FORT HOOD, Tex. ¡ª The day after a gunman killed 13 people here last month, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the post¡¯s commander, fired off an e-mail message to an unusual audience: local advocates for disaffected soldiers, deserters and war resisters. ¡°I am told you may be able to help me understand where some of the gaps are in our system,¡± he wrote.
Last week, those advocates put General Cone¡¯s offer to a test. A specialist who had deserted last year wanted to turn himself in. Would the general help the soldier, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, get care?

The general said yes.

¡°I¡¯ve never seen anything like this,¡± said James Branum, a lawyer representing the specialist, Chris Jasinski. ¡°It is very unusual fo rwholesale pearl jewelry  the commanding general to get involved.¡±

For years, Fort Hood has been an emblem of an overstretched military, with long deployments and combat-related stress contributing to rising numbers of suicides, divorces, spousal abuse and crime, mental health experts say.

Now, after the Nov. 5 shootings, the post is trying to show that it has another side, one that can care for its frailest and most battle-weary soldiers.

For the last month, the Pentagon has dispatched scores of psychologists, therapists and chaplains to counsel soldiers and their families, and bolster the post¡¯s chronically understaffed mental  wholesale pearl jewelry   health network. It has overseen the creation of a new system of trauma counseling. And it has pledged to speed the hiring of dozens of permanent new mental health specialists.

But the stepped-up efforts, while welcomed even by critics of the Army¡¯s record in dealing with combat-related stress, are also seen as a test of its resolve to break with the past. Making change stick remains a challenge not just for Fort Hood, but the entire Army, as it struggles to improve care for its rising tide of deployment-strained soldiers.

Already, many of the therapists newly dispatched here have left; when all are gone, the post will need at least 40 more, General Cone said. Over all, the Army is short about 800 behavioral health specialists, Pentagon officials say.

Even more daunting will be fighting the ostracism and stigma faced by many soldiers who admit problems.

Although most of his commanders support their troubled soldiers, the general said, ¡°Occasionally what you get is a leader who fails.¡±

In Specialist Jasinski¡¯s case, one of his commanding officers told the freshwater pearl  soldier¡¯s mother recently that he did not believe Specialist Jasinski had P.T.S.D., Mr. Branum and the mother said. Since then, doctors have checked the specialist into Fort Hood¡¯s mental ward, concerned that he was suicidal.

Getting soldiers to use Fort Hood¡¯s expanding array of support services ¡ª most of which opened not long before Nov. 5 ¡ª can be difficult. Many soldiers remain unaware of the family therapy and round-the-clock chaplain counseling in a ¡°spiritual fitness center,¡± a chaplain said.

A three-week soldier ¡°reset¡± program uses cranial massage, yoga and acupuncture to alleviate the hyper-vigilance that accompanies the stress disorder, but the program is limited to 16 soldiers at a time.

And General Cone, a West Point graduate who took command here in late September, has maintained a policy started by his predecessor that requires commanders to let their units go home by 3 p.m. on Thursdays and prohibits weekend training, unless he approves it. But complaints abound about extended hours and duties that require soldiers to bring work home.

It is too soon to say whether more soldiers are taking advantage of Fort Hood¡¯s expanded services. But several said the programs helped them cope with the shootings.

¡°There are a lot of things the Army did to get us through this,¡± said Lt. Col. Pete Andrysiak, commander of the 20th Engineering Battalion. The battalion, which leaves for Afghanistan early next year, lost more soldiers, four, in last month¡¯s rampage than any other unit.

But critics says the services will prove little more than cosmetic if not made available to more people. Specialist Jasinski may provide a case study.

MILPITAS, Calif. ¡ª Young people who were serious about table tennis used to have to make the trip to Beijing, Stockholm or Moscow to train with world-class coaches.

Now they go no farther than this Silicon Valley suburb.

¡°I¡¯m trying to become one of the greatest players in the nation,¡± Srivatsav Tangirala, 14, said matter-of-factly between drills at the huge new table tennis facility here. He and three dozen players, some as young as 5, sprinted sideways along the edge of the tables, 45 times in a row, perfecting their footwork.

