Department of the Army Historical Summary: FY 1989
6
Operations
Army operations in FY 1989 reflected two basic themes that defined the Army as a strategic force. The first one pertained to the Army's global responsibilities, which are considerable in peacetime as well as in wartime. Forward-deployed Army forces in Europe and Korea have been inextricable elements in the nation's Cold War strategies of containment and deterrence. In Latin America the Army addressed the deterioration of security in Panama, while its security assistance programs in El Salvador and Honduras helped to deter the spread of insurgency from Nicaragua and to strengthen anti-Communist governments coping with threats to their security. The Army's peacekeeping and other missions in the Middle East further illustrated the Army's global role. The second theme resonated with the history of the Army's centuries of service characterized by the Army's assumption of multifarious missions to assist federal, state, and local authorities. While the Army's involvement in environmental issues, the war against illegal drugs, and combating terrorism grew during FY 1989, the service continued its long tradition of providing humanitarian assistance.
The Army has maintained a presence in Panama for most of the twentieth century. The U.S. Army, South, the major Army command in Panama, is the Army component of the unified command, the US Southern Command. USARSO's area of interest is Central and South America. Its primary units were the 193d Infantry Brigade and the 324th Support Group, stationed at Fort Clayton, and the 470th Military Intelligence Group, with headquarters at Corozal. US armed forces personnel assigned to Panama in FY 1989 totaled 12,719, of which 8,605 were Army forces. The large number of American civilians there included many military dependents and civilians who worked with the Panama Canal. There were 2,111 of these workers, and about half worked for the Army.
As FY 1989 began, the harassment of American soldiers and civilians by Panamanian
military and paramilitary elements had slackened from the high level that
began in the spring of 1988. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration had reinforced
American military forces in Panama. The Army dispatched several military police
(MP) units and intelligence teams from the United States. The Commander of
USSOUTHCOM (CINCSO) activated Joint Task Force-Panama (JTF-P) to prepare contingency
plans and arrange for the command and control of US combat forces should hostilities
erupt between American forces and the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF), a 14,000-
to 16,000-man security force that exercised both military and police functions
under Panamanian President Manuel Noriega .
The majority of the JTF-P staff were Army personnel who also served on the USARSO staff. In preparing its contingency plan, ELABORATE MAZE, JTF-P assumed that the PDF was hostile. Throughout the spring and summer of 1988, confrontational actions by the PDF worsened. The PDF intruded into American installations and sometimes exchanged gunfire. American forces adhered to nonprovocative rules of engagement, but prudence dictated that security be reinforced. Between August 1988 and April 1989 several Army MP and aviation units were sent to Panama. During this period USARSO was reinforced by one military police battalion headquarters, three MP companies, and an aviation task force, TF HAWK, with about twenty-seven aircraft from the continental United States. During early FY 1989 tensions in Panama abated. Some consideration was given to inactivating JTF-Panama, but American officials deferred until after the Panamanian elections scheduled for May 1989. JTF-Panama maintained operational control over Army forces in Panama, but in February 1989 the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps became the JCS' executive agent for contingency planning for possible hostilities in Panama. USCINCSO proposed a phased redeployment of the security augmentation forces from Panama during FY 1989, but the Army continued to replace forces temporarily sent there. Army aviation assets were rotated about every ninety days.
To minimize incidents between Americans and Panamanians, USSOUTHCOM directed military dependents either to leave Panama or to move to base housing. In the spring of 1988 USSOUTHCOM directed shorter service tours in Panama to encourage newly assigned soldiers to accept unaccompanied tours, thereby mitigating the severe housing shortage and reducing the risk of terrorist attacks against Americans. Under a new DOD policy announced in September 1988, tours for service personnel assigned to Panama after l March 1989 were trimmed by six to nine months.
Early in 1989 General Noriega's PDF began a campaign of harassment, detention, and beatings of American dependents, servicemen, and
civilian employees following Noriega's indictment by federal grand juries
in Florida on several counts of drug trafficking. In March 1989 Americans
recorded fifty-seven incidents of harassment and ninety-one violations of
American treaty rights. Anti-American incidents by Noriega's forces grew in
number and virulence with the approach of the May elections, and American
officials in Washington and Panama debated several courses of action. The
evacuation of American dependents was held in abeyance, but DOD also deferred
redeploying any augmentation forces in Panama until after the election. To
improve security, USARSO delegated guard and detail activities to Army combat
support and combat service support units and kept combat units in a ready
reaction status.
The election resulted in the defeat of Noriega's candidates by pro-democratic opposition candidates, but Noriega immediately nullified the election and denied the victory to the legitimate winner, Guillermo Endera. In the crackdown that followed, many of the duly elected opposition candidates were arrested, and some were tortured. On 11 May 1989, as civil unrest intensified, President Bush ordered American military forces to Panama as part of Operation NIMROD DANCER. The Army deployed a brigade headquarters and the 2d Battalion of the 9th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division (Light), from Fort Ord, California, and the 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (subsequently redesignated 5th Battalion, 6th Infantry) from Fort Polk, Louisiana, together with supporting elements. In subsequent rotations the 4th Battalion (Mech), 61st Infantry, replaced the 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry, and the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, replaced the 2d Battalion, 9th Infantry.
All Army units that deployed to Panama came under the control of JTF-Panama. JTF-Panama created three subordinate task forces. The task force under the 7th Infantry Division (LID) brigade commander was responsible for the Atlantic side of the canal area. The 193d Infantry Brigade assumed responsibility for the east bank of the canal on the Pacific side, while the Marine Corps company from Camp Le Jeune, South Carolina, assumed responsibility for the opposite bank on the Pacific side. Revised rules of engagement allowed reassertion of American treaty rights that the PDF had violated at will. Army units established roadblocks, conducted patrols, enhanced security at major installations, and carried out numerous joint exercises.
