Baumholder girls rally for stunning tie with Kaiserslautern

A girls soccer game with all the makings of a familiar interdivisional rout took a startling turn Saturday, leading to one of the more memorable moments in recent Baumholder sports history.

The Baumholder Bucs overcame a four-goal second-half deficit to draw even with the visiting Kaiserslautern Raiders and force a 4-4 season-opening tie.

Kaiserslautern built a 3-0 lead and added another to it soon after halftime.

The Bucs, coming off an 0-18 basketball season following a 1-8 volleyball regular season, didn't win a game during the regular season last spring.

But they were undeterred. After a few attempts sailed just wide of the goal, Makenzie Ehrhardt put a ball past the Kaiserslautern goalkeeper for Baumholder's long-awaited first goal.

With the lid removed, the Bucs gathered momentum. Baumholder scored three more goals over the game's final 15 minutes, the last sending the expected mismatch between a struggling Division II program and a much-larger Division I contender into the record books as a tie.

"The game plan was to go out and work on things we had in practice, work as a team, and get some fitness in. They ended up going for much more," Baumholder coach Jill Norris wrote in an email Saturday night. "The girls played with heart, like usual, and it paid off for them today,"

Ehrhardt scored twice and Ann Majors and Abena Agyapomaa once each for Baumholder.

Isabela Lowry, Kaeli Ebwer, Arianna Osmar and Hannah Hickam found the net for Kaiserslautern.

Naples 6, American Overseas School of Rome 2: Saturday at Rome, the reigning Division II dynasty notched another victory.

Isabella Lucy, Tyler Treat, Jill Thurston and Amilia Espiet found the net for the Wildcats. AOSR goalkeeper Allison Cook was valiant in defeat, making 17 saves.

Rowena Caanen and Alessia Giombini scored for host AOSR.

Ramstein 12, Bitburg 0: Saturday at Ramstein, Hunter Pace and Ebony Madrid posted prolific stat lines as the Royals rolled.

Pace and Madrid each collected three goals and two assists for host Ramstein. Shannon Guffey added a goal and an assist.

Bella Madamba did all she could in goal for Bitburg, making 10 saves.

Hohenfels 8, Vilseck 2: Saturday at Hohenfels, the host Tigers built a 3-0 halftime lead and coasted to an impressive win over an upper-division rival.

Dollie Harrison scored four goals for Hohenfels, Shelby Atkinson racked up two goals and an assist and Hannah Watkins added a goal and three assists for the Tigers.

AFNORTH 4, Alconbury 2: Saturday at Brunssum, Netherlands, the Lions overcame a 2-1 halftime deficit to secure the home victory.

Camelia Brind'Amour Riffou of AFNORTH and Samaris Batley of Alconbury staged an offensive duel, scoring two goals apiece. Scores by Cassidy Harless and Samantha Stanton and four saves by goalie Daneille Cunningham made the difference for the Lions.

Florence 5, Sigonella 3: Saturday at Sigonella, the visitors snuck out the victory.

Florence inched ahead 3-2 at halftime and stayed that way in a hard-fought second half despite the efforts of Jaguar star Katie Cauble, who posted two goals and an assist.

Patch 5, Ansbach 0: Saturday at Stuttgart, the reigning Division I European champions were in postseason form in a convincing shutout win.

Lauren Rittenhouse scored three goals, Claire Chiarotti had a goal and two assists and Amber Garcia scored a goal and assisted on another in the Panther rout.

Patch plays another Division II team in Schweinfurt/Bamberg next week. The Panthers will have to wait until an April 18 visit to Ramstein for their first Division I competition; that game is a rematch of last year's title game.

Boys

Wiesbaden 1, Black Forest Academy 0: Saturday at Wiesbaden, the Warriors survived a grueling game with the upset-minded Falcons.

John Arnold scored on a free kick just before halftime to put WIesbaden in front. That ultimately proved the game-winner, as BFA goalie Daniel Mueller and Wiesbaden counterpart Nick Reid locked down the nets for the duration.

Patch 12, Ansbach 0: Saturday at Stuttgart, the Panthers scored six goals in each half in an all-encompassing blowout of the overmatched Cougars.

Christian Harvey scored three times and Peter Rice and Christian Rauschenplat scored twice each to lead the explosive Patch attack.

Kaiserslautern 10, Baumholder 0: Saturday at Baumholder, the Raiders dispatched a freshman-heavy Bucs squad.

Ryan Rimmler led the way with two goals and two assists, while Sean Dunbar had two goals and an assist.

Florence 2, Sigonella 2: Saturday at Sigonella, two Italian small-school powers played to a draw.

Fittingly, each team scored one goal in each half of the evenly-matched affair. Giulio Pandolfi and Gianluca Stocchi scored for Florence; Alessandro Thomas and Bailey Jones did the same for the Jaguars.

AFNORTH 7, Brussels 0: Friday at Brussels, the visiting Lions pounced all over the Brigands.

Eren Yabici scored three goals and added an assist to lead AFNORTH. Claudius Karich scored and assisted for the Lions.

AFNORTH 5, Alconbury 0: Saturday at Brunssum, Netherlands, the Lions finished off a dominant opening weekend with a second consecutive shutout.

Karich and Yabici carried the day again for AFNORTH. Karich scored three times, Yabici added two goals and each recorded an assist.

Jet search area: Distant, dangerous, dazzling

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The scientists and support staff stationed on Amsterdam Island find professional value in being about as far away from the hubbub of humanity as it's possible to get. But this week, some of them wandered down to the southern Indian Ocean shoreline to look for the floating objects that could help explain the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The world, it seemed, had found them. Well, almost.

"There's little chance we'll see anything," said Eric Morbo, the island's administrator.

The 18 men and two women on the tiny island, along with the resident rockhopper penguins and elephant seals, are close neighbors to where the search is going on for the missing plane. But distance there is relative, measured in hundreds of miles (kilometers).

The French outpost lies at the edge of a stretch of ocean where the winds and waves circle endlessly eastward around Antarctica, unhindered by land masses. The region is desolate in some ways, beautiful in others, and normally escapes notice by anyone except scientists, sailors and the occasional adventurer.

"You feel very alone here," said 25-year-old Vincent Lucaire, a graduate student from France.

It was a satellite image that brought searchers nearby, to a stretch of ocean about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth. Earlier this week, the satellite spotted two large objects, raising hopes among searchers they might find the plane that disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board. Malaysia and China said Saturday that another satellite also spotted an object in the area, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the earlier sighting.

The weather has complicated the search, but an Australian crew making their second flight over the area in an AP-3C Orion on Saturday said it had improved. Of course, they said the first time was so bad there wasn't an empty barf bag on the plane.

This time, cloud cover forced them to fly at about 450 feet (137 meters), rather than the 1,000-foot (304-meter) altitude they normally would have chosen. Not only did that reduce the amount of sea their eyes and their radar could scan, but the lack of sun made it impossible for sunlight to glint off any objects in the water. Gray sky and gray water seemed to blend in with each other.

The low flight path made for bumpy, unpredictable movement that felt at times like a theme-park ride, and was enough for some of the journalists on board to feel sick.

Because it took the plane more than four hours to reach the search area, its 13-member crew had only about two hours to search. The crew rotated spots every 20 to 30 minutes to focus on different spots of the ocean to keep their eyes fresh.

On this trip, the crew found nothing. Every day, they said, any wreckage will get a little tougher to find, with current, wind and other variables expanding the possibilities of where it might be.

Those variables were made clear by an experiment — conducted east toward Tasmania but in the same current — by Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Two people dropped identical buoys at the same time from either side of a research vessel, and within a few days the gap between the buoys had grown to more than one kilometer (0.6 miles).

Van Sebille describes the ocean there as similar to a massive river flowing eastward, only with 160 times as much water as all the world's rivers combined. The current moves at about a meter (yard) every second, but also curls and slows and doubles back in unpredictable ways, he said.

The weather, he said, tends to keep most boats away.

"Nobody goes there," he said. "There's hardly any shipping there. Big container ships don't like to go there." He said the real masters of the region are the albatrosses that can stay at sea for years, coming ashore only occasionally to breed at islands like Amsterdam.

Nestor Vargas, the owner of a shipping business who used to sail grain ships through the Indian Ocean, said the weather in the region will generally be mild at this time of year but will soon worsen.

"In May, June, July, that's when the rough sea comes and the high swells," he said. "If you are not used to it, you would be throwing up, even if you are a mariner."

New Zealand sailor Rob Salthouse, who has completed three round-the-world yacht races, has seen this stretch of ocean firsthand. He remembers waves towering above him as high as a three-story building.

"It's not until you're at the bottom of the swell that you realize how big and imposing they can be," he said.

"You're a long way from land or any safety," he said. "If you got stuck down there, it wouldn't be a nice thing."

Among the whales, seabirds and endless water, he said, there's also a sense the region remains unspoiled.

"It has a danger associated with it, but also a beauty that very few people in the world get to see."

The beauty has something of a price for those on Amsterdam Island, where the only way out is a boat that comes four times a year. There are two bicycles to ride, a soccer field and a slow Internet connection. And there's also the friction that sometimes develops within a group that has so little outside contact.

"It's not easy every day," said Morbo, "balancing the relations between the different groups."

But it's not all privation. Lucaire, the graduate student, said he had saute of veal and Tahitian fish for lunch Friday, followed by chocolate cake. When the boat does come, he said, it's always well provisioned.

