Austin, Texas Chapter

The Association for all Military Officers
Companion Bulletin-January 2006

Commander's Comments Welcome to the New Year 2006 and joy and peace around the world. Hope your holiday season was a happy one. Now it is time to move forward to enjoy the events of the coming year. This includes getting together to enjoy each other's company at our meetings and hear presentations on interesting topics. This month you will become acquainted with the myriad of problems facing the Texas Department of Transportation and what is in the plans to resolve the traffic nightmare. I am sure you have many question in mind concerning this important matter.  Although 1 was unable to attend the December meeting at the Austin Club, I understand it was a grand affair with good food and an excellent performance by the singing group - Thank you Tom Anderson. Thanks also to Andrew McVeigh who filled in for me in my absence - needless to say he has abundant experience to do so. Looking forward to seeing you all.                           COL Charles Szendrey   Meeting. 12 Jan. 2006   Holiday Inn Northwest (Mopac & Hwy 183) The cost for the evening is $18.00. If you are not called by 8 Jan., contact COL Szendrey(388-1005).

Schedule:  1830-1900-Social  1900-1905 - Invocation & Salutes  1905-1945-Dinner  1945-2000-Break  2000-2015 - Awards & Festivities 2015-2045-Speaker  2045-2100-Adjourn  Menu Sliced Roast Beef w/Hunter Sauce,  Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Fresh Vegetables & Dessert  Speaker  Mr. John Hurt, Texas Department of Transportation Chaplain's Selection "Year by year the complexities of this spinning world grow more bewildering and so each year we need all the more to seek peace and comfort in the joyful simplicities." - Woman's Home Companion, Dec. 1935

Chapter Officers Commander - COL Szendrey  1st Vice Cmdr. - Vacant  2nd Vice Cmdr. - COL McVeigh  3rd Vice Cmdr. - COL Holland  Adjutant - COL Szendrey  Treasurer - LTC Kelso  Chaplain - CDR Cochran  Surgeon - MG Bernstein  Judge Advocate - COL Philips  Public Information - Ervalyn McVeigh Quote to Ponder  "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight D. Eisenhower  Wisdom in Many Forms   "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." - Mark Twain

Legislation * Provisions in H.R. 97 Servicemembers Anti-Predatory Protection Lending Act would protect military servicemembers from the most egregious and harmful lending practices by limiting exorbitant annual percentage rates and prohibit so-called payday rollover loans. They would help curb predatory lending practices that hurt the long-term financial stability of military families and threaten the operational readiness of the Armed Forces.  * Survivors of military members who died on active duty or while retired, who are receiving Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) monthly benefits, and who are age 62 or older saw an increase in their annuity October 1, 2005. According to a provision in the FY 2005 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Public Law 108-375, the annuity received by these beneficiaries increased from 35 percent to 40 percent of the base amount of retired pay selected by the retiree. This increased payment should be made seamlessly, requiring no action from the recipient. Further increases will be phased in over future years to 45 percent of retired pay on April 1, 2006; to 50 percent on April 1,2007; and to 55 percent on April 1,2008.

 

The Ambush That Changed History  "This is the soil of 2,000 years ago, where we are standing now;" Susanne Wilbers-Rost was saying as a young volunteer pried a small, dark clod out of it. Wilbers-Rost, a specialist in early German archaeology, brushed away some earth, and handed an object to me. "You're holding a nail from a Roman soldier's sandal," she said. Wllbers-Rost has worked at the site, which is ten miles north of the manufacturing city of Osnabruck, German since 1990. Inch by inch, several young archaeologists under her direction are bringing to light a battlefield that was lost for almost 2,000 years, until an off-duty British Army officer stumbled across it in 1987. The sandal nail was a minor discovery extracted from the soil beneath an overgrown pasture at the base of Kalkriese (the word may derive from Old High German for limestone), a 350- foot-high hill in an area where uplands slope down to the north German plain. But it was further proof that one of the pivotal events in European history took place here: in A.D. 9, three crack legions ofRome's army were caught in an ambush and annihilated. Ongoing finds - ranging from simple nails to fragments of armor and the remains of fortifications - have verified the innovative guerrilla tactics that according to accounts from the period, neutralized the Romans' superior weaponry and discipline.

It was a defeat so catastrophic that it threatened the survival of Rome itself and halted the empire's conquest of Germany. "This was a battle that changed the course of history," says Peter S. Wells, a specialist in Iron Age European archaeology. It was one of the most devastating defeats ever suffered by the Roman Army, and its consequences were the most far- reaching. The battle led to the creation of a militarized frontier in the middle of Europe that endured for 400 years, and it created a boundary between Germanic and Latin cultures that lasted 2,000 years. Had Rome not been defeated, says historian Herbert W. Benario, a very different Europe could have emerged. Almost all of modem Germany as well as much of the present-day Czech Republic would have come under Roman rule. All Europe west of the Elbe might well have remained Roman Catholic; Germans would be speaking a Romance language; the Thirty Years' War might never have occurred, and the long, bitter conflict between the French and the Germans might never have taken place. - Excerpts, Smithsonian