Moving this previous post back up to the top:

The 10-day stretch between Aug. 8 and 18 promises to be an emotional, hectic and special time for the Iraq-bound troops of the 81st Brigade Combat Team and their families and loved ones.

The Washington National Guard soldiers will be between a month-long trip to the Yakima Training Center and their departure for Fort McCoy, Wis. After some more training there, they'll depart directly for Iraq.

If you're an 81st soldier, or close to one, what are your plans for that last bit of free time before the deployment?

A big backyard barbecue with friends and family? A wedding? A trip to Disneyland, or to the beach, with the kids?

To the extent that you're willing to let us in on your important time together, we'd very much like to share your stories. If you're willing, drop me a line at mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com.

Much has been said and written the past few years about the Army's system for evaluating soldiers' injuries and rating their fitness for duty or a return to civilian life – critics contend the system is too complex and biased against the soldier.

The Pentagon on Monday announced the formation of a new level of appeal, the Physical Disability Board of Review, to be run by the Air Force.

The PDBR will reassess the accuracy and fairness of the combined disability ratings assigned to service members who were discharged as unfit for continued military service by the military departments with a combined disability rating of 20 percent or less, and were not found to be eligible for retirement. The PDBR will not review the military departments’ determinations of fitness for continued military service. Instead, the PDBR will review the combined disability ratings assigned to the specific conditions that resulted in a member being declared unfit for continued military service, acted upon by the military department Physical Evaluation Boards.

Haven't seen any stories about it yet. More as more info becomes available.

Friends of the fallen Tacoma Marine will hold a golf tournament Aug. 1 at the North Shore Golf Course. Details here.

The 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, back from 15 months in Iraq, will have its big redeployment and awards ceremony at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Watkins Field.

Before the ceremony, Spc. Michael Gallagher will be presented with the new Jeep Liberty he was given as part of Chrysler's "Honoring Those Who Serve" campaign.

Gallagher had the SUV customized to pay tribute to five of his comrades from A Company of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, who were killed during the deployment, and company representatives will present him with the finished vehicle Tuesday.

Note: If you don't have military ID and a Department of Defense sticker on your vehicle, you can still get on Fort Lewis. Got the visitor center at the main gate, present your driver's license, registration and proof of insurance and you can get a visitor pass. ID required for all vehicle occupants over age 16.

Folks at the Fort Lewis public affairs office say they're starting to get a little suspicious about a rumor that keeps coming back to them that someone had released numerous horses onto the post's training range and that soldiers had shot them all.

"Somebody out there is spreading this rumor," spokesman Joe Piek said Friday. "There is absolutely no truth to it."

We got a call Friday morning from a woman who said she'd heard it from a local horse person, and directed us to a local veterinarian for confirmation. The vet said he knew nothing about any such report.

A Fort Lewis spokeswoman said the rumor first reached the post June 2, when an Eastern Washington wire service reporter working on a story about rising hay prices called to check it out. The reporter said she'd heard it from a truck driver.

Then Thursday, a reporter from an area weekly called the post and asked about it.

Post spokeswoman Catherine Caruso said she checked with range control officers and with investigators who track the post's extensive illegal dumping problem. No horse sightings.

"We have not had any reports of any horses – feral, abandoned, whatever – on Fort Lewis in quite some time," Caruso said.

=> Read more!

I'm still getting calls from time to time from therapists who are interested in participating in The Soldiers Project, an effort to provide free mental health counseling for returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. I wrote a story about the project a month ago.

Check out the Soldiers Project web site or to be referred to one of the project’s therapists, e-mail soldiersprojectnw@yahoo.com or call 206-290-1035.

California asked for help through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, kind of a mutual aid agreement between the states, and Washington agreed to provide a CH-47 Chinook and crew to head down to help fight the wildfires, Washington Guard spokesman Lt. Keith Kosik said.

The aircraft from the Washington Guard's 66th Theater Aviation Command, based at Fort Lewis, will leave Friday morning and head to Sacramento. From there it will be deployed where the CalGuard needs it, he said.

The Chinook will be equipped with a 2,000-gallon bucket.

The crew will be gone a week. "We don't know if there's a need beyond that but if there is we will certainly be looking at that. ... It could certainly go beyond that," Kosik said.

