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Texas A&M University
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Wednesday, January 22, 2003
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A&M hosts Chu to discuss role of military
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
A top Pentagon official rebuffed recent
efforts to revive the military draft and said
America’s all-volunteer fighting force
should not be tampered with during a
speech Tuesday night at Texas A&M.
“The motivation and quality of our peo
ple is higher than we enjoyed during con
scription,” said David Chu, the undersecre
tary of defense for personnel and readiness.
“The military treats people as their most
valuable asset, and this change in outlook
has been at the heart of the success of the
volunteer force.”
Chu discussed U.S. military prepared
ness and the military’s new role in the war
on terrorism to a capacity audience at
Rudder Theater, made up of mostly Corps of
Cadets members.
Critics of the looming military action in
Iraq have urged a return of the draft, which
was phased out in the early 1970s to ensure
that those on the front lines are not drawn
disproportionately from low-income groups.
However, Chu said, America’s bold experi
ment in moving to an all-volunteer force has
been a stunning success. Rather than coer
cion, the military uses better compensation
and benefits to entice recruits, Chu said, and
the result is a well-trained, highly motivated
fighting force. He noted that western
European countries, which had long relied
on conscription armies, are following
America’s lead.
“Volunteer forces are the wave of the
future,” Chu said.
Chu also addressed criticisms that the
Bush administration is focusing too much
on Iraq and ignoring North Korea, which
recently announced that it is moving for
ward with its nuclear weapons development
program, violating its previous agreements.
Chu said Iraq and North Korea present seri
ous threats, but must be dealt with different
ly, since North Korea has already developed
weapons of mass destruction while Iraq is
close to acquiring them.
Chu also said that if necessary, the mili
tary is prepared to handle wars in Iraq and
on the Korean peninsula.
“Our forces are prepared to do whatever
the president requires,” Chu said.
However, the increasing demands on the
military are stretching active duty resources
thin, Chu said, and substantial numbers of
reservists have already been alerted for pos
sible mobilization.
See Military on page 10
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By Janet McLaren
THE BATTALION
For Texas A&M students, the
I familiar sight of newspaper
salesmen offering papers to
passing students from their
tables in the MSC is as much a
part of beginning a new semes
ter as moving back into the
dorm or starting classes.
Every year, the University
extends official letters to tele-
| phone, cable, newspaper and
S other companies, inviting them
; to solicit their wares on campus.
Administator of University
; Concessions Sharra Durham
I said the University invites these
vendors as a service to students.
“The back-to-school vendor
process is related to the start-up
services we try to offer stu
dents,” she said. “The conces
sions committee reviews any
companies that make special
| requests to sell on campus, but
that is fairly rare.”
Vendors are required to
! obtain permission from building
proctors for each location at
which they plan to sell. They
must then be granted a solicita
tion permit and attend an orien-
: tation meeting outlining the
= guidelines they are expected to
! follow.
The rules stipulate a limit of
] two people at each table, require
vendors to remain behind their
tables at all times and prohibit
the vendors from shouting or
yelling to get students’ atten
tion.
Julian McMurray, long-time
independent distributor for the
Houston Chronicle, said rules
controlling the behavior of
newspaper vendors are better
I enforced now than when he first
See Sellers on page 2
starter
JOHN C. LIVAS • THE BATTALION
The Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness,
Dr. David Chu addresses a packed Rudder Theater Tuesday
night about issues facing national security .
Kuwait terror
attack kills 2
U.S. soldiers
A plume of smoke billows as firefighters run through
an industrial fire drill at the Brayton Fireman Training
Field on Tuesday afternoon. Emergency response
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
instructors at the TEEX Emergency Services Training
Institute provide practical training under real fire con
ditions.
By Steven Gutkin
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A gunman ambushed two Americans driving
near a U.S. military base Tuesday in Kuwait,
killing one and wounding another in what U.S.
officials branded a terror attack.
The shooting was the first assault on U.S. civil
ians in Kuwait and the third on Americans since
October in the oil-rich emirate, where pro-
American sentiment is usually strong and where
thousands of U.S. troops are assembling for a pos
sible war on Iraq.
The victims — civilian contractors working for
the U.S. military — were traveling in a four-
wheel-drive Toyota when they came under a hail
of bullets.
The U.S. Embassy identified the man killed as
Michael Rene Pouliot, 46, of San Diego, an
employee of a software development company.
Tapestry Solutions.
