Hearing Aids: Hearing aids are so expensive that only 14% of the approximately 48 million Americans with hearing loss use them. On average, they cost more than $5,000 per pair, and those costs are often not covered by health insurance. A major driver of the expense is that consumers must get them from a doctor or a specialist, even though experts agree that medical evaluation is not necessary. Rather, this requirement serves only as red tape and a barrier to more companies selling hearing aids. The four largest hearing aid manufacturers now control 84% of the market. In 2017, Congress passed a bipartisan proposal to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter. However, the Trump Administration Food and Drug Administration failed to issue the necessary rules that would actually allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter, leaving millions of Americans without low-cost options.
A tough-as-nails commando and a woman of few words. Prior to joining GDI, Shai Aviv was a member of the Israeli Mossad, where she served with distinction. When she joined the Dead 6, she took on the roles of tactical engineer, proving to be an invaluable asset on the battlefield, when vehicle repair, structure capturing and demolitions were needed.[1]
rule 34 command and conquer
When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, starting the Korean War, MacArthur was designated commander of the United Nations forces defending South Korea. He conceived and executed the amphibious assault at Inchon on 15 September 1950, for which he was hailed as a military genius. However, when he followed up his victory with a full-scale invasion of North Korea on Truman's orders, China intervened in the war and inflicted a series of defeats, compelling him to withdraw from North Korea. By April 1951, the military situation had stabilized, but MacArthur continued to publicly criticize his superiors and attempt to escalate the conflict, leading Truman to relieve MacArthur of his commands. The Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate held a joint inquiry into the military situation and the circumstances surrounding MacArthur's relief, and concluded that "the removal of General MacArthur was within the constitutional powers of the President but the circumstances were a shock to national pride".[1]
An apolitical military was an American tradition, but one that was difficult to uphold in an era when American forces were employed overseas in large numbers. The principle of civilian control of the military was also ingrained, but the rising complexity of military technology led to the creation of a professional military. This made civilian control increasingly problematic when coupled with the constitutional division of powers between the president as commander-in-chief, and Congress with its power to raise armies, maintain a navy, and declare war. In relieving MacArthur for failing to "respect the authority of the President" by privately communicating with Congress, Truman upheld the president's role as preeminent.
Apart from his World War I-era service in Mexico and Europe, his overseas postings had been in Asia and the Pacific. During World War II, he had become a national hero and had been awarded the Medal of Honor for the unsuccessful defense of the Philippines in the Battle of Bataan. He had commanded the Allied armies in the New Guinea Campaign and Philippines Campaign, fulfilling his famous promise to return to the Philippines. In 1944 and 1948, he had been considered a possible Republican candidate for president. After the war, as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, he had overseen the occupation of Japan and played an important part in the post-war political and social transformation of that country.[14]
On 8 July, on the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Truman appointed MacArthur as commander of United Nations Command in South Korea.[25] He remained Commander-in-Chief Far East and Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.[26] MacArthur was forced to commit his forces in Japan to what he later described as a "desperate rearguard action".[27] In July, Truman sent the Chief of Staff of the Army, General J. Lawton Collins, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, to report on the situation. They met with MacArthur and his chief of staff, Major General Edward Almond, in Tokyo on 13 July. MacArthur impressed on them the danger of underestimating the North Koreans, whom he characterized as "well-equipped, well-led, and battle-trained, and which have at times out-numbered our troops by as much as twenty to one".[28] He proposed to first halt the North Korean advance and then counterattack, enveloping the North Koreans with an amphibious operation, but the timing was dependent on the arrival of reinforcements from the United States.[29]