The Hill has an interesting piece today about Sen. John McCain's complaint that the Air Force may be trying to wriggle out of the joint basing decisions that were set out in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round.

The Hill story focuses on concerns in Alaska and Hawaii, but we're also hearing lots of chatter here about friction in the joining of Fort Lewis and McChord – in particular, McChord concerns about having to work under the direction of their Army brothers and sisters at Lewis.

An Air Force investigation says an F-16 pilot failed "to positively identify the intended target" when he opened fire on a rental SUV occupied by two Fort Lewis soldiers last April at the Utah Test and Training Range.

The soldiers, from the post's 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, narrowly avoided serious injury. One of the five 20mm rounds the pilot fired into the vehicle hit about a foot behind the driver's side door, said a spokeswoman at Hill Air Force Base.

The two soldiers from 5th Brigade's 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment suffered cuts and scrapes when they jumped out of the truck. Through a Fort Lewis spokesman they declined to be interviewed Wednesday.

The mishap occurred about 10:50 p.m. April 8 as soldiers from the 8-1 and Air Force joint terminal attack controllers, or JTACs, from Fort Lewis' 5th Air Support Operations Squadron trained with fighter pilots out of Hill.

Hill spokeswoman Lt. Beth Woodward identified the pilot only as a major with the 34th Fighter Squadron who was training for a May deployment to the Middle East. The squadron deployed on schedule but left the pilot at home, she said.

He had over 800 flying hours at the time of the mishap and was rated as current in his training and qualified to fly the mission.

The pilot was grounded during the investigation. As a result of the findings, he now must fly at the direction of a wingman and "additional classroom, simulator and flight training is required to ensure the individual is qualified for wing missions," the 388th Fighter Wing said in a news release announcing the results of the investigation.

The night of the accident, the pilot was flying one of two jets intending to strafe a mock armored vehicle on the Utah training range. The two Fort Lewis soldiers were in their SUV parked near an observation post a mile-and-a-half away.

JTACs on the ground and the pilot's wingman properly marked the correct target, and the soldiers in the SUV had properly marked their vehicle, Woodward said.

"The investigation team found it most likely that at some point in the pilot's turn (which began at a lower altitude than the pilot planned), after looking inside the cockpit to check his flight parameters, he mistook the set of lights at the Hornet Tower Observation Point as the laser mark provided by his wingman," she said. "In the end, he was trying to make the strafing pass work, and most likely was concentrating on his flight parameters more than the target area itself."

Press release is below:

=> Read more!

This just in from Les Blumenthal, our DC Bureau guy:

WASHINGTON - The House Appropriations Committee has approved a record $477.5 million in funding for construction at Washington state’s military bases, with the bulk of it designated for Fort Lewis.

The committee added an additional $20 million over what was included in the Bush administration’s budget submitted to Congress in February, including $8.6 million to house the 262nd Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron at McChord Air Force Base.

"This will do amazing things for our bases," Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., a member of the Appropriations Committee, said of the funding for Fort Lewis, McChord and the Navy’s major installations along Puget Sound.

The funding level is roughly $100 million more than the record amount being spent during the current fiscal year.

=> Read more!

The Government Accountability Office this morning released a redacted version of last week's tanker protest decision. Read it here, if you're so inclined.

Command Sgt. Maj. Jeffery D. Stigall takes over today for Command Sgt. Maj. Michael A. Sherlock at the 1st Special Forces Group at Fort Lewis.

Stigal comes from 10th Group at Fort Carson, Colo., where he was 3rd Battalion's CSM the past two years. He's been in SF for 18 years, 10 of them at 1st Group, according to a group press release.

Sherlock is moving to become senior enlisted adviser to Special Operations Command Korea.

Last week we heard Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assess the U.S. military's progress in Iraq. "The trends are good, but we’ve got to get it to the point where it’s sustainable and irreversible, and we’re not there yet,” Mullen said.

The Government Accountability Office today made public its view on that question.

This is a little far off the beaten path of normal fare for this blog but given the season and the pending fine weather I feel obligated to pass it along.

The Coast Guard says recreational boating fatalities are way up this year over last.

Through Friday there were 28 so far this year in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, compared with 23 by this date last year. Twenty-two of the 28 "could have been prevented if only the persons involved would have been wearing a lifejacket," the Coast Guard says in a press release.

