Chris Cleaver

Gov. Rendell yesterday announced his support for a group of mostly Democratic legislative initiatives intended as a financial and educational boost to National Guard troops and their families. "The nature of National Guard service has changed dramatically in the last half-decade," said Rendell, speaking at the Pennsylvania National Guard Associations' annual meeting at the Sheraton Society Hill. The legislation, he said, would provide the guard "the best protections that any state in the union is offering.

The three-member teams will spend eight- and 12-hour shifts on the border with Mexico, watching day and night for anyone trying to cross. They will wear hydration backpacks in the 100-plus-degree heat, use night-vision gear, and cool off in the air-conditioned rear cabs of humvees. But the 200 members of New Jersey's Army National Guard who will leave for New Mexico on Sunday have strict orders to observe only, Guard officials said yesterday. They will be armed strictly for defense and report sightings to the U.S. Border Patrol, which will make any apprehensions.

When U.S. and British missiles struck Iraq this week, lighting up the night sky with orange flames, Joan Wilcox of Schuylkill County was surprised but not afraid. Her son, Sgt. Jay E. Wilcox Jr., of the Pennsylvania National Guard, is stationed at an airport near Kuwait City, about 358 miles from Baghdad. The 34-year-old radar technician from Minersville has been there since October, serving a voluntary 270-day tour attached to a National Guard unit from Florida. "We're not too concerned," Joan Wilcox said Thursday.

The Army is taking casualties almost daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. And a new policy - affecting units designated for overseas deployment - promises to delay some soldiers' plans to leave the service. But the Army is having no trouble finding recruits, and has been ahead of recruiting goals each month this year, officials said yesterday. About 7,477 soldiers were signed up last month for the active Army - 262 more than the targeted number; 2,399 troops were recruited for the Army Reserve - 172 more than the goal.

Army National Guard units at home are facing "readiness problems" and "significant equipment shortfalls" because so much of their equipment has been left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report released yesterday. The report, issued by the Government Accountability Office, cited a Guard estimate that, since 2003, its units have gone home from overseas without 64,000 items valued at more than $1.2 billion - including entire fleets of helicopters, trucks and radios.

They did not know what was happening to the men in their lives. One minute, their spouses were lying next to them, asleep. Then phones jangled in the darkness before midnight Monday, and the men vanished. So, Wednesday, Elizabeth Abbott was vigorously dusting the coffee table in her living room, trying not to dwell on Staff Sgt. Maj. David Abbott. She had been cleaning compulsively all day, she said. Stephanne Steelman was smoking for the first time in seven months, so worried was she about James, a sergeant.

In the skies over the Balkans, a lumbering plane full of central Pennsylvanians eating granola bars and fried chicken is one of NATO's secret weapons in the war against Yugoslavia. The Vietnam-era transport plane - known as Commando Solo - flies just beyond Yugoslavia's borders, beaming American news, entertainment and propaganda to television and radio listeners below. "Citizens of Serbia, you are being misled," began a recent broadcast in Serbo-Croatian. Other broadcasts have included CNN news and vintage episodes of I Love Lucy.

Over the last two years, Frances Henderson, a community activist who lives in a blighted area on the city's East Side, has witnessed a dramatic improvement in the appearance of her neighborhood. Dozens of houses that had been vacant and sliding toward ruin have been cleaned out and sealed up. The change has come largely because two years ago, a highly regarded Pennsylvania National Guard antidrug program came to Chester. Between early 1993 and this March, "Clean and Seal" boarded up 285 houses in the city.

MAYBE I WATCHED too many movies growing up, but I've always assumed that when America goes to war, it brings along the booze. Don Rickles stockpiling cognac in "Kelly's Heroes" . . . Hawkeye and Trapper John getting trashed at Rosie's in "M A S H". . . Robert Duvall's troops feasting on T-bones and beer after the napalm of "Apocalypse Now. " But thanks to General Order No. 1, they'll never make a movie about drinking beer in Iraq. That's the special military rule, instituted at the start of the war, that bans alcohol (and gambling and porn!

No Pennsylvania National Guard soldier awaiting deployment from Kuwait will be sent across the border into Iraq unless he has up-to-date body armor, a Guard commander said yesterday. Lt. Col. Philip J. Logan, in charge of the 800-man Task Force Dragoon, made up of units from across the state, also said that any vehicle lacking armor plating would be towed into Iraq, rather than driven. Logan and a large number of other Pennsylvania Guardsmen were in a Kuwait audience Wednesday when a reservist complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that some Iraq-bound soldiers were hunting for armor in dumps.