USSOUTHCOM conducted Operation BLADE JEWEL between 15 May and 1 July and moved from off-base to on-post housing or evacuated 6,300 DOD employees and dependents. At the end of FY 1989 the number of active Army and DA civilian dependents remaining in Panama was 6,128.
Panamanian violations were of particular concern to the Army, since it was executive agent for administration of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone and responsible for oversight of the Panama Canal Treaty
Implementation Plan (TIP). General Vuono, in March 1989, requested a validation
of Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) policy on Panama Treaty implementation.
The OSD confirmed American policy for the total withdrawal from the Canal
Zone in 1999 and reaffirmed the policy to retain adequate forces in Panama
until that date. The Chief of Staff, through ODCSOPS, was responsible for
executing the T I P. On 1 September 1989, the Under Secretary of the Army
appointed the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) (ASA[CW]), chairman
of the Panama Canal commission, as the lead Secretariat official for oversight
of the Panama Canal Treaty implementation.
In the waning months of FY 1989 the situation in Panama remained unchanged. A provisional government, headed by Francisco Rodriguos, was arbitrarily installed by General Noriega, who retained real political and military power. Noriega sought to turn regional opinion against the United States by alleging American violations of the Panama Canal Treaties, while President George Bush tried to wean the PDF from Noriega's control. On 2 October 1989, Noriega was able to quash a poorly organized coup, staged by a handful of dissident PDF officers, which the United States was reluctant to support. During FY 1989 the rapid deployment of Army forces and their operation in Panama constituted the most visible element of the administration's determination to protect American interests in Panama. Less visible, but equally prominent, was the Army's leading role within the joint military environment of planning for the military operations that would soon ensue in Panama. American military activities in Honduras again underscored the value of military forces to further American interests through security assistance programs. Approximately nine hundred Army personnel were stationed in Honduras at the start of FY 1989 as part of USSOUTHCOM's 1,200-man Joint Task Force-Bravo (JTF-B). Headquartered at Soto Cano AFB (formerly Palmerola), fifty miles northwest of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, JTF-B provided active and reserve component units that deployed to Honduras for training through field exercises and other activities.
Active component units from the United States were rotated approximately every six months. The temporary duty (TDY) tour that Army units served in Honduras was not without risk. Five members of the 2d Battalion, 19th Aviation Regiment, XVIII Airborne Corps, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were killed 8 December 1988 when their CH-47 helicopter crashed upon landing near the town of La Ceiba. On 11 April 1989, an Army convoy of eleven vehicles, mostly from the North Dakota National Guard, was attacked in northern Honduras about 125 miles north of Tegucigalpa while on a routine supply mission. Six of the twenty-two American soldiers on the mission were injured. In Panama, on 15 June 1989, three servicemen were killed when the OH-58 helicopter that was
escorting a convoy crashed. In June 1989 terrorists injured seven soldiers
of the 549th MP Company, on TDY from Panama, who were in a local night club
in violation of a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
In addition to several National Guard engineer units that were constructing a major road in Honduras, active component units conducted mountain and jungle warfare training in remote areas of northern Honduras. Among the Army units that undertook this training were the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, from Fort Drum, New York, and the 2d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, from Panama. Rules of engagement for units that trained in Honduras prohibited ground operations closer than five kilometers from the Nicaraguan border and restricted aircraft to flights outside a twenty-kilometer border buffer zone. Members of the joint task force also conducted extensive civic action. During 1988, for example, Army medical elements at Soto Cano AFB treated approximately 21,000 patients, immunized and gave dental care to several thousand natives, and provided veterinary treatment to more than 15,000 animals.
Since April 1982 the US Army has contributed a battalion-size task force to an approximately 3,000-man Multinational Force and Observe r s (MFO) mission, supported by eleven nations, in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula . A my battalions were rotated every six months and were drawn from one of four CONUS divisions: the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), the 82d Airborne, the 101st Air Division (Air Assault), and the 7th Infantry Division (Light). On 23 March 1989, a 549-man task force comprising the 3d Battalion, 9th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division (Light), from Fort Ord, California, replaced the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry, 101st Air Division , which returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Near the end of FY 1989 a task force from the 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, replaced the battalion from the 7th Division.
To maintain peace in this disputed region, Army units supported a buffer zone between Israeli and Egyptian forces. American units patrolled the southern sector of Zone C and maintained 24-hour surveillance of air, land, and sea traffic across an area stretching along the Gulf of Aqaba from the southern Israeli port of Eliat to the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The main American base is at South Camp, twelve kilometers from the remote airstrip at Ras Nasrani on the Gulf of Aqaba. The American task force also manned 13 remote sites, 4 check points, 4 sector control centers, and 5 observation points (OP). Elements of the task force spend as long as twenty-one days at a remote site, followed by twenty-one days at South Camp. While there, soldiers perform one week of
perimeter guard duty, a week as a quick reaction force, and then a week of
rest and recuperation. During FY 1989 the Army task force located at the OP
3T in the vicinity of Taba, a previously disputed area at the northern end
of the Gulf of Aqaba, was withdrawn after Egypt and Israel resolved outstanding
territorial and property claims that required MFO presence.