Washington State leads with 12 fatalities, up from 11 this time last year. Of those 12, 11 persons were not wearing lifejackets. Though there are laws requiring children 12 years of age and under to wear lifejackets while on a boat two of the 12 fatalities were children.

=> Read more!

My colleague Brian Everstine, who wrote today's front-page story about the return of Marine Sgt. Michael T. Washington's remains, reports that there is an address where folks can send their condolences to the family and make contributions in his memory.

Condolences can be sent to the Washington family at P.O. Box 24552, Federal Way 98093.

Donations can be sent to Seattle's Bravest Charity, Seattle Fire Fighters Union Local
27, 517 2nd Ave. W., Seattle 98119.

Click here for information about services.

The lead anecdote in my story today covered just one portion of Adm. Mullen's extended visit with the staff of the Warrior Transition Battalion. Getting the care and treatment of wounded and injured soldiers right is clearly something he and his wife, Deborah, have been spending a lot of time on – they asked a lot of questions and shared observations from what they'd been seeing and hearing at other military installations.

Mullen has been making these trips almost weekly since he became chairman in October, one of his aide's said.

Access to care for families, as well, was a pressing item on their agenda.

It's “an issue that we get everywhere we go,” the chairman said. And there's a disconnect between the experiences of many military families and the health-care officials who run the military hospitals.

The Mullens said they consistently hear from service members and their families that they face difficult waits for care in military hospitals.

And the chairman said just as consistently he hears from military medical officers that wait times are at or close to standards prescribed by their commanders.

But he said he's never been able to determine where the standards come from, and wonders whether they reflect the dramatic changes that have occurred in the military's health-care system in the last several years. More providers have been deployed, more people need care, and the military is relying on the civilian health-care system to provide more care.

“I got this this morning and I get it in every single town hall we have,” Mullen told a Madigan Army Medical Center doctor in a discussion at the Warrior Transition Battalion. “There is a perception and reality mismatch here, and if nothing else, we’ve got a communication gap to fill.”

The chairman got an aerial tour of Fort Lewis aboard a UH-60 Black Hawk. His host, Lt. Gen. Chuck Jacoby, said it's hard to get an appreciation for the size of Fort Lewis, and for the extent of construction and change under way at the post, without getting a look from above.

Fort Lewis officials wanted to make sure Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen got a look at the best and worst of Fort Lewis' barracks.

And that put Spcs. David Bolmer and Andrew McCann on the horns of a dilemma. The latter surely applies to their humble domicile – a smallish room they share, with the latrine down the hall, in the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment's barracks in the post's Banana Belt.

“We were talking about what we were going to tell him if he asked us how we liked the barracks,” said McCann, who with Bolmer just got back last week after a tour in Iraq. “But then we thought, after 15 months in Iraq, it’s not so bad."

They stayed in some pretty rugged spots in Baghdad and at FOB Warhorse and FOB Normandy in Diyala Province.

"I’m glad to be here,” said McCann.

But nobody will hold it against them in a couple weeks if they complain that their digs aren't even close to those enjoyed by soldiers in the 62nd Medical Brigade. They live in a brand new, apartment-like, set-in-the-woods complex that opened this spring.

"Where's the pool?" cracked one of the reporters traveling with Mullen, as the tour passed through the complex's landscaped courtyard.

Soldiers get their own room and share a bathroom, shower washer and drier and a kitchenette with one other soldier under the Army's "1+1" standard for barracks that was implemented in the 1990s.

A little over 4,200 soldiers live in new barracks built to the 1+1 standard, said Steve Glover, chief of the planning division in the post's public works directorate.

But nearly 7,000 are living like McCann and Bolmer in the 1950s-era buildings that were renovated in the 1970s. Nearly all are slated for demolition and replacement in a $2.2 billion building boom that's scheduled to run through 2013, Glover said.

True, the Tall Ships are coming to Tacoma, but they aren't the only game in town.

Adrenaline junkies and wannabe flyboys, we hope you have a chance to see the Wings of Freedom tour of World War II era bombers that shows through Friday noon at the Tacoma Narrows Airport, 1302 26th Ave. NW. It's worth crossing the bridge and paying the toll.

This is just a warm-up act for the big, free McChord Air Expo 2008, just a month away, on July 19-20. The local Air Force Base is throwing open the gates for its first public show in three years. They've been a little busy running hundreds of airlift missions to the war zone, and all.

