March 29, 2005
CUMBERLAND, R.I. -- Police are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of an oversized American flag stolen from the front yard of a soldier who recently returned from Iraq.
Maj. Christian Neary, of the Rhode Island Army National Guard, said when he awoke early Easter Sunday, he found that his flag was gone. It had been hanging from an oak tree in his yard.
"It just broke my heart," said Amy Neary, Christian's wife. "He put his life on the line for that flag."
Maj. Neary said he doesn't suspect the flag was taken as any kind of anti-war protest. "It was probably just some knucklehead kids."
Lt. Stephen Duda said the Cumberland Crime Stoppers are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the flag's recovery.
The 12-by-17 flag accompanied Neary on part of his tour in Iraq. He said it was given to him years ago by a friend, and every Fourth of July he raises it on an oak tree in his front yard. It's so big that people on their way to Cumberland's Fourth of July parade would stop their cars and take a picture in front of it, he said.
"It is the kind of flag you hang in the civic center," Neary said.
When Neary went to Iraq with the 103rd Field Artillery's 1st Battalion, he brought the flag with him, displaying it in an occupied Iraqi army barracks in Taji, 18 miles north of Baghdad. He sent it home after eight months.
His wife raised it in the yard last week, along with yellow ribbons and signs, in anticipation of Neary's homecoming last Wednesday.
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Information from: The Providence Journal, http://www.projo.com/
EDMUND P. GIAMBASTIANI, JR. Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command
Though he is charged with helping to lead the Defense Departments transformation efforts into the 21st century, the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command believes the word transformation can be a misleading term.
i-Newswire, 2005-03-29 - It indicates a beginning and an end, Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr. said. This is a constant process, and thats why the word transforming is actually a better word.
Giambastiani, who also serves as NATOs supreme allied commander for transformation, said that in the past 24 months alone the Defense Department has seen continuing change in the way it does business. And that change has been significant, he said during a recent interview at his commands headquarters in Norfolk, Va., for the Pentagon Channels documentary Facing the Future.
Inside the Defense Department we are now trying to transform ourselves, institutionalize the process and the product of change to make us faster, to make us capable, to make us more operationally available, to make us more expeditionary, to make us adaptable and flexible, he said.
All of this encompasses the mission he is charged with at Joint Forces Command, often called DoDs transformation laboratory.
There, a staff of military people, civilians and defense contractors devise ways to enhance commanders capabilities by developing battlefield concepts, training joint forces, and making recommendations on how the services can better integrate their warfighting capabilities.
And, according to the admiral, integrating the joint warfighting capabilities of the military has defined DoD transformation efforts.
The process and product of change were trying to bring here is to make our forces more integrated, more coherently integrated, so they can operate across a broad range of mission sets: peacekeeping, peacemaking, contingency operations, peace support, major combat operations, small-scale contingencies -- you name it, he said.
We found that the sum of all of the individual components within the Defense Department when you integrate all of these in a coherent way, the sum is far greater than what each of the individual parts would add up to. Thats what we call integration.
That equation seems to have added up, as Giambastiani emphasized integration efforts among services has been successful during joint operations in Iraq.
The admiral used the November 2004 battle to take back control of Fallujah as an example. He pointed out that the fighting there consisted of Marine expeditionary forces, two Army brigade combat teams, and five battalions of Iraq army and security forces, as well as Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps aviation units.
This was a very close-packed area, an urban area, and they were conducting joint operations down to the absolute lowest level, he noted. If youre a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine, and you are conducting an operation, and lets say you need a target taken out, you dont much care who takes out that target as long as the mission gets accomplished. That is the definition, in my view, of jointness.
That definition has an important meaning within DoD, particularly from an operational standpoint, where in the past two years the Pentagon created more joint task force headquarters than it did in the previous 10 years combined.
And we are creating more of these JTF headquarters each and every year, he added. The admiral pointed out that military training also has undergone important change.
Before in the Defense Department, war games were essentially just done by services, and they would sprinkle in joint entities, Giambastiani explained. Now, he said, fundamentally the services are cooperating and co-hosting war games with Joint Forces Command. I am co-hosting with the chief of a service, a joint war game which the Army and the Joint Forces Command come together to play, he said. Primarily, the majority of people in it are actually joint.
We do it with the Navy, we do it with the Marine Corps, weve done it with the Air Force, were doing it with agencies such as a National Reconnaissance Office, weve done it with other combatant commanders, he said. Its pretty darn significant.
More jointness and integration is only part of the transformation process within DoD -- a beginning and not an end to the constant process of change for the 21st century, the admiral said.
I see us moving in the future to this coherently integrated force that is mutually interdependent, that allows us to collaborate in a way that we just havent been able to describe the power of to date, Giambastiani said. To allow us to achieve what we call outcomes on the battlefield, or outcomes in the case of contingency operations, or post-major combat, allow us to achieve outcomes which create success for the United States and our coalition and allied partners.
Still, he added, there is a lot of work to do yet, a long way to go.
But the process, in my view of transformation, has accelerated here over the last couple of years, and its been significant, he said.
By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA American Forces Press Service
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