The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Paul Taylor. In 1941, after Taylor graduated from high school at 17, he entered a trade school to learn airplane mechanics because his mother would not allow him to go into the military. Taylor tried to get into the Navy, but was not accepted for service due to his having Bright's disease. Instead. when he finished trade school, he went to work for Pan American Airways. Pan Am sent him to Pearl Harbor to work on the Clipper ships Pan Am used for contract work with the Navy. Pan Am hauled mail and freight for the Navy to various islands in the Pacific during the war. Taylor eventually got into the Navy Reserve while working for Pan Am at Pearl Harbor in 1943. When the war ended, Taylor got out of the Navy and went to work for private airlines before joining the US Air Force in 1949. After flight training, Taylor became an instructor at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Taylor served in an Air Defense Command unit.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Perry Camp. Camp spent a year in Honolulu working as a high scaler, scaling cliffs and building ammunition dumps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Camp was then drafted into the Navy in 1943. He was trained as a gunner’s mate and completed schooling for electrical and hydraulics. He served as an instructor on the 5-inch guns. His position was fuse center and sight center. He discusses his position on his ship and provides detail of the weapons. He describes witnessing the commissioning of the USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) in November of 1944. He worked aboard the destroyer preparing it for the sea. They shipped out of San Diego in February of 1945. They participated in the Battle of Okinawa. Camp describes this experience, including the ship being hit by a Kamikaze plane. Camp was discharged sometime after the war ended.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Kenneth Carpenter. Carpenter joined the Army in March of 1942. He joined the Fort Benjamin Harrison Band and completed a war bond sales tour around Indiana. Carpenter served as a warrant officer for four years. During this time, he directed Army Air Forces concerts, marching and dance bands from Pampa, Texas, to Calcutta, India, and Shanghai, China. He was the commander of the 685th Army Air Forces Band and was attached to the 14th Air Force. Carpenter returned to the US and was discharged in January of 1946.

Transcript of an oral interview with Robert Loren Van Ausdall. While a student at Miami University in Ohio, Van Ausdall applied and was accepted into the Aviation Cadet Program and sent to Love Field in Dallas in 1940. He received more advanced training in San Antonio and on Long Island before going to Norfolk, Virginia. There, his squadron of P-40s was loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7). The squadron was shipped to Iceland where they were based for the next year conducting anti-submarine patrols in the North Atlantic. Van Ausdall speaks about being stationed in and living in Iceland. From Iceland, Van Ausdall was stationed in Sarasota, Florida where he trained pilots in aerial gunnery. After that assigment, he was ordered to India to train Chinese pilots. Eventually, Van Ausdall made it over the Himalaya Mountains into China to fight the Japanese. He was still flying P-40 fighter planes at the time and discusses operations against the Japanese. In April, 1945, after 81 combat missions in China, Van Ausdall returned home t oattend the Command and General Staff School at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. When the war ended, the Air Force sent Van Ausdall to Cornell UNiversity for a …

Transcript of an oral interview with Jon Pensyl. Pensyl went into military service in November, 1942. Pensyl lists many places in the US where he received flight training. He finally made his way overseas in 1944. His assignment took him to India initially for a little more training. Finally, he made it to a base in Hunan Province, China and flew combat missions against the Japanese there. Pensyl was in the 17th Squadron, 5th Fighter Group. His unit was part of the Chinese American Composite Wing. He flew P-40 and P-51 airplanes. He also describes being shot down, parachuting to the ground and being rescued by Chinese guerrilla fighters. With help from the Chinese, Pensyl made it back to an American base and was reunited with his unit after being absent for two weeks. Pensyl also decsribes the Japanese surrender in China after the end of hostilities.