McChord will host classic aircraft from past wars in static and aerial displays. How about a chilling "Tora Tora Tora" reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor, for instance, or a Cold War dogfight between two Soviet Migs and a U.S. Navy jet?

And there's no denying the thrill of the modern-era stuff, like the stealth of the B-2 bomber and the grace of the Air Force Thunderbird show.

One of the most intriguing (and noisy) parts of the weekend will be a duel between an Air Force Reserve jet car and a plane flying overhead. The car will turn on the afterburners and reach speeds closing in on 400 mph. We won't tell you who wins, but we will say that the jet car uses 40 gallons of diesel fuel for each performance.

And you thought your last trip to the gas pump was a pain in the wallet.

You can learn more about the Air Expo by clicking here.

The Government Accountability Office is out with a new report today that says the Department of Defense needs to do a better job in providing reliable information about the numbers and timelines for growth at 20 bases and posts around the country, including Fort Lewis and environs.

Wonky stuff, to be sure, but it has a real impact on the ability of local communities to plan for the numbers of additional soldiers and their families who are moving to the area.

Enumclaw is building a monument to remember the three Fort Lewis fliers who died in a Dec. 21, 2006 crash near the East King County town.

Sgt. Thomas Clarkston, Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Paige and Chief Warrant Officer James Whitehead died when their UH-60 Black Hawk crashed on Mount Peak in the Cascade foothills. They were on a training mission preparing for deployment to Iraq with the 4th Squadron, 6th U.S. Cavalry Regiment.

"Our community has been shaken by this event and a strong sentiment has come forward to memorialize and honor the men who lost their lives that night," George Rossman, the former mayor, said via e-mail.

The VFW and the city are building the monument in Veterans Memorial Park.

Formal dedication is set for 11 a.m. July 4. The public is welcome.

The area's military installations this week get their first known visit* by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in four-and-a-half years.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation's top military officer, will be at Fort Lewis on Wednesday and at McChord Air Force Base on Thursday. Click here for a list of Defense Department press releases about what he's been up to lately.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers made the last known CJCS visit in October 2003, when he came to Fort Lewis to see off the Army's first Stryker brigade before it left for Iraq.

At Fort Lewis, Mullen will speak from 8-9:15 a.m. at a town hall-style meeting with 1,200 soldiers. He'll also meet with just-back-from-Iraq troops from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, cadets with the ROTC summer camp, and visit the Warrior Transition Battalion.

At McChord on Thursday he'll likewise meet with airmen in a town-hall setting and get a tour of the base.

* I say known visit because top brass and other VIPs pass through Lewis and McChord all the time but they don't tell us about it. Therefore it is possible that Mullen or his predecessor, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, may have been through, but they kept it on the down-low.

Allie Krizmanich of Raleigh, N.C., is hoping the readers might be able to help.

She was in Chicago this week for work and during her off time, went to the beach on the shores of Lake Michigan. There, sticking out of the sand, was one of those memorial bracelets, the kind people wear to remember a fallen soldier or one who is MIA.

"I nearly stepped on it," Krizmanich said.

It was inscribed with the name of Cpl. Billy Farris, a 20-year-old scout with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment who was killed Dec. 3, 2006, at Taji. He was part of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Strykers from Fort Lewis.

Farris was from Bapchule, Ariz., where he grew up in the Gila River Indian Community. He also attended school in Salem, Ore., and left an infant son. There's a tribute to him here.

Krizmanich figures whoever lost the bracelet in the sand probably wants it back. Her brother, Gregory, served a tour in Iraq with an Army Reserve unit and she is grateful that he came home safe and sound.

That his name isn't on one of those bracelets.

If this is your lost bracelet please send me a note and I will put you in touch with Allie. Feel free to repost this item if you think it might help.

Six Fighting Falcons out of Hill Air Force Base in Utah will spend the next week flying in and out of McChord Air Force Base as part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command's Amalgam Dart exercise.

They arrive Friday; the exercise is June 17-19.

The reason they are telling you this is because the F-16s are louder than the C-17s you normally see lumbering in and out of McChord. By some margin. Not as loud as those Navy EA-6B Prowlers you still hear from time to time, but still a good bit louder than the 17s.