As FY 1989 began, Army elements continued to support Operation SAFE PASSAGE, a Central Command operation to secure unmolested passage of commercial shipping through the Persian Gulf. In November 1988, as tensions in the area decreased, the number of Army OH-58D helicopters and M167A1 Vulcan air defense weapons that supported Task Force 118 was reduced. Army helicopter crews involved in the operation receive d deck landing and underwater survival training from the Navy. A my operations in support of Operation SAFE PASSAGE continued into FY 1989, with Army helicopters and air defense systems operating from the Navy 's Mobile Sea Base Hercules, the frigate Underwood, and the destroyer Connolly. Since the cease-fire between Iran and Iraq and the reduction of the threat in the Persian Gulf to allied shipping, OH-58D operations primarily entailed night surveillance flights. Depending on maintenance requirements and ship scheduling, Army helicopters usually rotated from the mobile sea base and other combatant ships to a land base every seven to fourteen days. On 18 September 1989, an Army helicopter crashed during night gunnery practice and sank, but with no loss of personnel. With the inactivation of the Mobile Sea Base Hercules in September 1989, most Army helicopters and antiaircraft weapons were redeployed to the continental United States. As FY 1989 ended, five Army OH-58D helicopters remained in the Persian Gulf in support of operations.
Since 25 August 1987, Army personnel serving in the Persian Gulf have received imminent danger pay. Based on a recommendation by the Commander in Chief, US Central Command (USCENTCOM), DOD terminated this special pay effective 1 April 1989, except for case-by -case exemptions.
In support of US policy in Afghanistan, the Army in FY 1989 con-ducted mine-awareness and mine-clearing instruction for the anti-Communist resistance movement. Instruction was given in Pakistan by teams from the 5th Special Forces Group, and Army teams also provided mine-awareness training to several voluntary aid organizations.
At the start of FY 1989 DOD affirmed that 2,387 Americans were still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia; 702 of them were Army personnel. As Special Presidential Emissary, retired Army Vice Chief of Staff General John W. Vessey, Jr., headed US efforts to resolve Hanoi's accounting for
missing Americans and to discuss other bilateral humanitarian issues with
the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Late in FY 1988 the SRV and the United
States agreed to allow a three-person Army team to participate in the joint
recovery efforts on seventy unresolved prisoners of war/missing in action
(POW/MIA) cases. The US Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii continued
to identify remains released to the United States by the SRV. Fifty-four remains
were identified during FY 1989, which left 2,333 Americans unaccounted for
at the end of the fiscal year.
The Army believed that the likelihood of identifying physical remains in the future would be increased if each soldier obtained panographic dental x-rays, and a duplicate set was filed at the Central Panographic Storage Facility in Monterey, California. This requirement stemmed from a DOD policy instituted after the tragic air crash at Gander, Newfoundland, in December 1985 that killed 248 soldiers. By late March 1989 only 7 percent of Army personnel had not complied with this provision.
Terrorism directed against Army personnel and Army assets during the past several years prompted the Army leadership to heighten individual awareness, to institute defensive measures, and to execute counterterrorism when necessary. The assassination of Col. James N. Rowe, an Army member of the Joint US Military Group in the Philippines, by Philippine insurgents on 21 April 1989, underscored the dangers that Army personnel face overseas. The terrorist threat to the Army extended to the continental United States; it encompassed both personal security and the physical security of arms and ammunition. In FY 1986 the General Accounting Office (GAO) criticized the Army's physical security of arms and ammunition. That same year Congress passed the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act, which charged DOD and other federal agencies to improve their security programs.
A major initiative was the Army's Combating Terrorism Program; it supported the service's Terrorism Counteraction Improvement Plan (TCIP) and other Army initiatives and DOD and national programs. By the start of FY 1988 all Army security responsibilities, to include law enforcement, were transferred from ODCSPER to ODCSOPS. In FY 1988 DOD made the Army DOD's Coordinating Agent for security in the National Capital Region, and the Commander of the Military District of Washington (MDW) was assigned to implement this task.
For FY 1989 the Army allocated $99 million for antiterrorist programs, which helped pay contract guards, purchase commercial warning and detection devices, and make communication equipment secure. During FY 1989 the Army continued to upgrade the security of ammuni-
tion bunkers, especially those with Stingers, Redeyes, and TOWs, and also
chemical storage facilities. For weapons such as the Stinger, Congress directed
the Army to demonstrate and test electronic interlock safety devices that
could be installed or retrofitted on the basic and Reprogrammable Microprocessor
(RMP) Stinger missiles. Congress also allocated funds to construct physical
and personnel security at several Army installations. The AMC's Field Fort
and Barrier Team neared the final stage of development of an easily deployable
tactical force protection package that consisted of sensors, alarms, closed
circuit television, night-vision goggles, and other equipment for units deploying
to areas where the terrorist threat was high.
As the Army's proponent for awareness and counterterrorist training and doctrine, TRADOC was developing appropriate training for enlisted and officer courses. Nine specialized training courses were conducted during FY 1989 and addressed subjects such as intelligence, evasive driving for senior officers' drivers, and hostage negotiations. The Army Antiterrorism Operations and Intelligence Cell (ATOIC), located in the Army Operations Center (AOC), had an around-the-clock capability to analyze information and make recommendations regarding potential terrorist threats. It prepared an Army Force Protection Message sent daily to MACOMs and other agencies that summarized key intelligence and operational terrorist information affecting the Army.
