CNN.com - Canada?won't join?missile defense shield - Feb 24, 2005

CNN.com - Canada?won't join?missile defense shield - Feb 24, 2005
While I certainly understand the need to protect the United States from hostile nations, I do not support spending billion of dollars on a system the will never work in our lifetime. Seems our neighbors to the north share that view. I think the money we are spending on Missile Defense would be better spent on other more pressing matters, oh, like affordable day care, or protecting ports with more Coast Guard vessels, or a real perscirption drug plan.

Army Having Difficulty Meeting Goals In Recruiting (washingtonpost.com)

Bradley Figting Vehicle 
Army Having Difficulty Meeting Goals In Recruiting (washingtonpost.com) I hate to say I told you so, it seems too easy, but I told you so! It doesn’t take genius to figure out that as the war in Iraq dragged on, Army recruitment would start to suffer. After all, no one wants to sign up to die in a foreign land in a war without a goal or plausible cause, despite the money the Bush Administration is throwing at possible recruits. I state again, it is time to bring back the draft. If we all have to sacrifice for the cause of freedom, is it fair to continue to ask only those who see no other course, to be the only ones to serve?

CNN.com - USS Jimmy Carter commissioned - Feb 19, 2005

U.S.S. Jimmy Carter 

CNN.com - USS Jimmy Carter commissioned - Feb 19, 2005

As a former (always) submariner I take great interest in the Navy’s ongoing submarine programs. And I have been following the Seawolf program from its inception and it’s a shame that the Navy cannot afford more of these boats, but at a cost of 3.2 billion, it not hard to understand why.

I will disagree with the articles’ assertion however that the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter is the most heavily armed submarine ever built. The most heavily armed “attack” submarine ever built perhaps, but arguably the Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBN) of the Ohio class are more heavily armed, as are, or were the Russian Typhoon class SSBN’s. One must not forget that these submarines carry nuclear Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV) tipped Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) missiles. For instance, one Ohio SSBN carries some 192 strategic nuclear warheads, on 24 missiles, plus torpedoes making them far and away the most heavily armed submarines in the world.

V. Edward Martin
CTT1(SS) USN (Ret.)