Transcript of an oral interview with Hal Javitt. Javitt enlisted in the Army Air Force in the latter half of 1942 when he was in a junior college because he didn't want to be drafted. He had basic training at a hotel in Miami Beach and then entered aviation cadet training (pre-flight) at Maxwell Field, Alabama. He started primary flight school in Bennettsville, South Carolina and then went to basic flight training at Shaw Field, South Carolina. He was selected for fighters and went to single-engine school in Florida where he got his wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He then went to a transition school and received training in the P-40 aircraft. From there he went to Bartow, Florida and learned to fly P-51 Mustangs and went through advanced training there. Eight of them left from Miami Beach (36th Street airport) in a Douglas C-54 transport and made their way to Karachi, India. He was assigned to the 311th Fighter Group in Chengdu, China, arriving there via Army Air Force transport. Javitt flew misions that interrupted the Japanese supply lines. After about 26 missions, he transferred to the 5th Fighter Group which was part of the Chinese American …

Transcript of an oral interview with John De Haven. Upon finishing college at Bowling Green University in 1940, deHaven was drafted into the Army. He applied for and was accepted into the Army Air Corps, whereupon he earned his commission in 1942. De Haven served as a flight instructor for a while and then volunteered for service in the Chinese American Composite Wing and went to India. He flew P-40 airplanes against various targets against the Japanese in China. De Haven was back in the US when the war ended and he elected to get out of the service.

Transcript of an oral interview with James Bennie. He and his family immigrated from Scotland in 1930, landing in Boston. Bennie went to aircraft maintenance school before the war and was drafted in the fall of 1942 while working for Civil Service, preparing aircraft for ferrying overseas. He went to basic training in Atlantic City and was put to work after that, first at Williams Field in Arizona and then Hobbs, New Mexico (on B-17s). He ultimately wound up going to India and getting fighters. He took a Pan American C-54 from Miami to Karahci, India. Then his group took a train across India to get an airplane (C-46) to fly the Hump into China. Started work in Chinkiang in April 1943 on P-40s. Chinkiang had the 27th, 26th, 17th and one other squadron; Bennie was in the 17th. Two American pilots and two Chinese pilots would fly together to make a four-man element. The airplanes had Chinese markings on them. Maintenace crews worked off of dirt and didn't have much equipment (like engine hoists). Chinese labor built the runways. After the war, Bennie got assigned to an American photo reconnaissance unit and eventually wound up in Shanghai. He left …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Rickie Feuille. Feuille left the University of Texas Law School the day after Pearl Harbor and enlisted in the Army soon thereafter. After serving for about five months with the Signal Corps in Arizona, he was sent to Air Corps OCS in Miami, Florida and commissioned as a second lieutenant after graduation. His first assignment was with an Air Corps service outfit in Pendleton, Oregon. Within a few months, he was sent to Thermal, California to the 13th Air Service Group. The Group went to Hawaii for jungle training and was split into two groups; Feuille was assigned to the 386th Air Service Group. The 386th went aboard a ship in early January 1945, headed for Iwo Jima but stopped in Saipan first; which was were the invasion fleet was staged. His ship was hit by a kamikaze while in the harbor at Saipan. His unit was put on another ship and they stayed off the beach until February 23rd when Feuille led an advance party of his group to the beach. He saw the famous flag raising and describes seeing bodies everywhere as well as wrecked vehicles; …

News release promoting the use of DART Rail to travel to a Chente concert at the American Airlines Center.

Deposit summary of $100.00 made on June 26, 2005. Included is an envelope from Tarrant County Stonewall Democrats to Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus.

The United States Arctic Research Commission's statement on the importance of icebreakers and the vital role that they play in the United States' strategic presence in the polar regions.

