Letters

Katherine McIntire Peters' article about the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams ("Defending U.S.," June) brought several questions about the program to my mind. I am especially perplexed by Lt. Col. William Baisden's statement: "When we looked at the Oklahoma City bombing, what we saw were a lot of assets and capabilities, but no coordinating element." From day one there were a number of coordinating elements in Oklahoma City. These included city, state and federal level elements.

The principal coordinating authority for the Department of Defense, the defense coordinating officer (DCO), and his organic support staff arrived in Oklahoma City at 6 p.m., April 19, 1995, four hours after receiving notification to deploy. This coordinating element immediately began 24-hour-a-day operations that continued through May 2, 1995. On May 3 the DCO scaled back operating hours to 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the remaining days of the assistance mission.

The DCO initially established his operation within the Emergency Operations Center of the FBI. On the evening of April 22, 1995, the office moved to the Disaster Field Office (the nerve center for responding federal agencies) that was being established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The DCO coordinated directly with city, state, National Guard and other federal agencies during response operations in Oklahoma City. The augmented element included numerous colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors and senior noncommissioned officers of the Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve who are emergency preparedness liaison officers assigned with FEMA regions or state National Guard headquarters. The officers are trained specialists in the area of military support to civil authorities.

As of May 3, 1995, approximately 800 DoD personnel had participated in the response. Support included medical and rescue teams, structural engineers, air transport, casualty assistance, mortuary services, clothing items (more than 4,000 sets of battle dress uniforms, 1,500 field jackets, 3,000-plus boot socks, steel-toed boots and rain suits, most of which were used by the FEMA search and rescue teams), bomb-sniffing dog teams, body bags and medevac helicopters. All of this DoD support was coordinated and monitored by the DCO element.

Needless to say, this did not just happen by chance or with a stealth coordinating element. It was done based on an established DoD response system and existing military support to civil authorities directives and plans. I know this to be true-I was in Oklahoma City for 16 days, beginning April 19, 1995, working as the Fifth U.S. Army liaison officer with the DCO, Col. Stewart H. Bornhoft.

There is no question that it remains a significant benefit to have these trained National Guard civil support teams to assist in weapons of mass destruction response operations. They bring a capability that is far beyond what is usually found at the local or state civilian level, particularly in the area of detection and identification of chemical or biological agents. However, the civil support teams are only part of a long-established DoD response capability.

Ronald D. Cone
C3 Analyst
Fifth U.S. Army

Military Taxes

As a federal civilian taxpayer, I can't let Col. J.E. Vesely's letter (June) go unanswered. He makes the statement "Today, the military pays taxes along with the rest of American society." While the military pays taxes on their basic pay, they certainly do not pay taxes on their payments in kind (housing and subsidence and other allowances), on which the rest of American society is taxed. They have tax exemptions for almost all pay earned while in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Many military people pay no state income taxes, because their homes of record are states like Florida, which has no income tax. And they pay no sales tax when they shop at commissaries on base. Even their outside income is effectively taxed at a lower marginal rate because of the failure to count payments in kind in the total taxable income. Therefore, Col. Vesely's statement shades the truth by a large margin.

Steven W. Brennan
Operations Research Analyst
Joint Warfare Analyst Center

A Wake-Up Call

The vulnerability of the civilian Internet has been exposed as computer viruses regularly invade the worldwide network. This should serve as a wake-up call to all government officials concerned with communications security. And it portends future problems with systems such as the Defense Message System (DMS) that rely on the Internet for functionality.

Military communications should not be tied to-or dependent upon-the vulnerable civilian Internet. Can no one anticipate the resultant risks of such a connection? We are seeing but the earliest warning signs now in the communications arena. Government officials must subject a commercially offered product like DMS to rigorous government (not civilian) testing before that product is accepted into government service.

Staff Sgt. (Ret.) Joe Hammell
Unix System Analyst
Defense Department

Job Satisfaction

Robert Tobias' column "Job Satisfaction Has Market Value" (June) links a high reinvention rate with high job satisfaction. While this may be true, the example he cited compared NASA (which has a high satisfaction rate) with the INS (which has a low satisfaction rate). The evidence he cites fails to highlight the significant differences in jobs at INS and NASA. The attributes have an effect on job satisfaction. Can you tell which attributes belong to NASA and which the INS?

Organization A:

• Your people work on projects that involve cutting-edge technology.

• Everyone wants you to succeed.

• Most people want to do this work even if they are paid less.

• When you send someone out of the country he or she comes back.

Organization B:

• Your customers hate to see you.

• You have to provide explanations to Congress or other nongovernmental organizations regularly.

• The work is low tech and mundane.

• When you send someone out of the country you hope never to see him or her again. I know where I would rather work regardless of reinvention. I agree that job satisfaction has a great market value, but some jobs are easier to be satisfied with.

Jim Hurst

The Glass Ceiling Is Real

I was totally amazed with the response from Jim Blasko (Letters, June) regarding his concept of the glass ceiling in both the federal and private sectors. It would be interesting to find out where Mr. Blasko arrived at the notion that only women choose positions that allow them to have more time off to be with their families and therefore choose jobs that are not comparable [to those of men]. Get real! In this age of the Family Leave Act, single parents and stay-at-home fathers, Mr. Blasko's comments just help to show why there is a problem.

There is a great deal of information available about the glass ceiling, particularly in a booklet entitled Pathways and Progress: Corporate Best Practices to Shatter the Glass Ceiling, by the Chicago Area Partnerships, available from Women Employed, 22 W. Monroe, Suite 1400, Chicago, Ill. 60603. I suggest that Mr. Blasko read this booklet or any of the available data from its bibliography.

Patsy A. Hare
Labor Department
Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs

Bush the Monster Slayer

As a career federal employee, reading Gov. George Bush's take on the federal government ("Bush As Boss," July) caused a
feeling of general alarm. Although I applaud anyone's attempt to review and
improve the functioning of my employer, these proposed changes-outsourcing of up to 50 percent of traditionally governmental functions, not replacing half of the middle management as its members retire, promising to halve most major acquisitions performed via the Internet-will turn government functionality into a chaotic mess.

These ideas are evidence of a member of a political family from outside the federal government that sees the federal sector as some sort of many-headed monster that merely needs a couple of swipes of the sword to bring about a happy ending. Ask President Clinton. He came into office with many reforms on his agenda and has yet to accomplish any of the major promises, such as health-care reform. Promises are easy to make on the platform. Thankfully, they are much harder to fulfill, in the case of Gov. Bush.

I may not have been a die-hard Gore voter before, but after reading Gov. Bush's proposals, I am now a card-carrying Gore supporter.

Susan DeYoung

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