Military Specialty Research Articles

Distress, Depression, or Both? Exploring Differences in the DDS-17 and the PHQ-9 in Diabetes Specialty Clinic

Diabetes-related distress (DRD) is distinctly different from depression and is more common than depression in people with diabetes. DRD has serious negative outcomes, including poor glycemic control. DRD has been identified in more than 40% of people with diabetes. Recent ADA Standards recommend assessing and addressing DRD; however, in clinical settings, confusion may exist concerning utility of screening for DRD. This study explores differences in our population between scores on DRD and depression screening measures. At the USAF Diabetes Center of Excellence (DCOE), a military specialty clinic, adult patients were administered the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Diabetes-related Distress Scale (DDS-17) as part of standard care from June 2015 through August 2016. Distinct areas of DRD are: 1) Emotional Burden (EB); 2) Physician-related Distress (PD); 3) Regimen-related Distress (RD); and 4) Interpersonal Distress (ID). DDS-17 was categorized as <2.0=little or no distress; 2.0-2.9=moderate distress; and ≥3=high distress. A score ≥ 10 was considered positive for depression on the PHQ-9. Patients (n=314) completed both the DDS-17 and the PHQ-9. Most patients had neither symptoms of depression nor DRD (70.4%). However, 23.9% scored high on the DDS-17 in at least one domain while 11.8% screened positive for depression. Overall, highest DRD was found in EB (17.0%) and RD (15.7%). Furthermore, 56 patients screened positive for DRD, but not for depression (17.8%). Nearly half of patients that screened positive for depression did not have DRD (5.7%). Our study reinforces ADA guidelines to screen and treat DRD as a distinct psychosocial issue. If a clinic does not screen for DRD, they are missing an opportunity to address this common experience. High distress was found in nearly one-quarter of our patients. Regular screening for distress related to demands of living with diabetes is crucial in identifying and preventing poor health outcomes associated with DRD. Disclosure J.L. Wardian: None. K.E. Kanzler: None. T.J. Sauerwein: Speaker's Bureau; Self; Merck & Co., Inc., AstraZeneca. M.W. True: None. M.A. Glotfelter: None.

ПРОФЕСІОГРАМА МАЙБУТНЬОГО ФАХІВЦЯ БОЙОВОГО ТА ОПЕРАТИВНОГО ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ

The article deals with the study of professiogram of specialists of combat and operational support on the basis of analysis of the concept, structure, key characteristics and requirements for the professional activity of these specialists. Normative model of military specialty has different forms, but necessarily contains legally fixed in laws, orders, instructions, specifications of the characteristics. An expert model represents a cumulative view about military activity of competent experts. During the studies, the basic kinds of military-professional activity of specialists of combat and operational support are determined. This activity takes place in the combat and peaceful conditions. It is associated with extreme conditions, elements of risk to life and health, and it is aimed at protecting the Fatherland. The main features of the military-professional activity of these specialists are: devotion to the people, regulation of normative legal documents, responsibilities and the need for coordinated cooperation. It has been established that the quality of performance by future specialists of the combat and operational support of their professional duties, roles and responsibilities depends directly on a number of individual psychological peculiarities of these specialists, in particular professional motivation, professional thinking, emotional and volitional sphere and communicative abilities. The concept, structure and content of professional competence of future specialists of combat and operational support are substantiated. Based on the analysis of theoretical studies, we can state that the structure of professional competence of future combat and operational specialists is a combination of intellectual, professional and personal data of these professionals. Despite the fact that the training system of the future specialists of combat and operational support is quite effective, there is a system of practical training, which involves organizing the special exercises and trainings with the aim of working out the practical elements for their better mastering and improvement of the corresponding skills in the basic professional disciplines.

