Quartermaster General of the United States Army
The Quartermaster General of the United States Army is a general officer, responsible for the Quartermaster Corps, the Quartermaster branch of the U. S. Army; the Quartermaster General does not command Quartermaster units, but is focused on training and professional development of Quartermaster soldiers. The Quartermaster General serves as the Commanding General, U. S. Army Quartermaster Center and School, Fort Lee and the traditional Quartermaster Corps; the office of the Quartermaster General was established by resolution of the Continental Congress on 16 June 1775, but the position was not filled until 14 August 1775. The most famous Quartermaster General was Nathanael Greene, the third Quartermaster General, serving from March 1778 to August 1780; the first Quartermaster General to serve in the U. S. Army was Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania; the position of Quartermaster General originated under order of Congress. On 16 June 1775, 2 days after the birth of the Army, Congress ordered the creation of both a Quartermaster General and a Deputy Quartermaster General.
During this period Quartermaster Generals would be act like chiefs of staff for the commanders of the Continental Army, acting as the prime supplier and businessmen for dealing with civilians and repaired supply lines, which included the roads which they traveled upon, was responsible for transporting troops and furnished all the supplies needed to establish camps when the troops got there. Upon the establishment of the position, Congress authorized George Washington to appoint the first Quartermaster General, he picked a man from amongst Maj. Thomas Mifflin. Mifflin, an experienced merchant from Philadelphia, proved to be a prime choice, being reappointed several times to the position, they promoted Mifflin to a Colonel in order to retain him in his position. Fifteen officers held the office of quartermaster general in the United States Army in the nineteenth century; the first of these officers, John Wilkins, Jr. was a major general. Two colonels, James Mullany and George Gibson, jointly held the office between April 29, 1816 and April 14, 1818.
The other twelve quartermasters were brigadier generals. From 1860 to the end of the century, the quartermaster general office was held by officers who were to serve or had served in the American Civil War. Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston held the position from June 28, 1860 until his resignation as quartermaster general and brigadier general, U. S. Army, on April 22, 1861. Johnston was appointed a full general in the Confederate States Army on August 31, 1861. Adhering to the ideology of state's rights, quartermasters of each Confederate state exercised considerable autonomy from their national quartermaster general. Within their jurisdictions, these Confederate officers exercised powers equivalent to the Union quartermaster general. Georgia quartermaster general Ira Roe Foster is the best example of a Confederate quartermaster exercising considerable power over both production and supply within his state. Brigadier General Montgomery C. Meigs succeeded Johnston on May 15, 1861. Meigs was adhered to the Union during the Civil War.
Meigs served throughout the Civil War and until 1882. He retired on February 6, 1882. Contemporaries such as U. S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and historians have given Meigs's work in keeping the Union Army adequately and timely supplied considerable credit for the Union victory. For a period of ten days between February 13, 1882 and February 23, 1882, another Civil War veteran, Daniel H. Rucker, was quartermaster general. At the end of his brief tenure, Rucker retired from the U. S. Army. Rufus Ingalls, a brevet brigadier general and quartermaster for all Union Army forces during the Siege of Petersburg succeeded Rucker. Ingalls had a brief tenure in office, serving between February 23, 1883 and July 1, 1883, when he retired. Another brevet brigadier general of the Union Army, Samuel B. Holabird, chief quartermaster of the Union Department of the Gulf during much of the Civil War, succeeded Ingalls. Holabird was quartermaster general between July 1, 1883 and June 16, 1890. Richard Napoleon Batchelder, quartermaster for II Corps of the Union Army and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, succeeded Holabird.
He held the office between June 26, 1890 and July 27, 1896. Another brevet brigadier general who had served as quartermaster for II Corps before Batchelder, as chief quartermaster of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, as quartermaster during the Red River Campaign and as chief quartermaster for the Military Division of West Mississippi, Charles G. Sawtelle, succeeded Batchelder, he served between August 19, 1896 and February 16, 1897. George H. Weeks, who served as quartermaster with the III Corps of the Union Army and in Albany, New York in the war, held the office between February 6, 1897 and his retirement on February 3, 1898; the last quartermaster general of the 19th century was Marshall I. Ludington, who assumed the office on February 3, 1898, three months before the Spanish–American War. Ludington had served as a division quartermaster for the Army of the Potomac, he was criticized for the general unpreparedness of the U. S. Army for the Spanish–American War but he had inherited the general state of unpreparedness of the army, given meager funds and kept small during the long period of peace, except for the small American Indian Wars, after the Civil War.
