Word: combatting
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...defend against hostile neighbors -- but not so much that it could continue to threaten them. A rough gauge of where that balance lies can be found in the military muscle of Iran and Syria, the two heavies that Iraq's forces must counterweigh. Iran commands 504,000 soldiers, 185 combat aircraft and perhaps 500 tanks. Syria has 404,000 troops, 558 combat planes and 4,000 tanks. Iraq's losses in the current struggle have pared its hardware roughly to Syria's level. But since a country that is only defending its territory generally needs less firepower than its attacker...
This profile has confounded some traditions about what makes a good soldier. Military conventional wisdom warns against infantry soldiers who are too smart or inclined to dwell on the risks entailed in combat. "But you can't have space-age hardware without space-age personnel," says Lieut. Colonel Alexander Angelle, a former recruiting officer now in the gulf. "Some people ask, 'Don't street fighters make better soldiers?' The answer is 'No, they don't.' They require more discipline and are less able to get the job done...
...Once you work with them enough, they realize that you're a soldier like they are," says Lieut. Lynnel Bifora, 23, of Mohawk, N.Y., of the XVIII Airborne Corps. "I won't let them carry gear for me. I like to tell them that a bullet has no gender. Combat has no gender. You can kill the chivalry bit." She admits that it would be nice to put on a dress again, and clings to what femininity she can. "You can be tough and strong and still be a female," she says. "You don't need to be foulmouthed...
Every day brings a test of ingenuity. The Army's combat engineers, a cerebral-sounding brigade, are the masters of improvisation. If an offensive starts, their task will be the most perilous of all: to clear the way across the flaming trenches, minefields, 40-ft. berms and killing zones the Iraqis have devised over the past six months. It is handy to know how to hot-wire a bulldozer. The 20th Engineer Brigade is under orders to take what is needed along the way and leave a receipt, in Arabic and English. If it is civilian equipment, "we have papers...
Efforts to combat teen problem gambling are still fairly modest. Few states offer educational programs that warn young people about the addictive nature of gambling; treatment programs designed for youths are virtually nonexistent. In Minnesota, where a study found that more than 6% of all youths between 15 and 18 are problem gamblers, $200,000 of the expected income from the state's new lottery will go toward a youth-education campaign. That may prove to be small solace. Betty George, who heads the Minnesota Council on Compulsive Gambling, warns that the lottery and other anticipated legalized gambling activities...