STARRS Findings Shed More Light On Army Suicides

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessSTARRS Findings Shed More Light On Army SuicidesAaron LevinAaron LevinSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:14 May 2018https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2018.5b19AbstractMore time in training and more time at home between deployments may help prevent suicide deaths among U.S. Army soldiers.The latest published findings from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS) has found that the odds of a suicide attempt among U.S. Army soldiers were greater for those who deployed within their first year in the service and for those with less than six months between their first and second deployments. The results may have implications for Army training and length of time between deployments, wrote Robert Ursano, M.D., and colleagues in JAMA Psychiatry on April 18. Ursano is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Md.Army STARRS researchers collected data on 1.6 million active-duty soldiers from 2004 to 2009 in a project designed to investigate risk factors and protective factors for suicide, suicidal behavior, and other mental or behavioral health issues.“There were nearly 10,000 suicide attempts overall during that time,” said Ursano in an interview. “Suicide attempts are indicators of individuals in need of care. For the Army, they also carry a cost in how they affect units.”Ursano and co-author Murray Stein, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of psychiatry and family medicine and public health at the University of California, were co-principal investigators on Army STARRS. The project not only gathered new data as the United States was fighting two wars; it also pulled together material previously recorded but not held in one place.“At first, Army STARRS told us much of what we already knew, but now we are able to quantify that information,” commented retired Army psychiatrist Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of psychiatry at USUHS and a clinical professor at Georgetown University and George Washington University, in an interview. Ritchie was not involved with the current study. “The important thing about this study is that it not only gathered data but also made some practical suggestions about what may be done to reduce the risk of suicide attempts.”For the current study, the researchers collected administrative data records on a sample of 593 soldiers who had served between 2004 and 2009, had completed exactly two deployments, and had documented suicide attempts during or after their second deployment. They were matched with a control sample amounting to 19,023 person-months. Most of the soldiers were male (86.5 percent), currently married (67.1 percent), and had joined the Army before age 21 (64.8 percent).No effects were found relating to military occupational specialty, sex, deployment status, duration of first deployment, or previous mental health diagnosis, said the authors. The risks of combat experience itself or of high-risk military specialties, like combat medics, could not be determined in this study. Time-related variables were adjusted for sociodemographic and service-related factors.Soldiers who had served 12 months or less before their first deployment had greater odds of a suicide attempt (odds ratio, 1.7) during or after their second deployment. That risk might be reduced if soldiers “had more time to train and acclimate to the military before their initial deployment,” suggested the researchers.A second variable was “dwell time,” the period between deployments when soldiers recover from their experiences in the war zone and train for future duty. After adjustment, a dwell time of six months or less also was associated with increased risk of a suicide attempt (odds ratio, 1.8). Prior research has found that dwell times for troops of 30 to 36 months are associated with reduced rates of acute stress, anxiety, and depression compared with troops who had not been deployed.Dwell time is not as simple to control as it may seem, said Ritchie. “Military leaders appreciate the need for a longer time between deployments, but if you have a war to fight, you have to balance your options.”The study indicates that suicide attempts might be reduced by 14.2 percent if the initial training period is greater than 12 months and by 4.0 percent if the dwell time is at least six months, said the authors.“We were surprised by the clarity of the findings and the strength of the association of risk with early deployment,” added Ursano. “The lack of findings related to length of deployment highlight the dynamic nature of deployment and the many ‘moving parts’ that must be considered.” ■“Associations of Time-Related Deployment Variables With Risk of Suicide Attempt Among Soldiers” can be accessed here. ISSUES NewArchived

Women in army and medicine

The data on the participation of women in the armies of various countries are considered in the historical and modern aspect. The focus is made on the Russian army. The article highlights activities of women in command of military units, in combat and in military medicine; the list of the most common military specialties is presented. Peculiar features of female organism are discussed in relation to the conditions of army life. Special attention is given to historical data on women's participation in the delivery of health care in the Russian army, their participation in army institutions and rear hospitals.

A physical demands analysis to establish critical physical tasks for US Air Force explosive ordnance disposal and battlefield airmen occupations

Introduction: The US Air Force has expanded its research and development (R&D) efforts of occupationally specific, operationally relevant (OSOR) physical fitness tests and standards. The first major step in the USAF multi-step process is a physical demand analysis (PDA). The purpose of the study was to conduct a PDA to determine OSOR critical physical tasks (CPTs) for nine physically demanding Air Force military specialties (occupations).