It's a French thing, he explained.

___

Keller reported from Paris. Rob Griffith, aboard an AP-3C Orion over the Indian Ocean, and Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, also contributed to this report.

Okinawa standouts in top form in track debut

Though the wind was not legal and the meet was hand-timed, Rahman Farnell made some history in Saturday’s Okinawa Athletics & Activities Conference track and field season opener at Kadena.

The Kubasaki senior clocked the 100-meter dash in a wind-aided time of 10.14 seconds, eclipsing the fastest time ever recorded in the Pacific by .09 seconds.

And he said he could run even faster, with or without a strong wind at his back.

“I can do better,” Farnell said. “I messed up on the blocks. I’ll work on it. It’s my senior season, my last year, my time to shine.”

“It was an outstanding run, by Rahman and Jarrett,” coach Jon Fick said of Farnell and his teammate Jarrett Mitchell, who recorded a 10.49 and finished second.

The wind during the meet averaged 5.1 meters per seconds, according to Kadena Air Base’s 18th Wing Weather Flight, easily exceeding track and field’s standard of 3 meters per second.

Had the wind been legal, the time would have been rounded up to the nearest decimal, with .24 seconds added for start-stop reaction time. That would have given Farnell a 10.44, .06 seconds faster than the Pacific record 10.5 run three seasons ago by Kubasaki’s A.J. Watson.

“It’s a byproduct of Chima’s work ethic,” Fick said, invoking Farnell’s nickname. “He’s worked hard this season. He’s obviously talented, but his work ethic is awesome.”

Others feeling the need for speed were two-time Far East cross-country champions Andrew Kilkenny and Ana Hernandez. The former took the boys 3,200 (10:16.59) and 1,600 (4:43.78), while the latter succeeded in the girls 1,600 (5:40.12) and 800 (2:31.97).

They each ran into the teeth of those winds on the back stretch. “The wind is always a factor, but I felt good. It will be a good, competitive season,” Kilkenny said.

Coming in just behind Kilkenny was freshman teammate Javier Michael (10:25.75), whom Kilkenny feels can do well at Far East. “He’s very hard working, so focused, so serious,” he said of Michael, who attended a Nike camp and the Smokey Mountain camp last summer.

“Pretty good for me. The wind was horrible,” said Hernandez, whose previous best was 2:35 last year. She’s hoping to at least give Nile C. Kinnick’s Carydaliz Fontanez a run at Far East. “We all know the 800 is Cary’s thing,” she said.

In something of an upset, Kubasaki sophomore Kaelyn Francis entered the sprint spotlight, clocking the 100 in 12.44 and the 200 in 26.58, outdistancing favored Janika Caines of Kadena.

“I thought Janika was going to beat me,” Francis said, adding that she’s been working on her starts out of the blocks. “It helped today.”

In another Okinawa upset, Cody Prince of Kadena hit a no-out pitch from Kubasaki left-hander Angelo Bourdony over the left-field fence for a two-run walk-off homer, as the Panthers beat the Dragons 9-7, their first win over Kubasaki in more than a year.

“To win like that, in a walk-off by Cody Prince, a senior, awesome,” coach David Compton said. “It couldn’t happen to a better guy.”

The homer made a winner of Justin Sego, who homered in that game and also had three steals in the first game of Saturday’s twin bill, an 18-2 romp by Kubasaki.

In another episode of history, Humphreys’ boys soccer team recorded its first win in school history, getting a goal from Takeo Elliott in a 1-0 shutout Saturday at Osan. The win came without star senior Manasseh Nartey in the first half.

“We have a lot of talent,” Blackhawks coach Gregory Cyr said. “Maybe not this year, but next year, we could be a force to be reckoned with.”

And Matthew C. Perry’s girls soccer team finally suffered a loss after opening the season with eight straight wins. Christine Madamba had the lone goal as Yokota blanked the Samurai 1-0.

Mabus at Kings Bay: Navy still needs small surface combat ships

ST. MARYS, Ga. — Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus Jr. told 1,800 sailors and Marines at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base on Friday that Americans are safe because the Navy is always in the right place all the time.

Mabus stressed that though concerns about money remained, the Georgia and Jacksonville bases are still in the Navy’s plans to upgrade. That includes replacing subs and building more ships — with Mayport being the hub for “small surface combat ships.” It’s all part of a strategy, he said, that will place the Navy at the forefront of U.S. defense strategy.

Mabus said all three Navy bases in the region — Mayport, Jacksonville Naval Air Station and Kings Bay — all have great value to the Navy.

All three bases should benefit as the Navy goes forward with its plan to build more ships to get to 300 modern ships and to remain there.

Asked about the reduction of the number of littoral combat ships — for which Mayport is to be the hub — from 52 to 32, Mabus said Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has not said he wants to reduce the number of small surface combat vessels.

The only thing the secretary of defense has said is the Defense Department won’t negotiate on contracts past 32 ships.

“We’re taking a look at the program,” he said of the ships, to determine whether the littoral ship meets the requirements of operations or whether the Navy needs to build another type of ship to replace its aging frigates.

“Among the options are to look at a clean sheet of paper,” he said of the design, but Mayport will fit in the plans.

“We’re going to have surface combatants. Mayport will continue to be the hub of small surface combat ships,” he said.

He said that Mayport will gain ships by the end of the decade, but the number of local jobs that results is dependent on the type of ship.

The maintenance on a nuclear carrier, for example, would be done by people flown into the area and not local workers, he said.

For Kings Bay, Mabus said the Navy is on schedule and on budget for replacing the Ohio Class submarines. Of the 14 subs armed with ballistic missiles, six are ported at Kings Bay and eight at Bangor, Washington. The Navy plans to replace those with 12 submarines that will be far more effective and lethal.

The Navy will start building the submarines in the early 2020s, and the first will go on patrol in the latter part of the decade, Mabus said.

The problem, however, is where the money will come from, Mabus said.

“We’re going to have to have a conversation on how we pay for it,” he said.

The Navy can’t bear the cost alone, because building the enormously expensive submarines would consume a third of its entire budget, which would be catastrophic to other Navy programs, he said.

He credited Congress for freeing up the money to allow the Navy to build, but he said that agreement could last as little as two more years.

“At the end of [2015], if something isn’t done we go back to sequester levels, those dumb cuts,” he said.

The public has a right to expect some reduction in military spending as the U.S. ends two ground wars, but those reductions should be done intelligently, Mabus said.

With the end of those wars, the focus will be on the western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf and that means the Navy will be at the forefront of defense strategy, he said.

Mabus also touched on the growing concern about cuts to benefits.

“Nobody’s going to get cut,” but there is a need to slow down the growth in benefits, he said.

Should benefit payouts continue at the current rate, the Navy would have to make a choice. It would have the option of giving sailors the platforms, the weapons and the training they need to carry out their missions or “there’s going to be less of you,” Mabus said. “Neither are options.”

“Whether they know it or not, whether they appreciate it or not, America is in your debt,” Mabus said as he ended his visit during which he saw firsthand how the base carries out its mission of strategic nuclear deterrence.

After he spoke, Mabus took a few questions from the sailors and then stepped from the pavilion where he spoke to shake hands and pose for pictures with sailors.

His only prohibition was no on-the-job training. He asked them to make sure whoever handled their camera knew how to use it.

Mabus left Kings Bay for Austral USA Shipyard in Mobile, Ala., for Saturday’s christening of the USS Jackson, a new littoral combat ship, the Navy said.

Mandatory 'mail order' begins for Tricare elderly

About 500,000 military beneficiaries age 65 and older with chronic health conditions are being forced, starting this month, to have maintenance drug prescriptions filled by mail order rather than in local retail pharmacies.

The Tricare For Life (TFL) Home Delivery pilot is a yearlong program required by law. Defense Department health officials project it will save the government $120 million per year in retail drug costs and save beneficiaries $28 million a year in lower drug co-payments.

By the time the pilot program ends, officials project that 95 percent of beneficiaries forced to use home delivery will be so satisfied with the convenience and savings they will stay with mail order voluntarily rather than return to neighborhood druggists for the kinds of medicines they will have to take for the rest of their lives.

“We are making it easier to stay,” said Rear Adm. Thomas J. McGinnis, chief of pharmaceutical operations for the Defense Health Agency.

“We have auto-refills of medications where beneficiaries can check a box and, every 80 days or so, get either a phone call or an email — whatever they signed up to receive — notifying them that their medication is going to ship next week. They only have to call a number if they don’t want that medication. So they automatically get it every 90 days. They don’t have to think about it so they don’t run out of medication.”

Another feature of TFL Home Delivery is auto-renewal of prescriptions.

“Prescriptions are only good for one year, in every state, and then beneficiaries have to go get a new prescription,” McGinnis said. With mail order, however, the contractor, Express Scripts Inc., will query a beneficiary’s physician to ask if this time they will renew the prescription automatically or if they want to see the patient first.

“Eighty percent of the time they will renew the prescription without having the beneficiary come in…So that’s going to help, again, keep our beneficiaries out of retail. That’s why we say, ‘You only have to try this for one year and that’s it.’ You try it, you’ll like it,” McGinnis said.

Many TFL beneficiaries have known about the pilot for months, from news reports on the mandate Congress enacted more than a year ago. So thousands of TLF beneficiaries who take medicine routinely to control high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol and other chronic conditions have been shifting their maintenance meds to mail order steadily over the past year.