Bradley raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons in Korea at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting on 9 July 1950 at Eisenhower's instigation, but there was no support for the idea. The Army staff sent a cable to Collins in Tokyo suggesting that he seek out MacArthur's opinion.[30] In a teleconference on 13 July, Major General Charles L. Bolte proposed sending nuclear weapons.[31] MacArthur had already turned down Air Force proposals to fire bomb North Korean cities,[32] and suggested that atomic bombs could be used to isolate North Korea by taking out bridges and tunnels. The Army staff considered this impractical.[30][33] However, on 28 July, the Joint Chiefs decided to send ten nuclear-capable B-29 bombers of the 9th Bombardment Wing to Guam as a deterrent to Chinese action against Taiwan. Truman publicly denied that he was considering the use of nuclear weapons in Korea, but authorized the transfer to Guam of atomic bombs without their fissile cores.[34] The deployment did not go well; one of the bombers crashed on takeoff from Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base in California on 5 August, killing the mission commander, Brigadier General Robert F. Travis, and 18 others.[35] The remaining nine bombers remained in Guam until 13 September, when they returned to the United States. The bomb assemblies stayed behind.[36]
MacArthur's early ambitions for an amphibious operation against North Korea had to be shelved due to the deteriorating situation in the south, which compelled him to commit the formation earmarked for the assault, the 1st Cavalry Division, to the defence of the Pusan Perimeter,[38] to which the Eighth Army retreated in August.[39] MacArthur then resumed his planning for an amphibious operation, which he tentatively scheduled for 15 September 1950. Navy and Marine Corps officers like Rear Admiral James H. Doyle, the commander of Amphibious Group One, and Major General Oliver P. Smith, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, were appalled by the proposed landing beaches at Inchon, which featured huge tides, broad mudflats, narrow and treacherous channels, and high seawalls.[40] Omar Bradley called it "the worst possible place ever selected for an amphibious landing".[41] While the Inchon-Seoul area was a key communications center, the risks of the landing were daunting. Collins and Sherman flew to Tokyo to be briefed on the plans by MacArthur,[42] who declared: "We shall land at Inchon, and I shall crush them."[43]
When he returned from Wake, MacArthur faced the challenge of turning his promises into reality. On 24 October, he ordered his principal subordinates, Lieutenant General Walton Walker, the commander of the Eighth Army, and Major General Edward Almond of X Corps, to "drive forward with all speed and full utilization of all their force".[79] He also lifted the prohibition on troops other than South Koreans operating along the borders with China and the Soviet Union. Collins considered this a violation of the orders that the Joint Chiefs had issued on 27 September,[80] but MacArthur pointed out that it was only, in the words of the original directive, "a matter of policy".[79] He added that the matter had been raised at Wake Island, but no one else recalled this,[79] particularly not Truman, who, unaware of these discussions, told reporters on 26 October that Koreans and not Americans would occupy the border areas.[81] Within days, MacArthur's forces had encountered the Chinese in the Battle of Onjong and the Battle of Unsan.[82]
On 9 December 1950, MacArthur requested field commander's discretion to employ nuclear weapons; he testified that such an employment would only be used to prevent an ultimate fallback, not to recover the situation in Korea.[92] On 24 December 1950, while responding to a formal request from the Pentagon, specifically Major General Charles L. Bolte, about a hypothetical question regarding which targets should be bombed with atomic weapons if the Soviets got directly involved in the Korean War or if the Chinese military sent bombers to bomb UN forces in Korea and Japan from mainland China,[93] MacArthur submitted a list of "retardation targets" in Korea, Manchuria and other parts of China, for which 34 atomic bombs would be required.[92][94][95][96] In June 1950, Louis Johnson released a study on the potential uses of radioactive agents. According to Major General Courtney Whitney, MacArthur considered the possibility of using radioactive wastes to seal off North Korea in December 1950, but he never submitted this to the Joint Chiefs. After his dismissal, Senator Albert Gore Sr. put a similar proposal to Truman.[97] In January 1951, MacArthur refused to entertain proposals for the forward deployment of nuclear weapons.[98] On a similar note, showing MacArthur directly rejecting the use of weapons of mass destruction when he had the power to answer a subordinate, in January 1951 he immediately rejected Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway's urgent request to use chemical weapons on Chinese and North Korean soldiers.[99] While MacArthur made many statements regarding nuclear weapons after 1951, there has never been evidence, like memos or transcriptions of meetings, provided by anyone that MacArthur ever requested to use nuclear weapons or tried to push Truman or other Pentagon officials to use them during the Korean War while he was the UN Commander.[100] 2ff7e9595c
Commenti