Says the Western Air Defense Sector at McChord, in a press release:

The flight scenarios are away from the general population. However, aircraft noise from McChord could increase as the fighters are "scrambled" for takeoffs at unspecified times as part of the exercise scenario.

Think of it as a warm-up act for the McChord Air Expo July 19-20.

Amalgam Dart tests NORAD's ability to scramble fighters in an emergency and intercept unidentified aircraft flying over North America.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be in town next week to visit the local Air Force base and Army post.

McChord in a press release said he'll hold an all-hands call with airmen. In light of recent events, they'll no doubt have some questions for the boss.

Still waiting for an itinerary from Lewis.

UPDATE: He's at Fort Lewis on Wednesday and McChord on Thursday. All-hands meetings first thing in the morning at both locations. At Lewis he will also visit with soldiers from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, who are just back from 15 months in Iraq, as well as ROTC cadets at Warrior Forge summer training, and at the Warrior Transition Battalion, says a Fort Lewis spokesman.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Norm Dicks, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott are going to visit the VA Hospital in Seattle on Friday morning. They're popping in at 9 a.m., touring the place at 9:45, and then doing a brief "media availability" at 10:15.

All of which amounts to less time than it would take a Tacoma-area vet to drive (or be driven) to Seattle, find a parking place and then sit in the waiting room for an appointment that he or she used to be able to get at American Lake.

The bulk of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division will be home Tuesday after some 800 soldiers from the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion 12th
Field Artillery Regiment and other units return to Fort Lewis in three plane loads, according to local Army post officials.

There are some 4,000 men and women in this Stryker Brigade, and most of them have flown home in the last few weeks after nearly 15 hard months in Iraq. But don't put the 4-2 out of your thoughts and prayers yet: A "trail party" of about 400 soldiers is mopping up and is expected to return to Fort Lewis later this month.

Family and friends will roll out the welcome wagon for a ceremony the post has scheduled at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Two of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' choices to take over at the Air Force held command positions at McChord along their way to four stars.

Gen. Norton Schwartz, Gates' choice for Air Force chief of staff, was here as commander of the 36th Tactical Airlift Squadron in 1986-88.

And Gen. Duncan McNabb, Gates' pick to follow Schwartz as commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, was McChord Wing King in 1996-97.

Friends of Cpl. Jared Crouch will gather at the end of Ruston Way at 6 o'clock Saturday night to remember the soldier who died just over a year ago in Iraq.

Crouch, 21, of Zachary, La., was killed June 2, 2007 when a bomb struck his vehicle in Hadid. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, part of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Friend Danee Currier said soldiers from Crouch's platoon returned home this week and will join his Tacoma friends in the remembrance Saturday night. She said they'll plant flags and light candles at the northern end of the waterfront drive, before it heads into the Asarco site and into the Ruston Tunnel.

Anybody wishing to join and pay their respects is welcome, she said.

"It's for his memory and for all the soldiers that passed," Currier said.

"He was a great guy. Loved by all, and greatly missed."

About 75 soldiers are due home in the wee hours today to complete the 40th Transportation Company's redeployment after its third trip to Iraq. There's a ceremony scheduled for 2 a.m. in Wilson Gym.

That's half the company. The other half got home on Wednesday.

The company left in March 2007 and hauled 15 million gallons of fuel and 10,000 tons of supplies across Al Anbar Province. A Fort Lewis release said the unit "also performed humanitarian missions, making deliveries of needed supplies to villages and hospitals in the province. A detachment of soldiers from the company provided additional security for combat logistics patrols."

Cross-posting this one from where two of my worlds collide: an all-star team from McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis will run out against the semi-pro Tacoma Tide at 7 p.m. June 17, Curtis High School stadium.

Tide front office says they're hoping to get their club out there front and center in front of the many Army and Air Force soccer fans who may not know they're around.

"We know they've got a lot of guys who know the game from living in Europe, or otherwise have a real affinity for it," Tide communications director Jon Billings said.

Master Sgt. James Royston at McChord said a number of military players participate in the various adult leagues around the region, and a handful from the base have represented the Air Force in the all-service playoffs in years past.

That said, keeping up with the Tide's mostly college-age aspiring pros will be a challenge. The Tide stands second in the Premier Development League's eight-team Northwest division, and play home games tonight and Saturday at Curtis.

Royston says he'll do some scouting.