Didactics of the Military Specialty – Pedagogic Process with Major Implications in the Curricular Architecture of Military Leaders’ Training

Abstract Didactics is, in the etymological sense, the science of learning, a science that has evolved over time under the influence of the maturing of the other sciences of education and as a result of relations with other scientific fields. Through the common subject (the learning process, training through the learning process), didactics is associated with the training theory.

CHEMICAL SCHOOL IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

In the current paper, the creation and development of the chemical school which as a completely new institution functioned since 1919 is presented. Despite the numerous transformations and under various names the school operated till the outbreak of the World War II. It was not only the new school but also relatively new military branch, which survived to the contemporary times. The established school had neither the tradition nor the history, however, by providing the services it managed to educate competent and professional commanders. Its educational system enabled the staff to train according to their positions or military specialties.

USAF Battlefield Airmen Occupationally Specific, Operationally Relevant Physical Fitness Tests and Standards

The US Air Force officially implemented Tier 1 health and general physical fitness (PF) tests and standards in 2010 with aerobic and body composition component standards established on professionally recognized health science criteria. Scores reflect degrees of health and general fitness, but do not necessarily reflect task achievement for military occupations, e.g., Battlefield Airmen (BA). PURPOSE: We developed prototype Tier 2 occupationally-specific, operationally-relevant PF tests and standards for BA (PrT), and compared PrT to incumbent BA PF tests and standards (InT) for content, predictive, and consequential validity and gender neutrality. METHODS: An occupationally-based bona fide operational requirements physical demand analysis was conducted for six BA career fields. Analysis identified operationally-required critical physical tasks (CPTs), plus six PF components and 14 physical movement patterns necessary to perform CPTs. CPTs provided the basis for developing physical task simulations (PTSs). Subjects (n = 171, 62 female, mean ± SD; age, 28.5 ± 5.6 yrs) completed 15 PTSs and 39 PF tests to determine the optimal PF test battery for predicting operational task success. Data were analyzed using SAS®. RESULTS: We developed a ten component PrT that addresses all operationally-required PFCs and physical movement patterns whereas the five component InT addresses only two PFCs and eight movement patterns. PrT explained variance in subjects’ PTS performance significantly better (adj R2 78% to 82%) than InT (adj R2 58% to 63%). PrT classification accuracy (PF test scores vs PTS success) was significantly better at 85% correct versus InT at 66% (p < .05). Finally, PrT predicted operational performance equally well across genders; however, InT under predicted male performance by 17% and over predicted female performance by 24%. CONCLUSIONS: The study approach proved efficacious for developing a viable prototype BA PF test. InT has limited validity and pronounced deficiencies in predicting operational task performance; PrT strengthens the validity and mitigates these deficiencies. In addition, PrT meets public law requirements that qualifying PF tests for military specialties be occupationally specific, operationally relevant, and gender neutral.

Investigation of the qualification criteria for senior professional titles in the military pharmaceutical specialty

Investigation of the qualification criteria for senior professional titles in the military pharmaceutical specialty

The nature and extent of war injuries sustained by combat specialty personnel killed and wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2003–2011

Previous studies regarding combat wounding have a limited translational capacity due to inclusion of soldiers from all military branches and occupational specialties as well as a lack of information regarding soldiers who died in theater. A search was performed of the Department of Defense Trauma Registry and Armed Forces Medical Examiner data set for the years 2003 to 2011 to identify all injured personnel with the military specialty 19D (cavalry scout). A manual search was conducted for each record identified, and age, rank, location and manner of injury, mechanism of injury, Injury Severity Score (ISS), and extent of wounding were abstracted. The incidence of injuries by body region and rates for specific types of wounds were determined. Statistically significant associations between rank, location of injury, manner of injury, body region involved, and injury mechanism were assessed using χ2 analysis. Associations between ISS, rank, manner of injury, and survival were evaluated by t test with Satterthwaite correction. A total of 701 casualties were identified with 3,189 distinct injuries. Mean (SD) age of injured personnel was 25.9 (6.0) years. Thirty-five percent of the cohort was composed of soldiers who died in theater. Explosions were the most common mechanism of injury (70%), while 18% of wounds occurred owing to gunshot. Extremity wounds and injuries to the head and neck represented 34% of casualty burden. Thoracic trauma occurred in 16%, and abdominal injuries occurred in 17%. Wounds with a frequency exceeding 5% included skin, extremity, facial, brain, and gastrointestinal injuries. Vascular injury occurred in 4%. Gunshot wounds were a greater cause of injury in Afghanistan (p = 0.001) and resulted in a higher percentage of thoracic injuries (p < 0.001). The nature and extent of trauma sustained by combat-specific personnel seems to be different from that experienced by all soldiers deployed to a war zone.