Assistance to Civil Authorities
Following the outbreak of widespread fires in Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988, some twenty-four hundred Army troops from the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), Fort Lewis, Washington, assisted local, state, and national authorities in controlling the fires. Approximately eighteen hundred additional soldiers from the 9th were dispatched in mid-September to squelch fires in Canyon Creek, north of Helena, Montana. Participating Army personnel, about five thousand, were awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal (HSM). When forest fires erupted in many western states in the summer of 1989, Army units again were assigned to fire-fighting duties. Troops from Forts Carson, Campbell, Lewis, Polk, and Riley battled fires and performed mop-up operations in the Payette and Boise National Forests in Idaho. In late July 1989 FORSCOM asked Fort Riley for a 550-man task force composed mainly of the 55th Engineer Company (Medium Girder Bridge) and a command and control element from the 4th Battalion, 37th Armor, that served until 19 August 1989. T h e I Corps, Fort Lewis, Washington, furnished two 500-man battalion task forces of engineer and aviation elements to assist the Boise Interagency Fire Center in the vicinity of Bake r, Oregon, for about a week.
The Army furnished a number of helicopters to provide mobility and medical
evacuation. Aviation units that deployed came under the operational control
of Sixth US Army, Presidio of San Francisco, California, and were detailed
to the Boise Interagency Fire Center. The major aviation force came from Fort
Campbell, Kentucky, and consisted of 16 UH-60 Black Hawk and 3 UH-1 Huey helicopters
with 160 crew members and support personnel. The UH-60s self-deployed, but
the UH-1s were ferried aboard an Air Force C-5 transport. Redeployment was
carried out in the same manner at the end of August. Smaller detachments were
sent from Fort Carson (3 UH-1s for command and control), from Fort Lewis (3
UH-60s and 2 UH-1s for medical evacuation), and from Fort Polk (3 UH-60s for
medieval).
Between 17 and 22 September 1989, Hurricane Hugo struck the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and portions of North and South Carolina and caused massive destruction. Acting as the DOD executive agent for military support, the Secretary of the Army, in coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), established a joint task force on 20 September. Upon the issuance of presidential disaster declarations, the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Command, was designated action agent for DOD support in the Caribbean, and the Commander in Chief, Forces Command, was given responsibility for the continental United States.
On St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, public services were disrupted, and civil order broke down. Task Force 140, some 1,235 soldiers who deployed as part of FORSCOM's Operation HAWKEYE, assisted federal authorities in maintaining law and order and rendered medical and other assistance. Among the first units to arrive from the United States were elements of the 16th MP Brigade, the 503d MP Battalion, and a command element from XVIII Airborne Corps, all from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They were joined by the 720th MP Battalion, which consisted of the 258th MP Company from Fort Polk, Louisiana; the 410th and 411th MP Companies from Fort Hood, Texas; and the 463d MP Company of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Prohibited from enforcing civil law on St. Croix, a US protectorate, military police detained criminal suspects for possible arrest by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, US marshals, or Virgin Island police. Members of the 20th Engineer Brigade from Fort Bragg helped repair two prisons, removed debris, restored electrical power, and undertook minor repair and construction projects.
Support for TF 140 included elements of the 1st Corps Support Command (COSCOM), also from Fort Bragg, and the 46th Support Group. This support included detachments from the 516th Military Intelligence Battalion, the 50th Signal Battalion, the 27th Engineer Battalion, the 407th Composite Support Battalion, the 49th Public Affairs Detachment, and the 4th Psychological Operations Battalion. Medical
support was provided by the 109th Medical Evacuation Hospital, Alabama National
Guard, which established a forty-bed medical care facility on St. Croix, and
two medical teams from the 36th Medical Company, Fort Bragg. Communications
specialists from the 7th Signal Command, Fort Ritchie, Maryland, helped restore
commercial telephone service on the islands. The Army also provided 106 electrical
generators, a portable airport control tower, a laundry unit, water purification
units, 81 vehicles, 3 OH-58C helicopters, and 200,000 meals, ready to eat
(MRE). Offshore, the USS Pensacola generated 30,000 additional gallons
of potable water to refill reservoirs. In Puerto Rico, approximately twenty-eight
hundred guardsmen were activated to aid in cleanup and recovery operations,
assisted by a ten-member Corps of Engineer debris removal team. Approximately
forty-seven hundred uniformed personnel from all services participated in
relief operations in the Caribbean.
On 26 September CINCFORSCOM began disaster relief operations in North and South Carolina. Nearly two thousand soldiers and Army civilians, together with 640 vehicles and 12 aircraft, were committed to relief operations in South Carolina. All active component units that operated in South Carolina were controlled by a brigade headquarters of the 24th Infantry Division (Mech), Fort Stewart, Georgia. Participating in the relief operation were the 43d Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Heavy), Fort Benning, Georgia; the 92d Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Heavy), the 3d Engineer Battalion (Divisional); and the 260th Quartermaster Battalion. These units removed fallen trees and debris, repaired roads, and undertook limited construction in Charleston, South Carolina. The Corps of Engineers moved survey boats into Charleston Harbor and put other equipment on standby to ensure the safe passage of vessels in and out of the harbor.