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Pybus-Koerber House, in Palacios, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, narrative, and photographs.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As part of its pay and benefits package for service members, the Department of Defense (DOD) operates supermarket-type stores called commissaries to provide service members and their families with groceries and authorized household supplies at the lowest practical price. The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), DOD's designated agency for managing commissary stores, operates 273 commissary stores in the United States and abroad. To ensure efficient operation of the commissary stores, all commissary stores are assessed annually to determine whether there should be any operational changes or possible store closures. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), which has oversight responsibility for DeCA operations, can either endorse or change the results of the assessments or direct additional actions. In August 2003, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) proposed that the military services consider the closure of 14 commissary stores not previously under consideration for closure. Subsequently, various members of Congress raised questions about these proposed actions, including whether DOD's policy and criteria for deciding whether to close commissary stores adequately considered the impact on quality of life of service members and …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (DCIA) allows the federal government to collect state debts from federal payments to contractors. However, before a state can participate in this program, DCIA requires that the state enter into a reciprocal agreement with the Department of the Treasury that would require the state to collect unpaid federal debt from state payments if Treasury collects unpaid state debt from federal payments. In February 2004, we reported that Department of Defense (DOD) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records showed that over 27,000 DOD contractors had nearly $3 billion in unpaid federal taxes as of September 30, 2002. In a hearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on February 12, 2004, we noted that many of those contractors also had unpaid state taxes. Based on the issues raised in that hearing, Congress requested that we determine (1) the extent to which Financial Management Service (FMS) and the states have entered into reciprocal agreements to collect unpaid state and federal debt from their payments to contractors and (2) whether additional opportunities may exist for the Department of the Treasury's FMS to collect unpaid …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, U.S. Senate, asked GAO to testify on the current state of VA's disability claims process and factors that may impede VA's ability to improve performance. For years, the claims process has been the subject of concern and attention within VA and by the Congress and veterans service organizations. Many of their concerns have focused on long waits for decisions, large claims backlogs, and the accuracy of decisions. Our work and recent media reports of significant discrepancies in average disability payments from state to state have also highlighted concerns over the consistency of decision-making within VA. In January 2003, GAO designated federal disability programs, including VA's compensation and pension programs, as a high-risk area because of continuing challenges to improving the timeliness and consistency of its disability decisions, and the need to modernize programs."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A successful terrorist attack on a Department of Energy (DOE) site containing nuclear weapons material could have devastating effects for the site and nearby communities. DOE's Office of the Under Secretary for Energy, Science and Environment (ESE), which is responsible for DOE operations in areas such as energy research, manages five sites that contain weapons-grade nuclear material. A heavily armed security force equipped with such items as automatic weapons protects ESE sites. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent to which ESE protective forces are meeting DOE's existing readiness requirements and (2) the actions DOE and ESE will need to take to successfully defend against the larger, revised terrorist threat identified in the October 2004 design basis threat (DBT) by DOE's implementation deadline of October 2008."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Wildland fires are increasingly threatening communities and ecosystems. In recent years, they have become more intense due to excess vegetation that has accumulated, partly as a result of past suppression efforts. The cost to suppress these fires is increasing and, as more people move into fire-prone areas near wildlands, the number of homes at risk is growing. During these wildland fires, effective communications among the public safety agencies responding from various areas is critical, but can be hampered by incompatible radio equipment. This testimony discusses (1) progress made and future challenges to managing wildland fire, (2) measures to help protect structures, and (3) the role of technology in improving responder communications during fires. It is based on two GAO reports: Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy (GAO-05-147, Jan. 14, 2005) and Technology Assessment: Protecting Structures and Improving Communications during Wildland Fires (GAO-05-380, Apr. 26, 2005)."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Each year, federal agencies spend billions of dollars to buy commercial products and services through the General Service Administration's (GSA) Multiple Award Schedules program. The program has grown significantly over the past several years. Currently, federal agencies can directly purchase, through more than 16,000 schedule contracts, over 8 million products from more than 10,000 commercial vendors. In fiscal year 2004, purchases from these contracts totaled more than $32 billion. The multiple award schedules program is designed to take advantage of the government's significant buying power. To maximize savings, GSA negotiates discounts that are equal to or greater than those given to the vendor's most favored customers. This testimony focuses on GSA's historic use of two proven negotiation tools to improve the pricing of schedules contracts--pre-award audits and postaward audits of pre-award information. Pre-award audits allow GSA to avoid potential overpricing by verifying vendor pricing information before contracts are awarded. Postaward audits allow GSA to identify overpricing of awarded contracts and recover overcharges."