WASHINGTON - Packing up and moving the spouse, kids, pets and everyone's stuff every couple of years is an inherent part of military life. DoD has created a financial planning tool to help make moving easier.

SPRINGFIELD, Va. - Twenty-one children of military and Department of Defense civilian employee families -- out of some 4,000 entries -- have been named winners in the Armed Services YMCA Young Readers Project essay contest.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - Most people are surprised when they find out that Asian Pacific American women, particularly Japanese Americans, served in the U.S. military during World War II, said Judy Bellafaire, curator of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.

WASHINGTON - More than 6,000 airmen who have requested and been approved for retirement or separation from the Air Force through the end of December must stay in uniform as senior leadership instituted the Stop Loss program. For details, go to the Air Force News story "Air Force announces Stop-Loss details." [link no longer available]

WASHINGTON - For the past four years, Air Force Col. Keith A. Betsch has watched history in the making.

WASHINGTON - The emergency supplemental bill signed May 21 by President Clinton contains $1.8 billion for military pay raises and retirement reform, but don't expect an increase in your paychecks until Jan. 1, 2000.

WASHINGTON - Every day in Washington hundreds of tourists see the rows of white gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery, visible reminders that the freedom our Nation enjoys and the blessings it brings have been purchased by the blood of fallen patriots. On Memorial Day, we pause to remember the ultimate sacrifice these brave soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen made for our great country.

WASHINGTON - An international peacekeeping force with NATO at its core must soon be pre-staged, ready to rapidly enter Kosovo after a peace agreement is achieved, according to U.S. and NATO defense officials.

WASHINGTON - More planes and better weather have stepped up the pace of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's military, according to U.S. officials here.

WASHINGTON - Rayfel Bachiller once dreamed of being a Navy steward, just like his father. But his father convinced him to aim higher. So he did -- but not in the Navy.

WASHINGTON - The military doesn't have to worry as much as the rest of America about Hepatitis C, a senior defense health official said.

WASHINGTON - When President Clinton mobilized 33,102 reservists April 27, he also quietly gave the services the little-used right to keep members in uniform past their normal separation or retirement dates.

WASHINGTON - DoD's Child Development System aims to accommodate the youngest members of the military community by providing quality, affordable child care for infants, toddlers, and school-age children.

WASHINGTON - NATO military authorities now say a larger Kosovo peace implementation force will be needed once a peace agreement is reached.

WASHINGTON - In the past two months, U.S. and NATO fighters have flown more than 6,000 combat sorties over Yugoslavia and dropped 14,200 bombs on Serb air defenses, airfields, roads, bridges, ground forces and other military targets.

ARLINGTON, Va. - "Harmonious race relations will continue to grow in importance for us as Americans because we're becoming ever more diverse as a nation," Fred Pang said here during DoD's first forum on Asian Pacific American affairs May 17.

WASHINGTON - NATO's air campaign is working: Public dissent against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's Kosovo policy is growing within Serbia, according to senior U.S. and NATO officials.

AUSTIN, Texas - The Texas Army National Guard and a coalition of Army, Navy and Air Force installations were among the agencies honored here May 3 with a Hammer Award for excellence in environmental conservation.

WASHINGTON - The Serbs have taken the war crime of using human shields to new extremes in Kosovo, a senior U.S. official told reporters May 18 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

WASHINGTON - Much has been said and much has been done in recent years to integrate the reserve components into the total force. And the latest challenge -- known as Y2K -- has been no exception.

WASHINGTON - Asian Pacific Americans were the last group of immigrants to flood the shores of America, "the melting pot of the world."

WASHINGTON - You've heard the horror stories: Elevators suddenly stuck between floors, building security systems lock you in or keep you out, power supplies suddenly go dead -- all because of the Y2K computer bug.

WASHINGTON - Ethnic Albanian refugees allegedly killed during a NATO raid in Kosovo last week may have been deliberately put in harm's way to serve as human shields, according to Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon.

SANDY POINT TOWN, St. Kitts - Air Force Sgt. Shawn Guers tightly gripped the steering wheel of the minivan, occasionally rubbing his hand across the windshield to remove the fog. For only his second time driving the narrow, twisting island roads, on the left side, with a column shift, he managed well, dodging traffic and parked cars, cutting through lashing rain to get the Air Force-Army medical team to the Sandy Point Health Center.

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts and Nevis - The bright smile on the child's face said it all: "I can see!"

WASHINGTON - Thu Getka (Phan) was 17 when she and her family fled South Vietnam about 10 days before the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

WASHINGTON - "Celebrating Our Legacy" is a fitting theme for this year's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Chinese American Belkis Leong-Hong said, "because we are a nation of immigrants."

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of thousands have died in Rwanda. Trouble still bubbles in the Middle East. Chechnya remains a Russian hotspot along with Abkhazia and Ossetia. In Africa, Eritrea is fighting with Ethiopia. Northern Ireland's religious tensions continue to fuse bomb blasts.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. - "Ours is the greatest fighting force in the world because of our technology, training, doctrine and tactics, but most of all because of the people who serve us in uniform," Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said May 14 at the 1999 DoD Joint Service Open House held here in observance of Armed Forces Day weekend.

