I read with interest in the April 24 Chronicle that our Defense Department currently is giving an intensive, two-week ground force combat training course, "12 to 16 hours a day," to a portion of a planned 10,000 U.S. Navy sailors at Fort Jackson, S.C., so they can be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to relieve pressure on Army and Marine ground forces who have "faced repeated deployments to the region."

In the same issue is a short brief that stated the United States is transferring 8,000 Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa, from a total of about 50,000 troops in Japan, to the American island of Guam.

Although I've been a lifelong Republican, for several years now I've been worried that our president has elected himself Policeman of the World. If nothing else, these two stories confirm to me the accuracy of my concern.

Who among us knows how many thousands of our military currently are stationed in how many foreign countries to protect - whom? I did not even realize until I read these articles concerning training sailors to be soldiers that training sailors for ground warfare was to "drop duplicative services." Do you suppose we train our soldiers to swim?

Richard Netzley, Evans