President Dick Jay called the meeting to order promptly at 12:26, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

Edis Allen and Jesse Glasgow were our greeters today and Jesse introduced the members who brought guests:

Gary Pehrson led us in singing “America” and “Cowboy Joe”

Deb Theriault gave us some history of the club from 1933-1934 and 1935, great stuff.

President Dick Jay let our fellow Rotarian Phillip Rael know that our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family at this time of loss.

Guy DeWitt let us know that Brad Cundy’s wife had to have surgery but is now doing better.

Bill Mortimer let us know that Red Nickerson had pneumonia and was in the hospital but he is home and doing better now.

President Dick Jay nominated Dale Bohren for doing our club 100^th anniversary history book and getting it finished up.

President Dick Jay also nominated Mike Howe as he is working on getting our club more involved in Shelter Box.

Lisa Scroggins nominated Mandy George for taking over our club’s Facebook page.

Dave Bishop presented President Dick Jay and the club with a Rotary Banner from a club he and Helen attended while in Singapore. He then told us of some of their adventures while traveling to different Rotary Clubs around the world and about Inner Wheel, the Rotary organization for Wives of Rotarians.

Jeremy Jones gave his classification talk today, he is the executive director of the 12/24 club and was sponsored by Phillip Rael. He said he is always impressed with the Rotary programs with the speakers and SOM and everything else that it involves. He said that up until age 30 he was either high or drunk or both and hurt a lot of people until he got help and now he is paying it back through the 12/24 club. At age 33 he went back to college and received his degree with a 3.98 GPA and he joined the board at the 12/24 and has now been asked to become the director and he really enjoys that and is enjoying his life.

Deb Theriault let us know that there are still some openings for the Rotary Friendship Exchange to England so if you are interested please let her know.

Steve Loftin announced that next week he will need some volunteers for packing food at the Foodbank of the Rockies, he will be down in Mexico so Guy DeWitt will take over for him.

Lisa Scroggins announced that we are still doing scholarships for HS Seniors so if you know a HS Senior please encourage them to apply. The School District has the information as well.

President Dick Jay announced that our club collected over $7500 for the Casper Rotary Foundation and our club will match the first $7500 as well.

Mike Howe explained Shelter Box to us and said he will be looking for ways for us to be more involved with Shelter Box, which was originally started by a Rotary Club in Scotland. If you want to help let him know.

No Student Today

Lisa Scroggins introduced our speaker today, Major General Luke Reiner, the Adjutant General for Wyoming. MG Reiner said he will be retiring this Thursday so this is his final speaking assignment before retiring. He told us that the men and women that are in our forces are doing great with spectacular results. We have 50 of our Wyoming men and women deployed currently and by the end of September will be about 360 which includes about 100 from the unit here in Casper. He let us know what the current threat is and how we are responding in terms of training. We are at conflict with near peer adversaries and the readiness is recovering from years of budget uncertainty. We also have other threats like North Korea, Iran and terrorists. Today he wants to focus on the near peer adversaries. The Air Force and Army have taken the brunt of the fighting in the past 17 years from the war in the Middle East and for most of that time the Army has postponed modernizing in order to procure the equipment needed for counter insurgency operations. Our old weapons systems are no longer the dominant weapons systems they used to be with the change in technology and so now we need to accelerate our modernization of the weapons systems if we are to stay ahead of our near peer adversaries. We know that they are developing better weapons so we have to move forward. The Chinese weapons modernization has advanced immensely since the 90’s and we can’t let them be ahead of us. To prevent this the Army has developed six modernization priorities, and they are.

The Army has re-engineered the entire modernization enterprise by establishing The Army Futures Command, which is the first time in 20 years that things have been reorganized in the Army. This command streamlines the development of future weapons systems. Instead of asking for money from congress they looked at programs that are currently not effective and moved those budgets around for this command and freed up about 30 billion dollars in the next five years.

The training needs to change as well, so they have completely changed their paradigms in training. For example 5 years ago the local units would go out to train in the field and they would have a prepared forward operating base with places to eat and sleep and everything would be provided. However now they have to go out and create their only base, secure it, protect it then after a short time move on. They have to figure out how to get the food and fuel they will need and operate 24/7 at peak efficiency in all of their core tasks. They are also changing to longer training exercises instead of just two days, making them longer and fewer. A much more realistic training for what they will be encountering in battle. They also have changed the Army combat fitness test to involve and measure what their actual combat duties will be. There are six tests that simulate things they will have to do in combat. The test is set up to be gender and age neutral. Before the testing they are trained to it and this training will do a better job of preparing them for real life situations and give them a better chance of survival in the field.

He also spoke about manning the force, this is probably the most important piece. Today about 2.5 of every 10 recruit able age individuals meet the qualifications for military service and this is going down. Intellect, moral and fitness are the three biggest reasons they do not qualify. The ones that do meet the qualifications are the same ones that most employers want in their organizations so there is competition there. All components of the Army the past few years have had problems filling the positions they have. There is no interest in returning to the draft because the volunteer force has proven to be the best force the Nation has ever had. He gave us the reasons we should encourage young people to join the Guard.

He said that one of our medivac crews received the coveted dust off award for their actions in Afghanistan in rescuing wounded soldiers in the middle of a firefight. That crew is now back in Afghanistan flying missions again. He then opened up for a few questions. He confirmed that our missile sites in Cheyenne are safe for many years to come. He told us also that the current status for the VA facility that will be located in Buffalo is that the Grant papers have been submitted and they are awaiting the funding from the State to get started on the process. They submitted this paperwork early to make sure there would be no problems.

 

President Dick Jay concluded the meeting at 1:31 letting us know that next week we will be back here at the Ramkota and our speaker will be Senator Bill Landon and representative Tom Walters for an update and design of the State office building that will be built in downtown Casper.

“Be the Inspiration”