Last month, however, every TLF beneficiary identified as having used retail pharmacies in recent years for maintenance drug refills — a total of 350,000 households — received a letter from TRICARE explaining that those prescriptions must be switched to mail order by March 15.

Elderly beneficiaries who continue to use retail druggists for these types of medicines after that date will get a second letter warning them again that they must convert to mail order within 30 days.

“There will also be outbound phone calls reminding them to just call this number and we will help them transfer medication to mail,” McGinnis said.

If they continue to use local drug stores for these prescriptions, a third letter will be a final notice before TFL beneficiaries will be forced, after May, to pay 100 percent of the cost of maintenance drug dispensed at retail.

That’s the hammer for TLF beneficiaries who refuse to shift. The hook is that their co-payments will fall, saving TFL beneficiaries as a group a total of $2.3 million monthly, McGinnis said.

“It’s a no brainer, especially for the over-65 population. Those folks average four or five medications. Even if they have just one generic and one brand name medication [home delivered], that will save them $212 a year.”

Beneficiaries on four to six maintenance medications could save more than $600 a year “for the same drugs and more convenience, and you don’t have to remember to pick it up every month at the retail pharmacy,” he said.

Beneficiaries typically pay $60 a year in co-pays for a generic drug at retail. Generic drugs are free through home delivery.

Another bit of good news is that the process to shift to mail order couldn’t be easier, McGinnis explained. All of the warning letters will contain the same phone number: 1 877-882-3335

“We tell them, ‘Just call this number. It’s a concierge service. They will walk you through the registration process if you have never used mail before,’ ” McGinnis said. Express Scripts staff will “get all the information from the beneficiary so it very easy to register and use mail order. They will even offer to call their doctor to transfer that prescription to the mail order pharmacy. So it’s truly a concierge-type service to help beneficiaries move.”

Not impacted by the mail order mandate are elderly beneficiaries who have prescriptions filled in base pharmacies where the cost of drugs to the government also is far less than at retail pharmacies. TFL beneficiaries needing drugs for acute conditions or having maintenance drug prescriptions filled for the first time also can use retail outlets.

Tricare will allow waivers from mandatory mail order in special circumstances, to include TFL beneficiaries in assisted-living facilities or nursing homes where mail order isn't practical.

For several years, Tricare pharmacy officials have led an information campaign to encourage beneficiaries on maintenance drugs to use mail order because of the substantial savings. By 2011, about one million military prescriptions a year were being filled through mail order. By the start of 2014, that annual average was 1.77 million, an increase of 77 percent.

Over the next year, because of the TFL Home Delivery pilot program, McGinnis said, mail order prescriptions should double to 3.3 million. That’s out of a total of 140 million military prescriptions filled annually across all three venues of base pharmacies, retail outlets and home delivery.

Having led the Tricare pharmacy directorate as its first chief for the past eight-and-a-half years, and more than 36 years as a Public Health Service officer and pharmacist, McGinnis confirmed he will retire May 1. His successor hasn't been named.

Send comments to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120, email milupdate@aol.com or Twitter: @Military_Update

Mabus at Kings Bay: Navy still needs small surface combat ships

ST. MARYS, Ga. — Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus Jr. told 1,800 sailors and Marines at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base on Friday that Americans are safe because the Navy is always in the right place all the time.

Mabus stressed that though concerns about money remained, the Georgia and Jacksonville bases are still in the Navy’s plans to upgrade. That includes replacing subs and building more ships — with Mayport being the hub for “small surface combat ships.” It’s all part of a strategy, he said, that will place the Navy at the forefront of U.S. defense strategy.

Mabus said all three Navy bases in the region — Mayport, Jacksonville Naval Air Station and Kings Bay — all have great value to the Navy.

All three bases should benefit as the Navy goes forward with its plan to build more ships to get to 300 modern ships and to remain there.

Asked about the reduction of the number of littoral combat ships — for which Mayport is to be the hub — from 52 to 32, Mabus said Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has not said he wants to reduce the number of small surface combat vessels.

The only thing the secretary of defense has said is the Defense Department won’t negotiate on contracts past 32 ships.

“We’re taking a look at the program,” he said of the ships, to determine whether the littoral ship meets the requirements of operations or whether the Navy needs to build another type of ship to replace its aging frigates.

“Among the options are to look at a clean sheet of paper,” he said of the design, but Mayport will fit in the plans.

“We’re going to have surface combatants. Mayport will continue to be the hub of small surface combat ships,” he said.

He said that Mayport will gain ships by the end of the decade, but the number of local jobs that results is dependent on the type of ship.

The maintenance on a nuclear carrier, for example, would be done by people flown into the area and not local workers, he said.

For Kings Bay, Mabus said the Navy is on schedule and on budget for replacing the Ohio Class submarines. Of the 14 subs armed with ballistic missiles, six are ported at Kings Bay and eight at Bangor, Washington. The Navy plans to replace those with 12 submarines that will be far more effective and lethal.

The Navy will start building the submarines in the early 2020s, and the first will go on patrol in the latter part of the decade, Mabus said.

The problem, however, is where the money will come from, Mabus said.

“We’re going to have to have a conversation on how we pay for it,” he said.

The Navy can’t bear the cost alone, because building the enormously expensive submarines would consume a third of its entire budget, which would be catastrophic to other Navy programs, he said.

He credited Congress for freeing up the money to allow the Navy to build, but he said that agreement could last as little as two more years.

“At the end of [2015], if something isn’t done we go back to sequester levels, those dumb cuts,” he said.

The public has a right to expect some reduction in military spending as the U.S. ends two ground wars, but those reductions should be done intelligently, Mabus said.

With the end of those wars, the focus will be on the western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf and that means the Navy will be at the forefront of defense strategy, he said.

Mabus also touched on the growing concern about cuts to benefits.

“Nobody’s going to get cut,” but there is a need to slow down the growth in benefits, he said.

Should benefit payouts continue at the current rate, the Navy would have to make a choice. It would have the option of giving sailors the platforms, the weapons and the training they need to carry out their missions or “there’s going to be less of you,” Mabus said. “Neither are options.”

“Whether they know it or not, whether they appreciate it or not, America is in your debt,” Mabus said as he ended his visit during which he saw firsthand how the base carries out its mission of strategic nuclear deterrence.

After he spoke, Mabus took a few questions from the sailors and then stepped from the pavilion where he spoke to shake hands and pose for pictures with sailors.

His only prohibition was no on-the-job training. He asked them to make sure whoever handled their camera knew how to use it.

Mabus left Kings Bay for Austral USA Shipyard in Mobile, Ala., for Saturday’s christening of the USS Jackson, a new littoral combat ship, the Navy said.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Why aren't drones helping in the search?

A fleet of navy ships and advanced search aircraft from 26 nations have been scouring vast expanses of the Indian Ocean, looking for seat cushions, door panels or aluminum that might help solve the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

But noticeably absent from the search has been the unmanned technology that has become a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s national security strategy and defined 21st century warfare.

Drones, which are relied on to hunt and destroy targets in the Middle East and Central Asia, aren’t capable of looking for the missing Boeing 777, military officials said. Their high-tech cameras and sensors are better suited for missions over land. Searching over water is difficult because waves can reflect radar and render many other sensors useless.

Some drones, like the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, have been outfitted with laser-guided bombs or missiles — grabbing most of the headlines. But all drones are equipped with cameras and heat-seeking sensors for reconnaissance and surveillance work.

Drones have helped measure radiation during Japan's nuclear reactor meltdown, penetrated the eyes of hurricanes to gather scientific data and helped firefighters see hot spots during wildfires.

The most advanced technology is on the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a long-endurance, high-altitude spy drone that can fly at more than 60,000 feet. The plane, which is flown remotely, can stay aloft for 30 hours at a time.

A Navy variant of the drone, the MQ-4 Triton, has a price tag of $189 million. But the Navy said it’s not yet ready for use.

In the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, which was carrying 239 passengers and crew members when it disappeared March 8, the Navy is relying on a pair of submarine-hunting aircraft that fly for nine hours at a time.

The P-8 Poseidon, the Navy’s newest submarine-hunting aircraft, is made by Boeing Co. The P-3 Orion is also in the region. The P-3 is a four-engine turboprop patrol aircraft made by Lockheed Martin Corp. and has been flying with the Navy since 1962.

The Navy said the P-3 costs $76,840 each day it’s used. The P-8 costs $42,740.

The planes are outfitted with advanced radar and electronic signal sensors to identify, find and track surface targets. They can also drop sonar systems that send back signals indicating what's below the surface of the water.

Aircraft have been combing a large area about 1,500 miles off the coast of Perth, Australia, for two days without success.

1st of 1,200 Marines to arrive in Australia within days as part of rotation

34 minutes ago

U.S. Marines practice martial arts at Robertson Barracks, Australia, in June 2013. About 200 Marines are in Darwin to train alongside Australian troops.
Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes

By Seth Robson

Stars and Stripes

Published: March 21, 2014

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The first of almost 1,200 U.S. Marines will arrive in northern Australia within days to start a six month training rotation, the Australian Ministry of Defence has announced.

The Marines are part of a Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTAF) that includes 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., Marine Corps spokeswoman 1st Lt. Savannah Moyer said Saturday.

“We are excited to train with the Australian army and maximize interoperability of the U.S. and Australian militaries,” Moyer said.