Ludington succeeded in improving the supply situation of the U. S. Army to an adequate state in a matter of months after the start of the war. On April 12, 1903, Ludington retired the next day. On July 30, 1999, Major General Hawthorne
Alek Skarlatos
Aleksander Reed Skarlatos is a French-American actor and US Army National Guard soldier who, along with fellow Americans Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, a Briton and two Frenchmen, stopped a gunman on a Paris-bound train travelling from Amsterdam via Brussels in August 2015. He has been awarded the United States Army's Soldier's Medal from U. S. President Barack Obama, has received France's highest decoration, the Legion of Honour, from French president François Hollande as well as the medal of Arras, France. Skarlatos competed on season 21 of ABC's Dancing with the Stars with pro dancer Lindsay Arnold, finished in third place. Aleksander Reed Skarlatos was born in Castro Valley, California, to Emanuel Skarlatos, a Greek immigrant who arrived in the United States as a child, then-wife, Heidi Hansen, his step-parents are Karen Skarlatos and Tom Hansen respectively. He grew up in Sacramento County, where he first met Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler while attending school in Fair Oaks, their friendship continuing into adulthood.
All three men are described as sharing "a religious background and a belief in service to their community" and are Christian. Skarlatos graduated from Roseburg High School. Skarlatos joined the Oregon Army National Guard in 2012 achieving the rank of Specialist, he completed a nine-month deployment in Afghanistan with the 186th Infantry Regiment, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Oregon Army National Guard in 2015. The acting adjutant general of Oregon has referred to Skarlatos as "a true citizen soldier who displayed the courage each of us would hope to find in ourselves." Spc. Skarlatos had reenlisted for an additional two-years a month prior to the terrorist event on a French train in 2015 and left military service in November 2017. In October 2016, it was announced that Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler would make an appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as a part of the show's special "Hometown Heroes" week which would premiere on October 31, 2016, he ran for Douglas County Commissioner in his home state of Oregon in the 2018 U.
S. lost to businessman Tom Kress. In September 2018, Skarlatos became a naturalized French citizen, along with Sadler. A naturalization ceremony was held in Sacramento in January 2019. On August 21, 2015, Skarlatos and two friends from his childhood home of Carmichael, were traveling together during a vacation in Europe, he was back from Afghanistan, had been traveling in Germany and the Netherlands and was to travel to Greece. Skarlatos was sitting in a window seat of Thalys train 9364 from Amsterdam bound to Paris via Brussels. A 25-year-old Moroccan man, believed to be Ayoub El-Khazzani, was in train car No. 12, armed with an AKM assault rifle and equipped with 270 rounds of ammunition. Several people failed to do so. Skarlatos' friend, 23-year-old Spencer Stone, attacked the gunman first and was injured while trying to subdue him. Skarlatos took action and seized the assailant's rifle, beating him in the head with the muzzle of it until he was unconscious. After the attack, on August 22, 2015, Skarlatos and his friends received international attention for their actions in thwarting the attack.
French president François Hollande awarded Skarlatos, his friends Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, as well as British businessman Chris Norman, France's highest decoration, Knights of the Legion of Honour. Hollande said the men "faced with terror" and that they "gave us a lesson in courage, in will, therefore in hope". French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve praised them for their bravery, as well as British Prime Minister David Cameron; the White House expressed gratitude for "courage and quick thinking of several passengers, including U. S. service members, who selflessly subdued the attacker..." U. S. President Barack Obama telephoned the three Americans. General Philip M. Breedlove of the U. S. European Command in Stuttgart, added his voice, calling the three Americans heroes for their actions which "clearly illustrate the courage and commitment our young men and women have all the time, whether they are on duty or on leave."Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, held a parade to honor Skarlatos, Sadler and the victims of the September 11 attacks.
