Kitty Hawk

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 28, 2001

Answers

Thank you Slick Willy

-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), March 28, 2001.

Lars,

I don't think anyone would accuse me of being a flamin' liberal ([g]), but that article was a bit a of stretch. If we had been under any form of Threat Warning at that time, I'm quite sure the Kitty Hawk would have responded differently.

The military has been trying to prevent deadly mistakes for some years now. Sometimes that means that we DO keep the gun in the holster until we're sure what's going on. I'm sure, in this case, that the commander of the Kitty Hawk really didn't expect the Russians to actually open fire. If he had, those two Flankers would be at the bottom of the ocean right now feeding the fishies.

Where the article completely lost me, though, was when the guy speculated on a "computer virus" being used to disable the ship's systems via email. Heh, heh, heh.

-- Stephen M. Poole (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), March 28, 2001.

Thursday March 29, yahoo

Report: Army Unit Is Not Prepared

NEW YORK (AP) - One of the Army's 10 active divisions has been downgraded to the second-lowest level of battle readiness due to a lack of training and personnel, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Citing unidentified Pentagon officials, the newspaper said the 3rd Infantry Division, based out of Fort Stewart, Ga., was downgraded because thousands of its soldiers have missed battle-readiness training while stationed overseas. Nearly 4,000 troops from the division have been serving as peacekeepers in Bosnia since October.

Maj. Gen. Walter Sharp, who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division, downgraded the division's readiness rating to C-3. That means the division would need to prepare for weeks, if not months, if it was called up for wartime duty.

The Pentagon officials said the downgrading does not indicate the military is seriously impaired. But the move is likely to add to the debate in Congress over the deployment of military troops overseas.

Many members of Congress have called for less involvement of U.S. troops in peacekeeping missions. They say the missions are too costly and demoralizing for troops.

Congressional officials declined to comment to the Times on the downgrading of the 3rd Division.

-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), March 29, 2001.