
"It will be very much like members of the VFW, said Keith, a Vietnam veteran. "Many never speak about what's gone on, but everyone understands it."
Bill Butera of Stony Point a retired lawyer and Vietnam veteran, said having a son serving in Iraq has given him a new perspective on what his parents experienced in 1969 when he was at war. Butera's son, Craig Butera, 26, is an infantry officer with the Army's 101stt Airborne Division.
"I had no idea what my parents went through that year," Butera said. "Now I understand how horrible it was for them."
Butera, 57, said his experiences in Vietnam changed his view of the United States.
"After you live somewhere where a rocket can hit your hooch, or a mine can blow you up at any second, you learn how wonderful this country is," he said.
In letters from Iraq, his son, a 1999 graduate of the U.S. Military academy at West Point, wrote that he was reaching the same conclusion.
"He said his service makes him understand even more what a wonderful country he will come back to," Butera said.
Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Neff of Kent said in an e-mail from Iraq last week that, during the war, he thought often of his father, John Neff, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran.
"He has taken care of me throughout my life," Neff wrote to The Journal News. "I felt my service in the war was kind of payback, if you will."
Neff, 19, said he saw "visions that only other men of conflict can comprehend. I saw men, women and children taken as quickly as a bullet flies. It didn't really affect me, though I no longer take simple things for granted."
Sgt. I' Class Michael J. Wagner of the Army Reserves said he tried to steer his son, Army Pvt. Michael E. Wagner, away from the military. Sgt. Wagner, a veteran of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, has been serving stateside with the Reserves since July 2002. His son a 2001 graduate of Carmel High School, is in Iraq with the 3d Infantry Division.
"I tried to get him to go to college, but he wanted to go into the Army. I tried to sit him down and explain the hazards, but he didn't care. He made up his mind and, God love him, he accomplished it," Wagner, 53, said by telephone from Georgia, where he is stationed.
Wagner said he looked forward to talking to Ins oldest son about the war experience.
"Once I start talking about things that I've seen, I think he'll let the doors open and, whatever he feels he needs to talk about, I'll be there to listen," he said. 11 ~ While Vietnam veterans understand that, ultimately, their combat experiences won't differ much from what their children saw in Iraq, they trust that the welcome home their children receive will be better than what they got some 30 years ago.
"I had to fly from San Francisco, Travis Air Force Base, to JFK (airport), but to get the military discount I had to wear my uniform. I can't describe the look of scorn I got from people," said Yonkers resident Harvey Goldberg, who served in the Air Force in Vietnam and whose son, Marine Sgt. David Goldberg, recently returned from Iraq.
Williams, the American Legion official, recalled that when he came back from Vietnam in 1969 and landed in San Francisco, he and other Marines ducked into a men's room and took off their uniforms to avoid being berated and even spat on by people opposed to the war.
"I was so concerned that I told my friend not to tell anyone that I served in Vietnam," he
said.
Today, Vietnam veteran fathers said they were confident their sons and daughters will be welcomed as heroes.
"I think that, today, our generation - the baby boomers - support what our children are doing and support our military, unlike 30 years ago," said Goldberg, whose son was welcomed home to Yonkers earlier this month by Gov. George E. Pataki
"Hopefully, there will be a parade at some point for these guy's," Sgt. Wagner said. "I think the message has gotten across that you need to support the troops, no matter what political arena you are from. These are just kids trying to do a job, and most of them, I think, have done it well."

There are two memorial Days: the one that throws Frisbees on the beach, and the one that marches in the parade, behind the high school band, shiny little pins on its snug dress blues. Taco salad and taps, S.P.F. and V.F.W., the grill and the wreath.

To be jerked from one to the other is a lonesome thing.

