F r i d a y , J u n e 2 1 , 2 0 1 3 T H E R E D 7 . n E T

Military plans would put women in most

combat jobsPage 4

aLSO INSIDe

Briefs...............................8

Philpott............................6

FWB man cooked his way through

World War IIPage 3

Water Survivial Training

Page 2

Page 2 | THE rED 7 | Friday, June 21, 2013

Water Survivial Training

Year No. 3 edition No. 23

The Red 7 is published by the Northwest Florida Daily News, a pri-vate firm in no way connected with the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) or the U.S. Army.

This publication’s content is not necessarily the official view of, or endorsed by, the U.S. govern-ment, the Department of Defense, the Depart-ment of the Army or 7th Special Forc-es Group (Airborne). The official news source for 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) is http://www.soc.mil/.

The appearance of advertising in this publication does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. govern-ment, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) or the Northwest Florida Daily News for products or services advertised. Ev-erything advertised in this publication shall be made available for purchase, use or patronage without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national ori-gin, age, marital status, physical handi-cap, political affiliation or any other nonmerit factor of the purchaser, user or patron. Editorial content is edited, prepared and provided by the North-west Florida Daily News.

Mail2 Eglin Parkway nE,

Fort Walton Beach, FL 32548

News(850) 315-4450

Fax: (850) 863-7834e-mail:

news@thered7.net

advertising863-1111 Ext. 1322

ConTaCTuSTracey Steele

Editor315-4472

tsteele@thered7.net

Susan Fabozzinews assistant

315-4450sfabozzi@thered7.net

Soldiers from 7th Group

participated in Water Survival

Training on Eglin June 18.

Soldiers learned proper

procedures to perform

after a water airborne

operation. Soldiers must have

a certificate of training within

six months of a water training

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A Soldier swims away from under a canopy during Water Survival Training June 18.

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Soldiers start a 50-meter swim at the start of the training.Staff.Sgt..Ramon.m.maRReRo..| U.S. Army

A Soldier lands in the pool wearing a simulated parachute harness.

Friday, June 21, 2013 | THE rED 7 | Page 3

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foRt.WaLton.BeaCH — Ask 96-year-old Hyram Schneider if he ever thinks about the war, and he’s not sure which war you’re ask-ing about.

As a child growing up in Latvia, he watched Rus-sian Cossacks ride through town on horses, wearing gun belts across their chests and shooting at everybody.

“I ran out and my fa-ther, may he rest in peace, caught me,” said Sch-neider, who lives in Fort Walton Beach. “I can still hear the noise.

“I think that we left in time — saved our lives.”

He came to the United

States when he was 12 with his mother and two broth-ers on a ship that broke apart after hitting a sand-bar. They were rescued by a tugboat and joined his father, who had arrived in the country five years earlier.

In his mid-20s, Sch-neider was drafted into the Army and baked his way through World War II, pri-marily in Spanish-speak-ing countries. He worked as a quartermaster after the Army learned he had grown up baking in facto-ries with his father.

“Friday evenings, I would bake bread for all the Jewish soldiers,” he recalled. “The company commander found out and told his wife. She told me to bake two for them.”

He would never go back to Europe and has outlived all of his family in his na-tive country, the thought of which chokes him into silence.

Schneider has been married to his fourth wife, Kiyokof, for more than four decades. He says the first three couldn’t compare to her.

“If I’d met her before, I would have made her my first wife,” he said.

Schneider, who still drives, follows news sto-ries about his fellow World War II veterans and takes pride in being one of the oldest survivors.

He was honorably discharged in 1945 as a sergeant.

“I didn’t have it bad,” he said.

FWB man cooked his way through World War II

nICk.tomeCek.| Daily News

Hyram Schneider, 96, smiles as he talks about his time as a baker in the Army during World War II.

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WaSHIngton. (AP) — Women may be able to start training as Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as Navy SEALs a year later under plans by the Pentagon that would slowly bring women into thousands of combat jobs, in-cluding those in elite special operations forces.

Details of the plans were obtained by The Associated Press. They call for requir-ing women and men to meet the same physical and men-tal standards to quality for certain infantry, armor, com-mando and other front-line positions across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reviewed the plans and has ordered the services to move ahead.

The move follows revela-tions of a startling number of sexual assaults in the armed forces. Earlier this year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the sexual assaults might be linked to the longstand-ing ban on women serving in combat because the dispar-ity between the roles of men and women creates separate classes of personnel — male “warriors” versus the rest of the force.

While the sexual assault problem is more complicated than that, he said, the dispar-ity has created a psychology that lends itself to disrespect for women.