Megyn Kelly of Fox News Channel's The Kelly File, asked Skarlatos whether he had a different appreciation of what happened when the World Trade Center collapsed. "I feel so much more connected to terrorist attacks and things like that and victims of terrorist attacks," said Skarlatos, "That could have been us if any one of six or seven things went a different way." Skarlatos was announced as a competitor in season 21 of Dancing with the Stars. He was partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold, he said that he was inspired to participate on the show by Noah Galloway, a soldier, on the previous season of the series. Skarlatos and Arnold finished in third place. 1 Score given by guest judge Alfonso Ribeiro. 2 This week only, for "Partner Switch-Up" week, Skarlatos performed with Emma Slater instead of Arnold. 3 Score given by guest judge Maksim Chmerkovskiy. 4 Score given by guest judge Olivia Newton-John. Received the bravery medal of the city of Arras, France. Received the EANGUS Humanitarian Medal Received the NGAUS Valley Forge Cross for Heroism Alek Skarlatos on Twitter Alek Skarlatos on IMDb.
Alek Skarlatos on Dancing with the Stars
Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
The Distinguished Flying Cross is a military decoration awarded to any officer or enlisted member of the United States Armed Forces who distinguishes himself in support of operations by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918." The first award of the Distinguished Flying Cross was made by President Calvin Coolidge on May 2, 1927, to ten aviators of the U. S. Army Air Corps who had participated in the Army Pan American Flight which took place from December 21, 1926, to May 2, 1927. Two of the airmen died in a mid-air collision trying to land at Buenos Aires on February 26, 1927, received their awards posthumously; the award had only been authorized by Congress the previous year and no medals had yet been struck, so the Pan American airmen received only certificates. Among the ten airmen were Major Herbert Dargue, Captains Ira C. Eaker and Muir S. Fairchild, 1st Lt. Ennis C. Whitehead. Charles Lindbergh received the first presentation of the actual medal about a month from Coolidge during the Washington, D.
C. homecoming reception on June 1927, from his trans-Atlantic flight. The medal had hurriedly been readied just for that occasion; the 1927 War Department General Order authorizing Lindbergh's DFC states that it was awarded by the President, while the General Order for the Pan American Flyers' DFC citation notes that the War Department awarded it "by direction of the President." The first Distinguished Flying Cross to be awarded to a Naval aviator was received by Commander Richard E. Byrd, USN for his trans-Atlantic flight from June 29 to July 1, 1927, from New York City to the coast of France. Byrd and his pilot Machinist Floyd Bennett had received the Medal of Honor for their historic flight to the North Pole on May 9, 1926. Numerous recipients of the medal earned greater fame in other occupations. DFC awards can be retroactive to cover notable achievements back to the beginning of World War I. On February 23, 1929, Congress passed special legislation to allow the award of the DFC to the Wright brothers for their December 17, 1903, flight.
Other civilians who have received the award include Wiley Post, Jacqueline Cochran, Roscoe Turner, Amelia Earhart, Glenn H. Curtiss, Eugene Ely, it was limited to military personnel by an Executive Order. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to receive the DFC on July 29, 1932, when it was presented to her by Vice President Charles Curtis in Los Angeles for her solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean earlier that year. During World War II, the medal's award criteria varied depending on the theater of operations, aerial combat, engaged in, the missions that were accomplished. In the Pacific, commissioned officers were awarded the DFC, while enlisted men were given the Air Medal. In Europe, some crews received it for their overall performance through a tour of duty; the criteria used was however not consistent over time. The Distinguished Flying Cross was authorized by Section 12 of the United States Army Air Corps Act enacted by Congress on July 2, 1926, as amended by Executive Order 7786 on January 8, 1938.
This act provided for award to any person who distinguishes himself "by heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight" while serving in any capacity with the Air Corps. The Distinguished Flying Cross was designed by Arthur E. DuBois; the medal is a bronze cross pattee, on whose obverse is superimposed a four-bladed propeller, 1 11/16 inches in width. Five rays extend from the reentrant angles; the reverse is blank. The cross is suspended from a rectangular bar; the suspension and service ribbon of the medal is 1 3/8 inches wide and consists of the following stripes: 3/32 inch Ultramarine Blue 67118. DevicesAdditional awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross are shown with bronze or silver Oak Leaf Clusters for the Army and Air Force, gold and silver 5⁄16 Inch Stars for the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard; the Air Force and Marine Corps may authorize the "V" device for wear on the DFC to denote valor in combat. The Army does not authorize the "V" device to be worn on the DFC.
