European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 29, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes August 1985 columns comments George will servicemen and women Are underappreciated aboard Tiik under Way it is i i do you know where your children arc some parents children almost children the Crews average age is barely Are rearming arid repairing High performance aircraft in a Small on an airbase that can move hundreds of Miles in a its screws churning up a 40fool Tail or Spray aft when at top nowhere on Are so Many complicated involving so Many forces and and requiring so much mechanical agility and allowing so Small a margin for performed with such clan As on a it is a carefully choreographed with noise and danger All it is a performance appropriate and vital an Era of violent the soviet Union is a self sufficient land or in minerals and with no defensive need for the enormous Navy it is the soviets have offence in mind and have three times As Many ships As the United Stales More conventional and nuclear More More the advantage is its 14 to last year a single soviet exercise involved 200 including 70 the soviet Pacific Fleet alone has 575 including i 34 Summa consider those numbers when hearing complaints about plans for a 600ship Navy by 1989 up from 479 in for the United with 40 treaty under commercial dependencies and global Power re naval superiority is a in the last 40 presidents have mane Vered or otherwise used Forward deployed Navy and Marine units 250 times to further policy and today the West lacks the merchant tonnage to sustain heavy losses in a submarine War of in world War Hitler nearly won the War in 1942 with about 60 operational Summa the soviets have nearly 300 attack thus the United states needs a Forward strategy to engage the enemy closer to his Border than car with their Young Crews of More than Are the key to the armed forces run the the nations Best Job train ing program for often minority Young peo at a recent ceremony on the Carrier More than 400 sailors received High school when Young men who work on Carrier flight decks leave for civilian they can be reasonably certain that they have had the hardest Job they will Ever they will leave with something priceless of Many will not last year 58 percent of firs term enlistees reaching the end of their commitments Reen on a Normal Day last half of All sailors were assigned to sea duty and on third of the Navy was under the Navy often does not seem to know the reduced Tempo of Garrison for the Crew of a submarine on or a Carrier cruising for 100 Days without a port of Call in the steamy Indian there Carl Rowan is nothing to do except As one of the ships officers puts during a nonstop 40hour exercise the main difference Between life on a Carrier when in its Normal training and life on a Carrier in a conflict is that in conflict fewer planes would be coming you cannot pay people to land High performance air Craft on a Carrier at that you cannot pay enough to get people to do that unless they enjoy but you can pay them too Little so Little that the Demora living sense of National indifference erodes resistance to the temptation of the rewards that Are always there for the taking in civilian Congress can save a few million dollars by practice ing false Economy at the expense of reenlistment but and not just of varies with compensation because compensation is the Tan Gible sign of an intangible society gratitude for hard work performed beyond the if the experience level of the Pilot corps and if the morale of the entire support Crew As it did in the a predictable result will be an increase in the crashes of aircraft costing far More than an effective program of Small but effective it May seem but it is the plainest truth the More Complex the military organization and the More sophisticated the the More the Success of the system depends on Success depends on the concentration and zest and sweat of the most complicated and variable of military the men and women who put their hands on the the disconcerting aspect of a visit to a Carrier is the intensity of the gratitude of the Crew for any civilian attention to what they Are the gratitude is flow ing in the wrong c Washington Post writers group Reagan living in a dream world with yall offensive there must be some hallucinogenic agent in the fog that Rolls off the Pacific into Santa Why else would president reagans old and sit out there in a dream talking about a fall offensive in which they will sell the Congress and America a Reagan Agenda that already has been soundly rejected Reagan is far from the lamest of the Las term ducks to occupy the White but even the great communicator is going to find that his Best offence will be a poor defense As he wields the veto against a con Gress that no longer wants to do things his lets look at some of the issues on which the Santa Barbara dreamers think they can Bend Congress and the nation tax Reform this Issue is not and a Bill May get through Congress this but it will not be Ronald reagans Dan chair Man of the House ways and Means knows that this country suffers crippling deficits partly because of reagans 1981 tax cuts to the while punishing Middle class families and penalizing married reagans tax Reform scheme is not Revenue Neu As first but would reduce the flow of monies into the Treasury and thus increase budget Defi neither Congress nor the american people will tolerate such a any tax Reform that gels through Congress this fall will impose a substantial minimum tax on give More Relief to Middle class families and less to the and probably include measures to enhance reve Nues so As to reduce budget Domestic spending if president Reagan Ever seriously thought that he could repeal the new fair new Frontier and great he surely got an Awakening during the recent congressional wrangling Over a budget Resolution for the con Gress reordered the nations spending priorities dramatic taking Money from military but refusing to or social programs that were on the presidents hit nothing that the Reagan team can conjure up in Santa Barbara will induce Congress to mangle pro Grams that give welfare to dependent food Stamps to the medical care to the education Over the last four plus years the Congress has appropriated More than billion for Public education that Reagan did not it stymied his attempts to abolish the department of the nations Public schools Are and Congress is not going to permit them to be weakened either by a denial of or by a Reagan offensive in support of efforts to divert Federal monies to private and Church schools through tuition tax protectionism the Santa Barbara gladiators say their game plan includes blocking and tackling those who want to set up barriers to imports from As a relative i sympathize with As a i know that when americans see the Impact of All those japanese cars that Are flooding our and All those other imports that Cost americans their the Congress is going to try to do something about an Al most unbelievable billion year Trade but someone ought to Tell the offensive coordinator out in Santa Barbara that neither he nor president Reagan can control the fall prime minister Botha in South chairman Mikhail Gorbachev in the soviet tip Oneill in Washington and several other people will have a lot to say about who deals with what on which that fall offensive May never find out where the goal line let alone Cross c 1985 news America Syndicate