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IN THE MILITARY

Associated Press
The guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville visited
the bustling Chinese port of Qingdao today, sending a
strong signal that relations between Beijing and Washington
have returned to some state of normalcy after the May, 1999,
NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Above,
U.S. Pacific Fleet commander in chief Adm. Thomas Fargo,
who had arrived in China earlier, inspects a Chinese honor
guard marking the cruiser's visit today. It's the first visit
by a U.S. Navy ship since December 1998.

U.S. guided-missile
cruiser makes port
call in Quingdao

---

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

The guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville -- stationed at Yokosuka -- made a port call in Quingdao last week -- the first since China suspended relations with the United States after its embassy in Belgrade was accidentally bombed during the Bosnia conflict in 1999.

The ship's visit coincided with a visit to Quingdao and Beijing July 31-Aug. 5 by Adm. Thomas Fargo, Pacific Fleet commander.

The last time a U.S. warship visited mainland China was the USS Vandegrift on Dec. 4-8, 1998. The frigate made a port call at Shanghai.

The Army says Hawaii taxpayers saved more than $62,000 when the 25th Infantry Division provided one heavy-lift CH47 Chinook and three UH6 Black Hawk helicopters to dump water from fire buckets on the July 18-19 Leeward Oahu brush fires.

Working for more than 28 hours, Army helicopters dropped more than 178,000 gallons of water to help extinguish the fire in the Waipio-Gentry area, which destroyed more than 300 acres.

Army 25th Division aviators also flew to the mainland recently to participate in drug interdiction duties along the U.S.-Mexico border in May and June. Using the thermal-imaging capabilities of the OH-58D Kiowa helicopters, the job of Tropic Lightning aviators was to detect drug-smuggling operations and report them to law enforcement officials. They were not permitted to get involved in arrests.

The results of the exercise -- dubbed "Task Force Saber" -- resulted in the capture of 98 illegal aliens and the seizure of 831 pounds of narcotics, a San Diego law enforcement official said.

The battalion of OH-58, better known as Kiowa Warriors, returned to Hawaii and its home base at Wheeler Army Air Field after spending a year of training at Fort Hood, Texas.

A welcome ceremony was held July 21 for 1st Battalion (Attack), 25th Aviation Regiment.

More than 116,000 copies of the 2000 POW/MIA Recognition Day poster have been printed.

The poster will be distributed to every military unit. It can be viewed and downloaded at www.dtic.mil/dpmo. The event will be observed on Sept. 15.

The somber tones of the poster are meant to "symbolize the darkness in the lives of those who suffer through the agony of having a loved one missing in action," says Larry Greer, of the Pentagon's POW-Missing Personnel Office.

Forty-three military and civilian specialists -- the majority of them from Hawaii -- are now in Laos to begin joint recovery efforts with the Laotian government.

Of the 2,014 Americans listed as missing in action, 427 are in Laos. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the remains of 569 servicemen have been recovered. This will be the 48th recovery effort conducted in Laos since Joint Task Force-Full Accounting was formed in January 1992 at Camp Smith.