Tapestry identified the injured man as another
employee, David Caraway, a senior software engi
neer. He was in stable condition in a Kuwait hos
pital after surgery to remove bullets, including two
from his chest. He also had arm and thigh wounds,
a hospital official said.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said they believed a sin
gle gunman fired a Kalashnikov assault rifle at the
vehicle. The attacker then fled.
“We condemn this terrorist incident, which has
tragically cost the life of an innocent American
citizen,” said U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones.
The gunman apparently hid behind trees and
bushes beside a stoplight at an intersection on
Highway 85 three miles from Camp Doha — a
U.S. military installation housing some 17,000
American troops stationed in Kuwait, where 8,000
U.S. civilians also live.
In Washington, the White House said
Americans were working with Kuwaiti investiga
tors to determine who was behind the attack,
which underscored the hostility some feel toward
Americans even in Muslim nations considered
sympathetic to the United States.
“The president’s heart goes out to the families
affected by this attack,” spokesman Ari Fleischer
said. “It’s a reminder of the dangers and risks ser
vicemen and women face every day.”
The men attacked Tuesday were in Kuwait
See Attack on page 10
Study shows marijuana is gateway drug
sbruary 17, 2003
By Lindsey Tanner
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A study of Australian twins and
marijuana bolsters the fiercely debated
“gateway theory” that pot can lead to
harder drugs.
The researchers located 311 sets of
same-sex twins in which only one
twin had smoked marijuana before
age 17. Early marijuana smokers were
found to be up to five times more like
ly than their twins to move on to hard
er drugs.
They were about twice as likely to
use opiates, which include heroin, and
five times more likely to use hallu
cinogens, which include LSD.
Earlier studies on whether marijua
na is a gateway drug reached conflict
ing conclusions. The impasse has com
plicated the debate over medical mari
juana and decriminalization of pot.
Because this study involved twins,
the findings would suggest that genet
ics play a subordinate role in drug use.
The study appears in Wednesday’s
Journal of the American Medical
Association and was funded in part by
the National Institutes of Health.
It does not answer how marijuana,
or cannabis, might lead to harder
drugs.
“It is often implicitly assumed that
using cannabis changes your brain or
makes you crave other drugs,” said
lead researcher Michael Lynskey, “but
there are a number of other potential
mechanisms, including access to
drugs, willingness to break the law
and likelihood of engaging in risk-tak
ing behavior.”
Lynskey is a senior research fellow
at Queensland Institute of Medical
Research in Brisbane and a visiting
assistant psychiatry professor at
Washington University in St. Louis,
where some of the research was done.
Lynskey and colleagues acknowl
edged the study has several limitations,
including relying on participants’
reporting of their own experiences.
In an accompanying editorial.
See Marijuana on page 2
Evidence for marijuana as a gateway
A recent stiKty of Australian twins adds some validity to »ie image
of cannabis as a gateway drug, in order to remove differences in
environment and genetics, researchers found 311 sets of twins in
which one twin used cannabis before ago 17 and the other bad
not. They were then questioned about lifetime drug use.
Percentage of twins ever using various drugs
| ] Used marijuana before age 17 m Did nol
A&M officials ensure NASA
internships despite theft
10 20 30 40 50 60
SOURCE: Journal of tho Amaricau MeOeat Awociank*'
By Esther Robards-Forbes
THE BATTALION
Following the theft of precious lunar
samples from the Johnson Space Center
by three of NASA’s student interns,
Texas A&M officials say they want to
ensure students will still have a place
interning at NASA.
Three Johnson Space Center interns
pleaded guilty to charges on the theft of
lunar samples called “moon rocks” ear
lier this month.
Tiffany Fowler, 22, Thad Roberts,
25, and Shae Saur, 19, were arrested in
July by undercover FBI agents in con
nection with the theft of the samples
from a Space Center safe. None of the
interns were from A&M.
An advertisement was placed in
early May on a Web site for the
Mineralogy Club of Antwerp, Belgium
offering rocks from every Apollo mis
sion to interested buyers. The samples
advertised matched the inventory of a
safe that went missing from the Johnson
Space Center two months later. The
asking price for these priceless items
was $ 1,000 to $5,000 per gram.
Roberts, who graduated from the
University of Utah in 2001, was spend
ing his fourth summer with NASA
working in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
Fowler was on her first tour with NASA
after graduating from Texas Lutheran
University with a degree in biology and
See NASA on page 2