Military Service

Machele Fredericks had to face her attacker every day. She was in the Air Force. He was a fellow service member on the base. And he said that if she told anyone what he'd done, he'd kill her. "You didn't hear much of people getting raped in the military back then," Fredericks said. "At least I didn't. So, you know, it was like fear every day: 'I hope he's not at the gate today.' "I wouldn't dare tell no one. I didn't think anybody was going to believe me anyway. " She drank instead.

Marine Corps Pfc. Stephen N. Hill, son of Bonnie L. and Vernon W. Hill of Bel Air, earned the title of U.S. Marine after graduating from recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C. For 13 weeks, Hill stayed committed during some of the world's most demanding entry-level military training to be transformed from civilian to marine instilled with pride, discipline and the core values of honor, courage and commitment. Training subjects included close-order drill, marksmanship with an M-16A4 rifle, physical fitness, martial arts, swimming, military history, customs and courtesies.

He duped FBI agents and small-town cops, students and child advocates, volunteer firefighters and war veterans into thinking he was a retired colonel in Army special operations who had fought terrorists and insurgents from Kabul to Bogota. William G. Hillar packed rooms and pocketed speaking fees in big cities and tiny towns from Maryland to California, spending a dozen years spinning tall tales about the mujahedin, drug lords and his own daughter being kidnapped, sold into sex slavery and killed.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's introduction of the Veterans Full Employment Act of 2013 is a great stride forward for Maryland's veterans. As the governor stated in his testimony on the bill in early February, military service members and their spouses too often face hurdles regarding employment. While a majority of those involved with the bill are supportive, the recent coverage by The Sun mentioned opposition within the nursing field ("Bill for hiring veterans draws praise, concern," Feb. 20)

With the revelation that Richard Blumenthal, the U.S. Senate candidate in Connecticut, received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, and with the country now involved in two wars, the draft has become a subject of renewed interest. Mr. Blumenthal apparently did not oppose the war on principle. He seems to have requested the deferments for two reasons: He did not want to take the chance of putting himself at risk in the war zone, and he did not want his blossoming career interrupted.

Attorney Charles M. Blomquist, The square shoulders, short buzz hairstyle and purposeful walk of Charles M. Blomquist do not cut the average figure of a Baltimore prosecutor. Neither does his background: a former Peace Corps volunteer, seminary student and aid worker for Catholic Relief Services. Now Blomquist, 41, who handles shooting cases in the Baltimore state's attorney's office, is going on his next mission - to Afghanistan as a major in the Army Reserves. He will supervise civil projects, such as the construction of schools and bringing electric power to impoverished towns.

Joseph Bathgate calls them "the Hollywood questions. " When college classmates learn he was a machine gunner for the Marine Corps for two tours in Iraq, they want to know: Did anyone ever shoot at you? Ever get hit? And there's the big one. You ever kill anyone? "It's unusual, I understand that, what I've done," says Bathgate, 24, of Dundalk, now out of the military and studying kinesiology at Towson University. "Still, it's annoying. … Naturally, I feel different" from the other, mostly younger students on campus.

As the No. 2 leader of the Coast Guard, Vice Adm. — and Vice Commandant — Sally Brice-O'Hara is the chief operating officer of an organization with a $10 billion budget and 58,000 military and civilian employees, plus 31,000 volunteers. Last week, less than a month before her own retirement, the Annapolis native and 1974 Goucher College graduate was temporarily bumped up a rung to No. 1 while her boss, Adm. Robert Papp, recovered from surgery. Brice-O'Hara has served coast to coast as well as in Hawaii.

I think the critics of Obamacare have a point that there is a difference between requiring health insurance and requiring car insurance because in the latter case one can simply refuse to drive. But I would rather analogize the requirement of having health insurance with military conscription. Conscription is certainly not voluntary. But people can be exempted from military service if they have a legitimate conscientious objection to military service. So why not let people similarly prove a philosophical, religious or moral objection to being insured in order to be exempted from having to obtain or purchase health insurance?

Notwithstanding repeated pronouncements over the past several years that the Vietnam War is behind us, the issue of one's military service (or lack of it) during that most divisive war in modern American history will almost surely be raised in the 1996 presidential campaign, as it was in the '88 and '92 campaigns.In 1988, it was revealed that Republican vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle, then a Senate defense hawk with a record of strong support for the Vietnam War, had volunteered for service in the Indiana National Guard during the war.This seemingly patriotic and courageous act was in fact nothing more than a means of escaping the prospect of being sent to Vietnam, since practically no guard units were mobilized during the war. The guard was packed with white, affluent and well-connected young men who did not wish to be unduly inconvenienced by a war for which there was plenty of poor, uneducated -- and truly courageous -- cannon fodder already available.

