European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 28, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The dark Side to peace by Robert Burns associated press or almost half a Century being prepared for world War Iii has been the military s Mission and a Piston driving the american Economy Moscow and Washington. East and West stood toe to Loe along the Iron curtain it took a million soldiers 12.000 strategic nuclear warheads and a growing defense budget to keep the peace in Europe inside a year the world changed for sons we be been saying the russians Are coming the russians Are coming " says rep Ronald Dellums. D Calif Well they Haven t come and they Aren l coming " Welense Secretary Dick Cheney told Congress we Are now on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot Ever being fired " three arms treaties Are being negotiated for the signatures of presidents Bush and Mikhail s. Gorbachev once the three reducing the stockpiles of chemical weapons conventional forces in Europe and Long Range nuclear missiles Are settled the american military will be transformed in size and purpose yet with he outbreak of peace As gov. Richard Celeste of Ohio notes there can be a dark Side " peace is not a completely comforting Prospect for everyone not Lor the 1.600 people who work in St Louis at the army troop support come distributor of uniforms. Tents and other military supplies the Pentagon wants to close it not Lor the 101.000 who work for general dynamics corp. Maker of tanks submarines jets and missiles m plants irom Florida to California the no 2 defense contractor has become a Symbol of the end of the cold War malady Public relations executive Chris Schildz discourages reporters seeking interviews on How the company is going to handle it not Lor thousands upon thousands of gis who now Musl confront something that american soldiers Don t usually worry about of Security. Today s troops Aren i dial Lees like those let go alter world War ii or the korean War or Vietnam they Are volunteers. Many chose the service As a career. Demobilization Lor them is As rude a slap As a Layoff w5 we mightsvuu6wbun the 1991 budget or a la Clory worker we Are very Well aware of the fact hat this is the first time the United slates of America has Ever taken apart an army made up of All volunteers says i. Gen Gordon r. Sullivan the army s Deputy chief of staff for operations and plans. He says it s too Early to estimate How Many soldiers will be let go not for the 13,000 people in and around Lima Ohio who owe their jobs to the army tank Plant it makes the m-1 Abrams tank a 60-ton monster deemed too muscular for the lighter More Mobile army the Pentagon envisions for the 1990s. The Plant is scheduled to close in 1993 Don Downhour a Lima resident who does t work at the Plant says he s sympathetic to the plight of the tank builders but he sees another Side. We Don t need tanks if we re going to have peace he says and that s what we be been praying for " Harry o Brien shop Steward at the Saco defense Plant in Saco Maine whose mainstay is the i mk-19 grenade launcher says his co workers Are worried by the defense cutbacks. Everybody is saying. Gee what happens in we get closed Down " he says the diminishing of the 45-year-old threat of global War Between the two superpowers is worrisome in other places Loo. In president Bush s White House. No sooner had Bush submitted his budget to Congress calling for a slight drop in Pentagon spending next year than he look to the Road to sell americans on a single idea cutting Back too fast too far is dangerous Folly. At the Pentagon where Cheney has been carrying the Bush message to Capitol Hill. He is a Man in the Middle knowing reductions will be forced by Congress but needing to protect Bush s cautious As Pentagon planners redefine the military s Mission politicians Are Rushing to reset the nation s spending priorities. Wednesday february 28, 1990 approach and the strategic concerns of the armed forces in Congress where claimants for the peace dividend those who want to retire some of the National debt or Cut social Security taxes or address the problems of the homeless and ill housed hungry and poor or repair decaying Bridges roads and sewage systems or Lix America s education system or ease the medical Cost Burden of the elderly Are lining up Lor a piece of the pie. A pie that Bush says does t exist. And again in Congress where some foresee severe economic upheavals if defense plants and bases close suddenly and thousands of workers Are left in the cold. The trouble then is figuring out ust How much defense to drop and where. If the cold War is Over what is Tho justification for spending 25 cents of every Federal Dollar on defense half of which goes to deterring a soviet invasion of Europe now deemed less Likely than a Blue Moon the exact features of the military transformation Are not Clear but some signs Are visible. . Troop strength is being Cut bases closed weapon programs idled and Security threats reassessed. Less Clear is what these changes will mean for individual soldiers and their families Lor communities and companies that depend on the thriving military Industrial Complex and Lor a nato Alliance lacing possible disintegration. Bush says he Hopes attrition will reduce the ranks of the military so that relatively few soldiers will have to be discharged. I would like to think that a kid that went in to make a career out of this would not be unceremoniously dumped from the armed services he told reporters recently. As Pentagon planners redefine the military s Mission politicians Are Rushing to reset the nation s spending priorities they see a new Hope Lor social programs that look second place to the 1980s military buildup sen Edward Kennedy a mass. Has proposed carving out a $169 billion peace dividend Over the next live years More than quadruple the savings proposed by Bush in the same period. Rep. Richard Gephardt do accuses Bush of beating Plo shares into  the focus on defense savings also has opened an continued on Page 14 the stars and stripes Page 13