The Marines, who have been building their presence in Australia’s Northern Territory since 2012, sent 200 to 250 personnel Down Under for six months last summer as part of Marine Rotational Force–Darwin (MRF-Darwin).

Plans call for 2,500-strong MAGTAF to travel to Darwin on six-month rotations each year starting in 2016.

The 1-5 Marines, commanded by Lt. Col. Kevin Matthews, will live and train at Australian Defence Force facilities in the Northern Territory for the next six months, Moyer said.

They will work with aircraft from Helicopter Squadron 463 and support from Combat Logistics Regiment 3 out of Hawaii, she said.

“A continuing priority for the Marines will be to further develop a close and enduring relationship with the local Darwin community which provides mutual benefit,” Australian Defence officials said in a news release.

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Twitter: @SethRobson1

Mandatory 'mail order' begins for Tricare elderly

About 500,000 military beneficiaries age 65 and older with chronic health conditions are being forced, starting this month, to have maintenance drug prescriptions filled by mail order rather than in local retail pharmacies.

The Tricare For Life (TFL) Home Delivery pilot is a yearlong program required by law. Defense Department health officials project it will save the government $120 million per year in retail drug costs and save beneficiaries $28 million a year in lower drug co-payments.

By the time the pilot program ends, officials project that 95 percent of beneficiaries forced to use home delivery will be so satisfied with the convenience and savings they will stay with mail order voluntarily rather than return to neighborhood druggists for the kinds of medicines they will have to take for the rest of their lives.

“We are making it easier to stay,” said Rear Adm. Thomas J. McGinnis, chief of pharmaceutical operations for the Defense Health Agency.

“We have auto-refills of medications where beneficiaries can check a box and, every 80 days or so, get either a phone call or an email — whatever they signed up to receive — notifying them that their medication is going to ship next week. They only have to call a number if they don’t want that medication. So they automatically get it every 90 days. They don’t have to think about it so they don’t run out of medication.”

Another feature of TFL Home Delivery is auto-renewal of prescriptions.

“Prescriptions are only good for one year, in every state, and then beneficiaries have to go get a new prescription,” McGinnis said. With mail order, however, the contractor, Express Scripts Inc., will query a beneficiary’s physician to ask if this time they will renew the prescription automatically or if they want to see the patient first.

“Eighty percent of the time they will renew the prescription without having the beneficiary come in…So that’s going to help, again, keep our beneficiaries out of retail. That’s why we say, ‘You only have to try this for one year and that’s it.’ You try it, you’ll like it,” McGinnis said.

Many TFL beneficiaries have known about the pilot for months, from news reports on the mandate Congress enacted more than a year ago. So thousands of TLF beneficiaries who take medicine routinely to control high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol and other chronic conditions have been shifting their maintenance meds to mail order steadily over the past year.

Last month, however, every TLF beneficiary identified as having used retail pharmacies in recent years for maintenance drug refills — a total of 350,000 households — received a letter from TRICARE explaining that those prescriptions must be switched to mail order by March 15.

Elderly beneficiaries who continue to use retail druggists for these types of medicines after that date will get a second letter warning them again that they must convert to mail order within 30 days.

“There will also be outbound phone calls reminding them to just call this number and we will help them transfer medication to mail,” McGinnis said.

If they continue to use local drug stores for these prescriptions, a third letter will be a final notice before TFL beneficiaries will be forced, after May, to pay 100 percent of the cost of maintenance drug dispensed at retail.

That’s the hammer for TLF beneficiaries who refuse to shift. The hook is that their co-payments will fall, saving TFL beneficiaries as a group a total of $2.3 million monthly, McGinnis said.

“It’s a no brainer, especially for the over-65 population. Those folks average four or five medications. Even if they have just one generic and one brand name medication [home delivered], that will save them $212 a year.”

Beneficiaries on four to six maintenance medications could save more than $600 a year “for the same drugs and more convenience, and you don’t have to remember to pick it up every month at the retail pharmacy,” he said.

Beneficiaries typically pay $60 a year in co-pays for a generic drug at retail. Generic drugs are free through home delivery.

Another bit of good news is that the process to shift to mail order couldn’t be easier, McGinnis explained. All of the warning letters will contain the same phone number: 1 877-882-3335

“We tell them, ‘Just call this number. It’s a concierge service. They will walk you through the registration process if you have never used mail before,’ ” McGinnis said. Express Scripts staff will “get all the information from the beneficiary so it very easy to register and use mail order. They will even offer to call their doctor to transfer that prescription to the mail order pharmacy. So it’s truly a concierge-type service to help beneficiaries move.”

Not impacted by the mail order mandate are elderly beneficiaries who have prescriptions filled in base pharmacies where the cost of drugs to the government also is far less than at retail pharmacies. TFL beneficiaries needing drugs for acute conditions or having maintenance drug prescriptions filled for the first time also can use retail outlets.

Tricare will allow waivers from mandatory mail order in special circumstances, to include TFL beneficiaries in assisted-living facilities or nursing homes where mail order isn't practical.

For several years, Tricare pharmacy officials have led an information campaign to encourage beneficiaries on maintenance drugs to use mail order because of the substantial savings. By 2011, about one million military prescriptions a year were being filled through mail order. By the start of 2014, that annual average was 1.77 million, an increase of 77 percent.

Over the next year, because of the TFL Home Delivery pilot program, McGinnis said, mail order prescriptions should double to 3.3 million. That’s out of a total of 140 million military prescriptions filled annually across all three venues of base pharmacies, retail outlets and home delivery.

Having led the Tricare pharmacy directorate as its first chief for the past eight-and-a-half years, and more than 36 years as a Public Health Service officer and pharmacist, McGinnis confirmed he will retire May 1. His successor hasn't been named.

Send comments to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120, email milupdate@aol.com or Twitter: @Military_Update

Veterans charity again under fire, charged with deceiving donors

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas attorney general’s office has charged the Veterans Support Organization, a Florida-based charity that has come under fire in several states, with deceiving Texas donors by falsely telling them that their donations would help needy local veterans.

In a lawsuit filed this week in Travis County District Court, state prosecutors seek to seize funds raised by the group in Texas and bar the group from operating in the state. For several years, the group operated chapters in Austin, Dallas and Houston, sending veterans and nonveterans alike to stand outside supermarkets and other stores to raise money. According to the lawsuit, the group raised $2.5 million in the state between 2010 and 2012.

In February, the Austin American-Statesman published an investigation into the group, revealing that it gave less than 1 percent of the $7.1 million it raised from the public in 2011 for grants to needy veterans. Members of the Austin and Dallas chapters quit as a group in December after managers said they became aware of how much money the group was sending out of state.

“The funds weren’t going where they were supposed to be going,” former Austin chapter manager, Robin Woods, said. “What they were doing wasn’t right for Texas or for veterans.”

According to the lawsuit, solicitors told members of the public their donations would help needy local veterans. In reality, between 2010 and 2012 the group made grants of less than $57,000 to Texas veterans, or 2.2 percent of what it raised in the state during those years. State investigators think that more than 70 percent of what the group raised in Texas was sent to Rhode Island and Florida, where the group’s headquarters are. And although the group claimed it was helping at-risk veterans with a “work program,” state officials called it “nothing more than structured panhandling which they use to solicit funds.”

VSO employees faced strict quotas, according to the lawsuit, and could be fired if they didn’t raise $250 a day on average. “Further, once back at the VSO office, the solicitor was subjected to pat down to ensure that he did not take any donations and had to remain on the VSO premises while the donations were counted,” the lawsuit says.

The attorney general’s office is also seeking tens of thousands of dollars in fines against VSO President Richard VanHouten and three associates, including his wife.

VanHouten — an Army veteran who lives in a $548,500 South Florida home, according to county records — received $259,965 in salary in 2011, more than five times what the group disbursed to needy veterans that year.

Neither VSO officials nor attorneys responded to requests for comment.

Texas authorities also took issue with the group’s housing program, which was touted as transitional sober housing for homeless veterans. The Statesman revealed that the program rented shared rooms to its solicitors for $125 a week at a five-bedroom house in far South Austin. According to the lawsuit, VSO leased the house for $1,495 a month, but stood to get $5,000 a month if the house was full. The group deducted rent from its employees’ paychecks and filed eviction notices against solicitors who lost their jobs or were unable to pay rent.

“In contrast to its statement that it was seeking to help ‘homeless veterans,’ in practice VSO was interested in individuals, veterans or not, who could afford to pay for a room,” the lawsuit claims. “In fact for some individuals, VSO noted ‘inability to pay’ as a reason for their departure. An inability to pay would seem to be the rationale for having a housing program to assist veterans, but VSO instead saw it as a reason to displace them.”

In addition to misleading the public, the VSO failed to file reports on its fundraising activity as required by state laws on veterans soliciting organizations, according to the lawsuit. The state wants the return of “all monies fraudulently solicited in Texas,” which prosecutors say should be used to “further the stated mission to help needy veterans, and their families in Texas.”

Texas joins a growing list of states that have taken aim at the organization. State officials in South Carolina targeted the group for violating that state’s solicitation laws in September, banning it from the state for 15 years and fining it $5,000.

In Tennessee, officials slapped the VSO with $50,000 in civil penalties in 2010 (the group later settled for $20,000) after investigators found that the group failed to properly register and that it claimed to provide services and goods — including housing, addiction recovery programs and bus passes — that it wasn’t offering in the state.

