Army Officials

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to fund a leaner, more lethal and mobile U.S. Army for the 21st century, Army officials are proposing to cut more than $10 billion from the Crusader heavyweight artillery gun system and kill other programs, including two missile systems, Pentagon sources said.The largest cut would come from the Crusader, a self-propelled howitzer. The Army would cut the $22 billion program in half, producing 500 of the systems rather than about 1,200 as originally planned, the sources said, requesting anonymity.

PSINet Stadium next year will become the 14th venue to host the annual Army-Navy classic, announced formally yesterday by officials who estimate the game will bring more than $15 million into the city.The 101st renewal marks the first time the game has been played in Baltimore since 1944 when, according to Sen. Barbara Mikulski "it was linked to a war bond drive and 70,000 people came. The only bad thing that happened is that Army won."Navy athletic director Jack Lengyel placed the revenue to be gleaned "as somewhere around $15 million and up when you consider four or five days in hotels, restaurants, transportation.

WASHINGTON -- A retired Army general has been charged with having sex with the wives of four subordinate officers, lying about it and obstructing justice by telling one of the women he would testify against her in a child custody suit if she revealed their affair, Army officials said yesterday.Maj. Gen. David R. E. Hale, 53, who retired amid the allegations in February as the Army's deputy inspector general, now faces the military's equivalent of a grand jury. He could become the first senior military officer in more than 40 years to be called back from retirement for a court-martial.

Army officials have changed their minds: They will not use force to give shots to soldiers who refuse their anthrax vaccinations."The Army is amending its policy. We're not going to do forcible vaccinations," said Army spokesman Capt. Scott Bertinetti. "We're not going to strap anybody down."The Pentagon is proceeding with plans to vaccinate all 2.4 million active-duty, National Guard and Reserve service members against anthrax.Anthrax, a livestock disease, is considered relatively easy to turn into a biological weapon and is nearly 100 percent fatal in the inhaled form likely to be used as a weapon.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon ordered the Army yesterday to end its 20-year policy of allowing personal relationships between some officers and enlisted soldiers, throwing cold water on both romances and friendships.The change will bring the Army into line with the Marines, Navy and Air Force, which prohibit any personal ties between officers and enlisted ranks, regardless of their sex, said Defense Department officials.Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said a consistent policy was necessary in a time when the services are finding themselves stationed and fighting together in joint operations.

Anne Arundel County could get a delayed holiday gift next month if plans to expand a lease for Tipton Airport go through as scheduled.Army officials are working on an addendum to the lease it signed with the county this year that would let the county start using most of the airfield, including the runway and taxiways.Tipton Airport is an Army airfield that closed in September 1995 because of military budget cuts. The county wants to convert it into a general aviation airport and has spent $300,000 in the past three years on an airport manager, consultants and other costs to open it.The county now has use of only a small parcel there that includes three hangars.

WASHINGTON -- Sensitive air brakes on 32,000 of the Army's cargo-carrying 5-ton trucks have contributed to an upsurge of highway accidents, including 128 vehicle rollovers, killing 56 soldiers and 13 civilians and seriously injuring hundreds more, Pentagon officials said.In response to inquiries, Army officials confirmed this week an excessive death and injury toll since 1992 for the M939 truck, an older generation vehicle used throughout the United States and abroad by active duty, reserve and National Guard units.

WASHINGTON -- A prancing man in an oversized goat head roamed the normally staid halls of the Pentagon yesterday, while an old man in a West Point sweat shirt eyed young Army women. Oh, and an Army general was nearly kicked in the pants.The Pentagon, headquarters for the military commands, became five-sided pep rally yesterday to kick off celebrations of two nearly century-old milestones: the 99th meeting of Army and Navy on the gridiron, and the 96th birthday of Sen. Strom Thurmond.Both the football rivalry and the South Carolina Republican, a retired major general who landed at Normandy in an 82nd Airborne glider the night before the D-Day invasion, are going strong.

WASHINGTON -- The Army hot line that was set up last fall after a sexual misconduct scandal erupted at Aberdeen Proving Ground shut down last night, after having fielded so many dubious complaints that some Army officers dubbed it "1-800-REVENGE."An anonymous call to the hot line led to the forced resignation this month of Aberdeen's commander, Maj. Gen. John E. Longhouser. The caller disclosed that Longhouser had had an affair with a civilian while he was going through a divorce in the early 1990s.

