By Kevin Baron
Published: July 31, 2010
When legendary CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour announced she was hanging up her globetrotting foreign correspondent boots to sit behind the table at ABC's This Week, there was much chatter that the show, she, and certainly CNN would not be served well by the move.
She's too serious. Too international. Too heady.
Sunday talk is too petty. Too domestic. Too partisan.
By Megan McCloskey
Published: July 30, 2010
A recent academic study suggests that individual supervisors may be the reason why fewer black and Hispanic sailors get promoted to the ranks of noncommissioned officers than their white counterparts. From 1997 to 2008, the Navy promoted 34 percent of whites and 29 percent of other races to E-4 through E-6, according to the examination of data provided by the Navy.
The researchers found the Navy itself does a good job at making the promotion process objective, relying mostly on test scores, time served, awards and education. But one aspect is quite subjective: the supervisor evaluation. It’s there, the study found, that racial discrimination might be influencing decisions.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 29, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert Gates today promised a full investigation into how 91,000 pages of sensitive military documents were posted on WikiLeaks.org, bringing in the FBI and Justice Department officials to help with the inquiry. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Muke Mullen went even further, saying the breach may have endangered the lives of U.S. troops and Afghan allies.
But site founder Julian Assange has defended the release, saying he wants to "produce positive reform" through the move. He insists the move isn't designed to endanger anyone, but to shed light on exactly what is happening in the war in Afghanistan. And he notes his group withheld about 15,000 of the reports in order to protect informants whose lives could be jeopardized by the release.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 29, 2010
The House last night overwhelmingly passed (411 to 6) its veterans and military construction budget plan which would boost funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs to more than $120 billion for fiscal 2011, a jump of more than $11 billion from this year's levels.
Much of that increase is tied up medical care for veterans; Veterans Health Administration officials estimates they will treat more than 6.1 million patients in 2011, including more than 439,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The VA also will pay out potentially millions more in Agent Orange claims next year, after expanding the list of illnesses linked to the Vietnam War chemical defoliant late last fall.
By Jeff Schogol
Published: July 28, 2010
With the end of the retroactive stop-loss pay program less than three months away, it is clear that the services have still not figured out a way to reach everyone who is eligible for the compensation.
Troops who were stop-lossed between September 2001 and September 2008 are eligible for $500 for each month they were kept beyond their initial separation date. The program ends on Oct. 21.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 28, 2010
Only about 10 percent of the 400,000 "don't ask, don't tell" surveys sent out three weeks ago have been returned, and Pentagon officials are lobbying troops to fill out the rest before the Aug. 15 deadline set for the research.
The survey, featuring more than 100 questions on perceptions of troops’ morale and behavior before and after a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, is designed to give a Defense Department working group a better sense of servicemembers’ concerns about allowing openly gay troops in the ranks. Originally, researchers had planned on contacting only 200,000 troops with the survey, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates doubled that number to get a broader range of reactions.
By Jeff Schogol
Published: July 27, 2010
Gang – The last time I wrote about stop-loss pay, people were still having problems with the Army’s program. Knowing that it’s such a hot-button issue,
I’m asking for your questions BEFORE I talk to officials. One of those will be Army Maj. Roy Whitley, who is in charge of the Army’s compensation program. Whitley has been oft quoted in my blogs, so Wednesday’s roundtable will be the stop-loss equivalent of a Beatles reunion.
By Kevin Baron
Published: July 27, 2010
Since Marine Corps General James Mattis got the nod from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to postpone his retirement and take over Central Command, a few reporters pointed out that Mattis is a highly-respected military leader with a history of verbal gaffes.
Thought bubble: Isn’t that how we got here in the first place?
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 27, 2010
Senate leaders are still awaiting a reply from Army Secretary John McHugh on a letter they sent last week asking for the rationale behind not punishing three officers for their mistakes leading up to the deadly July 2008 battle in Wanat. Nine U.S. soldiers were killed in that firefight and 27 more wounded, one of the bloodiest clashes of the Afghanistan war.
An initial investigation into the tragedy found that the company, battalion and brigade commanders were “derelict in the performance of their duties through neglect or culpable inefficiency.” Army officials initially issued letters of reprimand to three officers for their role in poor planing and supervision of the remote outpost, but last month annulled all three letters following further review.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 26, 2010
This time last year, officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs were scrambling to finalize their payout systems for the first wave of post-9/11 GI Bill recipients, but were confident the program would be ready in time for the start of classes. Two months later, they were apologizing for massive delays in tuition payments, missing housing stipends and growing anger among student veterans.
One year later, many of those problems have been corrected, but they system is still far from perfect. The Military Times last week reported that more than 150,000 students may have been shortchanged on their housing stipends since January because of a mistake in updating the department's records.
By Megan McCloskey
Published: July 23, 2010
Second Lady Jill Biden, stumped today at the Military Child Education Coalition Conference, promoting the government's push to make school systems more military-family friendly.