"We won't be as young as the Tacoma Tide but we've got some experienced guys," Royston said. "We're hoping to give them a run."

Not that there's a great deal of direct impact at our local Air Force base – they have been decisively engaged in the wars since the balloon went up – but it appears that Sec Def Robert Gates has pulled the plug on the service's two top guys. Good summary at Danger Room; Air Force Times broke the story this morning.

I participated in a panel discussion with recruiting battalion commanders Wednesday in Portland that covered a range of topics, but I pulled these items out for a story for tomorrow's paper:

Army recruiting leaders across the western United States say there are places where they’re a little nervous about appearing in uniform.

Lt. Col. Rick Ellis, who commands the Fresno recruiting battalion, said in his area he’s had teachers call him a baby killer in front of their students.

“Sometimes I’m afraid to wear my uniform in San Francisco,” he said. On a recent trip to a meeting there he made a mental note to park close enough that he wouldn’t have to walk far to his car, because on the previous trip there he’d been spit on.

“It has an effect on me,” Ellis said. “So how does it feel for the soldier, the sergeant, who is here working this day in and day out?”

Ellis’ assessment of the climate in some parts of his recruiting territory came during a two-hour panel discussion Wednesday with media representatives Wednesday in Portland.

The panel was part of the 6th Recruiting Brigade’s three-day planning retreat for its leaders. The brigade, one of five across the United States, covers Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, most of Wyoming and a sliver of Arizona.

=> Read more!

State Sen. Pam Roach called to invite us -- and by extension, the public -- to today's legislative Joint Select Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Buckley Armory. The Auburn Republican will chair the meeting.

One of the intriguing items on the agenda is a proposal to loosen gun restrictions for servicemen and women and vets on college campuses. One of Roach's staff has been studying the issue.

"Returning soldiers might be allowed to have firearms on campuses to protect students if something awful were to happen," Roach told us, alluding to campus tragedies like the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007.

Also up for discussion today is the question of emergency preparedness, and how to give Washingtonians more help finding food, water, communication tools and other basics during a disaster.

Roach didn't like the "You can count on us" statements that Maj. Gen. Tim Lowenberg, head of the Washington National Guard, was quoted saying in a TNT article last month. Roach thinks citizens need to learn to count on themselves during an earthquake or other major emergency.

Efforts to bring a traumatic brain injury treatment center to the Washington Soldiers Home & Colony in Orting will also be discussed. We wrote a story about it last month.

Today's hearing is at 455 N River Ave. in Buckley. From I-5, merge onto 512 East, merge onto 167 North, merge onto 410 East to Buckley, turn right on Park Avenue, then left on River Avenue.

Bill Harrison, the former Lakewood mayor, retired Army three-star, former commanding general at Fort Lewis and I Corps, and the honorary chairman of this year's Pacific Northwest National Security Forum, said he's a little ticked that more people didn't turn out for the daylong series of speakers.

With this area's vast community of retired military and defense industry types, they should have done better, he says.

Our offhand estimate put the attendance at about 100, maybe a little less. It was off significantly from the few hundred that attended last year.

Next year's edition is already set for March 24, and with a topic that may prove a better draw: China.

PS This year's sessions are to be broadcast later on TVW and on the Pentagon Channel. More information when I get it.

UPDATE: The forum sessions are now up at TVW and the first session will be broadcast 7 p.m. Monday.

Thinking about cyberwarfare you get this mental picture of their geeks crashing our networks with a virus, countered by our geeks crashing their network with a worm, and back and forth. It wouldn't necessarily work like that.

If the United States were in a state of open conflict with the cyber adversary and commanders didn't want to risk any further threat to their networks, "we just might drop my favorite network attack tool – a JDAM," said Col. Tony Buntyn, vice commander of the emerging Air Force Cyberspace Command.

"Go back and configure that router," he said. "They're not going to."

Likewise, in Kosovo, U.S. tacticians wanted to knock out a telephone network that was being used by Serbian forces but didn't want to destroy it. They used what Buntyn called "a war dialer" to simultaneously call every number on the network, repeatedly, and crash the system.

"We can't do that anymore because of the 'do not call' list," he said.

That was a joke.

But he said the nature of warfare in cyberspace is just beginning to evolve.

"We know a lot about kinetic warfare," Buntyn said. That is, there's a science to calculating what will happen when a particular sized bomb is dropped on a particular target.