The other services can award the DFC for extraordinary achievement without the "V" device. In July 2014, the United States Senate passed the Distinguished Flying Cross National Memorial Act; the act was sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer, to designate the Distinguished Flying Cross Memorial at March Field Air Museum adjacent to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California as a national memorial to recognize members of United States Armed Forces who have distinguished themselves by heroism in aerial flight. The act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 25, 2014. Note: the rank indicated is the highest held by the individual. Lieutenant General Thomas P. Stafford, USAF: Flew to the Moon on Apollo 10, commander of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Major General Michael Collins, USAF: Command module pilot for Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Major General Joe Engle, USAF: X-15 and Space Shuttle pilot. Rear Admiral Alan Shepard, USN: One of the original seven American astronauts, firs
My Lai Massacre
The Mỹ Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U. S. troops in Sơn Tịnh District, South Vietnam, on 16 March 1968. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by the U. S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division. Victims included men, women and infants; some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated as were children as young as 12. Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr. a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was given a life sentence, but served only three and a half years under house arrest; the massacre, called "the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War", took place in two hamlets of Sơn Mỹ village in Quảng Ngãi Province. These hamlets were marked on the U. S. Army topographic maps as Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê; the U. S. Army slang name for the hamlets and sub-hamlets in that area was Pinkville, the carnage was referred to as the Pinkville Massacre.
When the U. S. Army started its investigation, the media changed it to the Massacre at Songmy; the event is referred to as the My Lai Massacre in the United States and called the Sơn Mỹ Massacre in Vietnam. The incident prompted global outrage when it became public knowledge in November 1969; the incident increased to some extent domestic opposition to the U. S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Three U. S. servicemen who had tried to halt the massacre and rescue the hiding civilians were shunned, denounced as traitors by several U. S. Congressmen, including Mendel Rivers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Only after 30 years were they recognized and decorated, one posthumously, by the U. S. Army for shielding non-combatants from harm in a war zone. Along with the No Gun Ri massacre in South Korea 18 years earlier, Mỹ Lai was one of the largest publicized massacres of civilians by U. S. forces in the 20th century. Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division, arrived in South Vietnam in December 1967.
Though their first three months in Vietnam passed without any direct contact with North Vietnamese-backed forces, by mid-March the company had suffered 28 casualties involving mines or booby-traps. Two days before the My Lai massacre the company lost a popular sergeant to a land mine. During the Tet Offensive in January 1968, attacks were carried out in Quảng Ngãi by the 48th Local Force Battalion of the National Liberation Front referred to by the U. S. Army as the Viet Cong. U. S. military intelligence assumed that the 48th NLF Battalion, having retreated and dispersed, was taking refuge in the village of Sơn Mỹ, in Quảng Ngãi Province. A number of specific hamlets within that village—designated Mỹ Lai through My Lai — were suspected of harboring the 48th. In February and March 1968, the U. S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam was aggressively trying to regain the strategic initiative in South Vietnam after the Tet Offensive, the search-and-destroy operation against the 48th NLF Battalion thought to be located in Sơn Mỹ became a small part of America's grand strategy.
Task Force Barker, a battalion-sized ad hoc unit of 11th Brigade, was to be employed for the job. It was formed in January 1968, composed of three rifle companies of the 11th Brigade, including Charlie Company from the 20th Infantry, led by Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker. Sơn Mỹ village was included in the area of operations of TF Barker; the area of operations was codenamed Muscatine AO, after Muscatine County, the home county of the 23rd Division's commander, Major General Samuel W. Koster. In February 1968, TF Barker had tried to secure Sơn Mỹ, with limited success. After that, the village area began to be called Pinkville by TF Barker troops. On 16–18 March, TF Barker planned to engage and destroy the remnants of the 48th NLF Battalion hiding in the Sơn Mỹ village area. Before engagement, Colonel Oran K. Henderson, the 11th Brigade commander, urged his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good". In turn, LTC Barker ordered the 1st Battalion commanders to burn the houses, kill the livestock, destroy food supplies, destroy the wells.
