March 2007
An election for the four at-large Directors is scheduled for
2007. The AHA Corporation Bylaws proscribe that Directors are elected in odd
number years (2007) and Officers are elected in even number years (2008).
The AHA President, Jay Craddock, appointed an Election
Committee composed of the Vice President, Ken Moore, the
Secretary-Treasurer, John Ruppel, and an association member at large. The
committee is responsible for gathering nominations, distributing,
collecting, and counting the ballots. The newly elected Directors will be
announced at the Association's annual meeting, the Annual Old Timers' Lunch,
scheduled for March 28, 2007.
All AHA members in good standing may vote for Director.
Ballots have been included in your newsletter if you paid your 2006
membership dues. If your last year’s dues were not paid, you are not
considered to be in good standing and are not eligible to vote. There are
four names on the ballot: CCMS Ed Boddington, CCMS Doug Sale, Lt Col Steve
James, and Lt Col Dave Russell. There is no write-in provision. Please vote
for four nominees. The nominees with the highest number of votes will be
declared Directors, and will be announced and begin their two-year term at
the Old Timers' Luncheon
The self-addressed stamped ballot should be postmarked by
March 19, 2007, and mailed to:
The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a
Citizen-Soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said
Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by
longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.
In other words, a Citizen-Soldier could be mobilized for a
24-month stretch in Iraq or Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to
return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as
an additional 24 months. In practice, the Pentagon intends to limit all
future mobilizations to 12 months.
Members of the Guard combat brigades that have served in
Iraq in recent years spent 18 months on active duty - about six months in
pre-deployment training in the United States, followed by about 12 months in
Iraq. Under the old policy, they could not be sent back to Iraq because
their cumulative time on active duty would exceed 24 months. Now that
cumulative limit has been lifted, giving the Pentagon more flexibility. The
new approach, Pace said, is to squeeze the training, deployment and
demobilization into a maximum of 12 months.
Although the Pentagon's goal is to mobilize Guard and
Reserve units no more frequently than one year out of six, the demands of
wartime will require calling up some units more often than that. They
provided no details on how many units would be remobilized at the faster
pace or when that would begin to happen.
To allow for more cohesion among Guard and Reserve units
sent into combat, they will be deployed as whole units, rather than as
partial units or as individuals plugged into a unit they do not normally
train with.
Extra pay will be provided for Guard and Reserve troops who
are required to mobilize more than once in six years; active-duty troops who
get less than two years between overseas deployments also will get extra
pay. Details were not provided.
Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was
that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars
could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted; the
remaining limit is on the length of any single mobilization, which may not
exceed 24 consecutive months.
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