Biden, who also teaches English at Northern Virginia Community College, touted how the Department of Education and the Department of Defense are working together to "make sure we offer quality education options for all military kids" by collecting data and doing research about their schools.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 22, 2010
The Department of Veterans Affairs late yesterday approved $2.8 million in new research spending to fund three separate projects designed to find new treatments for "illnesses affecting veterans who served in the Gulf War 1990-1991.
The move comes at the urging of the department’s own Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses Task Force, which 20 years after the war is still looking for answers to the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome which has affected tens of thousands of veterans from that war. About 697,000 troops served in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, more than a third suffer from a collection of chronic symptoms such as fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, cognitive dysfunction, persistent headaches, and respiratory conditions.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 20, 2010
It's not the most likely prescription for veterans already suffering from paranoia and emotional imbalance, but a group of researchers with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in California are suggesting that 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (better known as Ecstasy) could prove valuable in helping combat vets in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The study, which tracked only 20 patients, found veterans using Ecstasy were more receptive to counseling sessions than those on a placebo. Researchers said the effect was "immediate" and had "no evidence of impaired cognitive function as measured by neuropsychological testing."
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 19, 2010
Late last week the Uniform Law Commission announced passage of its Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act, designed to act as a model for states to update their election policies to make them more user-friendly with overseas voters (including military deployed in foreign countries).
The document is simply a recommendation for state officials -- individual state legislatures would still have to approve the ideas before any changes will occur -- but voting rights groups praised the move as a common-sense step. In a statement, the Pew Center on the States said the model will "make it easier for those who defend and represent our nation’s democratic ideals around the world to participate in our democracy here at home."
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 19, 2010
Vice President Joe Biden, known within the White House as a proponent for scaling back U.S. operations in Afghanistan, spent Sunday talking about how a drawdown of American forces there may not happen as quickly as some Democrats have hoped.
"Everybody signed onto not a deadline, but a transition, a beginning of a transition,” Biden said told ABC in an interview this weekend. "It could be as few as a couple thousand troops. It could be more. But there will be a transition.”
By Jeff Schogol
Published: July 16, 2010
It is a journalism cliché that media are supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, so it may come as a surprise that 22 media groups have sided with a hate group against the father of a fallen Marine.
The Westboro Baptist Church pickets servicemembers’ funerals because it believes that troops’ deaths (as well as the West Virginia coal mine disaster, the Gulf oil spill, and pretty much any other tragedy) are divine revenge for the United States’ tolerance of gays and lesbians. At the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died in Iraq in 2006, church members were nearby with signs that said “God hates you,” “You’re in hell,” and “Semper Fi fags.” They also distributed fliers with Snyder’s picture on it that read “Burial of an Ass.”
By Megan McCloskey
Published: July 15, 2010
More soldiers killed themselves last month than any other month on record. There were 21 active-duty and 11 reserve soldier suicides in June, including seven in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army reported on Thursday.
The news came just weeks after Gen. Peter Chiarelli told Congress that the Army was encouraged by a 30 percent drop in suicides among active-duty soldiers this year compared to last year at this time. Although he said there was more to do, he thought the decrease showed the Army's prevention efforts were working.
By Kevin Baron
Published: July 15, 2010
A new poll finds active duty personnel who have deployed to either war report nearly the same “wellbeing levels” as those who have not. And those in military are "thriving" better than the general population.
But veterans tell a different story.
“Active duty military personnel who have ever been deployed to a foreign war have strikingly similar wellbeing levels as active duty personnel who have never been deployed," Gallup writes. There is a slight dip for those who went overseas, but Gallup stresses the nearly identical score, not the difference.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 14, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill yesterday in an effort to pick up support for the stalled $33 billion war supplemental budget. If the measure isn't passed by August, he warned, it could mean delays in troops' paychecks and equipment purchases.
The August deadline is at least the third set by the Pentagon in its funding fight with Congress; in February Gates said the money had to be approved by Memorial Day to prevent funding problems within the department, and last month he warned financial officials would have to do "stupid things" if the money weren't made available by July 4.
By Kevin Baron
Published: July 13, 2010
Carol Rosenberg is back in Guantanamo. And she Tweets.
The Pentagon’s second-in-command for media operations, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Bryan Whitman, has canceled the lifetime bans on covering GTMO trials for three of four reporters, including the Miami Herald’s Rosenberg.
Rosenberg is among the most prolific Gitmo reporters. But she and three Canadian reporters covering the military commission of detainee and Canadian national Omar Khadr were banned for life after violating courtroom rules in May.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 13, 2010
Yesterday the VA officially unveiled changes in its rules on post-traumatic stress disorder claims, easing the standards for proof for veterans claiming to have experienced a traumatic event. In his weekly radio address president Barack Obama called the move "a long-overdue step ... that proves America will always be here for our veterans, just as they’ve been there for us."
Veterans groups hailed the change as well; the VFW said "to no longer require veterans to relive their nightmares in great detail is a very positive step forward for veterans of all generations." But some questioned why the department still insists that PTSD diagnoses come from VA physicians only, noting that in many cases veterans can get quicker and better treatment from private doctors.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 9, 2010
Officials from the Palm Center, a gay rights research arm of the University of California, today released a copy of the 100-plus question "don't ask, don't tell" survey being sent to 400,000 servicemembers. A copy of those questions is linked at the end of this post.
