UPDATING WILLIE AND JOE

Dear Mom,

I promised I'd write, so I'm writing.

And Mom, the main thing is you've got to tell Dad to stop telling those World War II stories of his, that Willie and Joe stuff from the old cartoons. I mean, it's so out of date you wouldn't believe, I mean, ancient. Like, let me explain.

I made E/4 today--in Dad's time they called it corporal--and perhaps to help me celebrate, they issued us new helmets, made of one of the latest fibers --"Kevlar." It's very light and is supposed to be strong enough to turn away high-velocity frags like it was armor plate or something. The only trouble is, it looks like those coal scuttles the Germans wore in World War I. And I'm not so sure you could make stew in it.

Training has been tough, but in some ways we've got it made. There are so many new weapons and intelligence systems backing us up that I sometimes wonder why we have to do the exercise junk at all. The worst is having to make a six-kilometer forced march with 45 lbs. of gear (including our M-16), move into a defensive position, and hit a number of targets--all in an hour. They tell us the reason is that if we do go into battle, there may be more guys on the other side, so we've got to be better soldiers. Faster, too, I guess. That's pretty much what it says in Field Manual 100-5. Sarge read it right out loud: "The U.S. Army must prepare its units to fight outnumbered, and to win."

The new gizmos are something else.

Like in W.W. II guys used the Ml, a. Browning automatic rifle, grenades, some machine guns and a bazooka to knock out tanks, if they were close enough. Like 20 ft., our drill instructor said. That's sort of a joke. Well, the M-16 is a lot easier to handle than the Ml, and it can be used after dark. It's got a night scope that can pick up targets a mile away using infra-red light. And you should see what we have instead of the old bazooka. First there's the 90-mm. recoilless rifle with a "starlight" scope for enhanced visibility and a shaped charge that can penetrate all known Soviet armor. For the heaviest tanks, we have the Dragon antitank missile--it's a one-man job, 31 lbs. I've shot it myself. Then there's the TOW missile, which has a longer range (almost two miles) but needs at least two guys to set it up. The missiles are guided by superthin wires.

We've also got what they call "smart" weapons; I guess I ought to say "smarter" weapons. There's the Shillelagh missile that's fired from a 152-mm. gun and is guided by an infra-red beam. There are a couple of others--a type of Maverick and the Copperhead--that are tracked to their targets by laser beams. Real Flash Gordon stuff! But don't worry about me getting vaporized by a laser or anything like that.

It's just a strand of light, and it would take zillions of kilowatts to pump a laser to the point where it could blow anyone away. That's what they say.

The tactics are pretty much the same, I guess. We "leg" soldiers have to move fast, but the new utility transport helicopter and the armored combat vehicle are improvements over the old armored personnel carriers (we've got that type around too).

But a lot of the methods have sure changed. Nowadays, they talk about the coming of the electronic battlefield.

There's a general who likes to say, "The transistors are the bullets of World War III." And the computers will be the tanks. We were told that the Pentagon gets enough intelligence data on tape and film every day to equal 40 complete Encyclopaedia Britannicas plus a couple of Gone With the Winds. A lot of the information is picked up by those spy-in-the-sky satellites. They take clear pictures in color, black and white, infra-red or ultraviolet. They also eavesdrop on radio and microwave communications. This is called "ferreting," and we have 6,000 people who do nothing but try to interpret voices and microwave stuff from the other side. If you think that's a lot, the Soviets are supposed to have 30,000 ferrets listening to us. I wonder what they think they're gonna hear?

Down at our level, we have some pretty fancy electronic gear too. There's SOTAS--stand-off target acquisition systems--which use moving target radar to tell us exactly where enemy troops are massing. And REMBASS, which stands for remotely monitored battlefield sensor system. It uses acoustic and seismic sensors to fill in any gaps in surveillance --say, where the terrain "blinds" a radar system. They had something like it in Viet Nam to detect troop movements. One of these years, we'll be getting RPVS --remotely piloted vehicles (don't you like all the initials?). That will make being a pilot a cushy job: he sits at a TV console 200 miles away and gets the RPV to provide surveillance or relay radio messages or pinpoint targets for precision bombing. An RPV can point out a tank with a laser beam, and artillery on the ground can wipe out the tank with a guided missile that homes in on the beam. How about that?

The thing that bugs me is our tactical nukes. They're little, sort of clean atomic shells that won't make a big mess and maybe won't cause World War III or something if we have to use them. But the way I figure it, a miniature mushroom cloud is still a mushroom cloud. That's one thing Dad never had to think about.

But don't worry, Mom. It's a brand-new Army and it's great. Well, I gotta stop now. I got KP tonight.

Love to all, Willie

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