Characterization of spinal injuries sustained by American service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan

This study sought to characterize spine injuries among soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan whose autopsy results were stored by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System. The Armed Forces Medical Examiner System data set was queried to identify American military personnel who sustained a spine injury in conjunction with wounds that resulted in death during deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan from 2003 to 2011. Demographic and injury-specific characteristics were abstracted for each individual identified. The raw incidence of spinal injuries was calculated and correlations were drawn between the presence of spinal trauma and military specialty, mechanism and manner of injury, and wounds in other body regions. Significant associations were also sought for specific injury patterns, including spinal cord injury, atlantooccipital injury, low lumbar vertebral fractures, and lumbosacral dissociation. Statistical calculations were performed using χ statistic, z test, t test with Satterthwaite correction, and multivariate logistic regression. Among 5,424 deceased service members, 2,089 (38.5%) were found to have sustained at least one spinal injury. Sixty-seven percent of all fatalities with spinal injury were caused by explosion, while 15% occurred by gunshot. Spinal fracture was the most common type of injury (n = 2,328), while spinal dislocations occurred in 378, and vertebral column transection occurred in 223. Fifty-two percent sustained at least one cervical spine injury, and spinal cord injury occurred in 40%. Spinal cord injuries were more likely to occur as a result of gunshot (p < 0.001), while atlantooccipital injuries (p < 0.001) and low lumbar fractures (p = 0.01) were significantly higher among combat specialty soldiers. No significant association was identified between spinal injury risk and the periods 2003 to 2007 and 2008 to 2011, although atlantooccipital injuries and spinal cord injury were significantly reduced beginning in 2008 (p < 0.001). The results of this study indicate that the incidence of spinal trauma in modern warfare seems to be higher than previously reported. Epidemiologic study, level III.

The Birmingham Military Trauma Registrar. A Personal View

The military registrar is responsible for the co-ordination of care of returning battlefield casualties at Role 4 Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM). Traditionally two military specialty registrars (StR) providing a 24-hour a day service 365 days a year have shared this responsibility. For Military StR3 General Surgical trainees this is now a recognized training post providing military trainees the opportunity of gaining exposure to battlefield casualties at an early stage in their specialty training. This is a personal account of my time as the military registrar and the training opportunities to be gained for this model of military medical training. Whilst the post is busy and the on call rota demanding the opportunities for surgical trainees are excellent and the requirements of the Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Programme (ISCP) can be met ensuring seamless progression to StR 4 training. This is a highly desirable post for junior military registrars.

FPS 게임에서의 캐릭터 성격 분석 연구 -FPS 게임 팀 포트리스2를 중심으로-

The FPS, featured with high quality graphic of superior visual reality, is steadily growing because of the improvement of computer performance and technological advancement of game production. But most of the FPS games provide monotonous freedom with which players can only change the weapons in one character and this will make users lose their interests when playing games for long hours. Valve has introduced `Team Fortress Classic` in 1999, in order to change the monotonous game methods. This game has attracted great attention because of the composition of various and unique characters through the introduction of military specialty system: that is the first trial in the history of FPS game. I, by analyzing this using MBTI, intend to analyze how much of immersion and interest the characters of various military specialties can provide to players when FPS games are developed.

Similarity in friendship networks: Selection or influence? The effect of constraining contexts and non-visible individual attributes

Most research on similarity in friendship networks focuses on clearly visible individual attributes (i.e. attitudes and behaviors) in contexts where choices whom to befriend are relatively unconstrained. These studies often reveal that social selection rather than social influence is the dominant cause of similarity among friends. We argue that in a setting where social collaboration is crucial and friendship choices are more constrained, influence might be the main reason for similarity found among friends. In addition, we examined whether social categorization and peer control amplifies the social influence process among friends. Using a stochastic actor-based model for network dynamics, we analyzed a three-wave dataset of first year Royal Netherlands Naval College officer students on friendship formation and military discipline. The data supports our first hypothesis that students adjust their own military discipline to that of their friends. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find support for the idea that individuals adjust their discipline more to friends who are of the same military specialty, and neither more to friends who exert peer control. We elaborate on these findings in the discussion.