Under the schedules military leaders delivered to Hagel, the Army will develop standards by July 2015 to al-low women to train and poten-tially serve as Rangers, and qualified women could begin training as Navy SEALS by March 2016 if senior leaders agree. Military leaders have suggested bringing senior women from the officer and enlisted ranks into special

forces units first to ensure that younger, lower-ranking women have a support sys-tem to help them get through the transition.

The Navy intends to open up its Riverine force and begin training women next month, with the goal of as-signing women to the units by October. While not part of the special operations forces, the coastal Riverine squadrons do close combat and security operations in small boats. The Navy plans to have studies finished by July 2014 on allowing women to serve as SEALs, and has set October 2015 as the date when women could begin Navy boot camp with the ex-pressed intention of becom-ing SEALs eventually.

U.S. Special Operations Command is coordinating the matter of what commando jobs could be opened to wom-en, what exceptions might be requested and when the transition would take place.

The proposals leave the door open for continued ex-clusion of women from some jobs, if research and testing find that women could not be successful in sufficient numbers, but the services would have to defend such decisions to top Pentagon leaders.

Army officials plan to complete gender-neutral standards for the Ranger course by July 2015. Army Rangers are one of the

service’s special operations units, but many soldiers who go through Ranger training and wear the coveted tab on their shoulders never actu-ally serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment. To be considered a true Ranger, soldiers must serve in the regiment.

In January, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey signed an order that wiped away gen-erations of limits on where and how women could fight for their country. At the time, they asked the services to de-velop plans to set the change in motion.

The decision reflects a reality driven home by the wars in Iraq and Afghani-stan, where battle lines were blurred and women were propelled into jobs as medics, military police and intelligence officers that were sometimes attached, but not formally assigned, to battalions. So, even though a woman could not serve of-ficially as a battalion infan-tryman going out on patrol, she could fly a helicopter sup-porting the unit or be part of a team supplying medical aid if troops were injured.

Of the more than 6,700 U.S. service members who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 150 have been women.

The order Panetta and

Military plans would put women in most combat jobs

See wOMeN Page 5

Under the schedules military leaders delivered to Hagel, the army will develop standards by July

2015 to allow women to train and potentially serve as Rangers, and qualified women could begin

training as navy SEaLS by March 2016 if senior leaders agree.

Friday, June 21, 2013 | THE rED 7 | Page 5

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The paintball fields located off U.S. Highway 98 could shut down at the end of the month to make room for new privatized housing.

Officials are looking to rebuild the fields at a wooded location off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, but final plans are still in the works.

Constr uction of 63 single-family homes for senior-ranking enlisted people is already under-way. The development is being built on about 20 acres south of U.S. High-

way 98.It will require relocation

of the base’s family camp, as well.

The camp, which has been at its current location for more than 30 years, is in the process of being moved to a site also off Martin Lu-ther King Jr. Boulevard.

The paintball fields are currently located on about eight acres.

The site includes three fields that are open to the general public on Satur-days and Sundays.

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Field, but the office would not say whether that plan has been approved.

Officials have their eye on a new site for the paint-ball fields, but it has not gotten final approval.

If the fields close, it is unknown when they will reopen.

More details are pend-ing approval of the reloca-tion plan, according to the public affairs office.

Hurlburt paintball fields to be moved

Dempsey signed prohibits physical standards from be-ing lowered simply to allow women to qualify for jobs closer to the battlefront. But the services are methodically reviewing and revising the standards for many jobs, in-cluding strength and stami-na, in order to set minimum requirements for troops to meet regardless of their sex.

The military services are also working to determine the cost of opening certain jobs to women, particularly aboard a variety of Navy ships, including certain sub-marines, frigates, mine warfare and other smaller warships. Dozens of ships do not have adequate berth-ing or facilities for women to meet privacy needs, and would require design and construction changes.

Under a 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohib-ited from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level. A brigade is roughly 3,500 troops split into several battalions of about 800 soldiers each. Histori-cally, brigades were based farther from the front lines, and they often included top

command and support staff.Last year the military

opened up about 14,500 com-bat positions to women, most of them in the Army, by allow-ing them to serve in many jobs at the battalion level. The January order lifted the last barrier to women serv-ing in combat, but allows the services to argue to keep some jobs closed.

The bulk of the nearly 240,000 jobs currently closed to women are in the Army, including those in infantry, armor, combat engineer and artillery units that are often close to the battlefront. Simi-lar jobs in the Marine Corps are also closed.

Army officials have laid out a rolling schedule of dates in 2015 to develop gen-der-neutral standards for specific jobs, beginning with July for engineers, followed by field artillery in March and the infantry and armor jobs no later than September.