¡°Lean forward, lean, lean, lean, lean!" their coach implored.

This is the largest training program for youths in the country, run by the India Community Center in an area that is 60 percent Asian. Here, Ping-Pong parents who grew up with the sport in Sichuan Province or Hyderabad are the new soccer moms and Little League dads.

One of 12 table tennis clubs in the area, up from 5 clubs in 1990, the India Community Center¡¯s Ping-Pong facility was started last year with seed money from two Indian entrepreneurs and has already become an influential hatchery for Olympic hopefuls, most of whom banter in Hindi or Mandarin at home.

Ariel Hsing, 14, the top-ranked United States junior, from San Jose, Calif., and Lily Zhang, 13 and ranked No. 2, from Palo Alto, Calif., are a fearsome twosome, with matching teal braces, bulging calf muscles and a dream of playing in the 2012 Olympics. Ariel cradles the ball in her palm like a baby chick ¡ª before she lets go and smashes it.

They and over 100 other teenagers, many the daughters and sons of technology professionals, are being coached by talent from freshwater pearl pendant  around the world: Gaolin Tang from Sichuan Province; Stellan Bengtsson, the Swedish champion; and Rajul Sheth, the center¡¯s executive director, a veteran of the Indian national team.

In the past, top players grew up in China and became American citizens in order to play for the United States Olympic team. Today, 80 percent of players age 14 and younger are Asian-Americans, according to USA Table Tennis, the sport¡¯s national governing body.

¡°Hyphenated kids who are born and raised here and have a foot in both worlds are the ones taking the lead, ¡± said David Del Vecchio, a board member of the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association.

In Milpitas, the hollow knocking sounds of Ping-Pong balls reverberate off walls lined with triumphal newspaper clippings in The Sing Tao Daily and The India Express featuring India Community Center offspring.

Ariel¡¯s mother, Xian Hua Jiang, a 46-year-old hardware engineer, was weaned on two-volley games on concrete tables in the schoolyard in Henan Province. Growing up poor, she had to borrow  freshwater pearl strands  white shoes to participate in a tournament. ¡°Rain or shine, during school breaks everyone rushes to the tables,¡± she recalled.

Today, she and her husband, Michael Hsing, a software engineer from Taiwan, spend at least $40,000 a year fostering their daughter¡¯s talent, and have added an indoor table tennis practice room to their house. Their plastic Home Depot window shades are pocked with holes from the velocity of Ariel¡¯s balls.

Named for Disney¡¯s ¡°Little Mermaid,¡± Ariel juggles school and international tournaments in Tokyo, Chile and elsewhere. Her ferocious close-to-the-table backhand, honed from age 6, has generated so much buzz that two years ago she was invited to play with ¡°Mr. Bill¡± ¡ª as in Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft ¡ª and ¡°Mr. Warren¡± ¡ª Warren E. Buffet, the investor. She overwhelmed the billionaire Ping-Pongers at Mr. Buffet¡¯s 75th birthday party in San Francisco. ¡°They¡¯re very humble and down to earth,¡± she said.

Although the sport¡¯s visibility is growing nationally ¡ª thanks in part to celebrities like Susan Sarandon, who recently opened SPiN New York, a table tennis social club in Manhattan ¡ª it does not yet have Little League-style cultural clout in the United States, which parents say makes it difficult to compete. In Germany, table tennis engenders a Los Angeles Lakers-like fever, with televised games and some professionals earning $1 million a year in endorsements.

In this country, the sport is still considered a hobby; only three colleges ¡ª Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth; Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo.; and the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan ¡ª offer table tennis scholarships.

