Archive for December, 2010

The Coast Guard will have the first woman superintendent of a military service academy at the helm of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy when classes convene next summer. The commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Bob Papp, has selected Rear Adm. Sandra L. Stosz, Coast Guard director of reserve and leadership, for the superintendent position.

“Rear Adm. Stosz has dedicated her career to developing professional Coast Guard men and women,” Papp said. “We are also extremely proud to be the first service with a woman at the helm of our academy.

“The Coast Guard has always led by allowing men and women equal access to all career fields and assignments.”

In her current position, Stosz is responsible for policy affecting the recruitment and training of more than 8,000 Coast Guard reserve members. She has also commanded the Coast Guard’s only recruit training center in Cape May, N.J. She will be the first and only female commander to head any of the nation’s five military academies.

“I am humbled by the prospect of taking over such an important position in our service and honored to be following Rear Adm. Burhoe,” Stosz said. “The school and officer corps have benefited in so many ways from Scott’s outstanding leadership and vision.”

Under the command of the current superintendent, Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe, the school was ranked as a top college by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and listed as the No. 1 college in the northeast by U.S. News and World Report. The school had five Fulbright and three Truman scholars during his tenure. Burhoe also improved the school’s diversity record, doubling the percentage of minority admissions from 12 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010.

“Rear Adm. Stosz is an excellent choice to succeed me as superintendent,” Burhoe said. “She has a distinguished record of service, and as a member of the board of trustees, understands the importance of continuing to move the academy forward on its current track.”

Burhoe is scheduled to retire July 1.

The Coast Guard Academy was established in 1876.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27271/

Military leaders and troops alike need more time at home between deployments to help diagnose and receive treatment for the “invisible” wounds of war such as post-traumatic stress, Army officials say.

“It affects everything. It affects the divorce rate. It affects substance abuse. It affects everything. And we’ve kind of taken our focus and shifted it to ensure that we’re getting at that,” Army Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army, said on ABC’s “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour.

“You want to get at these issues. We need more time at home before deployment,” Chiarelli said.

Complicating matters, the symptoms of post-traumatic stress take sometimes months or years to show. More research is needed to understand the brain and the effects of stress, Chiarelli said.

“I think we’re doing everything we possibly can to learn as much as we can about the brain. And that’s really the issue. It’s trying to understand the brain as well as we do the other organs in the body,” he said. “We just don’t know that much about the brain. We automatically assume so many times that a person who is in a blast has a concussion. Many times, they don’t have a concussion. Instead, they have post-traumatic stress.”

The Army has implemented new programs both in theater and at home to identify and treat those who show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, but there is still much to learn about the brain and how it responds to stress and treatment.

In Afghanistan, soldiers are now sent to resiliency centers after enduring a bomb blast.

If a soldier is in a vehicle that is damaged, within 15 meters of a blast, in a building with a blast or if they lose consciousness, they are given an initial medical evaluation and pulled from the fight for 24 hours.

“Sometimes the symptoms of concussion don’t display themselves for 24 hours. We give them a second evaluation and if they pass that, they in fact go back to duty. If they fail either one of those in that 24-hour period, they go to a resilience center where we rest them until the brain has had an opportunity to heal from that concussion,” Chiarelli said.

Before, the soldiers would have likely simply continued on duty.

“We had soldiers who knew that they’d had a concussion, knew that they had had their, quote, ‘bell rung,’ and they did nothing about it,” the general said.

Chiarelli said that treating the stress on the battlefield is more effective than waiting until the soldier returns from deployment for medical help.

“We know in treating PTS the closer you treat PTS to the event that occurs, the more likely you are to help that individual,” he said. “So much so that … if the event occurs in the morning, it’s very important that you bring the individual’s anxiety level down before they go to sleep that night, because in [rapid eye movement] sleep, something happens in the brain that causes an individual to remember that and make the PTS harder to treat.”

Once the soldier returns from combat, military leaders at Army installations work to identify those troops who engage in high-risk behaviors.

“What we see is a soldier who’s down range for 12 months in a very high adrenaline environment, where every single day, he or she finds themselves facing an enemy. And they come home, and many times, want to replicate that,” Chiarelli said.