Women make up about 14 percent of the 1.4 million ac-tive U.S. military personnel. More than 280,000 women have been sent to Iraq, Af-ghanistan or neighboring na-tions in support of the wars

wOMeN FrOM Page 4

Page 6 | THE rED 7 | Friday, June 21, 2013

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Last November an independent audit of the Military Retirement Fund uncovered a “significant deficiency” in the way the Defense Finance and Ac-counting Service (DFAS) has been calculating retired pay for about 15 percent of 370,000 retirees who are under a “High-3” retired pay formula.

The result is that 55,500 retirees who first entered service on or after Sept. 8, 1980, have been getting a little less in monthly retired pay than the law directs. That’s because DFAS, for this High-3 generation, has not been applying a pay protection tool from 1975 called the “Tower Amendment.”

If DFAS was to apply Tower protection retro-actively, as auditors rec-

ommend, these retir-ees could expect a lump sum average payment of about $1,000, the Congres-sional Budget

Office reports. Individual amounts would vary base on time retired, with the largest payments going to those who retired in fall of 2000 with the first wave of “High-3” retirees.

But if the Department of Defense has its way, DFAS will never have to make those payments. The House Armed Ser-vices Committee has included a provision in its fiscal 2014 defense au-

thorization bill (HR 1960) that would revise the law so the Tower Amendment doesn’t apply to High-3 retirees.

If the full Congress agrees, DFAS would avoid having to make $60 million in retroactive payments, CBO explained in a June 13 cost analysis of the defense bill. And future retired pay for impacted High-3 retirees would forever be smaller than current law requires by an average of $200 a year, saving the Military Retire-ment Fund more than $10 million annually.

So what is the Tower Amendment? It requires annuities of military re-tirees to be recalculated to take account of any cost-of-living adjust-ment (COLA) they would

have received if they were eligible to retire on an earlier date, but did not. The idea behind the amendment, named after the late Texas Sen. John Tower was to spare mem-bers a financial penalty of lower retired pay from serving longer and miss-ing a significant COLA.

To illustrate, CBO asks us to consider a member who retired in October after exactly 20 years of service. If initial annu-ity is $1,000 per month and the first COLA is 3 percent, retired pay af-ter the January COLA would be $1,030. But if the same member waited to retire until January, and in the intervening three months got an active duty pay raise of 1.5 percent, initial retired pay that

January, including the effect of serving three more months, would be $1,028. So the member would have been better off retiring the previous October.

The Tower Amendment requires that “look back” so the retiree always draws the higher amount. The Military Retirement Fund audit found that DFAS wasn’t giving Tower protection to High-3 retir-ees who would benefit.

“We determined these retiree accounts were eligible under Tower if the retirement date was the first day of a quarter and the retiree had at least 20 years and one day of service,” according to the audit report.

Looking at a sampling of 66 High-3 retirees, audi-

tors determined that 13 of them “were underpaid ev-ery month.” And the aver-age underpayment wasn’t $2 a month but almost $30. So auditors warned that the “estimated errors could potentially have a significant impact to indi-vidual retirees’ pay.”

Annuities of High-3 retirees already lag those of “Final Pay” retirees who entered service be-fore Sept. 8, 1980. A Final Pay retiree with 20 years’ service draws an annuity equal to 50 percent of final basic pay. A High-3 retiree with 20 years would have the same 50 percent mul-tiplier, but it would be ap-plied to average basic pay over the final three years of service.

55,000 ‘High-3’ retirees due back pay might never see it

Tom Philpott

See reTIreeS Page 7

Friday, June 21, 2013 | THE rED 7 | Page 7

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Congress made the change for this gen-eration of retirees be-fore they even entered service simply to curb future retirement costs. Perhaps unintentionally, DFAS has added insult to the injury by not using the Tower look-back pro-vision since these High-3 members began joining the ranks of military retirees almost 13 years ago.

Auditors who uncov-ered this advised making retroactive payments and using the look-back formula on future pay-ments. Defense officials instead sought legislative relief. CBO estimates the 10-year savings will total $212 million. And presumably, High-3 retir-ees won’t miss what they never had.

Still to be determined is whether the full Con-gress will approve this approach or DFAS will have 55,500 retroactive payments to calculate.

It might be argued this

is small potatoes com-pared to provisions in the House committee bill to block most of the Obama administration’s pro-posed increases in TRI-CARE fees and to reject a cap of 1 percent on next January’s military pay raise. But we figured it shouldn’t escape notice.

SenatoRS.faVoR.PaY.CaP: The Senate armed services subcom-mittee on personnel, in making up its version of the 2014 defense authori-zation bill, also declined to support higher TRI-CARE fees. But the sub-committee did accept the administration’s plan to cap next January’s mili-tary pay raise at 1 per-cent versus 1.8 percent.