Georgia and North Carolina officials are also looking into the group, according to press reports in those states, and Connecticut’s congressional delegation demanded in 2012 a federal investigation into the group.

According to the organization’s website, the VSO is “expanding across the United States” and targeting “communities with growing populations of veterans.”

USS Elrod relieves USS Stout in escorting hijacked ship Morning Glory

The guided-missile frigate USS Elrod arrives in Souda Bay for a scheduled port visit Feb. 16, 2014.
Jeffrey M. Richardson/U.S. Navy

Stars and Stripes

Published: March 21, 2014

The USS Elrod has taken over escort duties from the USS Stout for the hijacked oil tanker Morning Glory, the Defense Department said Friday.

Army Col. Steven Warren said the Elrod assumed escort duties Wednesday, two days after a team of U.S. Navy SEALS seized control of the commercial tanker from three armed Libyan hijackers.

The escort change was for administrative reasons: The Stout is assigned to the U.S. European Command area, and the Elrod is assigned to U.S. Africa Command, Warren said.

About 25 members of the Stout's crew who had been aboard the Morning Glory to provide security, navigation and communications assistance have been replaced by about 34 sailors from the Elrod, according to Warren. The Elrod and Morning Glory are expected to reach international waters just outside Libya this weekend, where the Morning Glory will be turned over to Libyan authorities, Warren said.

The Morning Glory, hijacked from the port of As-Sidra, is carrying oil owned by the Libyan government's National Oil Company. Libya and Cyprus had requested assistance from the U.S. government in regaining control of the ship. The SEALS embarked from the USS Roosevelt, which is deployed in the Mediterranean as part of the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group.

No one was hurt in the SEAL operation, Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a news release earlier this week.

news@stripes.com

For 1st time, German Army officer to be USAREUR chief of staff

By Jon Harper

Stars and Stripes

Published: March 21, 2014

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military plans to appoint a German officer to be the next chief of staff of U.S. Army-Europe, Stars and Stripes has learned.

“U.S. Army-Europe is currently in discussion with the German [Ministry of Defense] on the opportunity to have a German brigadier general serve as the USAREUR chief of staff. The details are still being worked,” said Joe Garvey, deputy chief of Public Affairs for USAREUR.

Garvey would not provide additional details or a timetable for when an official announcement about the next chief of staff will be made, but said the two sides are “in the final throes” of the process.

“A decision has been made to make this happen,” according to Garvey.

The decision was first reported by German media.

This would mark the first time that a foreigner has held such a high position in the USAREUR leadership staff, although there have been higher-ranking foreign liaison officers there, according to Garvey.

Col. James Mingo is the current chief of staff.

“[It’s] a very positive initiative, and we’re looking very much forward to it,” Garvey said.

The U.S. military maintains key bases in Germany, and there are 40,000 U.S. servicemembers stationed there, including 25,000 soldiers.

The decision to strengthen bilateral military cooperation by appointing a German officer to the leadership ranks of USAREUR, which is based in Wiesbaden, comes at a time of popular anger over revelations that America’s National Security Agency has been spying on German citizens, including tapping into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal cell phone. Some in Germany have suggested that the country’s relationship with the U.S. should be reevaluated in the wake of the high-profile espionage.

harper.jon@stripes

Twitter: @JHarperStripes

Coast Guardsman under scrutiny for Facebook post

KODIAK, Alaska — A Coast Guard member is under scrutiny after he posted derogatory remarks about Alaska Natives on a Facebook page, and possible actions are being considered in response.

Coast Guard officials said Petty Officer Brandon Upchurch's comments on the "Friends of Kodiak" page are being taken seriously, KMXT reported.

"The Coast Guard holds all our members accountable," Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Moores said. "Making inappropriate comments isn't tolerated, especially when they have the potential to offend various groups throughout the community."

Upchurch, based in Kodiak, was among people on the Facebook site who were sharing opinions about Kodiak Native groups closing their private land to public use.

In his posting Wednesday, Upchurch said he will still go to Native land to camp and have fires. He went on to say Natives "live like a bunch of bums with trash everywhere. You think that the billions they get from the U.S. Government, they would live like kings."

Upchurch could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

The commander of the Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Capt. Jerald Woloszynski, issued a formal apology, which also was posted on Facebook. The apology said Upchurch's command has been notified and will decide how to deal with him.

Moores said several different options are possible, including amending the personal data record or pursuing a military justice process.

Upchurch was previously stationed aboard the Kodiak-based cutter Munro, and he was transferred to a shore-side position before the Facebook incident, Moores said.

The captain's apology has been well received, she said.

"The Coast Guard enjoys an excellent relationship with the community here in Kodiak, and we value those partnerships," Moores said. "A lot of people who have been stationed here choose to remain here after their careers because it is such a wonderful place to live and work."

13 dead after gunmen attack upscale Kabul hotel

KABUL — The teenage gunmen moved from table to table firing pistols point blank at diners celebrating Persian new year, while other guests fled in terror. At the end of a night of carnage, 13 people were dead, including the four assailants and at least two children.

The Thursday night attack on the luxurious Serena hotel, one of the most heavily guarded private facilities in the city, stunned the capital’s foreign diplomats, aid workers, non-governmental organizations and well-heeled Afghans, who had made it a center of the city’s rapidly disappearing social scene.

Among the dead was a Paraguayan who had come to monitor the April 5 presidential election and a respected Afghan journalist working for the French news agency AFP, his wife and two of his children.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, raising fears of more violence ahead of the election to replace President Hamid Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime. The assault followed a recent suicide attack on a market in northern Afghanistan, the January bombing of a Lebanese restaurant favored by foreigners and the daylight assassination of a Swedish journalist on a street in one of Kabul’s most secure neighborhoods. Earlier Thursday, 10 Afghan policemen were killed in attacks in the eastery city of Jalalabad.

Afghan authorities said the assailants penetrated layers of security at the hotel including high walls, armed guards and metal detectors, full-body pat downs and bomb-sniffing dogs, smuggling the weapons in their socks or shoes, police said.

Within seconds, hotel guards shepherded guests into safe rooms where they sat for hours wondering what was happening beyond the doors, said one American who asked not to be named for security reasons.

The U.S. National Democratic Institute said in Washington that it was reviewing its presence in Afghanistan after one of its election monitors, former diplomat Luis Maria Duarte of Paraguay, was killed in the attack.

The spokesman for the Kabul police, Hashmat Stanakzai, said it took security forces three hours to kill the four gunmen. He said the dead included four foreigners, although nationalities were unclear. However, the Toronto Sun reported two Canadian development workers were killed.

Five people were wounded, including a member of parliament, and an unidentified foreigner, Stanakzai said.

The AFP news agency said its Afghan correspondent, Sardar Ahmad, his wife and three children had gone to the hotel for new year’s celebrations. A son and daughter died, and their infant son was undergoing treatment for serious wounds, AFP said.

“This is an immensely painful and enormous loss,” AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog said in a statement released in Paris.

Surviving guests said when they left the safe rooms, they saw police removing the bodies from the bloodstained lobby.

How exactly the four gunmen, some as young as 18, entered the heavily guarded hotel Thursday night remains unclear. Investigators say they are looking to see if the attackers had inside help.

Like the Taliban-claimed attack on the Lebanese restaurant that killed 21 people, the attack on the Serena sent shock waves through Kabul’s large community of foreigners and wealthy Afghans, many of whom can afford to retreat into fortified compounds.

While foreigners in Baghdad were comparatively safe inside the “Green Zone,” Kabul has no such fortified area of the city. But the Serena is as close to a safe zone as there is for most of Kabul’s civilian NGO workers, journalists and affluent Afghans.

The hotel’s high walls and heavily guarded gates hide an oasis where waiters cater to guests lounging by an aquamarine swimming pool or holding meetings in courtyards shaded by trees. The hotel has been a bubble within what some call “Kabubble” that separates the relatively wealthy and calm capital city from the rest of war-torn Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the brazen attack on the Serena Hotel, saying it had been carefully planned to kill members of parliament.

He denied targeting civilians, insisting that those in the hotel were fair targets.

“We haven’t targeted civilians; the hotel was full of people and only those are targeted who were foreigners, government people or those who work for Westerners,” he told Stars and Stripes.

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Twitter: @joshjonsmith

EDITORIAL: Army Times calls on Fox to give 'Enlisted' better time slot

The Fox network’s new military comedy, “Enlisted,” appears to have hit its stride, but stagnant ratings after the show’s disappointing pilot episode threaten to torpedo its chances of being picked up for a second season.

That would be unfortunate. The show’s creators have demonstrated a sincere effort to normalize America’s view of its service members. In doing so, they’re forging a better, broader understanding of military life and its most challenging aspects, including difficult topics such as post-traumatic stress.

That’s all too rare in popular culture — which makes such endeavors all the more valuable.

“Enlisted” chronicles the goofball antics of three brothers assigned to a “rear D” unit at a fictional Army post in Florida. “M*A*S*H” it is not, though there is at least one important similarity between the two: Both suffered from a low-performing initial run. And things turned out OK for “M*A*S*H.”

Yes, the “Enlisted” pilot was poorly executed. But the show has come a very long way since then. The writers have doubled down on their commitment to accuracy and relevant jokes.

Frankly, it’s hard not to root for these TV troops.

Now it’s Fox’s turn to step up. “Enlisted” airs at a dreadful time: 9 p.m. Fridays. If the show is to survive, it must have better visibility. Fox can — and should — make that happen immediately.