"But what is the collateral damage of releasing a worm? Or releasing a virus? Or attacking a router?" he said. "We don't have that science. What is the science of cyberspace operations? We don't know. We have a lot of questions."

Even the No. 2 at the Air Force's new command charged with thwarting America's online adversaries runs afoul of the Powerpoint gremlins.

Col. Tony Buntyn reached the point of his presentation Tuesday night where he was going to play the Air Force public relations video showing airmen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, only the vid, embedded in his Powerpoint slides, wouldn't play. An IT guy almost got it going, but alas, no luck.

"You just never know," shrugged Buntyn, who's been selected for promotion to brigadier general as vice commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command. "You create a presentation on one computer and put it on another and sometimes things work, sometimes they don't."

His own tech troubles aside, Buntyn gave a quick overview of the new command and its mission in the closing briefing Tuesday night at the Pacific Northwest National Security Forum, held at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.

He followed other speakers who talked about the issues and challenges ahead for the new U.S. Africa Command.

Buntyn, a Texas Air National Guardsman, said the $5+ billion a year command will be spread out at bases across the country. Where they'll place the headquarters of 541 airmen is subject of hot debate, with more than 19 states vying to host the site. The Air Force won't decide until late next year, Buntyn said.

The Air Force in 2005 set out to create the new command, calling it "a strategic imperative." The service even changed its mission statement, adding " ... to fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace."

"We're serious about this," Buntyn said.

But the military needs access to the Internet for all its operations. Unimpeded use is critical to the nation's participation in the global economy. Other countries have already written cyberspace into their military warfighting doctrine, he said.

"Our adversaries understand how to use cyberspace. They use the internet to command and control, to direct their teams, to recruit. They use the electromagnetic spectrum to detonate improvised explosive devices," Buntyn said. "They understand cyberspace. We've got to do the same."

During the Q & A a guy from the audience offered this one: What is the average taxpayer going to get out of this new Africa Command?

Said Herron, the Africom guy: Hopefully more stability and security there and here, which would mean fewer conflicts requiring the participation of the U.S. military over the long haul. "It's a tough sell," he acknowledged. But if you take it at face value that there are real strategic threats and national security interests in the continent, then the command will mean that Africa will no longer be an after-thought for three different combatant commanders, but in fact the sole focus of an entire arm of the U.S. military.

Page, the intel guy: "In terms of our values as a country, defending peoples' rights to live healthy, happy free lives, our investment in Africa is very efficient, very important. We can do a lot more good there than, say, buying more tanks for our NATO allies who have the ability to look after their own security needs."

And McFate, from the think-tank: It's hard to calculate the cost of national security. Years ago, if you'd said it would be a huge strategic blunder for the United States to turn away from Afghanistan, you might've gotten laughed at, he said. Now, not so much.

"There are many ways we can think of doomsday scenarios, and you don't want to be a bad salesman, but at end of day it's a hard case to make to Congress. ... As Africom goes forward, I think it will be making that case more and more before Congress."

More from McFate, the one guy on today's panel of Africa speakers who does not work for the United States government. There are two big points about what the nation has learned from its Iraq experience that are shaping the way the Pentagon is building Africom.

• The post-combat phase of military operations -- security, economic development, reconstruction, etc. -- has become more important in determining the outcome than the combat phase.

• Prevention is better than dealing with the reaction after the fact – "all those things you can do to prevent the conflict in the first place." Through military-to-military relationships, the command can create conditions for the rule of law and secure development.

Sean McFate, third speaker up today at the forum, has a diverse background, to say the least. The director of the national security initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think-tank, is a former Army officer, has worked for Amnesty International, and for Dyncorp (rebuilding the Liberian army). I suspect there are not many who have those two on their resume.

He worked for three years in Africa and says the United States has at least five strategic interests in the continent, in no particular order.

• Counterterrorism. "As 9/11 has shown, fragile states can harbor and incubate terrorist threats that can become direct strategic threats to the United States."

• Energy security: Nigeria is the fourth or fifth largest exporter of oil to the United States, the largest in Africa. If Nigeria devolved the way Kenya did in January, it would send the price of oil soaring (as if it could get any higher). "That is now a strategic threat," he said.

• Humanitarian concern: The spread of civil wars in African nations to regional conflicts.