Randy Capps, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said Silicon Valley¡¯s rapidly growing Ping-Pong scene reflected the state¡¯s demographics, in which half its school-age children are turquoise jewelry   the offspring of immigrants. ¡°The parents have competed hard to get where they are,¡± Mr. Capps said. ¡°They expect their children to do the same.¡±

Min Zhou, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that among Asian-Americans, there was a perception that the children would not excel at football or basketball, and that table tennis ¡°is a sport where they have an advantage because of cultural affinity.¡±

¡°Being too academically oriented has become a stereotype of the Asian-American kid,¡± she said. ¡°Parents are grounding them in sports so the kid does not appear as nerdy.¡±

Now junior teams from India and Hungary come to Milpitas to work with coaches like Sean O¡¯Neill, an Olympian from McLean, Va. ¡°I had to go to Sweden¡± to train, Mr. O¡¯Neill said. ¡°But they¡¯ve brought the world¡¯s borders inside¡± the India Community Center.

It is a global game, with the Chinese coaches specializing in a fast ¡°flat game¡± in which the ball is hit hard close to the table, while their European and Indian counterparts are ¡°topspinners¡± who move away from the table to put more spin on the ball.

The sprawling new complex is a satellite of the India Community Center, an ambitious, one-stop-shopping center for Indian culture modeled on Jewish community centers. It includes a free medical clinic, a program for retirees and Bollywood aerobics classes.

¡°In India, you walk out of the house and there is a community all around you,¡± said Anil Godhwani, a co-founder of the center. ¡°In the U.S., we felt we were missing something.¡±

The program started small in 2005 with five Indian players. ¡°The Chinese people didn¡¯t want to learn table tennis from some Indian,¡± as Mr. Sheth put it. Winning 16 medals the following year at the Junior Olympics helped persuade the Chinese of the India Community Center¡¯s serious intentions. Today parents have nicknamed it ¡°the India-China center.¡±

Last week, at the United States table tennis national championships in Las Vegas, 21 players from Milpitas competed against 653 athletes from around the country, garnering 15 awards ¡ª the most of any club.

Mr. Sheth¡¯s team included Krish Avvari, a bespectacled fourth grader known for his mean loop forehand, and Ariel Hsing, known as a powerful ¡°two-winged attacker,¡± comfortable with backhand or forehand.

¡°I want to control who wins and who loses,¡± Ariel said of her style ¡ª an exercise perhaps in the most subtle art of spin. 

Stocks rose slightly despite disappointing data on new-home sales, as gains in commodities drove energy and metals companies higher while the dollar fell.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.51 point to 10466.44. Alcoa rose 1.3% and DuPont gained 1.1%. Merck fell 1.3% and Home Depot slid 1%.

The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.8%. The Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 0.2%, led by its materials and energy sectors. The energy inflatable castles  sector's gains came as crude-oil futures soared following a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. oil and fuel inventories. T

The dollar fell and Treasurys were mixed. The two-year note fell 1/32 to yield 0.926%, while the 10-year note rose 1/32 to yield 3.754%.

The action came on particularly light volume heading into the Christmas holiday on Friday. Stock markets will close wholesale pearl earrings
  at 1 p.m. on Thursday.

Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx, cautioned against reading too much into Wednesday's stock-market action.

"There's definitely seasonality at play," Mr. Colas said. "At the very tail end of the year, people that want to show investments in stocks are buying stocks. On light volume, that demand will be what drives markets higher."

The small stock gains came despite the Commerce Department's report of an 11.3% tumble in sales of single-family homes for November, which pushed the seasonally adjusted annual rate to its lowest level since April. The plunge wiped out much of the gain made in the new-home market since the January bottom, and disappointed investors a day after they were cheered by a bigger-than-expected rise in existing-home sales.

The contrast between the existing-home sales and the new-home sales for November was due in part to the fact shell pearl  that new-home sales, unlike sales of existing homes, are recorded with the signing of a sales contract and not the closing. A big tax credit for first time buyers was due to expire at the end of November and caused concern in the housing sector. It was extended in November by Congress to next spring.

"So here we're really seeing the impact that the new-home buyer tax credit had," said Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial. "Hopefully we'll see them bounce back as the tax credit was reinstated."

Micron Technology rose 6.2% after the company said late Tuesday it swung to a profit, helped by strong sales of memory processors.