Mild Head Trauma and Chronic Headaches in Returning US Soldiers

To determine the incidence and types of head or neck trauma and headache characteristics among US Army soldiers evaluated for chronic headaches at a military neurology clinic following a combat tour in Iraq. Head or neck trauma and headaches are common in US soldiers deployed to Iraq. The temporal association between mild head trauma and headaches, as well as the clinical characteristics of headaches associated with mild head trauma, has not been systematically studied in US soldiers returning from Iraq. A retrospective cohort study was conducted with 81 US Army soldiers from the same brigade who were evaluated at a single military neurology clinic for recurrent headaches after a 1-year combat tour in Iraq. All subjects underwent a standardized interview and evaluation to determine the occurrence of head or neck trauma during deployment, mechanism and type of trauma, headache type, and headache characteristics. In total, 33 of 81 (41%) soldiers evaluated for headaches reported a history of head or neck trauma while deployed to Iraq. A total of 18 (22%) subjects had concussion without loss of consciousness and 15 (19%) had concussion with loss of consciousness. Ten subjects also had an accompanying traumatic neck injury. No subjects had moderate or severe traumatic brain injury. Exposure to blasts was the most common cause of trauma, accounting for 67% of head and neck injuries. Headaches began within one week after trauma in 12 of 33 (36%) soldiers with head or neck injury. Another 12 (36%) reported worsening of pre-existing headaches after trauma. Headaches were classified as migraine type in 78% of soldiers with head or neck trauma. Headache types, frequency, severity, duration, and disability were similar for soldiers with and without a history of head or neck trauma. A history of mild head trauma, usually caused by exposure to blasts, is found in almost half of returning US combat troops who receive specialized care for headaches. In many cases, head trauma was temporally associated with either the onset of headaches or the worsening of pre-existing headaches, implicating trauma as a precipitating or exacerbating factor, respectively. Headaches in head trauma-exposed soldiers are usually migraine type and are similar to nontraumatic headaches encountered at a military specialty clinic.

Accreditation Status of U.S. Military Graduate Medical Education Programs

Military graduate medical education (GME) comprises a substantial fraction of U.S. physician training capacity. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed substantial stress on military medicine, and lay and professional press accounts have raised awareness of the effects on military GME. To date, however, objective data on military GME quality remains sparse. Determine the accreditation status of U.S. military GME programs. Additionally, military GME program data will be compared to national (U.S.) accreditation lengths. Retrospective review of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) data. All military-sponsored core programs in specialties with at least three residencies were included. Military-affiliated but civilian-sponsored programs were excluded. The current and past cycle data were used for the study. For each specialty, the current mean accreditation length and the net change in cycle was calculated. National mean accreditation lengths by specialty for 2005 to 2006 were obtained from the ACGME. Comparison between the overall mean national and military accreditation lengths was performed with a z test. All other comparisons employed descriptive statistics. Ninety-nine military programs in 15 specialties were included in the analysis. During the study period, 1 program was newly accredited, and 6 programs had accreditation withdrawn or were closed. The mean accreditation length of the military programs was 4.0 years. The overall national mean for the same specialties is 3.5 years (p < 0.01). In previous cycles, 68% of programs had accreditation of 4 years or longer, compared to 70% in the current cycle, while 13% had accreditation of 2 years or less in the previous cycle compared to 14% in the current cycle. Ten (68%) of the military specialties had mean accreditation lengths greater than the national average, while 5 (33%) were below it. Ten (68%) specialties had stable or improving cycle lengths when compared to previous cycles. Military GME accreditation cycle lengths are, overall, longer than national averages. Trends show many military programs are experiencing either stable or slightly lengthening accreditation compared to previous cycles. A few specialties show a declining trend. There has been a modest 5% decline in the number of military core residency programs since 2000.

