NLUS Expands Support for Sea Services in 1990s

A Commitment to Excellence

By DAVID VERGUN
Production Editor

Two events occurring just two months apart in 1990 shaped U.S. sea-service mission priorities for the remainder of the decade. First, Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August of that year, prompting a U.S.-international coalition response that started with a massive four-month logistical buildup and exploded into highly successful combat operations in January 1991. However, despite its humiliating defeat and ouster from Kuwait, the Iraqi military regime has continued to pose a major threat not only to U.S. national security but to regional peace and stability as well.

Second, the former Soviet client state East Germany and NATO member West Germany reunited on 3 October, marking the beginning of the end of the Cold War--in December 1991, when the Soviet Union itself dissolved into a number of independent republics. Collectively, these cataclysmic events resulted in the end to the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers and a cautious shift away from such Cold War doctrines as containment and mutually assured destruction.

Today, the global war on terrorism is the primary U.S. national-security concern--and Russia is providing important support for the U.S.-led counterterrorism coalition.

The end of the Cold War led to a major reduction in the end strengths of all of the nation's armed forces. Nonetheless, the sea services had a difficult time recruiting new people. Throughout the 1990s, therefore, NLUS councils worked to assist sea-service recruiters. Both the St. Louis Council (Mo.) and the Massachusetts Bay Council, for example, sponsored special recruit companies that entered the Navy as groups. In 1998, there were more than 80 members in the Massachusetts Bay Council's USS Constitution Recruit Company and 72 members in the St. Louis Council's Cardinal Company.

Councils also assisted in the recruiting effort by providing incentive awards for top sea-service recruiters and by sponsoring Naval Sea Cadet Corps and Navy League Cadet Corps units--which offer many young people throughout the country their first real taste of military life, a sense of belonging, and an appreciation of sea-service history. Numerous councils also supported NROTC, NJROTC, and MCJROTC units in various ways.

Sea-service families also moved up on the NLUS priority list. The Navy League's commitment to the educational goals of sea-service families was significantly advanced in 1990 with the inauguration of the Youth Scholarship Program, which provides college scholarships to dependents or direct descendants of sea-service personnel. That commitment was expanded in 1999 with the creation of the Navy League National Scholarship Foundation--the first charitable foundation ever formed by the Navy League. Today, the foundation continues to provide scholarships.

Those leaving the sea services were not forgotten, either. The NLUS "Highline" program provided job-search and other assistance to sea-service men and women transitioning from active duty to civilian life. The program was particularly helpful during the post-Cold War drawdown, which affected more than one million active-duty personnel and their families--and could not have come at a better time, according to NLUS President Jack M. Kennedy, in a November 1998 Sea Power article: "Kennedy Stresses Sea-Service Recruiting as 'Continuing Mission' for Navy League."

Councils throughout the world assisted men and women of the sea services in numerous other ways during the 1990s, and continue to do so today. For a description of council programs and activities visit the NLUS website at: http://www.navyleague.org/councils/council_guides.php *

A Major Leap Forward For NLUS IT Systems

Information technology at NLUS headquarters took a giant leap forward in 1996, when then National President Hugh H. Mayberry announced the introduction of the Navy League Internet Home Page, through which anyone with Internet access could conveniently obtain, via his or her computer, information about a wide range of Navy League activities, programs, and events. In 2002, the Navy League significantly expanded and upgraded its Internet presence by redesigning the NLUS website. Today's robust new website offers such features as articles from Sea Power magazine, online membership processing, and the ability to register for such events as the Navy League's annual National Convention, Winter Meeting, and Sea-Air-Space Exposition.

The Navy League also created its own Online Community in 2002, a web-based members-only information-age tool that includes news, council home pages, a membership directory, and calendars of future events.