A bridging element of the 3d Engineer Battalion, Fort Stewart, assembled rafts and operated a ferry between Charleston and two isolated barrier islands. Later, forty-eight members of the 329th Transportation Battalion, Forts Eustis and Story, Virginia, arrived with four landing craft, each capable of transporting twelve cars or two hundred people. The 3d Battalion, 15th Infantry, from Fort Stewart, operated a central warehouse and eighteen distribution centers to receive, store, and issue supplies in the area. The 533d Transportation Company, Fort Benning, Georgia, provided twenty-one twenty-ton tractors and thirty-eight trailers. Military police and signal elements of the 24th Infantry Division were assigned to the 3d Battalion, 24th Aviation Brigade, to provide security and traffic control and communications support. Active component forces were augmented by almost thirty-three hundred South Carolina guardsmen. Recovery operations in North Carolina and other mid-Atlantic states were less demanding than in South Carolina. Approximately seven hundred North Carolina
Following an eleven million-gallon oil spill caused by the rupture of the Exxon tanker Valdez on 24 March 1989 in Prince William Sound, Alaska, President Bush directed DOD to support the massive cleanup. Active and reserve component Army personnel participated along with personnel from other military and federal agencies, state authorities, and commercial enterprises. By mid-June the number of military personnel involved in the effort reached a high of 1,413. The US Coast Guard (USCG) served as the Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC). Military authorities in Alaska had drawn up plans to assist civil authorities in disaster relief that called for activation of Joint Task Force-Alaska (JTF-AK) under the Alaskan Air Command. The Secretary of Defense, however, established a special Alaska Oil Spill Joint Task Force (AOS-JTF) staffed by personnel from the Alaskan Air Command and the 6th Infantry Division (Light). Rather than reporting through the chain of command to the JCS as would have been the case with JTF-AK, the AOS-JTF reported directly to the Army's Directorate of Military Support (DOMS) in ODCSOPS. This arrangement recognized the Army's role as DOD's executive agent for military support to civil authorities. On 6 April the Army activated its DOMS task force in the Army Operations Center. In Alaska, the DOD effort was headed by the commander of the Alaskan Air Command and the newly activated AOS-JTF. The Coast Guard retained authority to assign missions to the AOS-JTF.
Army cleanup efforts began on 24 March when the 207th Aviation Regiment (Army National Guard) began air support with a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft. The Alaska Army National Guard (AKARNG), under state control, created an air coordination and control center at Valdez, Alaska, to control the heavy air traffic that was using the small airfield there. Guardsmen provided an aerial port team to load and unload civilian and military aircraft along with radios, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. The AOS-JTF organized a DOD Assessment Team on 9 April at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. This team included Army engineer and medical specialists and the DOMS. The team assessed damages and served as the JTF's coordinating staff. A smaller team was dispatched to Valdez for direct liaison with the USCG and Exxon. Three crisis action teams (CATs) monitored the situation around the clock and, at one point, controlled military units. Following the DOD Assessment Team's initial surveys, a variety of military assistance was furnished. Requests for DOD assistance that
Two Army dredges, the Yaquina and Essayons, berthed in Oregon when the spill occurred, were transferred by the Corps of Engineers to the Alaska District to conduct oil-skimming operations. The Yaquina arrived in Alaska on 19 April; the Essayons two days later. The resourceful dredge crews perfected new techniques that enabled the craft to recover several hundred thousand gallons of oil. The dredges, with their sophisticated communications equipment, coordinated the activities of numerous smaller vessels operating in Prince William Sound.
The Army also contributed landing craft and decontamination units, some of them from Army Reserve and National Guard units in Alaska, California, and Washington. Army engineers, medical personnel, public affairs officers, and logisticians were detailed to support the AOS-JTF. With the onset of winter weather, all DOD assistance was suspended on 15 September. The value of DOD's assistance in the cleanup totaled about $58.7 million, of which nearly $15 million derived from the Army. On 28 September the Army inactivated the DOMS-TF.
In the wake of a train disaster at Ufa in the Soviet Union on 3 June 1989, Soviet officials requested American assistance in treating burn victims. The Army deployed a burn team from the Institute of Surgical Research, U. S . Army Medical Research and Development Command, on 10 June that consisted of about twenty medical personnel, several translators, and a C-141. The Army team was responsible for direct care to approximately ninety moderate to severely burned patients, and it performed twenty-six major surgical procedures. On 16 June, after a team of volunteer doctors departed, the Army team assumed the care of thirteen children, some in critical condition. Most of the Army team redeployed on 25 June, but four members stayed at Ufa until 30 June to render postoperative care. More than twenty-three thousand pounds of medical supplies were consumed during the mission, and some Army medical equipment was left behind to ensure patient survival. The U.S. Deputy Ambassador in Moscow described the mission as historically important with far-reaching implications for US .-Soviet relations. Throughout their stay at Ufa the team received highly favorable local media coverage and widespread public gratitude.
In response to a devastating earthquake at Yerevan, Armenia, in December 1988, USAREUR provided medical supplies to assist the civilian population and cold weather gear and rations to support a British rescue team. Stressing their priorities for rescue equipment and medical supplies, Soviet officials insisted that no US military personnel were required in Armenia.
With a program of more than $3 billion for civil works projects, in addition to its military engineering and construction and support for other agencies, the US Army Corps of Engineers is the largest water resources development and management agency in the federal government. The Secretary of the Army relies on the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) to direct and supervise the Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program. Under the Assistant Secretary's supervision, the Commanding General, US Army Corps of Engineers, and the Director of Civil Works are responsible for conducting the Army's water resources program. In FY 1989 the Corps employed the equivalent of 28,181 full-time employees to carry out the Civil Works Program. In addition, approximately 275 Army engineer officers were assigned to support civil works. The Corps of Engineers is organized into a headquarters in Washington, D.C., thirteen divisions, and under them thirty-eight districts. During FY 1989 eleven divisions and thirty-six districts had a civil works mission.
The Civil Works Program consists of congressionally mandated planning, design, construction, and operation and maintenance of water resources projects pertaining to navigation, flood control, shore and hurricane protection, fish and wildlife restoration, hydroelectric power, municipal and industrial water supply, and recreation. It also regulates construction, dredging, and fill operations done by others in the nation's waterways and wetlands. In addition, the program encompasses emergency operations, research and development, and Army mobilization construction planning. As part of its Civil Works mission, the Department of the Army also carries out reimbursable engineering work for other federal agencies, such as the cleanup of toxic waste areas for the Environmental Protection Agency's "Superfund" program.
