The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Orland Boone. Boone enlisted in the Army Air Forces in December of 1942. He traveled to South America, to Guyana and Brazil. He flew in B-17s, serving as engineer gunner. In South America Boone worked in the weather office and the operations office. He flew practice missions 6 hours per day. In March of 1944 he was then sent to Europe in the 8th Air Force, 486th Bomb Group, 835th Bomb Squadron, flying in the B-17 lower ball turret, completing 27 missions over the continent. They operated chiefly against strategic objectives in Germany until May of 1945. They bombed railroad bridges in France in preparation of the invasion of Normandy. He was discharged in December of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert H. Gayle. Gayle joined the Army in 1943 and had basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Not wishing to be a tanker, Gayle applied for the Army Air Force and was accepted. He trained as gunner and was assigned to a B-17 crew. He was assigned to the 2nd Bomb Group in the 15th Air Force at Foggia, Italy in September, 1944. He describes some of his early missions where the crew had to ditch in the Adriatic and were rescued; a mid-air collision in which he was involved; being shot up by antiaircraft fire and having to bail out over Austria. After parachuting into a snowfield, Gayle was captured by Hungarian troops and made a prisoner of war in February, 1945. The Hungarians turned him over to the Germans in Vienna. The Germans eventually moved him to Moosberg. He was liberated by elements of Patton's Third Army in late April. Upon being transported back to France, General Eisenhower visited the former POWs. He returned home and was reunited with family.

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Cortez Hotel, in Weslaco, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, floor plans, and photographs.

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Temple Beth El, in Corpus Christi, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, and photographs.

Document about the McKinney chapter of the Texas Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Document about the McKinney chapter of the Texas Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Document about the McKinney chapter of the Texas Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Document about the McKinney chapter of the Texas Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Document about the McKinney chapter of the Texas Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a municipality's finance director may simultaneously serve as a temporary municipal judge in the same city (RQ-0144-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether Government Code section 435.013(a) grants exclusive authority to the Texas Military Facilities Commission to construct, repair, and maintain facilities on its property (RQ-0147-GA).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the family protection fee, which section 51.961 of the Government Code authorizes a commissioners court to adopt, violates the open courts provision, article I, section 13 of the Texas Constitution (RQ-0166-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a student fee advisory committee established under section 54.5031 of the Education Code is subject to the Open Meetings Act, chapter 551 of the Government Code (RQ-0184-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the state owns Republic Square in the City of Austin, and if so, whether only the legislature may act to convey a state interest in the property (RQ-0225-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the Border Health Institute is a state agency for various purposes (RQ-0229-GA)

BRAC 2005 Intelligence Joint Cross-Service Group Meeting Minutes of November 10, 2004. The document is redacted and includes the IJCSG Principals Meeting brief (PowerPoint slides).

