USAREUR toughens stance on lost military ID cards

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USAREUR toughens stance on lost military ID cards
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, January 28, 2008

HEIDELBERG, Germany — “The art of losing isn’t hard to master;/so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost, their loss is no disaster,” a poet wrote.

U.S. Army Europe commanders disagree completely.

They’ve sent out memos over the past couple of years noting the dangers of lost military ID cards — an average of 8,000 a year for the past four years throughout the European command — and enacted policies attempting to curtail the cards’ losses.

But the losing streak has continued. In the first three quarters of 2007, an average of 748 cards were lost each month in U.S. Army Europe, for an estimated yearly total of 8,976 lost cards — even as the number of soldiers and dependants have decreased substantially through Army transformation.

Those figures prompted a memo stating a policy that officials say represents a tougher, more scientific approach.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51988