Carmen Palmer-Thompkins was at the grill last year, like every other year. Her son, Bernard Gooden, a Marine corporal, was 21 years old then, eight months away from his orders to deploy to Iraq. 312 days from the firefight that killed him, on April 4. "He fought for six and a half hours," Mrs. Palmer-Thompkins said. "He put up a good fight."
Last Memorial Day seems more like a selfish fantasy than a simple cookout, seems much farther away than one year. Everything is different.
"Memorial Day used to be barbeques and hanging out with your friends," Mrs. Palmer-Thompkins, 43, said from her home in Mount Vernon. N.Y. "We used to do that Memorial Day, but we didn't think of it as a greater thing than that.
"Until it's in your backyard, you don't know the significance to you."
In your backyard, literally - where the grill is now. "How can you have your son just killed and do the things you used to do?" she asked. "I hope people will think of it deeper than barbecuing, and think of those guys who went to Iraq and were away from their families."
This year, she has been invited to join a parade, and a wreath ceremony for Westchester County's only Iraq casualty. She is a part of a small, new group of New York mothers and sisters and brothers and sons, stumbling through a new Memorial Day, separate from the other holiday, the one that is fun.
Listen to Hyda Hernandez. She could be an irritated grandmother bemoaning youth's disrespect for history: "They don't think about it. Another federal holiday, they're off from work, off from school. They don't see it." She is 38, in Masbeth, Queens. Her brother, Cpl. Robert M. Rodriquez, was in a tank that rolled off a bridge and into the Euphrates on March 27, killing him and three other marines. She will catch the parade at Grand Avenue.
New York declared the day a holiday back in 1873, and the rest of the Northern states followed. May 30 was Memorial Day, every year, a day marked by children carrying flowers to the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers.
But the grill was not far behind. Just 15 years later, in 1888, a group of frustrated veterans gathered to condemn, by proclamation, "indulgence in public sports, pastimes, and all amusements on Memorial Day."
Then, many people knew names on graves. There were 620,000 Confederate and Union dead. By comparison, the war in Iraq's surviving family members are a grim little club, mourning 160 Americans.
"People may be motivated to observe the holiday in a more meaningful way," said James McPherson, a history professor at Princeton University and the author of
 "Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg." "It will be more meaningfull in communities that have lost somebody."
He said Memorial Day long ago stopped being a memorial, and became instead the front door to summer. It was trivialized, he said, by the law in 1968 that changed the date to the last Monday in May. "For most people, it means a day off," he said. "The tradition has faded in most communities. Flags go up, but that's about it."
It gets confusing, especially this year.
In the Seneca County town of Waterloo, N.Y., which prides itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day, the annual pizza eating contest begins at 5 p.m. The first one to finish an entire cheese pizza ("displaying an open mouth to the judges." the rules state) wins a trophy and a $25 gift certificate for more pizza.
At the farthest other extreme of the day, in Brooklyn, the family of Specialist Rasheed Sahib will visit his fresh grave, just two days old. He was killed on May 18 when a fellow soldier's gun discharged during cleaning. The body arrived in the United States on Thursday, and Specialist Sahib was buried yesterday.
"Now we understand, what is the 'Memorial' in Memorial Day," said Zina Samad, 39, of Miami, the soldier's aunt. "It is a day to be mourned, not to be celebrated."
She, too, recalls last year in the backyard. Specialist Sahib loved Memorial Day. "He would go over by his grandfather and sit. He loved his family," Ms. Samad said. "We all sat in the backyard and celebrated. Barbecue chicken. Steak.
"It will never happen again."
Streaming home on airplanes and ships, the living marine, soldier, sailor, pilot. There is at least one place, it seems, where both Memorial Days come together.
There is a house in Myrtle Beach. S.C. Inside is Lt. Jonathan Eckstein, 30, a Marine surgeon with an artillery battalion, back from Iraq five days now, about a week away from moving to Inwood on Long Island to complete his residency and begin his medical practice.
On April 22, a group of marines near Kut were shooting off seized Iraqi weapons. The rocket-propelled grenade launcher, perched on the shoulder of a marine, worked fine twice. The third round exploded in the tube, spraying shrapnel behind and to the side, into a knot of marines who were watching or waiting their turns.
Dr. Eckstein treated six of the wounded, pulling chunks of shrapnel from flesh, stabilizing the men before helicopters took them out of the field. Two other marines died, Chief Warrant Officers Robert William Channell Jr. and Andrew Todd Amold, popular men.
"It didn't seem real," Dr. Eckstein said later. "It was surreal, for days. A week later, me and my guys all sat down and talked about it. That was like mouming for us."
His Memorial Day, then: "I've gotten through mourning. It's a celebration. It's being back. It's being here with my family, my friends."
Finally, real burgers. Among the marines, the hands-down most sought-after Meal-Ready-to-Eat packet is No. 8. It is the first envelope liberated from any just-opened case of M.R.E.'s. The beef patty. It is an oddly rectangular shape, and the two pieces of "wheat snack bread" are fortified and chewy, but in the desert, it is the closest thing to a hamburger. The closest thing to a grill.

Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC, wrote the following thought-provoking address: Tom Draude (Brigadier General, USMC, retired), VP USAA, Saint Leo College Board Member, delivered the address on November 11, 1998 at the Veterans Day Marine Corps Birthday party at USAA in Tampa, Florida.
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe, wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel. He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38h parallel. She or he is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang. He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back at all. He is the Quantico drill instructor who had never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs. He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand. He is the career Quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by. He is the three anonymous heroes in the Tomb of the Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep. He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come. He is an ordinary and yet extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs. He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known. So remember each time you see someone who has saved our country, just lean over and say "Thank You". That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any Medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot: "Thank You".