If the full Senate also supports the pay cap, a House-Senate conference committee would have to decide the size of next year’s raise later this year when it meets to work out difference in the two versions of the bill. The administration has

complained that the larg-er pay raise would add $600 million to defense spending in fiscal 2014 and $3.5 billion through fiscal 2018, money that military leaders would prefer to spend on higher priorities.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, ex-

pressed disappointment that colleagues have declined again to em-brace any TRICARE fee increases, particularly on working age retirees. He intended to argue during full committee mark-up of the bill that senators embrace at least “mod-est adjustments” in fees to ensure that the prized TRICARE benefit is

“sustainable” as overall defense budgets slide.

“If we just keep punt-ing this thing, we’re going to have a contest between retiree health care and force readiness, and nobody wants that,” Graham said in a phone interview Wednesday evening.

“It’s better for a guy like me to talk about,”

said Graham, an Air Force Reserve colonel, “because nobody ques-tions whether I’m pro-military.”

tom.Philpott.is.a.syndicated.columnist..You.may.write.to.him.at.military.Update,.P.o..Box.231111,.Centreville,.Va.20120-1111;.or.at.milupdate@aol.com..

reTIreeS FrOM Page 6

Page 8 | THE rED 7 | Friday, June 21, 2013

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SALEwhile supplies last

CLASSES STARTING SOON

PharmacyTechnician

Training ProgramTuition

$3,900(Training Grants for

Military Spouses accepted)Includes textbooks, uniforms, handouts,

quality instruction, externship at local pharmacy

Classes Fill Fast • Call Now1-866-813-9482www.continuinged.uwf.edu

@ Fort WaltonBeach

Campus

Fort WaltonBeachCampus

2090233

from.staff.reports

Hospital entrance closure

Beginning July 1, the hospital pharmacy/labora-tory entrance will be closed for construction and will remain closed for approxi-mately three months. Please use the following alternate entrances during that time: Col D’Amore Tower entrance (doors closest to the pedi-atric trailer) or outpatient clinic entrance (doors clos-est to the hospital gate). We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience while we im-prove our campus of healing. Greeters and signage will be available to give directions.

Outpatient hospital services closed The 96th Medical Group

will close Tuesday, June 25 at 1 p.m. for mandatory Sex-ual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) training. The Office of the Secretary of Defense has directed this

stand down with expected training completion by June 30.

Emergency and Inpa-tient Services to include Labor and Delivery will re-main available during the afternoon, all other medi-cal services including the satellite pharmacy will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sound of Independence

The 4th of July Celebra-tion starts at 5 p.m. June 28 at Hurlburt Field Ma-rina. Open to DoD-ID card holders and their guests. Schedule of events: 5-8:30 p.m.: DJ, games and food; 6 p.m.: Presentation of Colors, National Anthem, Freedom Dance; 6:10 p.m.: Cardboard Boat Regatta judging; 7 p.m.: Cardboard Boat Regatta; 7:30 p.m.: 1st SOW holiday remarks and presentation of awards; 8:30 p.m. choreographed fireworks.

No parking at event

site. Shuttle service will be available from main base. No outside alcohol, coolers or pets permitted. Event sponsored in part by Eg-lin Federal Credit Union and D.R. Horton. No fed-eral endorsement of spon-sors intended. Community Programs/884-5080

Khobar Towers Memorial Ceremony

Khobar Towers 17th An-niversary Memorial Cer-emony will be held from 8 – 8:30 a.m. on June 25 at No-mad Way, 33rd Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base.

Blackwater river paddle

Join Outdoor Rec on a friendly family canoe and kayak paddle on the beauti-ful Blackwater River on June 29. Enjoy exploring several small springs and creeks, as well as viewing the cypress, magnolia, and sweet gum trees along the way. Cost is $45 per person and includes

transportation and canoe or kayak. Sign up at Outdoor Rec. 850-882-5058

Uplands Master Naturalist classThe UF/IFAS Okaloosa

& Walton County Exten-sion Office will be offer-ing a condensed Uplands Master Naturalist class this summer. Come join us for an exciting class full of instruction, field trips, and guest speakers that will be covered during this 40 hour course. Training includes ecosystem processes, iden-tification of key plants and wildlife, the role of humans in shaping Florida’s envi-ronment, interpretation skills, and environmental ethics. The upland module will be taught July 15-23. The cost is $225, which in-cludes materials, instruc-tion and three field trips. Registration closes July 9th. For information visit www.masternaturalist.org.

Contact Brooke Saari or Sheila Dunning at bsaari@ufl.edu or call 850-689-5850.

RED 7 BriEfS