“We’re looking at programs that, first of all, ensure that we are identifying early on those who are going to have a rough time reintegrating. And then taking soldiers and putting them in high-stress kind of events that are safe for them, such as water rafting and out doing those kind of sports to burn off that adrenaline, rather than getting on a motorcycle and traveling down the road at 100 miles an hour without a helmet on,” he said.

The general said he briefs the leadership of every brigade combat team before deployment on the effects of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress and needed treatment.

Also, Chiarelli added, the Army works closely with Veterans Affairs to ensure soldiers leaving the service understand their ongoing treatment options.

“You know, the problem with post-traumatic stress is that in the United States, the National Institute of Mental Health will tell you, for regular civilians, it is 12 years between the initiating event and when someone first seeks help,” he said. “Now the issue there isn’t that they finally seek help. It’s all the things that happen in between.”

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27273/

Savannah founder Gen. James Oglethorpe was played by Staff Sgt. Gerard Brown. With Brown are, from left, Robert Banks, Chipa Wolfe, Patrick and Stephen McKinney, Eric Tedder and Phil Jones, all re-enactors from the Historical Society of Georgia. The group helped members of the Georgia Army and Air National Guard, the air base, and local, state and federal government officials celebrate the National Guard’s 374th birthday at Clay National Guard Center in Marietta.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27275/

A new recruitment site for the Army now serves as the employment portal for Army positions worldwide. Army Civilian Service baby boomers will be retiring en masse over the next 10 years. To attract the “best and brightest” next generation workforce, a focused enterprise-wide recruitment strategy required the development of a dot com website to promote the Army as an employer of choice. The Army Civilian Service website http://www.armycivilianservice.com establishes an Army civilian web presence to increase prospective employees understanding of and motivation to join the Army civilian team.

Futch graduates

from basic

Navy Seaman Recruit Vanessa L. Futch, daughter of William and stepdaughter of Jana Palmer of Plano, Texas, and daughter of Tina and stepdaughter of James Guest of Fleming, recently completed U.S. Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill.

Futch is a 2008 graduate of Bradwell Institute.

Navy Seaman Apprentice Justin L. Taylor, brother of Christopher W. Taylor of Ludowici, recently completed U.S. Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill.

Taylor is a 2010 graduate of Long County High School in Ludowici.

Navy Seaman Whitney A. Phillips, daughter of Dorothy L. Herrod of Hinesville and Marvin E. Phillips, of Cameron, N.C., recently completed U.S. Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill., with honors.

Phillips is a 2010 graduate of Bradwell Institute.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27157/

The Department of Defense last week released the 2011 Basic Allowance for Housing rates, which take effect Jan. 1. While overall rates will decrease an average of 0.59 percent, because of the individual rate protection provision, the average change service members will see is a 1.1 percent increase.

Individual rate protection ensures that individuals already assigned to a given location will not see their BAH rate decrease, though they will receive the increase if the rate goes up. This assures that members who have made long-term commitments in the form of a lease or contract are not penalized if the area’s housing costs decrease. Any decreases only apply to members newly reporting to a location.

A typical junior enlisted member with dependents will find his/her BAH about $39 per month higher than last year, while a senior non-commissioned officer with dependents will receive about the same amount as last year.

Three components are included in the BAH computation: median current market rent; average utilities (including electricity, heat and water/sewer) and average renter’s insurance.

Total housing costs are calculated for six housing profiles (based on dwelling type and number of bedrooms) in each military housing area. BAH rates are then calculated for each pay grade, both with and without dependents. An estimated $19 billion will be paid to more than one million service members in 2011.

For more information, go to www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/bah.cfm.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27207/

GLEN ROSE, TEXAS — Bucking broncos, eight-second rides and horses racing around barrels are commonplace at rodeos. During the 2010 Professional Armed Forces Rodeo Association World Finals, however, another element was involved.

A Hinesville family competed alongside more than 40 service members, retirees, honorably discharged veterans and dependents at the finals in the Somerville County Expo Center.

Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer 3 Gary Arnold and his two daughters, Courtney and Ashley, of Hinesville, participated in various rodeo events.

The 15 PAFRA members with the highest scores at the end of the season in their respective event were eligible to compete in the world finals, which ranged from team roping to chute dogging.