On the eve of the attack, at the Charlie Company briefing, Captain Ernest Medina told his men that nearly all the civilian residents of the hamlets in Sơn Mỹ village would have left for the market by 07:00, that any who remained would be NLF or NLF sympathizers. He was asked whether the order included the killing of children; those present gave differing accounts of Medina's response. Some, including platoon leaders, testified that the orders, as they understood them, were to kill all guerrilla and North Vietnamese combatants and "suspects", to burn the village, pollute the wells, he was quoted as saying, "They're all VC, now go and get them", was heard to reply to the question "Who is my enemy?", by saying, "Anybody, running from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy. If a man was running, shoot him, sometimes if a woman with a rifle was running, shoot her."At Calley's trial, one defense witness testified that he remembered Medina instructing to destroy everything in the village, "walking, crawling or growing".
Charlie Company was to enter the village of Sơn Mỹ spearheaded by 1st Platoon, engage the enemy, flush it out. The other two companies from TF Barker were ordered to secure the area
Marty Allen
Morton David Alpern, better known as Marty Allen, was an American comedian and philanthropist. He worked as a comedy headliner in nightclubs, as a dramatic actor in television roles, was once called "The Darling of Daytime TV", he appeared in films, notably the 1966 spy comedy The Last of the Secret Agents? During his comedy career, Allen toured military hospitals, performed for veterans, for active military personnel. Allen was a philanthropist, he contributed to the American Cancer Society, The Heart Fund, the March of Dimes, Fight for Sight, served on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation. Allen was born in Pennsylvania, to Jewish parents, he graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1940. He was inducted into their alumni Hall Of Fame in 2009. Allen joined the U. S. Army Air Corps during World War II, he was stationed in Italy. He earned a Soldier's Medal for stopping a fire in a plane, being refueled, he saved the lives of the men boarding the burning plane by driving the fuel truck away, returning on foot to the plane, putting out the fire by rolling over the flames with his body in uniform.
His heroism earned him a full-dress parade. He was married to the former Lorraine "Frenchy" Trydelle, the reservation and office manager of the Concord Resort Hotel in the Catskills, from 1960 until her death in 1976. During the early to the mid-1950s, Allen and his first comedy partner, Mitch DeWood, worked as an opening act for stars including Sarah Vaughan, Eydie Gormé, Nat King Cole. Allen and DeWood worked many clubs, including the Copacabana until they broke up in 1958 and went their separate ways, he became part of the comedy team of Allen & Rossi with Steve Rossi, which resulted in a string of hit comedy albums, 44 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, the film The Last of the Secret Agents?. They worked together from 1957 to 1968, parted ways amicably, reunited for shows from the 1970s through the 1990s. In 1961 and 1962, Allen appeared on Broadway in Let It Ride! at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and went on to perform in the pre-Broadway tour and Broadway performances of I Had a Ball in 1964.
He began performing dramatic roles. His debut as a serious actor came on The Big Valley television series as the hapless Waldo Diefendorfer. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, he made hundreds of television appearances, becoming a regular on The Hollywood Squares, he appeared in a cameo on The Super Mario Bros.. Super Show!, on game shows such as Password, in ten made-for-television movies. He appeared in theatrical films such as The Great Waltz, Harrad Summer and A Whale of a Tale. From the 1980s he and his wife, singer-songwriter Karon Kate Blackwell, teamed up to perform their musical comedy act to audiences around the country. In 2007, the duo began performing at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and went on to perform at the Southpoint Casino, at Palace Station, on cruise ships. In 2015, the couple continued to perform in venues around the country to overflow crowds, at the Rampart Casino and the Downtown Grand in Las Vegas. In 2016, they performed at the Metropolitan Room in New York City.
