European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 10, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday november 10, 1994 the stars and stripes Page 3 Law to let Dodds re Baychuc Kinchi Washington Bureau Washington overseas teacher soon will be Able to donate leave Days to critically ill colleagues As a result of a Bill presi Dent Clinton sighed into Law last week. The Law directs the department of de sense dependents schools to establish a voluntary leave Transfer program for overseas teachers along the lines of leave sharing programs in other Federal agencies. The new Law is largely the result of efforts by the overseas education association which represents More than 80 per cent of Dodds teachers worldwide. We sought this legislation because overseas educators with prolonged Crit ical illnesses often did not have the leave they needed to continue their salaries and benefits said Sandra Vickstrom an sea spokeswoman. Specifically the new measure direct Dodds to set up Ai program in which teachers May donate any purpose leave Days to a specific educator who is threat ened with a health crisis she said. The new Law also allows but does not require Dodds to set up a voluntary sick leave Bank from which any critically ill educator could draw. Teachers donating to the Bank  have to designate the leave for use by a specific colleague. V because of the unique nature of their leave Days overseas teachers have not been covered by other Federal leave Shar ing legislation Vickstrom said. Each year Dodds teachers get 10 Days of educator leave which can reused for a specific purpose such Asma eternity illness or personal emergency. Maximum of three of those 10 Days can be designated by the employee As an purpose leave which As the name implies can be used for any reason. I Dodds teachers have not been Cov ered by other Federal leave sharing pro Grams because government employees generally do not have such specialize categories of leave. For most Federal employees it s an no Ayerve and sick leave arid that s it Vickstrom said. The sea is due to meet with Dodds officials next month to work but the details of How the new to  will be implemented she said. In to arise Ercall by Effie Bathen Heidelberg Bureau Friedrichs Feld Germany with computer playing a larger role in Field exercises and real world deployments the army is moving a repair shop closer to Al that keyboard action. The Tobyhanna army depot Forward repair activity formally opened monday at Friedrichs Feld near the . Army s european Headquarters in  one Stop maintenance and training Center an overseas Extension of the army s main computer repair enter in Tobyhanna a. Will be staffed by about four or five civilian computer  opening of the repair site comes at a time when the army has turned away from contracting out maintenance of the army s cumbersome tactical computers to buy ing smaller off the shelf or commercial computers. Maintenance savings alone should drop from an estimated $12 million annually to $3 million world wide said it col. Grant Reppert a logistics expert from the computer repair Center in the  army is entering the information super Highway and travelling As fast As commercial users Reppert said Don Cleveland a logistics expert from the stateside Center. He went to Haiti recently when . Commander needed help with unexpected computer breakdowns he said. /  ,. Cleveland had thought he would find about 250 computers with the army and was surprised to find More than double that. Each platoon had at least one Lap top he said. Half the repairs were to laptops that soldiers had not packed Well he added. As computer troubleshooters the technicians from Ewt Bath a Joe Drouse holds up a Laptop while he and fellow technician Jim Traxler show of Ste a cased tactical computer. The repair Center in Germany will fix the systems eve if it Means deploying along with computer toting sol Diers.  For commanders surrounded by High tech Battle an logistic systems computer repair is a top priority Reppert said. He contributed to Baa Kreuz Nach s 1st Arrond div contingency plans under which soldiers and their elec tronic wizardry were sent to places such As saudi Arabia Somalia Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia. The army is used to Nigga dining computers wit heavy Metal cases Reppert said. It made them look like tactical equipment but the systems did not work any More reliably he added in the persian Gulf american to Ojas Learned a Les son from the japanese who brought their seek office styled computers. When . Forces used the ally s machines we leaped two computer generations in two months Reppert said. Painting a computer Green does to make a computer work any faster he said. Today a typical hard disk storage device lasts 50,000hours compared with those developed several years ago. The older models lasted hardly More than 1,000 hours Cleveland said. With a bit of cheesecloth to filter the air off the shelf computers can work in the Grimy environments of today s deployments Reppert said. They work As Wellas an m16 Rifle he noted. Joe Drouse a computer technician assigned to  unit said most tactical computers he re pairs tend to have the same troubles As office systems. The extremes in temperature humidity and dust in general purpose army tent he said Are often not us threatening to a computer As a cup of Coffee spilled Onan office keyboard. With the army becoming More and More computerized the computer technicians expect to have plenty of work. The army s objective is to have a fully computerized brigade by 1996 and corps by 1999, Reppert said. This Means commanders would have the capability through computers to track everything on the Battlefield. The future of the army is computers Repper said. Anyone who does not catch on to that is going to be left  for further information cat Dan 3806075, or toll free in Germany 0130 850075, aids claims lecturer who warned youths of disease -. ". V by Iii Jones and Mark Kinkade will make it Worth was a worker at the army Post office in disease control of  Jim an staff writer Mishael Lynn Boyer has lost the War against aids though her friends say Shewn a few Battles along the Way. Boyer once part of the military Community in Heidelberg Germany and a Well known aids lecturer in military overseas schools died nov. 1 in Johnstown n.y., of complications of the disease said Heidel Berg officials. She was 34. In the last few years of her life Boye took her Story to students in Europe and the United states. She urged them to abstain from sex but to use condoms if they did t. She pleaded with them not Touse drugs and to find someone to talk to when they needed  have to do it Boyer said in 1992 in explaining Why she had gone Public Wither Story. I Don t want what happened to me to happen to others. Even if it i just one in my lifetime that we help that  Boyer began Tell ing Heidelberg Stu dents about aids inthe late 1980s after she contracted the virus from her bisexual husband. At first she spoke anonymously giving Only her Middle name. Eventually she Boyer began to Tell her full name and give details of her  am a woman with aids Boyer once told a group of students. I am Nota queer. I be never used  the Boyers natives of new York moved to Germany in 1985. Norman Boyer Mishael s husband was an insurance agent for the mutual1 of new York s Branch in Kaiserslautern. Mishael Boyer a Heidelberg. In 1987, she gave birth to the couple soon Joszef. In 1988, Norman Boyer Dis covered he had aids. Three weeks later Mishael Boyer tested positive for the virus that causes the  that was my birthday june 17," Mishael Boyer once recalled. That s be come the worst Day of my life. I was. Told i had two years to  Boyer said her Friend Pat Reh Berg then the aids virus consultant atthe 7th medical come persuaded her to begin speaking about aids. And it was Rehberg she said who agreed to adopt her son after his parents  Boyer spoke at the 1990 National Pat convention and a video that Heidelberg students made about her struggle with the disease won first place in an aids education Competition sponsored by the Pat and the centers for disease Mishael Boyer s ability to connect Wither audiences endeared her to educators and students. When i first met Mishael i was kind of hesitant but she opened a lot of eyes said Susan Schwartz a teacher at Spang Dahlem elementary school. Besides the tears it s much different when you Caput a face to it. Harder when it s some body you  i think of How Well she utilized those last few years Schwartz said. She was always on the go educating kids about the dangers. Even when she got Back to new York she took her message int schools. Any place that they would let her  Mishael Boyer is survived by her Hus band and her son 7. A memorial service was held in the United states on sat urday