Submitted by:
Dr. Jason G. Hoffman (LTC - Retired)
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State unit lets older volunteers take part in war on terrorism.

Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.
When he coined that phrase, Gen. Douglas MacArthur didn't know about Stan Sanfratello, Ed Murray and Dan Griffin, three Vietnam veterans who decided after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11 that it was time to once again don their country's uniform and return to military service.

All three Westchester residents, now in their 50s, have joined the New York Guard, a component of the state's military force, to "do whatever we can to help in the fight against terrorism," said Griffin, a White Plains resident who served as an infantryman in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. The 54-year-old carpenter is president of the Westchester chapter of Vietnam veterans of America.
The New York Guard was established in 1917 to provide a military force for the protection of state property and to assist ."during emergencies whenever the  National Guard is activated federal ervice. Members are volun-teers who support state National  Guard units and New York's Emer-gency Management Office. Guard  members are unpaid, unless or- ordered into active state service. The
Guard's Army Division has its head-quarters at Camp Smith in Cordandt  and is commanded by Brig. Gen.  Donald Singer of Peekskill, retired  chief of the Greenburgh Police Department.
"We're ready to respond to a variety of things", said Lt. Col. Sidney Baumgarten, the Army Division's chief of staff. "We have people with expertise in a number of areas, and we're very dedicated to our mission.'"
About 300 Guard members were put on active duty after Sept 11 and have performed a variety of tasks, including security duty at armories in New York City and other areas. Soldiers from the Guard also have coordinated the flow of emergency equipment and donated supplies to Ground Zero from five sites in the state, handled various communications duties and provided medical support in the city.
Baumgarten said a number of Vietnam veterans are members of the Guard and that the organization welcomes them with open arms.
It think it's terrific that these veterans, have joined us" he said. "They bring a tremendous amount of skill, experience and maturity that we can use."
Murray, 55, was a member of the Army security agency in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. With the Guard, he works in administration.
"We won't be putting on our old jungle fatigues and charging up any hills," the Fleetwood resident said, "but we can offer our knowledge and experience . The Guard needs NCOs (noncommissioned officers), so we're trying to reach out to Vietnam veterans who can help train National Guard troops.
Murray an association manager had decided to join the Guard before he attacks on the WorldTrade Cener and the Pentagon.
"I was looking to join in August;" he said." I'd heard about the Guard and talked to some people about it.  I was sworn in in late September and found out they needed veterans, so  told Dan, Stan and some of the other guys about it. It's a way to get back in the military and help out.
Sanfratello, 57, served aboard the USS Constellation aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam as a Navy aviation machinist second class in 1965. Now a veterans employment representative for the state Department of labor the Peekskill resident  "never thought I'd go back in uniform. But it feels good. I feel like I'm doing something for my country."
All three men said a need to do something after Sept. 11 led to their return to uniform.
I didn't want to just sit around watching CNN all day Griffin said. I wanted to get involved and do something to help. I was too old to join the regular Army or the National Guard, so I joined the New York Guard."
Guard members are not required to have prior military service. Those who do normally get a promotion when they join. Griffin, for example, left the Army as a three-stripe "buck" sergeant and is now a staff sergeant in the Guard.
Assigned to the 12th Training Regiment Griffin will use his experience as a combat veteran to train volunteers with no military background in the basics of soldiering.
"Basically, I have a week to turn civilians into some semblance of soldiers he said.
The three veterans said they've enjoyed their return to arms and that despite being away from it for 30 something years, they feel comfort able in the military environment at Camp Smitb.
"I don't have a problem saluting or anything like that" Murray said. "Once you raise your hand and take the oath, you never really put it back down"
"It's like I never left," agreed Sanfratello, who is assigned to recruiting duties. "There's still a lot of hurry up and wait, but I love the camaraderie and the sense of being involved with people who are ready to do whatever is needed. I love going up to Camp Smith. There's something about the military - I can't put my finger on it but it feels like I belong there.
The hardest thing for Griffin, he said with a laugh, was getting a haircut. I've worn it pretty long for a while,- he said. -But I do remember the drills and military courtesy and things like that. It all feels very familiar so far. There's the same sense of brotherhood."
One thing that's changed since Vietnam, Griffin said, is the public's reaction to the military.
"One night I was driving  home from Camp Smith and I stopped for gas in Armonk," he said., "A lady came up to me and said, '"Thank you". My first reaction was like, "For what?' And then I realized I was in uniform. Nobody ever thanked me when I came home from Vietnam. It took me totally by surprise!
Guard members can serve up to the age of 68, which suits Murray just fine. "I see this as a long-term commitment," - he said. "I will do whatever I can do, for as many years as I can do it'.
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