One of world's remotest areas being swept for missing Malaysian jet

The U.S. Navy dispatched its most technologically advanced search aircraft to an empty quarter of the Indian Ocean on Thursday to look for two large pieces of debris that may provide the first physical evidence in the investigation of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Experts were hopeful that the debris would not turn out to be another of the false leads and misinterpreted data that have dogged the investigation into why the Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers and crew turned from its Beijing trajectory March 8 and then vanished.

Even if the floating objects photographed in the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday by a commercial satellite prove to be from the aircraft, the remainder could lie thousands of feet below the ocean surface and possibly hundreds of miles away.

“It is the beginning of a very long saga,” said David Gallo, who managed search expeditions for Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil in 2009. “The search teams are already physically and emotionally drained.”

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister and chief government spokesman, said Friday that he remained cautious about the debris report, even as officials there were gearing up for a multinational operation to recover the plane’s black boxes, with lessons learned from the Air France recovery effort.

In the time since the debris was photographed, about 1,500 miles southwest of Perth, Australia, it could have drifted 70 miles, complicating efforts to get a closer look, experts said. Its drift from the impact area would be far greater, they added.

Although currents and winds in that part of the Indian Ocean are not considered particularly strong, predicting how a piece of debris can drift over many days is an inexact science. Calculating where the main body of wreckage may have settled after sinking several thousand feet could be even harder, oceanographers and accident investigators say.

Search aircraft spent very little time over the area Thursday before the mission had to be called off at nightfall. Expectations were not much greater for coming days. Even the most capable long-range aircraft, including the U.S. Navy’s P-8 Poseidon, would get only three hours to comb the area before having to return to a distant base in Perth.

“As oceans go, this is probably one of the most remote areas on the planet,” Gallo said. “It’s a long way from any place.”

The larger of the two photographed pieces was estimated to be 79 feet long, according to an analysis by the Australian navy. Only two parts of a 777 — the fuselage or a wing — are as extensive. Although a wing, empty of its fuel after a long flight, might float for a while, the fuselage probably would sink soon, experts said. A number of experts also cautioned that the debris could be nothing more than the normal junk that floats in much of the world’s oceans.

If the debris is verified, however, scientists will create computer models based on factors such as ocean currents and wind speed to predict where the impact zone and underwater debris field lie, said Gallo, director of special operations at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Even the smallest detail about the floating objects, such as whether they might catch wind like a sail, can affect their movements, experts said.

“The ocean is full of surprises,” said Luca Centurioni, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. “The ocean could be moving in one direction, and the wind can make it go a different way.”

Centurioni said the ocean currents in the area move easterly at about half a mile per hour.

The area is known as the Mid-Indian Ridge, with water depths of 10,000 feet to 13,000 feet that create pressures so intense that retrieving debris would require the use of remotely controlled submersible research vessels.

In the meantime, navy aircraft will probably follow traditional search patterns, flying back and forth along rows, like mowing a lawn. Even at low altitude with radar and infrared sensors that detect variations in temperature, debris can be difficult to find, said Robert Ditchey, a commercial airline executive and former Navy pilot who flew a submarine-hunting P-3 Orion.

Even a whale breaching the surface may be invisible from an overhead search aircraft, depending on sunlight, water clarity and wave height, he said.

“Waves reflect radar and water alters the optical capability of infrared,” Ditchey said. “You can have something a few inches below the surface and you can’t see it.”

After they narrow their search area, investigators will lower listening devices and attempt to pick up signals from a device attached to the plane’s two black boxes. Battery life of the “pinger” devices is about 30 days.

Although it took searchers five days to find wreckage of the Air France flight, it took two years to retrieve its voice and data recorders from a depth of about 13,000 feet. Information they revealed help clarify the cause of that crash.

Experts remain hopeful that they will catch a similar break in the Malaysia Airlines mystery.

“This has been a roller coaster,” said Michael Barr, an accident investigation expert and former military pilot. “Everything has been unlucky so far, so maybe this time we will get lucky.”

US, Russia impose dueling travel bans; Obama opens door to energy sanctions

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday sanctioned several top Russian politicians and key business oligarchs with ties to Vladimir Putin, raising the stakes in a blossoming international crisis and opening the door for targeting Russia’s vital energy sector.

Three days after targeting 11 of Putin’s ideological allies in response to his plans to annex the Crimean peninsula, the White House responded with a new executive order that delegated to the Treasury Department the ability to blacklist individuals and companies in Russia’s financial services, energy, metals and mining, engineering and defense sectors.

“In addition, we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals with substantial resources and influence who provide material support to the Russian leadership, as well as a bank that provides material support to these individuals,” President Barack Obama said in a statement to reporters.

The Treasury Department unveiled visa bans and a financial blacklisting of 16 high-profile political officials, four important business leaders and a Russian bank in St. Petersburg. They’d be denied entry to the United States or access to dollar transactions in the U.S. banking system. Any U.S. assets they might own will be frozen.

Significantly, the president’s executive order was broad enough to potentially target the heads of natural gas giant Gazprom and oil conglomerates Rosneft and Lukoil. Some of the sanctioned Thursday had close business relations with these state-affiliated energy companies. Russia and the United States are jockeying to be the world’s largest oil producer this year.

Putin responded Thursday with tit-for-tat sanctions of his own, banning travel to Russia for nine congressional leaders and critics, including three senior advisers to Obama.

“I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off, Gazprom stock is lost & secret bank account in Moscow is frozen,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the nine sanctioned, tweeted in glee.

Obama’s executive order allows actions against companies or persons found “to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order.”

That’s a legalistic way of warning away all sorts of companies that now do business, or are considering doing business, with the targeted oligarchs and the cited bank, Bank Rossiya. It potentially makes them financial pariahs and also puts the energy sector on notice.

For the sanctions to be effective, the Obama administration needs similar action from the European Union, whose member states all have companies operating in Russia and who collectively count Russia as their third largest trading partner after the United States and China. U.S. exporters of oilfield equipment and British banks also face potential retaliation from Russia.

The administration expected new European sanctions on Russia as early as Friday, the deadline Russia has given for Ukrainian military personnel in Crimea to withdraw or defect to Russian ranks.

The Ukrainian Parliament on Thursday passed a defiant resolution, saying the country would resist any further incursion by Russia.

But many lawmakers there also had accepted that Crimea, at least for now, was lost, and they waited to see how many, if any, Ukrainian soldiers would follow the government’s order to withdraw. Russia has told Ukrainian soldiers and sailors in Crimea that they are welcomed to join the Russian military, with a substantial increase in pay and pension benefits and a pledge that they can remain in Crimea. The deadline for accepting the offer is Friday.

Outside the Ukraine Parliament, about 50 Ukrainian navy and paratroop veterans rallied, urging that something be done to prevent the Russian land grab. But most knew that there was really nothing to be done, with Russia and its sympathizers in Crimea holding the numerical edge.

“We’re here because we are preparing for the worst,” said Vladimir Voloshyn, one of the veterans.

The highest-profile tycoon targeted by the White House on Thursday was Gennady Timchenko, co-owner of the private global commodity giant Gunvor, which boasts revenues in the range of $80 billion and owns oil refineries in Belgium and Germany.

“Timchenko’s activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin,” the Treasury statement said. “Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.”

Holding dual Russian-Finnish citizenship, Timchenko lives in Geneva and has long been rumored to have cashed in on ties to Putin.

“He’s one of the five biggest commodity traders in the world. This is really making their business impossible,” said Anders Aslund, a Russia expert and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You can’t be a big commodity trader without dealing with the U.S. and U.S. companies.”

Brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg were also targeted by Treasury. They’ve grown rich under Putin, enjoying lucrative contracts with Gazprom, the agency said, and during the recently concluded Winter Olympics in Sochi. Boris Rotenberg is known to ordinary Russians as a judo partner of the oft bare-chested Russian president.

Thursday’s move by Obama “clearly upped the ante because he’s gone after people who are much closer to President Putin, and they are much more likely to have major holdings in Western banks,” said Will Pomeranz, deputy director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a think tank. “Clearly that is an important step.”

Yuri Kovalchuk, who the administration said was a personal banker to senior Russian officials and is the largest single shareholder in Bank Rossiya, Russia’s 17th largest bank, was also targeted.

Political figures sanctioned included Sergei Naryshkin, chairman of the Duma, Russia’s parliament; Igor Sergun, head of Russia’s military intelligence service; Sergei Ivanov, chief of staff of Russia’s presidential executive office; and Vladimir Yakunin, chairman of Russia’s state-owned railways.

In response, Russia on Thursday placed travel bans and financial sanctions on House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and several other lawmakers. The Russian sanctions also prevent two top national security advisers and Dan Pfeiffer, a senior White House adviser, from traveling in Russia.

That effectively slams the door on U.S. involvement in a G-8 summit of industrialized nations that had been planned for June in Russia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her parliament Thursday that the G-8 process has ceased to exist for now and raised prospects for expelling Russia.

The seven members, minus Russia, will meet in The Hague next week to discuss further responses to Russia’s aggressive stance against Ukraine and its ongoing annexation of Crimea.

Lesley Clark and Hannah Allam contributed from Washington, Matthew Schofield contributed from Kiev.