The Corps of Engineers' numerous navigation and flood control projects serve many purposes. In FY 1989 the Corps produced nearly 30 percent of the nation's hydropower, or 3.5 percent of the total electric energy, with 20,000 megawatts of generating capacity at seventy locations. During FY 1989 the Corps generated 72 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and returned $414 million to the US Treasury. One hundred fifteen Corps lakes stored 275.2 million acre-feet of water for agricultural, municipal, and industrial use. Under cost-sharing provisions of Public Law 99-662, the Department of the Army entered into twenty-two Local Cooperation Agreements during FY 1989 that enabled local communities to avail themselves of the benefits of Corps water resources projects.
In addition to the economic development benefits the Civil Works Program afforded the nation, it also supported the Army by providing a trained workforce experienced in large-scale engineering and construction
management disciplines. In FY 1989 Corps personnel, drawn largely from the
Civil Works mission area, helped clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill
in Alaska, assisted in evacuation planning and emergency response efforts
in connection with Hurricane Hugo in the eastern Caribbean islands and the
Carolinas, and provided emergency water assistance to drought-stricken communities
in California, the Southwestern states, and the Missouri River Basin.
The largest element in the Civil Works FY 1989 $3.376 billion appropriation was the $1.370 billion operations and maintenance account-a slight decrease from the FY 1988 amount. This account supported much of the Corps' efforts to relieve drought-stricken areas we s t of the Mississippi Rive r. As the drought of 1988-one of the worst this century-continued into 1989, many relief measures initiated by the Corps in 1988 were carried into the current fiscal year. Channel restrictions, such as slower speeds, light loading, smaller tows, and one-way traffic, were either imposed on water ways or voluntarily adopted by shippers to ensure the movement of commercial navigation during low -water periods. As many as five dredges were used to open channels in drought-stricken areas. Boat ramp extensions installed at Corps lake s and reservoir projects to conserve water and minimize the effects of the drought also were continued.
During FY 1989 the Corps operated and maintained 191 lock and dam sites, including 236 lock chambers; dredged navigation channels at approximately 400 ports; and performed maintenance activities at 382 of the 884 harbor projects within the United States and its territories. Commercial shippers were assessed approximately $159 million in fees for the use of federal ports during FY 1989, the fees being applied to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and used to recover a portion of the costs of maintaining federal harbors. The fund was established by the Harbor Maintenance Revenue Act of 1986.
Income from certain other fees and rents has been permanently appropriated by Congress to cover specific Corps activities. Among these are half the license fees levied by the Department of Energy (DOE) for private construction, operation, and maintenance of hydropower facilities and all license fees collected by DOE for federal headwaters improvement. These are used to operate and maintain navigation structures. Three-fourths of the income derived from the lease of land on Corps flood control and navigation projects was returned to the state in which the project is located to fund public schools, roads, and other local government expenses. Fees paid by mine operators in the Sacramento and San Joaquin basins in California were used to maintain mine debris-retaining works. The total allocation of funds from these permanent appropriations in FY 1989 was $10.5 million.
The second largest Civil Works appropriation account in FY 1989 was the $1.179
billion "construction, general" account, a slight decrease of $20
million from FY 1988. Approximately $67 million of the appropriation from
this account was derived from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. The largest
allocations of construction funds went to the Red River Waterway navigation
project in Louisiana ($118 million); the Levisa and Tug Forks of the Big Sandy
and Upper Cumberland River flood control project in West Virginia, Virginia,
and Kentucky; the Bonneville Navigation Lock on the Columbia River in Oregon
and Washington; and the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam on the Ohio River in
West Virginia and Ohio. In all, construction continued on 159 projects during
FY 1989. Twenty projects were completed and no new construction was started
during the fiscal year.
Under a separate appropriations account, "Mississippi River and Tributaries," the Corps continued work on its long-standing program of flood control and resource development on the Mississippi River and its tributaries below Cairo, Illinois. This program was funded at $338 million in FY 1989 and continued to support the study, construction, and operation and maintenance of various water activities for water resources development in the Lower Mississippi Valley.
Portions of the Army Civil Works Program were supported by several other appropriation accounts. Under the "General Investigations" account ($142.4 million) the Corps initiated fifty-one survey studies and reconstruction engineering and design activities for forty-six projects during FY 1989. Work was performed on 320 studies, the cost of 55 being shared between the Army and state governments. In addition, 152 preconstruction engineering and design projects were under way. The General Investigations account also supported the Construction Productivity Advancement Research Program, which completed its first full year of operation in FY 1989. Through industry-government cost-shared studies, the program sought to lower the cost and increase the efficiency of the Corps' construction program and benefit the construction industry. FY 1989 was also the first year of the Corps' new concurrent review process, by which the Corps sought to significantly expedite its project review process.
Other aspects of the Civil Works Program were underwritten by the " Regulatory Program" ($63.8 million) and the "General Expenses" account ($122.6 million). The latter provided for the executive direction and management of the overall Civil Works Program through the Department of the Army and Corps headquarters and the eleven division offices. The FY 1989 appropriation of $20 million for the "Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies" account supported emergency preparedness, flood-fighting and rescue operations, and the repair of flood control and shore protection works damaged by floods or hurricanes. It also furnished
Drug Interdiction and Enforcement
In FY 1989 Congress made DOD the lead federal agency for detection of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States and for integration of related federal command, control, communications, and intelligence assets. Congress authorized $300 million for the fiscal year for DOD, of which $60 million was set aside for National Guard drug interdiction and enforcement that was in addition to its normal annual training requirements. Because it perceived DOD as reluctant to commit military resources to this effort, Congress noted that its FY 1989 authorization was seed money for a larger DOD role in the antidrug effort that was also consistent with combat readiness. According to the recommendations of its Task Force on Drug Enforcement, DOD allocated only $40 million to the Army and Air National Guard for state and federal enforcement, $60 million for a national communications network, $130 million for a new airborne radar system, and smaller amounts for current DOD efforts that included research and development.