• International crime: Thrive on lawless lands. Not only trafficking in people and narcotics, but could also be a waypoint in the shipment of weapons of mass destruction for terrorist attack against the United States.

• China: Africom is not a response to China's growing influence in Africa. Nor does China represent a Cold War-like adversary in Africa. But that said ...
China has gone in last 15 years from net exporter of oil to second-largest importer of oil, to the U.S. Second, they are looking for new markets. That for them partly is Africa. They also engage in bloc voting, in UN and elsewhere, to get a majority of votes to help them get favorable trade deals and in the long-standing diplomatic dispute over the status of Taiwan. They have made enormous inroads while the U.S. has been busy in Middle East, "writing checks with no strings attached."

Matthew Page, the deputy national intelligence officer for Africa, has no shortage of things that he says he's worried about as the United States stands up its new Africa Command.

His lists:

Rising food and fuel prices
Rebels, rebels and more rebels ...
-- Sudan/Chad/Central African Republic
-- Mali/Niger
-- Burundi/Eastern Congo
-- Niger delta (Nigeria)
Democracy in retreat
-- Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria
Weak states
-- Guinea-Bissau/Guinea
-- Somalia/Somaliland/Puntland
Islamic extremism in East Africa/Sahel

The hot spots he sees over the next year or so as Africom comes on line:

Higher food and fuel prices
Somalia: famine in a power vacuum
Sudan: A messy divorce?
-- North-South peace agreement
-- 2011 Independence vote
Aging Autocrats
-- Guinea, Senegal, Cameroon
Upcoming Elections
-- Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa
Ethiopia/Eritrea: Another border war?
Maritime insecurity

But there are positive trends, he says:

• African-led peacekeeping ... regional brigades slowly taking shape. West African make most progress. African Union taking leadership role in these issues. UN mission in Sudan a hybrid with AU.
• Military professionalization. As regimes become more and more comfortable in their own skin, take units that were built to protect regime and transfer them to peacekeeping and disaster aid.
• Regional diplomacy. Doing more talking before conflict breaks out.
• Post-conflict reconstruction.
• A few economic successes. Botswana. Mozambique. Some countries managing their resources well. Some developing infrastructure projects, also looking at improving social services like health and education.
• Emerging middle class. Proliferation of communications technologies. Better wired into global community.
• International relationships.
• Rejection of foreign Islamists.

Col. James Herron, deputy director of the Africom liaison office at the Pentagon, said it was never the case that the United States was going to replicate its existing European Command or Central command on the continent of Africa -- that is, large numbers of U.S. military personnel stationed on bases around the continent.

But that was the perception that went out with the news that the United States was standing up the new command, said Herron,
speaking at the Pacific Northwest National Security Forum in downtown Tacoma.

The new command's prospects are profiled in a piece this weekend in the Washington Post.

So now the commander, Army Gen. Kip Ward, has ordered a go-slow approach.

"We started off on the wrong foot by saying we are going to do this without really every consulting the Africans to start with," he said. "I compare it to showing up at your doorstep and saying, 'hey, I'm moving into a room of your house.'"

Ward has traveled the continent to try to assure African leaders that that's not the plan.

"He has said, 'let's back off a little bit. Let's develop the command as it should have been developed in the first place, then see how it goes," Herron said.

The 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division bosses are coming in on the next redeployment flight later today – that'd be Col. Jon Lehr and Command Sgt. Maj. John Wayne Troxell, along with about 275 other soldiers.

Welcome home ceremony scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at Soldiers Field House. Stop by if you're in the neighborhood.

Lewis press release today gives a little bit more 4th Brigade by the numbers:

• 138 battalion-level operations.
• 413 company-level operations.
• 552 weapons caches found and secured.
• 87,324 km of roads cleared of IEDs and otherwise secured for safe civilian travel. (That's 54,140 miles.)
• 25,000 pounds of explosives captured and destroyed.
• 1,700 suspects detained.
• 212 high-value targets captured.
• 718 enemy fighters killed.
• 20 high-value targets killed.
• 176 enemy fighters wounded.
• 278 air and ground raids.
• 324 bombs dropped.
• 4,663 mortar rounds fired.
• More than 11,000 artillery rounds fired.
• 2,216 IEDs encountered and cleared, including 72 booby-trapped houses, 25 suicide vests and 31 car bombs.