Austin, Texas Chapter
The Association for all
Military Officers
Companion Bulletin-October
2007
| Companions, We had a great September Meeting with 26 in attendance. Rebecca Rienstra from Bowie HS and Preston Maness from Westwood HS entertained us with their rendition of what it takes to be a successful Youth Leadership Conference participant. They both attended the YLC at Texas A&M University. Companion, Brigadier General Morton M. Jones enjoyed his installation as a "Perpetual Member". His son, Morton M. Jones III, did the honors of pinning the MOWW pin with star on his Dad's lapel. Companion, Lt Col Juste R. Sanchez, the commander of Texas Det. 861, AFJROTC at Westwood High School, was initiated as our newest member. His wife, Ida, graciously pinned her husband's new MOWW insignia on his lapel. First Vice Commander Stanley Bullard has
outdone himself again with this month's program. Professor Margaret
Baacke, Ph. D., is prepared to augment the current nationally televised
series on the Second World War with her personal account of prewar Germany
as a member of the Hitler Youth and duties during the war while assigned
to the Labor Service and War Auxiliary Service. This will be a meeting
that you surely will not want to miss for any reason. |
Here is a heads up for our December meeting. We will be at the Austin Club on the second Thursday, which is on 13 December. We have entertainment scheduled and it will be a Holiday treat for all. Please mark your calendar! Our Junior and Senior Reserve Officers Training Corps certificate and medal program costs the Chapter just under $300.00 each year. Coordination for this most worthwhile program in 2008 is in the hands of Colonel Leon Holland and we need to consider individual financial contributions to fund this endeavor. Each award set costs approximately $10.00. Ten and twenty dollar checks made out to Austin Chapter MOWW are appreciated. Ervalyn and I hope to see you at the Holiday Inn Northwest. Come early and bring a new member. The social gathering is at 1830 hours. Andrew J. McVeigh III |
Schedule:
| Meeting. October 11
2007 Holiday Inn Northwest (Mopac & Hwy 183) The cost for the evening is $18.00. If you are not called by 9 October, contact COL Andrew McVeigh III at 261-6272 |
Menu:
Speaker
Quote to Ponder: |
DEFENSE
HEALTH AGENCY: A DoD plan to put the Army in charge of all military
medical training and research could be pulled soon, in favor of
establishing a Defense Health Agency (DHA) to handle those
responsibilities and more, senior officials told the DoD Task Force on the
Future of Military Health Care. The DHA would assume oversight of all
medical training and research, as well as management of TRICARE and
responsibility for some shared medical activities across the services. The
TRICARE Management Activity would form the foundation of the new agency,
with additional staff drawn from service medical departments. But the
Army, Navy and Air Force would continue to run separate medical
departments and retain control of their medical personnel and most sites.
The DHA concept is seen as only an incremental step toward the dramatic
streamlining and greater efficiencies projected from creating a unified
medical command." |
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Staff Meeting |
Chapter Officers Austin Chapter Website and Newsletter |
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VA BUDGET 2008 UPDATE 07: As they have
for the better part of a decade, Congress has failed to pass an on-time
budget for VA. The government's new fiscal year begins on 1 OCT, and
instead of pressing forward on the VA Appropriations bill, each chamber
has passed a stopgap funding measure while will fund VA and the rest of
the government through 16 NOV.
The Bush administration will ask Congress to provide lifetime TRICARE
coverage to any service member discharged as ?unfit? due to
service-related physical or mental health conditions, said Donna Shalala,
co-chair of the President?s Commission on Care for America?s Returning
Wounded Warriors. The TRICARE change will be one of the most expensive
initiatives in a legislative package the White House will send to Congress
by the end of SEP 07. T From 2000 to 2006, an average of 9,600 service members a year were separated as medically unfit with disability ratings of 20% or less, according to statistics gathered by the Veterans? Disability Benefits Commission, which is due to release its report on 3 OCT. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) published a final rule to amend VA regulations applicable to Government-furnished headstones or markers for placement in a national, State veterans, or private cemetery. The final rule specifies that a veteran's spouse or surviving spouse, whose remains are unavailable for burial, and who died after 11 NOV 98 is eligible for a memorial headstone or marker for placement in a national or State veterans cemetery. |
| New Center for Wounded
Warriors A new 12,000 square-foot Warrior and Family Support Center currently being built at Fort Sam Houston, Texas will be ten times the size of the current facility. The new fully wheelchair-accessible building will provide a "living room" environment, a place for social interaction and recreation between wounded warriors and their families, and include a computer classroom, kitchen, dining room, conference room, adequate bathrooms, and storage and social-gathering areas. It also will provide opportunities in training for new job skills. Construction of the $3.5 million building is scheduled for completion in 2008. | Rules Regards engine power: Lots is good, more is better, and too much is just enough. If you're ever faced with a forced landing at night, turn on the landing lights to see the landing area. If you don't like what you see, turn 'em back off. A check ride ought to be like a skirt, short enough to be interesting but still be long enough to cover everything. Experience is the knowledge that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Hovering is for pilots who love to fly but have no place to go. |
| AGINCOURT, 1415
When peace negotiations failed, the ambitious King
Henry V of England prepared to invade France, thus resuming the Hundred
Years' War. The French dauphin, son of the insane King Charles VI, sent
Henry a box of tennis balls by way of advising him that it was better to
play tennis than war. Henry replied that he preferred lobbing cannonballs
at Frenchmen. | The first French line plodded forward,
weighted down by armor and mud. After suffering heavy casualties, they
reached the line of English archers. But the English, exchanging bows for
battle-axes, routed the French, who were immobilized by their own armor.
The second French line advanced only to meet the same fate. A head-high
mound of dead and wounded Frenchmen and horses grew in front of the
English line. At this point, Henry decided to take no prisoners. Wounded and captured French were massacred with axes and arrows. The third and last French line, viewing their comrades' corpses heaped in the mud, prudently dispersed. English archery, cumbersome French armor, and mud had defeated the French, 7,000 of whom lay dead. English losses were between 400 and 1,600. Agincourt opened the door for Henry's subsequent conquest of Normandy. It made England the most powerful kingdom in Europe, and France the weakest. However, the English victory was to be offset by Henry's premature death in 1422 and the appearance of Joan of Arc. ? 1975 - 1981 by David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace Reproduced with permission from "The People's Almanac" series of books. All rights reserved. |
| Since 1950, the Air Force Art Program has documented history and covered every major operation in which the service has been involved. The program currently has approximately 250 active artists. The works accumulated over the past 57 years represents hundreds. The art chosen for the program includes all forms including oil paintings, watercolors, acrylic paintings, and charcoal drawings. The program has about 9,500 pieces.... Military.com | CARBURETOR ICING - A phenomenon
reported to the FAA by pilots immediately after they run out of gas FIREWALL - Section of the aircraft specifically designed to funnel heat and smoke into the cockpit. GLIDE DISTANCE - Half the distance from an airplane to the nearest emergency landing field. |