Word: commander
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Weinberger shortly will give Kingston some actual troops to command: the 56,000 soldiers of the Army's 18th Airborne Corps, now based in Fort Bragg, N.C. Still the R.D.F. faces serious shortages both of manpower?most of the other units earmarked for it are also supposed to be available to reinforce NATO in an emergency?and of equipment. More than that, the airlift and sea-lift capacity does not exist to carry R.D.F. troops into battle as quickly as might be required...
...Navy have given transport a low priority; neither service can summon much enthusiasm for providing a taxi service for the Army and Marines. The number of planes available to fly troops and equipment dropped by 258, nearly a quarter of the force, during the 1970s. The Military Air Transport Command had all it could do last fall to fly a mere 1,400 soldiers to Egypt for a training exercise, Operation Bright Star. The number of cargo ships fell by 297, nearly half the fleet, in the past decade. After the Viet Nam War wound down, the Navy retired...
...services' long tradition of competition and bickering. "Cap has said over and over again that he will not stand for gamesmanship," says an aide. Weinberger quickly demonstrated that he means it. He intervened in the bitter interservice dispute over the Rapid Deployment Force by creating a new four-service command for Southwest Asia. Once when several Air Force generals fell into disagreement over some very basic figures on aircraft costs, Weinberger ended the session and told the officials to come back when they could all argue from the same set of facts. His putdowns are soft, however. Says an aide...
...inadequate. The maintenance backlog for U.S. forces in West Germany has reached $1.3 billion. Soldiers live and work in conditions that could cause riots in U.S. prisons. The G.I.s, fortunately, do not riot. They just quit the Army at the end of their tours. When the plum job of command sergeant major opened at scenic, historic Heidelberg, the first three men chosen left the military rather than take the assignment. Those who stay often turn to alcohol and drugs, including heroin. Brigadier General John S. Crosby, who until March was commanding general of the Hanau complex, says: "Inadequate maintenance inevitably...
...main target of the Israeli planes had been the Palestine Liberation Organization's several commando offices in West Beirut. The command centers of two important components of the P.L.O., Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, escaped virtually unscathed, although the headquarters of two smaller groups, the P.F.L.P.-General Command and the Syrian-dominated Saiqa, were partly destroyed. The most serious damage took place in densely crowded areas like the Fakhani district behind the Fatah center, where half a dozen large office and apartment buildings collapsed. Israeli officials said the object of the attack...