Corporate-uniform maker Cintas tumbled 11%. Its fiscal second-quarter results missed expectations as high unemployment cut into the need for uniforms. 

Thirty-six years ago, South Korea's Hankook Tire Manufacturing Co., limited to selling in a domestic market with fewer than 200,000 registered vehicles, began seeking markets abroad.

Over the years it found them, in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, the U.S. and Europe. Today the tire maker's products¡ªoriginal equipment for auto makers and replacement tires for retail customers¡ªare sold in 180 world markets, with production facilities in Korea, China and Hungary. Its annual output capacity hit 78 million tires this year compared with 670,000 in 1973.

Hankook, which has more than 50% of the Korean tire market, swung to a net profit of 182.95 billion won ($158.4 million) in the third quarter, helped by strong sales in emerging markets and lower production costs, from a net loss of 14.79 billion won a year earlier. Sales in the quarter rose 14% to 762.09 billion won from 667.75 billion won.

At the helm of the world's seventh-largest tire maker by sales is Suh Seung-hwa, 61 years old. He joined Hankook 36 years ago, taking on overseas sales and marketing roles for about three decades. His colleagues have given him the nickname "zero-to-hero," a tribute to the fact that he is the first employee in Hankook Tire's 68-year history to rise through the ranks to become chief executive officer.

Mr. Suh has a bachelor's degree in political science and diplomacy from the Hankook University of Foreign Studies. Kyong-Ae Choi talked with Mr. Suh at his Seoul office. The interview was translated from Korean and edited.

WSJ: What was your first job and the biggest lesson you learned from it?

Mr. Suh: Before moving to the overseas sales department in 1974, I worked briefly as a buyer in the purchasing department. But sales and marketing have taken up most of my 36-year career at Hankook Tire, so even as chief executive I am basically still in my first job. When I was sent to Kuwait to explore for new customers in 1976, the biggest obstacle was that Hankook Tire was an unknown brand in the Middle East, Africa and the Gulf states.

We persuaded customers to use Hankook tires on a trial basis to see if the quality was good enough to sign a contract. As our "quality product and quality services" policy began to work, we came to have scores of freshwater pearl jewelry  customers who placed orders with Hankook from generation to generation. My biggest lesson at the time was that quality speaks.

At work, having a good senior is often a key to success. Han Hee-doo, who left the company in 1978 as general sales manager, taught me the way of working and about the proper attitude a sales manager should have, along with invaluable advice that has sustained me for 30 years.

WSJ: What was your toughest managerial decision?

Mr. Suh: It is always hard for a manager to make decisions that are correct as well as timely at critical junctures. In the face of the current economic downturn, I recently ordered the shutdown of domestic plants for a couple of days to keep inventory low, and to build up the stock  pearl jewelry wholesale  of snow tires made at our Hungary plant to meet possible demand this winter. Managers shouldn't avoid making a timely decision, even if it seems risky at the time.

I follow basic rules in decision-making: to recall products if the quality does not meet standards; to scrap products if the quality is in doubt and to diversify markets to cope with rapidly changing market conditions. What I experienced in sales and marketing tells me how essential it is for an export-oriented company to diversify its customer base.

For example, the recent U.S. move to impose additional tariffs on tires produced in China will have little impact on Hankook's plants in China because they have alternative markets. I would cite market diversification as a key achievement that I and my colleagues have made in factories, marketing and other departments.

WSJ: What is the greatest challenge in your industry and how do you keep ahead of the competition?

Mr. Suh: We expect demand for Hankook products to continue to increase, and based on demand will expand overseas production facilities to cut logistics costs and customs duties and allow faster delivery. In addition to a new investment of 230 million euros ($330 million) in the existing Hungary plant during the next two years, we are looking for sites to build our  loose pearl  sixth and seventh plants in Southeast Asia and North America. Our domestic capacity will remain the same.

We will customize products to satisfy local customers' needs. For example, tires that stand up to the high speeds that Germans are accustomed to on their autobahn, and tires that guarantee comfort despite tough road conditions for South Koreans.