Congress amended the Posse Comitatus Law (Chapter 18, Title 10 U.S. Code) in 1981 and authorized DOD to support civilian law enforcement agencies in countering illegal drug trafficking. Earlier statutory constraints, combined with long-held tradition, barred the armed services from exercising domestic police powers. The Army provided full-time support to several national policy-making bodies. An Army officer was assigned to the National Drug Policy Board and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), while an officer and seven NCOs served with the Office of the Vice President's National Narcotics Border Interdiction System. In addition, the Army assigned liaison officers to the Coast G u a r d, the DEA, the Customs Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, as well as to state and local authorities and several foreign governments.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 waived the prohibition to train foreign law enforcement personnel specifically engaged in narcotics enforcement. Funds were authorized for deployment of US Army mobile training teams (MTT) to support narcotics control and interdiction efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean. MTTs from the Special Operations Command taught military skills and techniques to local police in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, as well as to DEA agents working in those countries. The Army has lent thirty-seven aircraft to other federal agencies, as well as night-vision equipment, communications equipment, ground surveil-
lance radar, wheeled vehicles, and weapons. Army National Guard elements from
twenty-nine states executed 370 support missions that involved 2,237 personnel
for 3,478 man-days under state jurisdiction. The active Army was the principal
trainer for federal and state drug law enforcement agencies in the United
States. During FY 1989 Ranger Training Brigade instruction at Fort Benning
trained federal drug enforcement agents in operational tactics and survival
techniques, and DEA agents received training at Army jungle training facilities
in Panama.
When operating under state jurisdiction, ARNG personnel can exercise police powers that are proscribed to active duty forces in the performance of interdiction and enforcement activities. Limited largely to annual training before 1988 because of funding restrictions, the ARNG's antidrug role was widened in FY 1989. Nevertheless, the Army has reviewed and monitored state plans to ensure that ARNG antidrug efforts are compatible with military training and that they do not overly detract from the ARNG's mobilization responsibilities. The International Narcotics Control Act of 1989 (Public Law 101-231) revised the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and allowed the transfer of excess defense equipment to Latin American nations. A primary purpose was to encourage military forces of eligible countries to assist local law enforcement agencies in comprehensive national antinarcotics programs. Countries eligible for this assistance were Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru.
On 21 August 1989, the President issued National Security Directive 18, which established a strategy for antidrug efforts in the Andean region of South America. It focused on support through training indigenous government personnel and armed forces. It also entailed the supply of $65 million worth of military equipment under the authority of a Presidential Determination on 25 August. This policy directed the Army to provide Colombia with $25.6 million in equipment that included UH-1H helicopters, mines, grenades, ammunition, and 2.75-inch rockets from existing stocks.
On 5 September 1989, President Bush unveiled the National Strategy for the War on Drugs, prepared by William Bennett, who headed the interagency effort. The Bennett Plan envisioned an expanded role in the antidrug war for DOD, and on 18 September the Secretary of Defense released DOD's guidance for implementation of the President's strategy. It directed the military departments and the commanders of unified and specified commands to prepare implementing plans. On 22 September General Vuono indicated that the Army was prepared to employ its assets in the national drug war. This included reduction of demand, interdiction, and aiding foreign countries with training, reconnaissance, command and control, planning, and logistics support. General Vuono was concerned
that some antidrug tasks unrelated to wartime missions might detract from
priority training needs.
Bennett also proposed using Army detention facilities to confine civilian drug dealers because of overcrowded federal, state, and local prisons. The armed services doubted whether military stockades were sufficiently secure by civilian prison standards. At the direction of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Policy and Enforcement, the Army identified prison space excess to the FY 1988 average daily prisoner population at five posts-Forts Polk, Hood, Riley, Gordon, and Campbell. Space available at these posts, according to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, represented 672 spaces of the original requirement for 1,372 stipulated by DOD from all services. An additional 700 minimum security spaces were available at more remote installations such as Camp Pickett, Virginia; North Fort Polk, Louisiana; and Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. Army officials preferred that drug offenders be held at less populous Army installations. No steps were taken in FY 1989 to use the facilities that the Army had identified. However, the Installation Detention Facility (IDF) at Fort Dix, New Jersey, was leased to the state of New Jersey until the end of May 1989. Discussions regarding the state's continued use of this IDF were related to the Army's long-range plans to modernize its corrections system. This effort was guided by a study, "Army Corrections into the Year 2000 (ACS 2000)," which foresaw a significant role for Fort Dix's IDF as a diagnostic, reception, and transportation center and as an Army detention facility.
The Army Safety Program ended FY 1989 with reductions in nearly every category of vehicular and training accidents and fatalities . Accidents and fatalities that involved privately owned vehicles (POVs) also reached a record low since the Army Safety Center began keeping statistics in 1975. Army motor vehicle accidents also attained the lowest number ever recorded. A disturbing note was the extensive failure of Army personnel to use safety belts. An analysis of Army POV accidents in FY 1988 suggested that two out of three deaths might have been prevented if the victims had worn their safety belts. The new Army Drive r Improvement Program introduced in FY 1989 sought to encourage more stringent enforcement of Army safety regulations by installations.