In 1968, he made a "Hello Dere" tour of military hospitals in the United States. He repeated the tour annually until 1972. During the tours, he talked with and entertained wounded soldiers who had just returned from Vietnam, he was involved in a number of charitable causes including the American Cancer Society, The Heart Fund, March of Dimes, Fight for Sight, Cerebral Palsy, was on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation. Allen died at the age of 95 on February 12, 2018, of complications from pneumonia at his home in Las Vegas, his wife and performing partner Karon Kate Blackwell was by his side. His interment was at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in California. Official website Marty Allen on IMDb Marty Allen at the Internet Broadway Database Marty Allen at Find a Grave
Leonard Boswell
Leonard Leroy Boswell was an American politician who served as the U. S. Representative for Iowa's 3rd congressional district from 1997 to 2013, a district based in Des Moines. A member of the Democratic Party, he was defeated for reelection in 2012 by 4th district incumbent Tom Latham, who decided to run against him after redistricting. Boswell left Congress in January 2013. Boswell was born in Harrison County, the son of Margaret and Melvin Boswell, he was educated at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa. Boswell spent twenty years in the United States Army, he was first drafted in the Army in 1956 as a private. He graduated from Artillery Officers Candidate School rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. During his military career, he earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Stars, the Soldier's Medal, various other awards and decorations, he served two one-year tours of duty as an assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He served two NATO tours of duty in Europe, first for four years in Germany, three years in Portugal.
Additionally, he taught at the Army General Staff College. Boswell was served three terms in that body. In 1986, he ran for the United States House of Representatives, but was narrowly defeated by Scott Hughes of Council Bluffs in the Democratic primary, he was President of the Iowa Senate from 1993 to 1996. He was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Iowa in 1994, as Bonnie Campbell's running mate. Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee on Livestock and Poultry Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit In the 111th Congress, Boswell voted with Democratic leadership more than 131 members, or 49%, of the Democratic Caucus. In a debate in 2012, Boswell said that he opposes an extension of the Bush tax cuts and supports tax increases for those with high incomes. Boswell criticized his opponent for signing a pledge not to raise taxes. Boswell said, "If you look at this trickle-down theory, I don't see where that's been a historical success."
Boswell supported the Affordable Care Act. In a 2012 debate, Boswell defended his vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act, he said, "Obamacare … is working. I think the people out across Iowa as they talk to me about it, the parts of it that have been important to them, they're appreciative of." Boswell authored H. R. 327, the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, signed into law in 2007 and provides mental health services and support for veterans. Boswell voted to expand funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program and voted twice to override the President's veto of SCHIP legislation. Cap and trade legislation for carbon emissions, h Boswell has voted to double Pell Grants and supported the 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, providing the largest increase in college aid since the GI bill, he voted for the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. On October 10, 2002, Boswell voted in favor of authorizing the invasion of Iraq. In 2001 Boswell voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, for its reauthorization in 2005.
In 2008 he supported passing the FISA bill granting telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for their involvement in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. He sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi encouraging her not to fight the bill, he voted for the final House version of the bill once he was convinced it provided adequate protection for telecom companies. Boswell, a strong proponent of gun rights in a state that supports the issue, wrote an op-ed in the local Council Bluffs newspaper criticizing Mitt Romney for flip-flopping on the issue of gun rights, an issue supported by local Iowans. During Boswell's 2010 re-election campaign, his views on gun rights and armed self-defense earned him an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund, which endorsed him over his Republican rival. From 2003 through 2005, $14.7 billion in crop subsidies went to the congressional districts of members on the House Committee on Agriculture, an analysis by the non-partisan Environmental Working Group found.
That was 42.4% of the total subsidies. Boswell is reported to have brought $404 million to his District, he has supported the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of the 2009 stimulus bill. The Iowa Independent reported that the conservative group Crossroads GPS criticized Boswell's vote approving the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the group, ran by Steven J. Law with ties to Karl Rove, had purchased $85,125 worth of TV time at KCCI, Des Moines local CBS channel targeting Boswell. Six weeks Crossroads GPS invested another $150,000 to the campaign; the money will be used to air two commercials. Boswell won the Democratic nomination for the 3rd District after 12-year Republican incumbent Jim Ross Lightfoot made an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate, he defeated Poweshiek County Attorney Mike Mahaffey by just over 4,000 votes. He was helped by Bill Clinton carrying the district, as well as the endorsement of the Republican-leaning Iowa Farm Bureau, he was handily reelected in 1998 and 2000.