Confounding the critics: The Dohrenwend and colleagues reexamination of the National Vietnam Veteran Readjustment Study

The National Vietnam Veteran Readjustment Study (NVVRS; R. A. Kulka et al., 1988) has been highly influential, but critics argue that the study had several flaws. In this article, the author addresses how the recent NVVRS reevaluation (B. P. Dohrenwend et al., 2006) refutes most of the critic's major concerns including that self-report of exposure to war-zone stressors could not be verified, that PTSD did not require functional impairment, and that PTSD prevalence was too high for a low-intensity war in which relatively few veterans were assigned to combat military operation specialties. The author also addresses misleading statements made by critics discussing the NVVRS, the reevaluation, and related articles. The proper role of science and public policy, the importance of reporting findings accurately, and placing findings in proper perspective are discussed.

What Ails the All-Volunteer Force: An Institutional Perspective

The state of the armed forces became a distinct point of contention in the 2000 presidential campaign. The campaign saw the two major party candidates give differing interpretations as to the capabilities, morale, and readiness of the military. At the same time, students of armed forces and society have been pointing to a growing civil-military gap. [1] The focus in this article will be on the military as a social organization, not on technological developments or global strategy. Most members of the armed forces understand and experience the military as a social organization. This article seeks to be both conceptual and practical: conceptual in that it presents a model of organizational change within the military, and practical in the sense that it sets forth proposals on which to base manpower policies. Background In broad terms, the armed forces went through serious personnel difficulties following the end of the draft in 1973. During the early 1980s, personnel matters took a marked turn for the better, a state of affairs that lasted until the mid-1990s. Recent years have seen a reappearance of both recruitment and retention problems. The overarching hypothesis is that the American military has been moving away from an institutional format to one that increasingly resembles that of an occupation. [2] The contrast between institution and occupation is easy to overdraw, of course. To characterize the armed forces as either an institution or an occupation is to do an injustice to reality. Both elements have been and always will be present in the military system. But the social analyst must use pure types to advance conceptual understanding. Our concern is to grasp the whole, to place the salient fact, to have a framework to appraise the relevant policy. Even though terms like institution or occupation have descriptive limitations, they do contain core connotations that serve to distinguish each from the other and offer insight into the working of the all-volunteer force. An institution is legitimated in terms of values and norms, that is, a purpose transcending individual self-interest in favor of a presumed higher good. Members of an institution are often seen as following a calling, captured in words like duty, honor, and country. They are commonly viewed and regard themselves as being different or apart from the broader society. Role commitment in an institutional military tends to be diffuse; members are expected to perform tasks not limited their military specialties. Unlike most civilian compensation systems, in which marketability determines reward, remuneration in the institutional military is essentially based on rank and seniority. An occupation is legitimated in terms of the marketplace. Supply and demand, rather than normative considerations, are paramount. Whether under the rubric of econometrics or of labor market analysis, such a redefinition of the military is based on a set of core assumptions: (1) cost-effectiveness analyses of civilian enterprises and military services are equally valid; (2) military compensation should be as much as possible in cash, rather than in kind, thereby allowing for a more efficient operation of the marketplace; and (3) military compensation should be linked directly to skill differences of individual service members. The occupational model implies the priority of self-interest rather than that of the employing organization. In broad terms, reference groups in the military are organized vertically, whereas occupation reference groups tend to be horizontal. In the conventional military, being part of the same organization has traditionally been more important than the fact that military members do different jobs. People in an occupation tend to feel a sense of identity with others who do the same sort of work and receive similar pay whether in the same or different organizations. The institution-to-occupation thesis was not well received by the econometric mindset that had become dominant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and its sponsored research on military manpower. …

