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LIFE AT LUKE 19 THE GLENDALE REPUBLIC WEEKEND EDITION, N0VEMBER18, 2006 Medical missions reward, sadden colonel i vW ft'1" -H 1 rV i 11 ST i -i I. "Pcople were very happy to have us there. They learn about you and you learn about them, creating a positive view of the U.S. Col. Jeff Swartz vided health information, distributed pharmaceutical supplies and taught treatment techniques to local physicians and dentists.

On one occasion, physicians on the ship were able to immediately set a young girl's arm fracture. She had fallen from a pickup truck while being transported to see medical personnel. On another, they removed a large polyp closing off the airway of a man in his mid-30s. The medical work was supplemented by Seabees, who carried out projects like repairing fences and building basketball courts. Technicians also repaired medical equipment or advised local people what parts were needed to repair certain pieces of equipment.

"People were very happy to have us there," Swartz said. "They learn about you and you learn about them, creating a positive view of the U.S. By Charles Kelly CH AR I ES.KELLY(fl'ARl ZONA RE PUBLIC. COM Doing dental work in impoverished countries can be both sad and rewarding, or so Col. Jeff Swartz discovered as part of a humanitarian mission this year.

Swartz, commander of the 56th Dental Squadron at Luke Air Force Base, spent May to September aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy, which traveled to medically underserved areas of the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia and East Timor. In the Philippines, those on the mission visited a remote island with no dentist and only one physician. In Indonesia, they went to areas ravaged by the December 2004 tsunami. As the senior Air Force officer in a contingent of 41 Air Force members, Swartz saw to the unit" needs. He often was the officer in charge of daily missions.

He did as many 50 tooth extractions a day. Sometimes he was able to work with relatively modern equipment. At other times, he had to cope with makeshift locations, such as schoolhouses, working by flashlight. The extractions ended the pain from those teeth, but it was unsettling to r-! L-- Nt Col. Jeff Swartz, 56th Dental Squadron commander at Luke, with children in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

Medical missions often are done in primitive surroundings. Swartz even worked by flashlight. note the poor dental health of the patients. In the Philippines, when he pulled four badly decayed front teeth from a teenage girl about the same age as his daughter Jessica, the comparison struck him. "It's kind of sad," he said.

"Unfortunately, you see a lot of kids like this." The 72-day trip was a long mission for Swartz but not a new experience. Last year, he went on a similar mission for two weeks to Dominica, an island in the Caribbean. And he went to Thailand twice in the mid-1990s. The mission was staffed by U.S. and foreign military medical specialists, as well as by doctors and nurses of charitable medical organizations such as Project HOPE and Operation Smile.

Among other things, the medical specialists carried out surgeries, did eye exams and distributed eyeglasses, pro- Detecting a lie: Agent recalls role in catching a spy Editor's note: In his book Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American His tory Was Brought to Justice, Surprise resident Ron Olive describes how he helped make the case against Pollard, a U.S. the analyst stopped in his tracks. "Ron," he said in an urgent voice, "I need to talk to you before I take this polygraph." "Sure, Jay," I said, taken aback. I escorted him into the office spaces at the far end of the hallway that had been set aside for polygraph testing. I had no clue what he wanted to talk to me about.

Trying to throw me off, Pollard began talking about arms sales to Afghanistan, but I stopped him in his tracks. Then, for three hours, he confessed to selling highly classified national defense documents and explained how he went about stealing them the beginning of the end for this spy. that none of us had slept well the night before. "Ifs in your best interest to take this stupid polygraph test, Jay. Let's get this over with once and for all," I said, adding that once he had passed the test, he could go back to work with a clean slate.

That was a white lie. On account of the documents we'd found in his residence, he would never go back to work in the Anti Terrorist Alert Center or anywhere else in the government. Then Pollard made a comment that set off alarm bells in my head: "Ron, I don't mind taking a polygraph if they only ask me about the Soviet Union or the Soviet bloc countries." For the first time, I had a gut feeling that something was very wrong. Gathering my thoughts, I said in a light-hearted voice, "Jay, you're absolutely right. There's no way you can't pass this polygraph when they ask you about the Soviets and the bloc countries." "I'm really too tired to drive in," Pollard said, digging in his heels.

It was time to get firm with him or lose him forever. "Look, Jay, if you're so tired, I don't want you driving down here anyway. Stay right where you are. I'll have agents from the office pick you up and drive you back home." Then I raised my voice: "This mess can't be put off any longer." At last, he agreed to come in and take the polygraph. When my two agents came through the door with Pollard, By Ron Olive Special For the Kepuilic I was the assistant special agent in charge of counterintelligence for the Naval Investigative Service on Nov.

19, 1985, when the Pollard case broke wide open: The night before, we recovered several top-secret and secret documents from Pollard's apartment. We had him on illegal possession of classified material, but no one thought he was a spy. I asked him to come in for a polygraph at 10:30 the next morning. He called, telling me he didn't sleep much and was too tired to come in. It was critical he take the polygraph.

I tried to make light of the investigation. Without threatening, I informed him Ron Olive intelligence analyst who sold to Israel more than a million pages of America's security secrets. The Naval Institute Press book is available on Amazon.com and in local bookstores..