MAYBE I WATCHED too many movies growing up, but I've always assumed that when America goes to war, it brings along the booze. Don Rickles stockpiling cognac in "Kelly's Heroes" . . . Hawkeye and Trapper John getting trashed at Rosie's in "M A S H". . . Robert Duvall's troops feasting on T-bones and beer after the napalm of "Apocalypse Now. " But thanks to General Order No. 1, they'll never make a movie about drinking beer in Iraq. That's the special military rule, instituted at the start of the war, that bans alcohol (and gambling and porn!

The three-member teams will spend eight- and 12-hour shifts on the border with Mexico, watching day and night for anyone trying to cross. They will wear hydration backpacks in the 100-plus-degree heat, use night-vision gear, and cool off in the air-conditioned rear cabs of humvees. But the 200 members of New Jersey's Army National Guard who will leave for New Mexico on Sunday have strict orders to observe only, Guard officials said yesterday. They will be armed strictly for defense and report sightings to the U.S. Border Patrol, which will make any apprehensions.

Army National Guard units at home are facing "readiness problems" and "significant equipment shortfalls" because so much of their equipment has been left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report released yesterday. The report, issued by the Government Accountability Office, cited a Guard estimate that, since 2003, its units have gone home from overseas without 64,000 items valued at more than $1.2 billion - including entire fleets of helicopters, trucks and radios.

Gov. Rendell yesterday announced his support for a group of mostly Democratic legislative initiatives intended as a financial and educational boost to National Guard troops and their families. "The nature of National Guard service has changed dramatically in the last half-decade," said Rendell, speaking at the Pennsylvania National Guard Associations' annual meeting at the Sheraton Society Hill. The legislation, he said, would provide the guard "the best protections that any state in the union is offering.

No Pennsylvania National Guard soldier awaiting deployment from Kuwait will be sent across the border into Iraq unless he has up-to-date body armor, a Guard commander said yesterday. Lt. Col. Philip J. Logan, in charge of the 800-man Task Force Dragoon, made up of units from across the state, also said that any vehicle lacking armor plating would be towed into Iraq, rather than driven. Logan and a large number of other Pennsylvania Guardsmen were in a Kuwait audience Wednesday when a reservist complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that some Iraq-bound soldiers were hunting for armor in dumps.

The Army is taking casualties almost daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. And a new policy - affecting units designated for overseas deployment - promises to delay some soldiers' plans to leave the service. But the Army is having no trouble finding recruits, and has been ahead of recruiting goals each month this year, officials said yesterday. About 7,477 soldiers were signed up last month for the active Army - 262 more than the targeted number; 2,399 troops were recruited for the Army Reserve - 172 more than the goal.

In the skies over the Balkans, a lumbering plane full of central Pennsylvanians eating granola bars and fried chicken is one of NATO's secret weapons in the war against Yugoslavia. The Vietnam-era transport plane - known as Commando Solo - flies just beyond Yugoslavia's borders, beaming American news, entertainment and propaganda to television and radio listeners below. "Citizens of Serbia, you are being misled," began a recent broadcast in Serbo-Croatian. Other broadcasts have included CNN news and vintage episodes of I Love Lucy.

When U.S. and British missiles struck Iraq this week, lighting up the night sky with orange flames, Joan Wilcox of Schuylkill County was surprised but not afraid. Her son, Sgt. Jay E. Wilcox Jr., of the Pennsylvania National Guard, is stationed at an airport near Kuwait City, about 358 miles from Baghdad. The 34-year-old radar technician from Minersville has been there since October, serving a voluntary 270-day tour attached to a National Guard unit from Florida. "We're not too concerned," Joan Wilcox said Thursday.

Over the last two years, Frances Henderson, a community activist who lives in a blighted area on the city's East Side, has witnessed a dramatic improvement in the appearance of her neighborhood. Dozens of houses that had been vacant and sliding toward ruin have been cleaned out and sealed up. The change has come largely because two years ago, a highly regarded Pennsylvania National Guard antidrug program came to Chester. Between early 1993 and this March, "Clean and Seal" boarded up 285 houses in the city.

They did not know what was happening to the men in their lives. One minute, their spouses were lying next to them, asleep. Then phones jangled in the darkness before midnight Monday, and the men vanished. So, Wednesday, Elizabeth Abbott was vigorously dusting the coffee table in her living room, trying not to dwell on Staff Sgt. Maj. David Abbott. She had been cleaning compulsively all day, she said. Stephanne Steelman was smoking for the first time in seven months, so worried was she about James, a sergeant.