To help strengthen brand awareness of Hankook tires, the company will continue to increase supplies of original equipment, or OE, tires to the world's leading car makers. Brand recognition through OE tires will push up sales in replacement equipment, or RE, tire markets. OE tires supplied in large volumes to auto makers are less profitable than RE tires.

WSJ: Is there a difference between managing in Korea and the rest of the world?

Mr. Suh: Of course there is. If you work abroad, you have to thoroughly study the area and the people in order to sell tires. It takes time and energy. But once you recognize what tires they want, all you have to do is supply customers with quality products and quality after-sales services. In Korea, which is dominated by Hankook Tire, there seems to be little room to grow, but we will be quick to respond to customers' demands so we don't lose them to our home-grown and foreign rivals.

WSJ: What are the most important attributes of a good manager, particularly in the tire industry?

Mr. Suh: I would point to three things: the ability to make a quick and correct decision at difficult times, the ability to predict trends in the industry, and the ability to manage the work force effectively.

Particularly overseas, a manager shouldn't rely too heavily on data that show a certain market has major growth potential. He also needs to collect all possible hidden factors to determine what the market is all about. If labor disputes come up, managers have to gain access to the issue with principles, not with populism. Most of all, it is important to maintain communications in order to nip in the bud any misunderstandings or strikes.

And while management should help colleagues learn from mistakes, any negligence or intentional wrongdoing by them should be dealt with seriously and without fail.

WSJ: What do you wish every new employee knew?

Mr. Suh: Passion is the No. 1 must-have quality for recruits. We cannot ignore their academic backgrounds and working skills, but those without passion will lose the long-term race to their more-passionate peers. Reading books and keeping healthy are also must-have qualities.

WSJ: Are there any business books you recommend?

Mr. Suh: "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell [journalist, author, and staff writer for The New Yorker magazine]. Simplistically, he stresses not luck but a great amount of effort made celebrities such as Tiger Woods and Bill Gates rich. I see reflected in this book confirmation of Hankook Tire's guiding philosophy of seeking growth through efforts, not luck.

imes were when it was almost impossible to get China¡¯s view on world events. Occasionally, ¡°neibu¡± (internal circulation) memoirs or speeches would be leaked out and sinologists would spend hours studying them carefully. Since then, things have changed completely.

Over the past few months, there¡¯s been a veritable flood of memoirs by former leaders. After a bestselling book by former Premier Zhu Rongji, we now have the memoirs of former Foreign Minister inflatable slides  Tang Jiaxuan, who sheds light on a crucial phase in China¡¯s emergence on the world stage.

Tang, who was foreign minister from 1998 to 2003, has written a series of case studies on 11 major diplomatic events that occurred on his watch. The book is called ¡°Jin Yu Xu Feng¡± (¾¢Óêìã·ç) or ¡°Heavy Rains and Warm Breeze¡± that describe the ups and downs of international affairs. They include his role in changing Sino-Japanese relations, the four trips he took to the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war, China-Russia negotiations on Heixiazi Island ¨Ca key border-dispute issue¨C the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia and the collision of a Chinese and U.S. aircraft in the South China Sea.

For American readers, at least, the highlights are probably these latter two points. Most interestingly, in the cultured pearl jewelry  collision, which occurred in April 2001, the book describes how the U.S. eventually said it was ¡°very sorry¡±, a rare full apology, after initially only expressing ¡°concern.¡±

On the embassy bombing, another low point in US-China relations, Tang describes how diplomats tried to stitch back ties¨Ca delicate balancing act because many Chinese believe the attack was deliberate.

According to Dong Jianyong, director of the circulation department of the World Affair Press, which published Tang¡¯s book, sales have been brisk, reflecting ordinary Chinese people¡¯s interest in their freshwater pearl ring  country¡¯s foreign affairs. Dong said the first batch of 100,000 books came out on Dec. 4 and he expects all to be sold by year¡¯s end. Another 28,000 are being printed.