ARMY D.A.R.E. OFFICERS LEND A HAND AT RHEIN-MAIN

RHEIN-MAIN AIR BASE, Germany - After a one-year hiatus, schoolchildren at
Rhein-Main Air Base can again take a D.A.R.E.

For the past year, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program was
suspended at Rhein-Main after D.A.R.E. officers were asked to take a new,
nine-week recertification course at a cost of $5,000. Lack of funding
prevented attendance.

This year, Air Force officials sought outside help to get the program going
again. The provost marshal office for the Army's Headquarters and
Headquarters Detachment, 221st Base Support Battalion, in Wiesbaden,
stepped up, providing a D.A.R.E. officer once a week to teach
kindergartners about safety, while older children learn how to say no to drugs.

"This is not only a case of the Army helping the Air Force, but of helping
children in [Department of Defense Dependents Schools]," said 1st Lt. Jeff
Adams, chief of security forces on Rhein-Main.

"I'm beside myself that the Wiesbaden MP unit would come to the Rhein-Main
community and help save us money and the manpower it would take to send
someone to training."

Spc. Amanda MacLean, Rhein-Main's new D.A.R.E. officer, also goes to
schools in the Wiesbaden and Dexheim communities to conduct the D.A.R.E.
program.

The program was started in 1980 by the Los Angeles Police Department,
MacLean said, to teach responsibility and ways for elementary, middle, high
school and after-school students to resist peer pressure that influences
them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs.

The program has spread, now reaching more than 36 million children
worldwide, according to the official D.A.R.E. Web site.

D.A.R.E. was developed by educators and is taught by trained officers,
usually civilians stateside, and military in DODDS facilities overseas, to
help keep children safe and off drugs.