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress established government sponsored enterprises (GSE)-- such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHLBank System, and the Farm Credit System--to facilitate the development of mortgage and agricultural lending in the United States. Although the federal government does not explicitly guarantee the GSEs' approximately $4.4 trillion in financial obligations, the potential exists that the government would provide financial assistance in an emergency as it has done in the past. Recent financial reporting problems at Freddie Mac have raised concerns about the quality of the GSEs' corporate governance and regulatory oversight. To assist Congress in reviewing the adequacy of GSE oversight, this testimony provides information on GSE corporate governance, regulatory oversight, and mission compliance measures."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The anthrax incidents during the fall of 2001 raised concerns about the nation's ability to respond to bioterrorist events and other public health threats. The incidents strained the public health system, including surveillance and laboratory workforce capacities, at the state and local levels. Several months after the incidents, the Congress appropriated funds to strengthen state and local bioterrorism preparedness. The Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) distributed the funds in 2002 through two cooperative agreement programs with state, municipal, and territorial governments. To strengthen preparedness, the two cooperative agreement programs--CDC's Public Health Preparedness and Response for Bioterrorism Program and HRSA's National Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program--require participants to complete specific activities designed to build public health and health care capacities. The 2002 cooperative agreements for both programs ended on August 30, 2003. For the 2002 cooperative agreements, CDC's and HRSA's programs distributed approximately $918 million and approximately $125 million, respectively. The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 directs us to report on federal programs that support preparedness efforts at …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to those who are not eligible for a social security number (SSN) from the Social Security Administration (SSA). ITIN-related concerns include whether any weaknesses in IRS's controls would allow ITINs to be issued and used for illegal purposes and possible security breaches, whether employers are confused about their responsibilities to IRS, SSA, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for identifying their employees, and how IRS, SSA, and DHS share data when illegal resident aliens receive ITINs. Because of these concerns, GAO was asked to: (1) describe why IRS created the ITIN, (2) describe IRS's processes and controls for issuing ITINs, (3) do a limited test of IRS's processes and controls, and (4) describe certain concerns and problems for employers and government agencies when ITINs are issued to illegal resident aliens."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since September 2003, widespread allegations of abusive practices involving mutual funds have come to light. An abuse called late trading allowed some investors, at times in collusion with pension plan intermediary, broker-dealer, or fund adviser staff, to profit at other investors' expense by submitting orders for fund shares to receive that day's price after the legal cutoff. Other investors were allowed to conduct market timing trades to take advantage of stale prices used by funds to calculate their net asset values at funds with stated policies against such trading. SEC and other regulators have responded with numerous proposals for new or revised practices. Based on a body of work that GAO has conducted involving mutual funds, GAO analyzed and provides views on proposed and final rules involving (1) fund pricing and compliance practices intended to address various mutual fund trading abuses that have come to light recently, (2) fund boards' independence and effectiveness, (3) fund adviser compensation of broker-dealers that sell fund shares, and (4) additional actions regulators could take to further improve transparency and investor understanding of the fees they pay."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were a dramatic reminder of the importance of our need to cultivate a better public opinion of the United States abroad. Yet recent opinion research indicates that foreign publics, especially in countries with large Muslim populations, view the United States unfavorably. GAO issued two studies in 2003 that examined changes in U.S. public diplomacy resources and programs since September 11 within the State Department (State) and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG); the U.S. government's strategies for its public diplomacy programs and how it measures their effectiveness; and the challenges that remain in executing U.S. public diplomacy efforts. Although the studies did not focus exclusively on the Middle East, they identified systemic problems that would apply to public diplomacy activities there."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter is in response to a Congressional request that we examine our advice to executive branch agencies regarding commercial managed service public key infrastructure (PKI) solutions to see if the advice is consistent with current federal policy and private sector best practices. Specifically, over the past several years, staff from various agencies has asked for informal advice on these matters. Our informal advice was based on the control environment described to us by the agencies. This control environment, which is discussed later in this letter, resulted in the informal advice that the agencies may incur a greater burden in ensuring that a contract certification authority whose certificates are used in financial management applications has implemented an adequate system of internal controls than would be necessary if the certification authority were implemented internally. However, if agencies are willing to accept this potential increased burden by accepting and mitigating the potential risks (not all of which may be known and understood at this time) associated with commercial certification authorities contracting out, a certification authority may be able to provide the same level of security assurances as an internal certification …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This document presents the results of a recent GAO survey of human capital issues at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In March and April 2004, we conducted a follow-up to our 2001 human capital survey of SEC attorneys, accountants, and examiners to benchmark their views after the agency had implemented pay parity and work-life programs. 2001 SEC survey respondents were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with pay and identified other nonpay issues as warranting SEC management's attention. The 2004 survey generally covered the same issue areas that we addressed in the 2001 survey, including (1) compensation, (2) overall job satisfaction, (3) work-life balance, (4) supervision and management, (5) performance appraisal and incentive system, (6) opportunities for advancement, (7) organizational structure and support, (8) communication within divisions and offices, and (9) training."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, we added the federal government's disability programs to our high-risk list in part because of difficulties agencies faced in managing these programs and the expected growth in the rolls as baby boomers reach their disability-prone years. The Social Security Administration (SSA) manages the federal government's two largest disability programs, the Disability Insurance (DI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which together paid out $91 billion in federal benefits to 11.4 million individuals with disabilities in 2003. To help address management difficulties and prepare for expected growth in the rolls, SSA must have reliable administrative data from its disability decision-making process to adequately understand the population it serves and the possible effect of proposed program changes on this population. However, in a prior study, we identified potential problems with the reliability of SSA's electronic administrative data. This report examines (1) the extent to which SSA collects useful and reliable electronic administrative data in order to effectively manage its DI and SSI programs and (2) whether ongoing and planned changes to SSA's computer systems and internal controls will address any weaknesses that we identified."