European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 14, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday. June 14. 1988 the stars and stripes Page 9 who succeeds As a Marine guard screening program seeks to sidetrack misfits b Chuck Vinci i Washington Bureau Quantico. A. Lift for the 1.300 marines to guard . Diplomatic psis can be summed up relatively easily Long stretches of isolation often in Back Ward Corners of lie world in a Job filled with a mind numbing boredom that is occasionally shattered by dangerous incidents 1 Lake a certain kind of personality to Deal with those kinds of Rigours. But. Until recently the Only Crite Ria for applying to the Marine Security guard in school were pay Grade time in service routine Ali Lude lest scores and a commander s recommendation hardly enough to determine How a guard will read when an unruly mob tries to storm an embassy. Yet in was t until Marine corps officials saw too Many detachment commanders at the 140 posts world wide simply drop out. Unable to Cope thai they fell it was Lime to pay More attention to the mental and emotional Side of the people being recruited. Enter it. Cmdr. Forrest Sherman the firs staff psychologist to be assigned to the battalion Headquarters at the sprawling Suamico Marine corps Rise about 30 Miles South of Washington. Sherman was recruited in october 1985 for a relatively straightforward Job to develop a psychological screening program for the mag school to improve the Quality of the marines that eventually were As signed to the in reviewing records from 1983 to i98fi, Sherman found that about 10 percent of the detachment com Manders were bailing out generally for one of three reasons. In i Lucr was alcohol abuse family problems or a third category h Calls a general Utlack of the stupids just some foolishness thai was enough for the stale department m say we Don t need this person " it soon became obvious to Marine corps officials and to Sherman himself that there was More than enough work at the unit for a full time psychologist and the position was made permanent about a year Nga the screening project for the school is proceeding nicely Sherman says. We re in the process of picking and choosing which aspects of the Lesis Are Best for our purposes he says. We can pretty much predict what Type of personality will make it through the school. Hut does that Transl Alc into Success in the Field that s something we Hope to find out one of the tools Sherman is using is a test that dec mines various personality traits on a scale of one to 10 reserved is. Outgoing mild is aggressive trusting is. Suspicious group Orien cd is. Loner. From those less we know what the average guard is like Sherman says. Generally he s extroverted but tool emotionally stable but tends to be dominant in personal relationships enthusiastic conscientious bold suspicious socially polished practical and Lender thai is what the battalion has. What in wants is maturity. We re looking for adults not arrested adolescents lie says. What i m doing now is comparing whether our successful guards in the Field match the averages we gel from these to cols. If there s much differ ence we May have to re Cal talc parts of the program As Well As our Lessing procedures. Bui i d be surprised if we need to make major changes. Psychology generally is used to prove a Fiji common sense has already told in addition to the school screening project Sherman Bas Lakin on other duties that place him in a different role tracking the Well cing of guards who Are As signed in the Field. Thai Means getting involved in personal and family counselling and even preventive Medicine since routine med Carcare is woefully inadequate in some countries. Wajih such a far Flung network of clients Sherman spends much of his time on the Road. He already has logged an estimated 85.0do Miles in the Al Rel six months of this year. If there s a crisis in a detachment 1 pack my bags and i m he says. Not that our guards Are particularly disturbed or anything bul they do have unusual pressures and sometimes people react in strange ways. Often they Don l have anyone else to turn although hell Lake a personal Call from a guard in the Field he tries not to subvert the Chain of command. Typically someone in the Chain will Call and ask me to Lalk to someone in the unit he says. My role is not o be a fall or confessor. We already have a Chap lain Sherman does his Best to keep guards on an even keel through stress management by holding workshops on the Road and supplying workbooks thai individuals can use when he s nol around. Family Siress is one of the big reasons for drop oils he says guards themselves Aren t allowed to be married but about two thirds to three quarters of the detach men l commanders have spouses and they play a crucial role in the a new aspect of Sherman s Job Islo Deal with female guards. The Marine corps recently allowed women to apply for the school and the first five recruits Are in the current training Cycle. That presents a whole new set of he said. Women have different norms on All Standard psychological tests. And since they la be in the program in Small numbers i won t be Able to generalize. I la have to make clinical but he Doest foresee problems in that area. We have some experience with this when women were allowed into the program for a time in 1979 and 19bo," he says they did very Well As Well As if not belter than i hair male Australia offers to sign pact with aborigines Sydney Australia a prime minister Bob Hawk save his government is committed to signing a treaty with aborigines that would reconcile 200 years of grievances spawned by White settlement. Howie said he wants the trealy in place by mid 1990 and offered to provide funding for a draft agreement that the government could consider and ratify if acceptable. Firstly there shall be a treaty negotiated Between the aboriginal people and the government on behalf of All the people of Australia Hawk said at a ceremony of 6,000 aborigines the largest of its kind Ever re corded at Brunga in the Northern territory. Hawke made the offer As Australia celebrates its Bicentennial marking the arrival of British convict ships Hal started european settlement. Aborigines Are the country s original inhabitants having sell cd the continent some 40,000 years ago numbering i percent of the 16 million population. Australia s indigenous people Sec the Bicentennial As an anniversary of survival not Celebration. Hawk said he Hope the offer will Mark a symbolic Slart to serious negotiations aimed at finding common ground for a treaty Between Black and White austra lians. Hawk was presented with a list of demands in what amounts to the first formal statement of claim by aborigines which tics land rights to International Law through . Cove nails. The statement called on the government to recognize aboriginal rights to self determination and sell manage Mcnol permanent control of ancestral lands compensation for loss of use a National elected aboriginal organization to oversee Black affairs recognition of Ribal Law and a National system of land rights. Opposition Liberal party Leader John Howard called the proposal repugnant to All australians and another form of apartheid. He questioned How the government could separate aborigines from other australians amid the official policy of multiculturalism thai allows immigrants from around the world. Hawke s statement first mooted last september in a speech reminding All australians to recall the injustices of the follows a government report a week ago supporting inc policy of Mullieu pluralism. Statistics show aborigines live 20 years less than the average australian arc six times More Likely logo to prison and suffer More health problems. Australian prime minister Bob Hawk accepts a Flat f aboriginal Leader Gau Rhu sunup Lungu. A photo a government commission is investigating the cause of More than 100 Black deaths in police custody since 1980. Within hours of Hawke s offer aboriginal activist Michael Mansell left for Libya with a delegation that is Likely to cause controversy. He returned from his last trip a year ago saying that libyan Leader Moa mar Qadhafi had pledged to bankroll a Black revolution in Australia. Hawke called his offer truly he said it was up to the aboriginal people to decide what they want in a treaty and promised Hal the Federal government would consider their proposals. He left it 10 seven aboriginal elders to work out the details although the plan is vague it is the first time Hawk has spelled out what he seeks in a so called compact of
