Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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8 UCW NOVEMBER 28-DECEMBER 4, 2018 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM A redrawn boundary of North Carolina Senate District 21 is said to have contributed to the elec- tion victory this month of Democratic candidate, now Senator-elect, Kirk deViere. e district was gerrymandered in 2010 by the Republican General Assembly to exclude many African-American vot- ers. At that time, former Fayetteville City Council- man Wesley Meredith, a Republican, defeated incumbent Democratic Margaret Dickson. Mer- edith won the seat in the wake of what was charac- terized by politicos as a nasty, personal campaign against Dickson. Meredith had little trouble beating the opposi- tion every two years after that. is year was the first general election since the district was redrawn in 2017 as a result of a federal lawsuit that challenged 28 legislative districts as racial gerrymanders. With more than 52 percent of registered voters casting ballots, North Carolina had better turnout than the na- tion as a whole. e national turnout was "the highest turnout for a midterm election since 18-year-olds received the right to vote," the Biparti- san Policy Center said in an email. e new legislative redis- tricting map rounded off and pushed the boundaries for Senate District 21 slight- ly west and farther north. at left more Democratic voters in the adjacent 19th district. Democrats had hoped to flip that seat in their favor in efforts to end Senate Republicans' 35-15 veto-proof supermajority, which they did. e lines no longer favored Republi- cans and comprised what FLIPNC called North Carolina's third most flipable Senate district in the state. Democrats needed to pick up six seats to elimi- nate the supermajority. "Now we need to find ways to compromise," deViere said. e election "brought back a balance in state government and the gover- nor's veto stamp will actually work now." deViere's win was close. Of 59,000 ballots cast in the district election, 433 votes made the difference for deViere. "In the last 90 days, we knocked on 30,000 doors, 300 to 400 doors a week," deViere said. "at was the biggest piece of our campaign." e 2018 North Carolina Voter Guide, published by Common Cause, said deViere's legislative priori- ties include reinvesting in our public schools and teachers; providing affordable health care for all through expansion of Medicaid; and increasing North Carolina's minimum wage. "I strongly support an independent redistricting process," deViere said. "Extreme partisan gerryman- dering results in extreme partisan policies, not solutions." He added, "I understood how to build a team to make a winning force when I was on city council; I hit the ground running." As for his personal life, the Senator-elect said he and his wife Jenny "will do what we can to minimize the impact on the family." ey have a 2-year-old son. "She'll continue to work," deViere said of his wife, "and I will balance legislative work with my family and business." ey haven't decided whether to take an apart- ment in Raleigh. New Cumberland County state senator by JEFF THOMPSON NEWS Of 59,000 ballots cast in the district election, 433 votes made the difference for Kirk deViere. e U.S. Army Special Operations Command wants to recruit the small number of soldiers who are qualified to join more high-intensity career fields like Green Berets, special operations aviation, civil affairs and psychological operations. Fort Bragg's Special Opera- tions Recruiting Battalion wants to hire more than 2,000 soldiers to fill these elite job slots. "A lot of people, when they hear 'special operations,' immediately ei- ther go to the Ranger regiment or Spe- cial Forces, and all they think about is guys blowing stuff up and hunting people down — and we do a lot more," said Maj. Adam Paxton, operations officer for the Special Operations Re- cruiting Battalion. Paxton, himself a Special Forces offi- cer, wants 469 soldiers each to join civil affairs and psychological operations units. e Army is looking for helicopter repair tech- nicians for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. e Army also needs 1,400 Green Berets. "Less than 1 percent of Americans actually can — and want — to serve in the military," SORB recruiter Sgt. 1st Class Michael Harter told Army Times. "en you're asking 18 percent of that 1 percent to do something a little bit more tough." In spite of the pop culture mystique of special operations, it's not easy to get people qualified. Conventional wisdom suggests that soldiers would be beating down a recruiter's door for the chance to serve with Special Forces. Not so, according to Pax- ton. Recent research shows that despite the dangers, many soldiers also want to deploy overseas. at was a conclusion of a RAND Corp. study released earlier this year about new soldiers. Army Special Operations Command units deploy and work behind the scenes in South America, Af- rica, Asia and beyond. ere are a handful of things one might find in the special operations forces com- munity that aren't available elsewhere in the Army. ere's advanced school- ing and special pay that go along with it. Demolition training, dive training, sniper school, airborne qualification, even languages can pay up to several hundred dollars extra a month. ere are also opportunities for rapid promotions, particularly in Special Forces. ere are also bonuses available across Special Operations Command, and big reenlistment bonuses are avail- able across USASOC. Special Forces soldiers can receive between $4,400 and $72,000 to re-enlist, depending on rank, length of contract and special skills. For psy-ops, it's between $6,300 and $72,000. If all that sounds appeal- ing, the next step is to reach out to the SORB. ough Special Forces has been open to women since early 2016, no women have com- pleted the qualification course, until now. For the first time, a female soldier has completed the initial Special Forces assessment and selection process. Recruiters try to bring female officers and NCOs from the psy-ops or civil affairs communities to SOF. And they work with Army Recruiting Command to make sure the conventional Army recruiting ma- chine is bringing in the high-quality recruits Special Operations Command will need. Seeking unconventional warriors by JEFF THOMPSON 10th Group Green Berets compete in a team-building exercise. Photo by Sgt. Connor Mendez.