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from the editor
Join the Battle
MOAA intends to fight tooth and nail to protect the incentive package the government promised to those who serve a career in the military — and we need your help.


In case there are any doubts about our priorities, I’ll repeat what I hope you’ve heard already through MOAA’s website and email newsletters: The battle is joined. We need your help in the campaign to convince Congress to protect the career incentive package for our active duty and retired forces as well as future generations of service members.


Shortly before we prepared this issue of Military Officer to go to press, the administration released its personnel and health care budget proposals. As MOAA had anticipated, those proposals would shift significant costs to people who served a career in uniform. The changes would increase fees for nearly every military person — retirees of all ages, drilling Guard and Reserve members, and currently serving family members.


Check out “Washington Scene,” page 33, for the latest information and instructions on how you can join the fight. And, by the way, if you didn’t receive this news earlier through MOAA’s email alerts, now’s the time to sign up for them. You’ll get news as it breaks. And you’ll see easy action steps to join the fight and pass on the word to others. Go to www.moaa.org/email to sign up.


In addition to the immediate call to action, in this issue we bring you one of our periodic think pieces — a challenge to ponder strategic issues. In the story, “The (Not So) Pacific,” page 50, Alan W. Dowd, an opinion journalist, researcher, and senior fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, offers his take on military matters in the Asia-Pacific region.


Dowd postulates China’s goal is to nudge the U.S. out of the Asia-Pacific region and, short of that, to dissuade the U.S. from getting involved in areas of interest to China. Supporting this view is the fact that, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military, Beijing increased military spending by 12.7 percent in 2011, resuming 10 years of double-digit increases.


“The Chinese navy is poised to push out into the Pacific” and could trigger “a replay of the decades-long Cold War, with a center of gravity not in the heart of Europe but, rather, among Pacific atolls,” says military author Robert Kaplan.


What is your opinion about military threats in the Asia-Pacific region? Go to www.moaa.org/asiapacific and scroll to the bottom to comment. Or write to MOAA, Attn: Editor, 201 N. Washington St., Alexandria, VA 22314, to share your thoughts.


And if the pressure of fighting the battle on Capitol Hill and worrying about world peace is getting you down, how about some ideas for getting away from it all? “Of eat Festivals,” page 66, is a sampling of festivals across the U.S. Some are a bit unusual, like Bugfest, celebrated in Raleigh, N.C. Critter Fritters, anyone? But they’re all in good fun. Enjoy!


— Col. Warren S. Lacy, USA-Ret.


*online: Sign up for the Legislative Update e-newsletter at www.moaa.org/email.


12 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2012

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