KELLY AIR FORCE BASE, Texas - Air Force women defended their 1998 volleyball championship title by spiking all comers at this year's armed forces tournament here May 2-7.

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts and Nevis - For 375 years, Basseterre, which is French for "lowland," has battled and lost against hurricanes, floods, fires and invasions. In the late 1700s, British colonists turned it into a slave market, and the islands remained under British rule until 1983, when it became a self- ruled commonwealth of Great Britain.

WASHINGTON - U.S. leaders need to decide whether to give the military fewer missions or more people, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said May 11 during congressional testimony.

WASHINGTON - NATO warplanes delivered the heaviest attacks yet in the air campaign against Yugoslavia, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said May 12 during a Pentagon news conference.

MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. - I was on the flight line helping escort about 325 reporters when Tower Air 747, call sign Kosovo One, touched down May 5 at 4:18 p.m.

WASHINGTON - Senior DoD civilian and military leaders have sent letters to the Senate Armed Services Committee urging the panel to allow two more rounds of base realignments and closures.

WASHINGTON - NATO has seen no evidence of a Serb-purported partial pullout of forces from Kosovo, but even if there were evidence, "partial" isn't enough, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said May 11.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - Army Maj. Michael Hagen and Coast Guard Lt. Amy Baribeau continued their reign as military triathlon champs while the Air Force team ousted the title- defending Navy racers here May 8 at the third annual Armed Forces Triathlon.

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas - The 1999 Armed Forces Men's Volleyball Championships here May 4-7 produced a new champion in an unexpected way -- an Army victory over Navy lifted Air Force to its third title in four years.

WASHINGTON - The three U.S. soldiers recently released by the Serbs have confirmed they were ambushed and captured March 31 inside Macedonia, not Yugoslavia.

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said NATO's Allied Force air campaign will continue despite mistakes that led to the May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary William Cohen signed an order deploying 176 more fighter and tanker aircraft to support NATO's Operation Allied Forces, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said May 7.

WASHINGTON - Getting Department of Defense school systems Y2K- compliant may not be as easy as 1-2-3, but school officials are confident all systems will be ready when midnight Dec. 31 arrives.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - Aug. 31, 1998: North Korea launches a multistage Taepodong-1 missile across Japan in an effort to place a satellite in orbit. The mission fails, but the United States and its allies are surprised and shocked by the missile's 2,000-kilometer range.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Seven uniformed men are national finalists for the 1999-2000 class of White House fellows.

WASHINGTON - Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre and DoD's top career civilian, David O. Cooke, took advantage of Public Service Recognition Week activities here May 6 to meet and greet hundreds of military and civilian personnel.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - The Military Traffic Management Command cranked its engines in April 1996 and started revving-up to squash the millennium computer bug long before it infected the public's imagination.

WASHINGTON - Teen-agers who attended a DoD youth roundtable May 5 at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., said they feel less safe in their schools than they did before the killings at Columbine High School. They want to make sure DoD provides all military youth with programs that keep them off the streets and out of trouble. They also want to be heard.

WASHINGTON - Environment-friendly supplies will be easier for federal buyers to find because of a new DoD coding system announced in Detroit by the department's top environmental officer.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - When service members suffer battlefield injuries, their survival may depend on receiving the right treatment as quickly as possible.

WASHINGTON - Beth Reece of the 221st Base Support Battalion Public Affairs Office in Wiesbaden, Germany, and Army Staff Sgt. Jennifer L. Braden of Soldiers Radio and Television, Alexandria, Va., are the Defense Department's print and broadcast journalists of the year for 1998.

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. - Don't be puzzled when you're poring over schedules looking for free space-available military flights and run across the term "Patriot Express." That's Air Mobility Command's new name for its commercial charter flights.

WASHINGTON - The United States bestowed its highest military medal for bravery on 10 Asian Pacific Americans between 1911 and 1969.

WASHINGTON - Two soldiers killed May 4 in the crash of their Apache helicopter in Albania are the first U.S. troops to die in the NATO air offensive against Yugoslavia.

WASHINGTON - Seeking America's bright promise of freedom and fairness, millions of men and women of Asian and Pacific descent have immigrated to our nation through the past two centuries to participate in our great experiment in democracy. Although they left behind their native lands and many of their loved ones, they carried in their hearts a rich and ancient history and a proud heritage.

WASHINGTON - DoD is sponsoring its first forum on Asian Pacific American affairs May 17 in Arlington, Va., as one of the highlights of the 20th annual observance of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

WASHINGTON - Flying combat in Operation Allied Force is tough, dangerous business, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Wald, vice director for strategic plans and policy with the Joint Staff.

WASHINGTON - In July 1998, Defense Secretary William Cohen directed the services to "adopt uniform, clear and readily understandable" fraternization policies. Cohen stated that the current separate policies were "corrosive to morale, particularly as we move toward an increasingly joint environment."

WASHINGTON - The DoD budget request for a $112 billion increase over the next six years is a lesson in how senior leaders listen to soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen -- and a lesson in compromise within a democracy.