Defense Department officials have maintained that the goal of the survey is to gauge possible problems or confusion with plans to repeal the controversial 1993 law, but not to provide opposition to such a move. At a press conference Thursday Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said the law "needs to be changed" regardless of what the survey shows.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 9, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert Gates had a direct message for closeted gay troops at his Pentagon press conference Thursday: Please, please participate in our survey.
“I strongly encourage gays and lesbians who are in the military to fill out these forms,” Gates said after a reporter asked about the effort to poll more than 400,000 troops about how a “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal might affect them. “We've organized this in a way to protect their privacy and the confidentiality of their responses through a third party, and it's important that we hear from them as well as everybody else.”
By Jeff Schogol
Published: July 8, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured reporters on Thursday that he still does not view the press as the enemy.
His comments were in response to the media’s anger about a recent memo he sent requiring top commanders to get approval from the Pentagon for interviews “or any other means of media and public engagement with possible national or international implications” – in other words, damn near everything.
By Jeff Schogol
Published: July 8, 2010
The Afghan government has approved an extra $50 per month for the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police in an attempt to reduce attrition, said Col. John Ferrari, of NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan.
Known by its acronym ANCOP, the civil order police move around the country to serve in districts until a local police force is recruited and trained. Despite being touted as the best of the best, ANCOP personnel reportedly suffer from the same problems of corruption and drug abuse as local Afghan cops.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 8, 2010
Defense Department officials e-mailed their long-awaited "don't ask, don't tell" survey to about 400,000 servicemembers Wednesday afternoon in an effort to better gauge how troops will react to an impending repeal of the ban on openly gay troops in the ranks. Half of the group is active-duty troops, while the rest were sent to guard and reserve e-mails.
Pentagon officials would not release details of the lengthy survey to reporters, saying they did not want to influence troops' reactions to the questions. Military Times released details of an earlier draft of the survey Wednesday night, noting that the questions focused heavily on how working alongside openly gay troops would affect teamwork, individual performance, mission completion and overall morale.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 7, 2010
Officials at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network are demanding the Secretary of the Navy step in before a senior enlisted sailor dubbed the ringleader of the hazing scandal at the Navy’s Military Working Dog Division in Bahrain is allowed to retire quietly and at full pay.
Last fall Senior Chief Petty Officer Michael Toussaint was removed from his leadership post within Naval Special Warfare Group 2 and forced into a retirement track after a two-year investigation confirmed 93 instances of hazing and sex crimes inside the canine unit during Toussaint’s tenure as commander, from 2004 to 2006. That included crimes against former Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Rocha, who was suspected to be gay and was forced by superiors to simulate oral sex on other men.
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 6, 2010
Most of the news focus on Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Iraq this weekend focused on his efforts to broker a deal between political factions whose infighting has stalled the seating of a new government there. But Biden also had a message for U.S. troops still in the country: mission accomplished.
"I said last August of this year that we will have achieved two goals," he told troops at a naturalization ceremony on Sunday. "We will have helped Iraq’s leaders set the conditions for a sovereign, stable and self-reliant nation for future generations of Iraqis within a year, and we will have ended our combat mission here after more than seven years. And I’m proud to report that because of you, and tens of thousands of our sons and daughters, including our son, we’ve made good on that promise."
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 2, 2010
Pew Research Center this week reports that 84 percent of U.S. citizens surveyed are proud to live in America (14 percent said they were indifferent or ashamed), a number that has remained remarkably consistent over the last decade.
Since January 2001, the figure has hovered between 81 and 92 percent, even as political power has shifted dramatically in Washington D.C. from Democrats to Republicans and back again.
The study also notes that 59 percent of Americans display the flag at their home or office. But does that make someone patriotic? What about challenging our country’s leaders? Or voting? In a time when politicians risk accusations of being unpatriotic if they don’t wear a flag pin on their lapel, has the word “patriotic” become less meaningful?
By Leo Shane III
Published: July 2, 2010
A $6 million pilot program funding veterans centers on college campuses could be the first step in correcting dismal graduation rates among former servicemembers.
This week, the Department of Education announced a pilot program to fund 19 campus veterans centers, offering assistance with GI Bill payments, VA health services, and combat-to-college transitions. The pilot, approved by Congress last year, will fund the offices for at least three years.
By Kevin Baron
Published: July 1, 2010
The Pentagon has delayed the expected June announcement of a joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise, a spokesman said, just weeks ahead of a cabinet-level U.S. delegation visit to Seoul.
The decision comes as U.S. commanders try to set up new talks with North Korea counterparts.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman had said an announcement on the exercise would occur in late June, but on Thursday he told reporters he no longer has a crystal ball on the event, perhaps not until the end of month. “I amended the last part of June to now July. I expanded the window,” he said, “...leaving open always the possibility that on the 31st of July it could be [delayed further into] August.”