Nonaviation training accidents in FY 1989 also reached their lowest number since 1980, which was attributed to strong command emphasis on vehicular safety. Even greater reduction was expected after completion of the Tank-Automotive Command's program to install seat belts in all 2 1/2- and 5-ton trucks and other tactical vehicles. This program began in May
1989 and was slated for completion in FY 1990. The number of civilian injuries
that resulted in lost time from work declined slightly in FY 1989, but the
Army's rate of 24.38 per 1,000 employees was above the goal of 24.08. The
cost to the Army for worker's compensation in FY 1989 was $130.7 million.
The number of class A Army aviation accidents in FY 1989 was thirty-two, identical to FY 1988. Because of a decrease in flying hours, the rate (accidents per 100,000 flying hours) was slightly higher in FY 1989 (1.90) than FY 1988 (1.86). The class A-C accident rate of 7.42 in FY 1989 increased from the previous year's rate of 4.82. The Army 's loss in warfighting capability, measured in dollars, was substantial in FY 1989 and was exacerbated by the damage or loss of aircraft from violent spring storms.
A persistent Army aviation safety issue in FY 1989 was the efficacy of night-vision goggles used by Army helicopter pilots. Several recent helicopter crashes suggested that distorted optical vision caused by night-vision goggles contributed to the accidents. Most helicopter pilots felt confident using the AN/PVS-5 night-vision goggles, but congressional critics and some aviation safety experts believed the goggles prevented pilots from distinguishing hazards in low ambient light. The Army's Center for Night Vision and Electro-Optics, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, explored possible improvements. A midair crash at night between an OH-58 Kiowa and AH-1 Cobra at Fort Ord, California, on 1 February 1989, in which both pilots were wearing night-vision goggles, imparted a sense of urgency to a congressional investigation. In March 1989 the Army evaluated all AN/PVS-5A-C series goggles and the AN/AVS-6 aviator night-vision imaging system (ANVIS), the replacement for the AN/PVS-5 series goggles. The Off ice of Testing and Evaluation (OTE), OSD, conducted its own evaluation of the Army's testing of its night-vision goggles and training of helicopter crews. In its report to Congress in June 1989, OTE found no fault with the Army's testing and training for the AN/PVS-5 and AN/AVS-6. OTE recommended a joint working group for night-vision devices to establish common training standards and the exchange of information.
The Army was evaluating other night flight safety equipment that ranged from new helmets to improved radar. Romeo, a new avoidance radar for use in AH-1 Cobras and AH-64 Apaches, may provide the ability to detect power cables, trees, and other terrain obstacles. The vulnerability of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters to electromagnetic interference from sources such as high-tension power lines was another safety concern. This type of interference was believed to have caused the crash of an Army helicopter in Germany by registering false instrument readings. The Army and DOD have disagreed about the cost and effectiveness
Mechanical problems, particularly on older helicopters, caused the Army to ground several aircraft during FYs 1988 and 1989. The Army grounded its entire Chinook CH-47D heavy-lift transport helicopter fleet following the crash of a CH-47D in Honduras in December 1988. The helicopter went out of control when a fire destroyed its control rods. The Army took corrective measures to protect these rods. All CH-47D helicopters with Dash 3 oil cooler fans were grounded again at the end of July 1989. A subsequent grounding of the entire 245 CH-47D fleet occurred on 10 August 1989, following a crash of a CH-47D at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in late July. The fire that caused the crash was traced to a Dash 4 oil cooler fan that had been modified to correct the conditions that had led to the earlier grounding of the CH-47D. The grounding did not affect other Chinook models, and safety modifications were being incorporated in the upgrading of 144 CH-47A, B, and C models to the CH-47D. In another example, AVSCOM grounded approximately thirty-four hundred UH-1 Huey helicopters for inspection in July 1989 after cracks were discovered in the universal control lever.
Throughout FY 1989 the Army engaged in a series of remedial measures that addressed both immediate safety concerns and upgrading the AH-64 Apache aircraft. Among its failings were debonding of the main rotor blades, failure of the shaft-driven compressor, elastomeric bearing debonding in the tail rotor, chafing of hydraulic hoses, and random failures of the ammunition feed of the Apache's 30-mm. gun. Corrective actions included work performed by maintenance contract teams in the field and by contractor depot teams and modifications made during production. This effort was supervised by representatives from the Aviation Systems Command, the McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Company, and the Apache Program Manager. A general officer steering committee, with membership from the Army Aviation Center, the Army Safety Center, AVSCOM, the Apache Program Manager, and HQDA, reviewed the team's work to ensure an early resolution of the Apache's problems.
While continuing to man forward-deployed positions in Europe and Korea, other Army elements engaged in contingency, peacekeeping, security assistance, counterterrorism, drug interdiction, and disaster and humanitarian relief operations throughout the world. Growing political
unrest in Panama in FY 1989 prompted the Army to enlarge its presence there.
Elsewhere in Latin America the Army took an active role in security assistance
programs. Through a variety of civic action and other assistance, elements
of both the Army's active and reserve components contributed to nation-building
in the region. Other Army elements supported national drug interdiction programs
in the Americas. As peacekeepers, the Army continued to contribute a battalion
to the Multinational Force and Observers mission in support of the United
Nations' peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula. In its time-honored
tradition of assisting civil authorities, the Army played significant roles
in fighting forest fires in the West, in aiding federal and state agencies
in preserving order and restoring vital services in the wake of Hurricane
Hugo, and in serving as part of DOD's joint task force that helped contain
and clean up a massive oil spill in the vicinity of Valdez, Alaska. Under
its Civil Works mission, the Army executed the nation's largest water resources
management and development program. While pursuing vigorous programs to ensure
the security and safety of its forces, Army operations in FY 1989 attested
to the versatility and professionalism of the Army.
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Page Last Updated 22 May 2003