Joseph Bathgate calls them "the Hollywood questions. " When college classmates learn he was a machine gunner for the Marine Corps for two tours in Iraq, they want to know: Did anyone ever shoot at you? Ever get hit? And there's the big one. You ever kill anyone? "It's unusual, I understand that, what I've done," says Bathgate, 24, of Dundalk, now out of the military and studying kinesiology at Towson University. "Still, it's annoying. … Naturally, I feel different" from the other, mostly younger students on campus.

The Town of Bel Air will be celebrating Flag Day on Saturday, June 2, at 8 a.m. at the William A. Humbert Amphitheater in Shamrock Park. Traditionally, Flag Day is recognized on June 14; however, the town coordinates the scheduling of this ceremony with Bel Air High School's band and chorus to ensure the event does not interfere with their end of year studies and final exams. Retired Army Col. John F. Kutcher will be the featured speaker and County Councilman Jim McMahan will be the master of ceremonies.

As the No. 2 leader of the Coast Guard, Vice Adm. — and Vice Commandant — Sally Brice-O'Hara is the chief operating officer of an organization with a $10 billion budget and 58,000 military and civilian employees, plus 31,000 volunteers. Last week, less than a month before her own retirement, the Annapolis native and 1974 Goucher College graduate was temporarily bumped up a rung to No. 1 while her boss, Adm. Robert Papp, recovered from surgery. Brice-O'Hara has served coast to coast as well as in Hawaii.

Machele Fredericks had to face her attacker every day. She was in the Air Force. He was a fellow service member on the base. And he said that if she told anyone what he'd done, he'd kill her. "You didn't hear much of people getting raped in the military back then," Fredericks said. "At least I didn't. So, you know, it was like fear every day: 'I hope he's not at the gate today.' "I wouldn't dare tell no one. I didn't think anybody was going to believe me anyway. " She drank instead.

This holiday season, thousands of families are welcoming home children, siblings, spouses and parents from the Middle East. For family members and service members alike, this return marks a long-anticipated and joyful reunion. But for the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whose return marks the end of their military service, it may also usher in a period of great uncertainty. After the reunions, the "welcome homes" and the "thank yous" that our returning veterans receive, the national dialogue they hear turns largely to scant job opportunities, post-traumatic stress, school dropout rates and suicide.

William H. "Bill" Redden, a retired Bethlehem Steel Corp. metallurgist, died Tuesday from Alzheimer's disease and bone cancer at his Solomons home. He was 93 and had formerly lived in the Hampton neighborhood of Baltimore County. Mr. Redden was born and raised in Corsicana, Texas, where he graduated in 1934 from Corsicana High School. He attended college at the University of Texas and earned an engineering degree in 1938 from what was then Carnegie Institute, now Carnegie Mellon University.

COLLEGE PARK - Nearly 1,000 students packed the University of Maryland's Memorial Chapel last night for a "town meeting" with Arizona Sen. John McCain - the first in a series of such events planned at campuses across the country by the former Republican presidential candidate. McCain is promoting his bill to expand volunteer opportunities and encourage military service in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. He also talked with the students about campaign-finance reform, last year's election, terrorism and war, and explained his Call to Service Act, the measure targeted at encouraging young people to serve their country.

The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to provide full disability payments for Lou Gehrig's disease, tacitly acknowledging for the first time a generalized link between the fatal neurological disorder and military service. Veterans and patient advocates have advocated the change for years, citing studies showing that former soldiers are more likely than the general population to contract the disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The VA already extends full compensation to ALS-stricken veterans of the first Persian Gulf war, who, according to a study earlier this decade, are twice as likely as other service members to contract the disease.

When is a lie that's so outrageous it strains credibility a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and when is it a crime so egregious that it becomes punishable under federal law? This week U.S. Supreme Court announced it will decide the issue in the case of a man whose puffed-up claims about his military service turned out to be a total fabrication even as he claimed the Constitution protected his right to prevaricate. In 2007, shortly after being elected to the board of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, Calif., Xavier Alvarez introduced himself to the public in words that were bound to impress: "I'm a retired Marine of 25 years," Mr. Alvarez said.