Briefs
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Sub arrives for reactor refueling
The attack submarine USS Bremerton arrived at her new home port of Pearl Harbor last week for reactor refueling and modernization, a process expected to take two years.
Previously based at Submarine Base, Point Loma in San Diego, the Bremerton is the second attack submarine to enter the Pearl Harbor shipyard for refueling — work that hadn't been done in Hawai'i in a quarter century.
The first such undertaking was in June 2002 when work began on the Pearl Harbor-based USS Buffalo.
MIA search units to merge Oct. 1
As part of the merger of the two Hawai'i-based military units that investigate, recover and identify the nation's missing war dead, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting will be deactivated during a Sept. 30 ceremony at Camp Smith; the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawai'i, will stage a similar ceremony at Hickam Air Force Base.
The merged effort, Joint POW/MIA Accounting, will be activated Oct. 1 in front of the new Pacific Command headquarters at Camp Smith.
Army Brig. Gen. W. Montague "Que" Winfield, the former 25th Infantry Division (Light) assistant division commander for support, will be the new unit's first commander.
Officials said the merger, initiated by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is intended to create efficiencies under one commander.
Navy secretary censures general
Retired Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston, the former commander of Marine Forces Pacific at Camp Smith, was censured by the acting secretary of the Navy, Hansford T. Johnson, for "frocking" a Marine colonel to the rank of brigadier general before the officer's promotion was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as required, Marine Corps headquarters said.
Hailston retired in late July.
Col. Craig T. Boddington, a reservist out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., who was activated on March 28, was nominated for promotion to brigadier general and ordered to Camp Doha, Kuwait.
Based on Hailston's assessment that the job to which Boddington had been assigned required a general officer, Hailston "frocked" Boddington to the rank of brigadier general, officials said.
At the time, Hailston and Boddington expected that Senate confirmation was imminent, but it ended up being delayed, the Marine Corps said.
A Defense Department Inspector General's investigation was conducted, and Hailston accepted full responsibility for the actions, officials said. Boddington was counseled.