During his 2nd term, Boswell pledged to serve no more than 8 years. By 2004 he had reversed that pledge, stating that "A thinking person is allowed to change their mind."For his first three terms, Boswell represented a sprawling district that stretched from the Illinois border to the Nebraska border. However, his district was dismantled in the 2000s round of redistricting, its territory was split among three other
Ash Carter
Ashton Baldwin Carter is an American public policy professor who served as the 25th Secretary of Defense from February 2015 to January 2017. He is Director of the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. Carter began his career as a physicist. After a brief experience as an analyst for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, he switched careers to public policy, he joined the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1984 and became chair of the International & Global Affairs faculty. Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during President Clinton's first term, from 1993 to 1996, responsible for policy regarding the former Soviet states, strategic affairs, nuclear weapons. During President Obama's first term, he served first as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Logistics and Deputy Secretary of Defense until December 2013. In February 2015, he replaced Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense and served until the end of the Obama administration.
For his service to national security, Carter has on five occasions been awarded the DOD Distinguished Public Service Medal. He has received the CJCS Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Defense Intelligence Medal for his contributions to intelligence. Carter is author or co-author of 11 books and more than 100 articles on physics, national security, management. Ashton Baldwin Carter was born on September 1954, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his father is William Stanley Carter, Jr. a World War II veteran, Navy neurologist and psychiatrist, department chairman at Abington Memorial Hospital for 30 years. His mother is an English teacher, he has three siblings, including children's book author Cynthia DeFelice. As a child he was nicknamed Stoobie, he was raised in Pennsylvania, on Wheatsheaf Lane. At age 11, working at his first job at a Philadelphia car wash, he was fired for "wise-mouthing the owner." Carter was educated at Abington Senior High School in Abington. In high school he was a wrestler, lacrosse player, cross-country runner, president of the Honor Society.
He was inducted into Abington Senior High School's Hall of Fame in 1989. He attended the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in the spring of 1975. In 1976 Carter received a B. A. in his double-major of Physics and Medieval History from Yale College, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. His senior thesis, “Quarks and the Psi Particle,” was published in Yale Scientific in 1975, he was an experimental research associate at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in 1975 and at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1976. Carter became a Rhodes Scholar, studying at the University of Oxford, from which he received his DPhil in theoretical physics in 1979, he was subsequently a postdoctoral fellow research associate in theoretical physics at Rockefeller University from 1979 to 1980, studying time-reversal invariance and dynamical symmetry breaking. He was a research fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies from 1982 to 1984, during which time he wrote a public report assessing that the Reagan-proposed "Star Wars" initiative could not protect the US from a Soviet nuclear attack.
Carter taught at Harvard University, as an assistant professor from 1984 to 1986, associate professor from 1986 to 1988, professor and associate director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1988 to 1990, director of the Center from 1990 to 1993. At the Kennedy School, he became chair of the International and Global Affairs faculty and Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs, he concurrently was co-director of the Preventive Defense Project of Harvard and Stanford Universities. From 1993 to 1996, Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during President Clinton's first term, he was responsible for strategic affairs, including dealing with the threat of weapons of mass destruction elsewhere in the world, nuclear weapons policy, the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review, the Agreed Framework signed in 1994 which froze North Korea's plutonium-producing nuclear reactor program, the 1995 extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the negotiation of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the multibillion-dollar Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program and Project Sapphire that removed all nuclear weapons from Ukraine and Belarus.
Carter directed military planning during the 1994 crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. He was responsible for dealing with the establishment of defense and intelligence relationships with former Soviet countries in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its nuclear arsenal, was chairman of NATO’s High Level Group, he was responsible for the Counter proliferation Initiative, control of sensitive US exports, negotiations that led to the deployment of Russian troops as part of the Bosnia Peace Plan Implementation Force. From April 2009 to October 2011, Carter was Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Logistics, with responsibility for DOD's procurement reform and innovation agenda and completion of procurements such as the KC-46 tanker, he led the development and production of thousands of mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, other acquisitions. He instituted "leaner purchasing. From October 2011 to December 2013, Carter was Deputy Secretary of Defense, serving as th
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