Naval Academy midshipman found not guilty of sexual assault

WASHINGTON — A former Navy football player was found not guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting a fellow midshipman at an off-campus party in Annapolis, Md., two years ago in a case that has drawn national scrutiny to the elite training ground for future officers of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Allegations that Midshipman Joshua Tate and two teammates had sexual contact with the woman while she was too intoxicated to consent have helped fuel the debate over the prosecution of sexual assaults in the military. Her experience at a preliminary hearing last summer, during which she was called to testify for more than 20 hours over several days, led Congress to change the rules for such proceedings.

Advocates for further changes said the verdict Thursday showed that commanders are incapable of prosecuting sexual assaults and an attorney for Tate agreed that the system is “broken.”

In another closely watched case Thursday, an Army general who had been investigated for an alleged sexual assault was reprimanded and fined for mistreating a subordinate with whom he had an adulterous affair.

In the Naval Academy case, Tate, a junior from Nashville, Tenn., could have been sentenced to 30 years in a military prison if convicted of sexual assault. Marine Corps Col. Daniel Daugherty, who presided over the three-day court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard, found Tate not guilty on that charge, but referred three counts accusing the midshipman of having made false statements back to Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller, the academy superintendent.

Miller declined to pursue those charges in exchange for Tate’s resignation from the academy. An academy spokesman said late Thursday that Tate was in the process of withdrawing.

Tate, who left the courtroom smiling with supporters, did not speak publicly after the verdict. An attorney for Tate said the case against his client was weak, but effectively ended his military career.

“It’s a shame he had to go through this,” attorney Jason Ehrenberg said outside the courtroom.

The alleged victim, now a senior at the academy, was not in the courtroom when Daugherty read the verdict.

The woman testified this week that she drank heavily before and during the April 2012 party at the so-called football house in Annapolis. She said she did not remember having sex with Tate in a car parked outside, but learned of it through academy rumors and comments on social media.

When she confronted Tate, she testified, he confirmed that they had had sex.

Prosecutors argued that she was too drunk to give consent. After the verdict, an attorney for the woman said his client was “beyond disappointed.”

She “is appalled by the lack of accountability,” Ryan Guilds said. “Fundamentally, this case is the result of a flawed military system.”

The Baltimore Sun does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

The allegations became public last year amid growing scrutiny of commanders’ efforts to confront the long-standing problem of sexual assault within the ranks. President Barack Obama raised the subject during his graduation address at the academy last spring, saying that sexual assault has “no place in the greatest military on Earth.”

The Pentagon, using confidential surveys, estimated last year that up to 26,000 service members had suffered unwanted sexual contact during the previous 12 months. But only 3,374 assaults were reported, and only 594 suspects were sent to courts-martial.

Critics say the way to improve those numbers is to take prosecutions out of the chain of command — taking the authority to order a court-martial away from military commanders, who might have conflicts of interest when weighing allegations between subordinates, and giving it to trained lawyers.

Military leaders and their allies in Congress oppose such a change. They say a commander’s authority to refer troops for court-martial is an essential tool for maintaining order and discipline — and for holding officers accountable for their units.

Rep. Jackie Speier, who has championed legislation to overhaul the military justice system, said the verdict in the Naval Academy case showed that “the military cannot competently investigate and prosecute serious crimes.”

“This case was botched from the beginning by an incompetent investigation overseen by a commander that never wanted to bring these charges forward,” the California Democrat said. “The military justice system is broken as long as legal decisions are left up to commanders with no legal expertise and a bias to protect the assailant.”

Ehrenberg said he agrees with “those on Capitol Hill who say the system is broken.”

“But it’s broken in many directions,” he said. He said the prosecution of Tate was motivated more by political pressure than by the evidence.

“Don’t use my client to advocate for your cause when you don’t have a case,” he said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, another lawmaker who has pushed to take prosecutions out of the chain of command, said the academy case showed “a military justice system in dire need of independence.”

“When survivors and defense attorneys both agree we need to reform the system — it should tell us the system needs reform,” the New York Democrat said.

Critics also condemned the sentence handed Thursday to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair.

A veteran of more than 27 years and five combat tours, Sinclair was accused of threatening to kill an Army captain and her family if she exposed their three-year affair, forcing her to perform oral sex, and engaging in “open and notorious” sex in a parked car and on a hotel balcony.

If convicted of the most serious charges, he could have been sentenced to life in prison and would have had to register as a sex offender. In a deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to improper relationships with two female Army officers, violating orders and conduct unbecoming an officer. He received a reprimand and was fined $20,000. He will be allowed to retire and receive a pension.

Nancy Parrish, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, said the sentence “sends one more chilling message to victims that are thinking about coming forward.”

“It provides a clear example of why nine out of 10 sexual assault victims never report their attacks,” she said. “The military’s promises of ‘zero tolerance’ for sexual offenses continues to ring hollow as yet another high-ranking official is let off the hook.”

In the Naval Academy case, Daugherty said he was unable to determine from the evidence whether the woman was too intoxicated to consent to sex or if she was so traumatized by “rude, disgusting and vulgar” social media postings that her recollection of the events was colored.

Daugherty said that amounted to reasonable doubt that prevented a conviction.

He said the case presented difficult questions such as “how drunk is too drunk” to consent, and whether one person can tell when another has crossed that threshold.

Daugherty said the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was hampered by the unwillingness of the alleged victim to cooperate and by lies told by midshipmen who were interviewed.

In testimony this week, the woman acknowledged that she had initially urged Tate to lie to investigators. But after an encounter with a sexual assault victim, she said, she had a change of heart. She said she decided to pursue charges in part to find out what happened.

Baltimore attorney Susan Burke, who has represented the woman, said the midshipman had “done her patriotic duty.”

“Her courage has led to the reform of the Article 32 process,” said Burke, who has represented hundreds of service members in sexual assault claims against the military. “That’s a pivotal piece of getting this broken system fixed.”

The Article 32 hearing, sometimes compared to a civilian grand jury, is used by the military to investigate charges and help commanders determine whether to refer a suspect for court-martial.

After the woman in the Naval Academy case was subjected to a broad range of questions by three defense teams over five days, Speier introduced a bill to change the rules.

Her legislation limits the scope of the proceeding to determining probable cause and allows alleged victims to decline to testify. Congress approved the measure in December.

With the verdict Thursday, the Navy failed to secure a conviction against any of the three former football players who were initially investigated in the alleged assault.

Miller declined to pursue charges against Midshipman Tra’ves Bush after a preliminary hearing last year. Bush has since graduated and been commissioned as an ensign in the Navy.

Midshipman Eric Graham was charged with abusive sexual contact and making false statements, but the case was dropped when statements he made to NCIS investigators were deemed inadmissible in court. His case was sent back to the academy’s conduct system and an academy spokesman declined to comment on the outcome, citing student privacy laws.

Graham’s attorney, Ronald “Chip” Herrington, said his client has agreed to withdraw from the academy as a result of the case. He is hoping for an honorable discharge and to not be required to pay back the cost of his education.

The cost of a full academy education is $186,000, but midshipmen who leave early might not be required to repay the full amount, said Cmdr. John Schofield, an academy spokesman.

Graham’s departure from the academy was held up while he testified in Tate’s case under a grant of immunity from prosecutors, Herrington said.

It will be up to an assistant secretary of the Navy to decide whether Tate must repay the cost of his education. Midshipmen attend the Naval Academy free of charge in exchange for five years of service in the military after graduation.

David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times contributed to this article.

Navy: Radar hits on P-8A Poseidon in MH370 search were 'routine'

Navy officials downplayed reports of significant radar hits on board the P-8A Poseidon searching for a missing Malaysian passenger jet and said comments from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott about possible debris being found in the southern Indian Ocean were just a coincidence.

Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, said the Poseidon has not had “any indication of debris from the MH370 wreckage.” Thursday’s reports, from an ABC News correspondent on board the submarine-hunting patrol aircraft, described “typical radar returns that the air crews sees on a routine basis.”

“We are working closely in support of the Australian led effort in this sector,” Marks said.

Navy officials said the Poseidon would fly approximately 1,400 nautical miles Friday from Perth, Australia, to search for possible debris as coordinated by the Australian-led efforts in one of the remotest parts of the world.

The Poseidon arrived in Perth late Tuesday night after the Malaysian government shifted west in the search that began almost two weeks ago in the South China Sea, then was expanded to a broad swath covering 2.24 million square nautical miles from the southern Indian Ocean north to Kazakhstan.

The Navy’s other asset in the multinational search is the P-3C Orion, a Cold War-era anti-submarine patrol aircraft using radar, infrared and night-vision cameras. It has focused south near the Cocos Islands but will undergo routine maintenance Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Marks recently told The Associated Press that finding the plane was like trying to locate a few people somewhere between New York and California.

“The search has expanded to the southern portions of the Indian Ocean, and the P-8A has the range required to reach those waters,” said Lt. Clayton Hunt, the search-and-rescue detachment mission commander. “We will be most effective operating out of Perth.”

Touted as the world’s most advanced long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft, the Poseidon can search on and under water simultaneously.

Built from a Boeing 737 airframe, the Poseidon has a maximum speed about 565 mph, can fly up to 41,000 feet and can cover more than 1,200 nautical miles in a four-hour shift, according to Marks.

For the MH370 search, Navy officials said the Poseidon will fly at 5,000 feet between 280 and 300 mph for about eight or nine hours, dipping as low as 1,000 feet for visual inspections.