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) maintains partnerships, or affiliations, with university medical schools to obtain medical services for veterans and provide training for medical residents. In 2002, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)--which is affiliated with VA's medical facility in Charleston--proposed that VA and MUSC enter into a joint venture for a new VA facility as part of MUSC's plan to expand its medical campus. Under the proposal, MUSC and VA would jointly construct and operate a new medical center in Charleston. In 2004, the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) Commission, an independent body charged with assessing VA's capital asset requirements, issued its recommendations on the realignment and modernization of VA's capital assets. Although the Commission did not recommend a replacement facility for Charleston, it did recommend, among other things, that VA promptly evaluate MUSC's proposal. This testimony discusses GAO's preliminary findings on the (1) current condition of the Charleston facility, (2) extent to which VA and MUSC collaborated on the joint venture proposal, and (3) issues for VA to consider when exploring the opportunity to participate in the joint venture. VA concurred with …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Long-term budget simulations by GAO and others show that we face large and growing structural deficits due primarily to known demographic trends and rising health care costs. Reducing the annual tax gap--the difference between what taxpayers timely and accurately pay in taxes and what they should pay under the law--could help the nation cope with these long-term fiscal challenges. The tax gap arises through the underreporting of tax liabilities, underpayment of taxes due or "nonfiling" of required tax returns. This testimony discusses the findings of GAO's recent tax gap report. It addresses the significance of reducing the tax gap, measuring the extent of the tax gap, collecting data on reasons why noncompliance occurs, and the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) strategies for reducing the tax gap."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the unprecedented flight delays in 2000, a year in which one in four flights were delayed, our aviation system has been adversely affected by many unanticipated events--such as the September 11th terrorist attacks, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)--that significantly reduced the demand for air travel. However, demand for air travel is rebounding. For example, the number of passengers traveling by air increased from 642 million in 2003 to 688 million in 2004. Flight delays have been among the most vexing problems in the national transportation system and are defined by the Department of Transportation as instances when aircraft arrive at the gate 15 minutes or more after scheduled arrival time. In 2004, one in five flights were delayed primarily at New York La Guardia and Chicago O'Hare. Delays at these airports have consequences for the rest of the system. GAO's testimony addresses the following questions that pertain to flight delays and enhancing capacity: (1) What initiatives are ongoing by the federal government, airlines, and airports to address flight delays and enhance capacity? (2) What are some of the challenges in reducing flight delays and enhancing capacity? …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Vaccine shortages and distribution problems during the 2004-2005 influenza season raised concerns about the nation's ability to respond to a worldwide influenza epidemic--or influenza pandemic--which many experts believe to be inevitable. Some experts believe that the next pandemic could be spawned by the recurring avian influenza in Asia. If avian influenza strains directly infect humans and acquire the ability to be readily transmitted between people, a pandemic could occur. Modeling studies suggest that its effect in the United States could be severe, with one estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranging from 89,000 to 207,000 deaths and from 38 million to 89 million illnesses. GAO was asked to discuss surveillance systems in place to identify and monitor an influenza pandemic and concerns about preparedness for and response to an influenza pandemic. This testimony is based on GAO's 2004 report on disease surveillance; reports and testimony on influenza outbreaks, influenza vaccine supply, and pandemic planning that GAO has issued since October 2000; and work GAO has done in May 2005 to update key information."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Before 1969, IRS required hospitals to provide charity care to qualify for tax-exempt status. Since then, however, IRS has not specifically required such care, as long as the hospital provides benefits to the community in other ways. Seeking a better understanding of the benefits provided by nonprofit hospitals, Congress requested that GAO examine whether nonprofit hospitals provide levels of uncompensated care and other community benefits that are different from other hospitals. This statement focuses on, by ownership group, hospitals' (1) provision of uncompensated care, which consists of charity care and bad debt, and (2) reporting of other community benefits. The hospital ownership groups were (nonfederal) government, nonprofit, and for-profit. To compare the three hospital ownership groups, GAO obtained 2003 data from five geographically diverse states with substantial representation of the three ownership groups in each state. GAO analyzed cost data from two perspectives--each hospital group's percentage of (1) total uncompensated care costs in a state and (2) patient operating expenses devoted to uncompensated care."