Hebrew Gender and Zionist Ideology: The Palmach Trilogy of Netiva Ben Yehuda

Hebrew Gender and Zionist Ideology:The Palmach Trilogy of Netiva Ben Yehuda Yael S. Feldman Abstract Israeli readers were hardly prepared for Netiva Ben Yehuda's dramatic entry into the scene of Hebrew writing in 1981 with her first novel, 1948-Bein hasfirot, and its two sequels (1985, 1991). This essay offers a corrective to the reception of the Palmach trilogy that mostly ignored the feminist slant of Ben Yehuda's historical revisionism. It highlights her ingenious invention of Hebrew gender avant la lettre, and places her as a precursor of the analysis of the ideological roots that lie behind the betrayal of the promise for sexual equality, which "the Palmach had inscribed on its flag." I was never ever a suffragette. But as I was anyway stuck deep in this business [the Palmach]-I was ambitious, very ambitious, to prove my worth; especially since I knew that from that particular aspect that preoccupied us at the time-the war-I was surrounded by many males who were much worse than me. Much more "feminine" than me. I used to call such a male a feminus. -NETIVA BEN YEHUDA, 1948-Between Calendars The language of Netiva Ben Yehuda (b. 1928), no less than her ideas and convictions, poses a great challenge to the translator and interpreter. She is unique among the writers of her generation not only because of her late entry into the Israeli writing scene (1981), but also because of her lifelong devotion to the cause of spoken Hebrew. Her uniqueness does not stem from these factors alone, however. Though she has become somewhat of a media figure since the 1980s, she had hardly been recognized before as a professional writer. Rather, Netiva Ben Yehuda, "Tiva" to her many friends, had long been identified as a living emblem of the myth of the Palmach, those legendary elite units that spearheaded the struggle [End Page 139] for Israel's independence in 1947-48. Indeed, Ben Yehuda had for many years embodied precisely that heroic voluntarism and utter loyalty to the Jewish national rebirth in the Jewish homeland that had been the hallmark of the Palmach since the 1940s. She was also known for her sharp tongue and scathing humor-qualities that stood her in good stead when she finally came into her own as a writer. Simultaneously, however, Ben Yehuda was ahead of her time: her bold sexual permissiveness stood out in a period marked by sexual puritanism. She brazenly carried out her own private sexual revolution, living (rather than writing) through the body1 in an age that locked up both body and emotions "in the cellar," to use Shulamith Hareven's useful metaphor in her 1972 novel, City of Many Days; we may even conjecture that Ben Yehuda's sexual freedom might have served as the model for Hareven's characterization of Sara in that novel. Less familiar, but crucial to her story, is the fact that the nickname by which she had become known early on, "the yellow devil," was given to her by the neighboring Arabs. This nickname came along with the high price that had been put on her head after she single-handedly commandeered the first successful Jewish ambush of an Arab bus early in 1948. That ambush was meant to retaliate for the growing frequency of Arab attacks on civilian transportation in the Galilee, following the November 1947 United Nations vote for the division of Palestine. It turned out to be, as will be seen below, the first step in Ben Yehuda's "voyage in."2 Even less known is her pre-military history: this model sabra, the daughter of a leading pioneer and educator (Baruch Ben Yehuda, later the director general of the first Israeli ministry of education), was an outstanding athlete. Her achievements as a discus thrower had made her a serious candidate for the Olympics-a projected career that was cut short in 1948 by a bullet that damaged her arm muscles. Fearlessness, physical prowess, and total devotion were some of the features that distinguished this young officer, whose military specialties included topography, reconnaissance, and demolition. Yet for later generations, it was mainly Ben Yehuda's...

Reserve Force Training After the Gulf War

Abstract : Amidst the near-universal acknowledgement of the success of the deployed reserve force units' during the Gulf Crisis is the unresolved dispute over the delayed mobilization and nondeployment of three National Guard combat brigades. Accusations were leveled and misinformation proliferated as the debate raged regarding their actual levels of preparedness. It is our position, based on overwhelming evidence, that the Total Force policy is a success and that most reserve force units approach desired levels of readiness. It is in the realm of training that some adjustments are required. Having achieved considerable success in manning and equipping reserve units, the Army must now devote more attention to training, which is probably the largest readiness detractor confronting both active and reserve units. Unlike active units, reserve force units typically train collectively only 39 days per year; many Reservists and Guardsmen devote additional time during the year to individual training both in their specific military specialties and in broader professional development. Some Army missions cannot be adequately trained in that time and should not be assigned to reserve force units. Beyond that problem, the critical variable for reserve units is time management: using the available training time better to improve unit readiness. This article will offer proposals to improve reserve training through better time management.