The Poseidon arrived in Kuala Lumpur last weekend to assist the Navy’s P-3C Orion already on station in the search efforts. The two patrol aircraft can search as much as 15,000 square miles combined in nine hours.

The Malaysian jet disappeared early March 8 with 239 people aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The United States is among 26 countries aiding in the search.

The destroyer USS Kidd was pulled from the search effort Monday “for follow-on operational tasking as they were when the search operation started,” Navy officials announced, bringing with it two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. Late last week, the Navy redirected its first ship on scene, USS Pinckney, to sail to Singapore for pre-scheduled maintenance but hasn’t ruled out its return to the search area.

kimber.james@stripes.com

Twitter: @james_kimber

Pastor Fred Phelps Sr., founder of Westboro Baptist Church, dies at 84

Fred Phelps, a publicity-hungry Kansas pastor who picketed hundreds of military funerals because he believed America was too sympathetic to gays, died early Thursday in Topeka, Kan. He was 84.

His daughter, Margie Phelps, confirmed his death to the Associated Press but did not give the cause.

With his small Topeka congregation, Phelps also demonstrated at funerals and memorials for Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, former Mormon leader Gordon B. Hinckley and heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio -- any observance, regardless of any connection to gay issues, where cameras might be rolling.

Convinced that the deaths of U.S. soldiers were divine retribution for the nation's increasing acceptance of homosexuality, Phelps and his followers carried signs like: "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11." A disbarred attorney, Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church were sued numerous times but won a landmark freedom of speech case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Despite its name, his church is unaffiliated with any denomination. Its Web address, more reflective of its founder's theology, contains an anti-gay slur. The congregation is heavily composed of his relatives, including many of his 13 children and 54 grandchildren.

Two of his estranged sons, Nate and Mark, have said that Phelps' clan "excommunicated" him last year. The church declined to comment.

Phelps came to national attention in 1998 leading anti-gay pickets at the Casper, Wyo., funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old who had been lashed to a fence post and beaten to death. Five years after the funeral, Phelps returned to Casper with plans to erect a granite monument inscribed: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell Oct. 12, 1998."

Phelps was denounced by many conservative Christian leaders, including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who called him a "hatemonger" and "emotionally unbalanced."

Phelps jubilantly acknowledged spreading the message of hate.

"He's saying I preach hate? You can't preach the Bible without preaching hate!" Phelps told The Times in 1999.

"Looky here, the hatred of God is an attribute of the Almighty," he said. "It means he's determined to punish the wicked for their sins!"

An attorney for many years, Phelps handled civil rights cases in Kansas and elsewhere in the Midwest. In Topeka, he worked on behalf of black students claiming school discrimination and black bar patrons who accused police of abusive tactics during a 1979 drug raid. In 1987, he was honored by the Bonner Springs, Kan., branch of the NAACP for his "steely determination for justice during his tenure as a civil rights attorney."

Privately, however, he was intensely prejudiced against African Americans, his estranged son Nate Phelps told the Telegraph, a British newspaper, in 2013. When Coretta Scott King died in 2006, Phelps picketed her funeral, condemning civil rights leaders for "giving away the movement" to homosexuals.

Phelps' funeral protests were intensely contested in court. In 2006, Phelps and six of his followers picketed a funeral for Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a Marine killed in Iraq. Considering the case in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such demonstrations, no matter how odious, were legal as long as protesters obeyed state and local laws setting a minimum distance between themselves and mourners.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the nation's commitment to free speech is not a license for "vicious verbal assault."

Eleven of Phelps' children are said to be attorneys, including Margie Phelps, who represented the church before the Supreme Court.

Born in Meridian, Miss., on Nov. 13, 1929, Phelps was the son of a railroad detective. An Eagle Scout, he was bound for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when he attended a revival meeting and felt a calling to preach. In 1947, he was ordained a Southern Baptist minister.

He graduated from John Muir College in Pasadena, a forerunner of Pasadena City College, where he led a 1951 campaign against "promiscuous petting" and "evil language." He also attended Arizona Bible Institute, where he met his wife, Margie Simms, whom he married in 1952.

In 1964, he received a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka. He was disbarred by Kansas in 1979 after suing a court reporter, bullying her on the witness stand and calling her a "slut." Ten years later, after federal judges complained that he had made false accusations against them, he agreed to stop practicing in federal courts.

For Phelps and his followers, public condemnation by powerful opponents was a healthy sign; it proved that the voices of Westboro Baptist Church were the only righteous ones in a world clamoring with sinners.

When the BBC released a 2007 documentary about the Phelps clan called "The Most Hated Family in America," Fred's daughter Shirley saw only one failing, according to the Telegraph: "She wished it had been called 'The Most Hated Family in the World.' "

Veterans learn organic farming in Pa. program

With his burly physique and woolly beard, Brandon Barnhart looks every inch the laid-back country kid from tiny West College Corner, Ind.

But don’t be fooled. This guy is driven.

After eight years in the Air Force working on nuclear cruise missiles, Barnhart returned to civilian life in 2010 and immediately re-enrolled at Indiana University to finish his undergraduate degree in general studies and history.

And while he grew up around conventionally grown sweet corn, soybeans and hay on his family’s farm, he intends to do things his way — as an organic farmer.

“I enjoy the idea of working with nature as opposed to against it, of producing my own food, and leaving the environment better than I found it,” says Barnhart, now a student in the Veteran Organic Farming Program, an unusual partnership between Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pa., and the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, a little more than an hour away.

Come May, Barnhart, 30, will have three semesters and 36 credits of classroom work and hands-on experience under his belt, as well as an academic certificate and a business plan to launch his new career back home, where he has purchased a three-acre farm.

“There’s a lot of organic stuff on the East Coast and the West Coast, but in the Midwest, it’s still pretty new,” he explains, while watering tiny seedlings of lettuce, beets, chard and Asian greens inside a 68-degree greenhouse at the college.

There are two other vets in the program, which started in the spring and is now open to nonveterans. Thanks to GI Bill benefits and Delaware Valley, which offers stipends for books and housing, the veterans pay nothing.

The program may be unique in the country, according to Jeff Macloud, chief operations officer of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, a nonprofit in Davis, Calif., that promotes partnerships between veterans and farmers nationwide.

“There are plenty of programs that are inviting veterans to join, but the vast majority are not certificate- or degree- or credit-granting,” says Macloud, a retired Air Force colonel who served in Iraq.

The Pennsylvania program was the brainchild of Mark Smallwood, Rodale’s executive director, who met coalition representatives three years ago at a trade show in Wisconsin.

“I basically said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do to help our vets, but we’re going to figure it out and get involved,’ ” recalls Smallwood, a longtime organic farmer known as “Coach” for his 20-year career as a teacher and basketball coach in Ohio and Connecticut.

Smallwood notes that the Delaware Valley-Rodale partnership doesn’t work only for veterans. American farmers, who average 57 years old, and consumers, whom the Organic Trade Association estimates bought $31.5 billion worth of organic food in 2012, will benefit, too.

Students in the Veteran Organic Farming Program take courses such as soil biology, animal science, integrated pest management, principles of sustainable agriculture and commercial vegetable production. They also participate in three practicums at Rodale’s 333-acre organic farm, which has grain crops, an orchard, greenhouses, and heritage-breed hogs, goats, cows and oxen.

Jacqueline Ricotta, associate professor of horticulture and the program’s primary instructor, describes the vets this way: “They have a certain maturity, a calm. They’re able to listen intently and absorb what they’re being taught.”

Ricotta also makes the case that farming and the military have a natural affinity.

“Farming can be unpredictable. You’re dealing with nature. It’s basically out of your control,” she says. “It’s similar to the military, where you’re just following orders.”

And while farming can be stressful, working with plants has been proven to be therapeutic, something that strongly appeals to Ricotta’s student veterans.

“I needed to change careers for my sanity and my health,” says Ian Woods, 48, a Coast Guard veteran with 23 years of emergency management experience with oil spills and other disasters.

“The culture we’re in ... everything’s an emergency. You can’t catch a break. This is it,” he says, smiling and pointing to the raised beds in Delaware Valley’s greenhouse.

After finishing the program, Woods plans to segue into the college’s four-year degree program in horticulture and environmental science. Then he wants to own an organic herb farm.

Kyle Maio, 28, a Doylestown native and Marine veteran is the newest enrollee in the program. He has grown vegetables organically for a long time, and after leaving Delaware Valley, he wants to share his experience with — and take the organic gospel to — the public.

“I want to teach people to be self-sufficient,” he says.

The vets have a role model in Dennis Riling, 31, another Marine veteran who was a satellite communications operator in Fallujah. “I was there when we took the city back. It was not pretty,” he recalls.

Homecoming, too, was difficult. Riling was dealing with the psychological aftermath of his Iraq tour and, because of the recession, had trouble finding a good job.

He worked as a janitor. He delivered pizza. He and his wife sold their furniture to pay bills. Finally, he went to work at a community-supported agriculture site that paid him in fresh produce.

“A grocery store is not going to let you stock shelves for food, but a farmer can. That’s what really turned me on to agriculture,” says Riling, a 2012 Delaware Valley graduate who owns two hydroponic gardening businesses in Doylestown: Veg-e Systems and Doylestown Fresh.

He got the farm program off the ground and now serves as mentor and inspiration to his fellow veterans.

“These guys are real serious,” he says. “They’ve made a commitment.”

Virginia A. Smith writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer.