Military Excludes Stars and Stripes p.

By: Debra Gersh

Brass accepts USA Today offer of free copies for soldiers in Somalia rather than paying for copies of the military newspaper sp.


FOR WHAT MAY be the first time in recent history, U.S. soldiers deployed abroad are not receiving the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
Instead, servicemen and women stationed in Somalia are receiving free copies of USA Today.
The situation prompted newly appointed Stars and Stripes ombudsman Bill Monroe to devote a column to the subject in the European and Pacific editions of his newspaper.
According to Monroe, reporters from Stars and Stripes said that soldiers in Somalia were angry with the "soldiers' newspaper."
They were angry, he wrote, "because the GIs felt isolated and out of touch with the world ? and Stars and Stripes, the paper that was supposed to keep
the grunts in the field informed, was nowhere to be found."
Monroe cited possible reasons, such as getting the paper from Germany to Mogadishu, who would pay to import the military paper ? he said no one asked Stars and Stripes to solve the budget problem ? and the "unofficial word" that the U.S. military commander in Somalia did not want it to look as though "the U.S. force was settling in for the long haul."
The ombudsman, former editor of the Washington Journalism Review, noted that "speculation about motives, while perhaps understandable in this case, is never fair and rarely accurate."
He added that "Somebody owes the soldiers on the ground a better explanation than is now available of why they're not allowed to receive the newspaper designed by the Defense Department and fostered by the Congress to keep military men overseas in touch with home."
Robert Davis, acting assistant director of the DoD's American Forces Information Service, which oversees Stars and Stripes, said they were very disappointed that they were not able to get the newspaper to soldiers.
He said that Stars and Stripes staffers learned after the fact that USA Today had donated its copies, whereas the military would have had to pay for Stars and Stripes, which then would be distributed free to the soldiers.
In fact, USA Today not only donated 1,000 papers a day, but also agreed to get them to the point of embarkation at Charleston, S.C., explained U.S. Army Col. Robert Donnelly at U.S. Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa.
According to Col. Donnelly, Stars and Stripes would cost the military about $1,300 per day just for the papers. That figure does not include the cost of transporting the newspapers to Somalia.
The decision about which paper was distributed was made by the commander on the ground in Somalia, U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Robert Johnston, Col. Donnelly added.
"We're not going to second-guess the commander on the ground and tell him to take something he doesn't want," Col. Donnelly said, adding that, while cost "certainly is a big consideration," Lt. Gen. Johnston apparently felt USA Today's coverage was sufficient.