WASHINGTON -- Top Army officials appeared before Congress yesterday and immediately found themselves defending not only their response to a widening sex scandal but also their long-standing policy of expanding job opportunities for female soldiers.Both Democrats and Republicans expressed concerns about the perils implicit in the Army, where men and women train together and camp side by side in remote operations."I have some fundamental concerns about throwing very young women in a position with a drill sergeant," said Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican.

WASHINGTON - The suicide rate among Army soldiers reached its highest level in three decades in 2008, military officials said yesterday in a report that pointed to the inadequacy of anti-suicide efforts undertaken in recent years. At least 128 soldiers took their own lives last year, representing an estimated suicide rate of 20.2 per 100,000, a sharp increase from the 2007 rate of 16.8. It marked the first time the Army rate has exceeded the national suicide rate for the corresponding population group - 19.5 per 100,000 - since the Pentagon began systematically tracking suicides nearly 30 years ago. The 2008 figure does not include 15 additional deaths under investigation that officials suspect were suicides.

The state attorney general has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Army, alleging that the military branch has failed to abide by a cleanup order for groundwater and soil contamination at Fort Meade. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler filed in August a notice of intent to sue the Army if the site was not cleaned up within 90 days. The lawsuit alleges that the Army did not enforce an Environmental Protection Agency order to perform specific actions and produce a timeline for cleanup.

Army withdraws Ft. Meade sewage incinerator plan Facing a groundswell of opposition, Army officials announced last night that they are withdrawing plans to build a sewage sludge incinerator at Fort Meade. "It's Fort Meade's intention to terminate the project because it no longer makes good business sense," said Clyde Reynolds, public works director at the Army post. Fort Meade issued a news release stating its intention at a public hearing on the project held by the Maryland Department of the Environment.

WASHINGTON -- Pentagon officials are considering cutting as many as 34,000 soldiers -- the bulk of them from the National Guard -- at a time when U.S. ground forces are stretched in Iraq, according to defense officials. The proposed cuts are part of a reduction in the growth of defense spending over the next five years ordered by the White House. The manpower cuts stem from a decision by top Army leaders to sacrifice troop strength in order to provide money for new weapons systems and other equipment, said defense officials, who requested anonymity.

WASHINGTON - Faced with a need to expand the Army and ease recruitment problems, Army officials have decided to loosen the requirements for junior officer candidates - accepting prospects who exceed the current age limit by more than a decade, and permitting more flexibility to waive their minor criminal or civil offenses, according to a memo obtained by The Sun. The May 25 memo, sent to division commanders and other generals, said the Army hopes to...

WASHINGTON - At least 26 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, according to military officials. The number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any accounting the military has previously reported. A Pentagon report sent to Congress last week cited only six prisoner deaths caused by abuse, but that partial tally was limited to what the author, Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III of the Navy, called "closed, substantiated abuse cases" as of September.

WASHINGTON - The Army is so short of new recruits that for first time in nearly five years it failed in February to fill its monthly quota of volunteers sent to boot camp. Army officials called it the latest ominous sign of the Iraq war's impact on the military's ability to enlist fresh troops. "We're very concerned about it," Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday when asked about recruiting shortfalls in the active-duty Army and Army Reserve.

JERUSALEM - Israel's justice minister sparked a dispute yesterday when he criticized the military's demolition of Palestinian homes in the southern Gaza Strip in remarks that some leaders interpreted as drawing parallels with the actions of the Nazis. Tommy Lapid, leader of the centrist Shinui Party that makes up a crucial segment of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ruling coalition, said during the weekly Cabinet meeting that a televised image of an elderly Palestinian woman searching for her medicine amid the rubble of her house reminded him of his grandmother during the Holocaust, according to Israeli news reports.

WASHINGTON - One of the Maryland soldiers facing a court-martial for allegedly abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners was identified yesterday by Army officials as Sgt. Javal S. Davis, a Morgan State graduate whose wife said he was in "a very stressful" situation. "We're not over there," said his wife, Zeenithia Davis, who is in the Navy in Mississippi. "We really don't know how those prisoners are behaving. There's a line between heinous war crimes and maintaining discipline." Javal Davis, 26, is one of six Army reservists attached to a Western Maryland unit who is subject to criminal prosecution in the abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Army officials said yesterday.

Army officials are seeking permission to cut back on monitoring of one of Aberdeen Proving Ground's most complex and polluted sites, an old chemical munitions dump that for decades discharged contaminated groundwater into the Gunpowder River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. Based on previous results, testing can be done less frequently without imperiling the environment or endangering the public, the officials say. But community members are concerned...