“I started in rodeo in 2004. After about six months it came to a halt for a one- year tour in Iraq. I team roped, calf roped and chute dogged,” said Gary Arnold, a 1980 graduate of Bradwell Institute.

“My involvement with rodeo is barrel racing. This weekend I am riding Hank, our gray horse that we have had since we began riding horses nine years ago,” Courtney Arnold said.

“In rodeo, I am an all-around cowgirl. Where women usually compete in barrel racing, I team rope (head and heal), calf rope, breakaway, barrels and all five-speed events,” Ashley Arnold said.

Every service member, retiree, military dependent, Defense Department civilian or veteran who was honorably discharged is eligible to join PAFRA.

“I am currently in the Georgia Army National Guard with 30 years and climbing. I am the senior automotive maintenance technician with Company B, 348th Brigade Support Battalion in Hinesville,” Gary Arnold said.

Each competitor logs countless hours practicing and participating in rodeos around the world to qualify for the world finals.

“The training involved in barrel racing requires hard work and exercising the horses almost every day to keep them in shape. I have to go through practicing every day so I don’t have to worry about my horse or messing up the barrel pattern whenever we do get to a rodeo,” Courtney Arnold said.

“On a normal routine of practicing, we ride four to five days a week, depending on when our next show is. Usually we try and just ride on trails outside of the arena to help keep the horses from getting bored of doing their job,” Ashley Arnold. “We try not to ride the horses the day before and the day after a competition.”

Many of the PAFRA cowboys and cowgirls have been involved with rodeos most of their lives.

“I hadn’t owned or ridden a horse in 25 years. But when I got activated and sent to Bosnia for a six month rotation, I promised my girls that I would buy them a horse on my return. That’s what started the ball bouncing,” Gary said.

“Dad was a huge help in getting our family involved in the rodeo world. I started off at little hometown shows being ecstatic to just place 10th out of 10. But after practice, hard work and dedication, I have won two saddles, 16 buckles, seven halters, plus numerous trophies and ribbons over the 10 years I have been competing,” Ashley Arnold said.

“My dad and sister got me involved in riding. When he got back from Bosnia, we took riding lessons at a local stable. Since then I have won four state trophies, one belt buckle and over 200 ribbons in nine years of riding. Right now, I am in the lead for a barrel racing saddle at a local rodeo,” Courtney Arnold said.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27209/

The deadline for eligible service members, veterans and their beneficiaries to apply for Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay has been extended to March 4, allowing personnel more time to apply for the benefits they’ve earned under the program guidelines.

The deadline extension is included in the continuing resolution signed by President Obama last week, providing funding for federal government operations through March 4.

“There was a surge of applicants as we approached our earlier deadline, but there may still be more out there who have yet to apply,” said Lernes Hebert, director of Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management. “We are pleased that this extension was included in the continuing resolution which will give those remaining the opportunity to apply as we continue to work through the current applications.”

The RSLSP was established to compensate for the hardships military members encountered when their service was involuntarily extended under Stop Loss Authority between Sept. 11, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2009. Eligible members or their beneficiaries may submit a claim to their respective military service in order to receive the benefit of $500 for each full or partial month served in a Stop Loss status.

When RSLSP began Oct. 21, 2009, the services estimated 145,000 service members, veterans and beneficiaries were eligible for this benefit. Because the majority of those eligible had separated from the military, the services have engaged in outreach efforts over the past 14 months. Outreach efforts including direct mail, engaging military and veteran service organizations, social networks and media outlets, will continue through March 4.

To apply or for more information on RSLSP, including submission requirements and service-specific links, go to http://www.defense.gov/stoploss.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27211/

FORT STEWART — The 188th Infantry Brigade of First Army Division East ensured the proper demobilization of soldiers of the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team as they arrived back in the U.S. from their deployment to the Middle East.
As the demobilization began, Gen. James D. Thurman, commanding general, U.S. Army Forces Command, arrived to discuss demobilization and redeployment operations with Maj. Gen. Mick Bednarek, commanding general of First Army Division East and Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, commanding general of the 3rd Infantry Division. 
While here, Thurman assured Lt. Col. Bobby Roach, executive officer, 53rd IBCT, that all 53rd  soldiers would be given the time they needed to complete the demobilization process.
During their meeting, Bednarek emphasized the partnership that existed between First Army and the 3rd Infantry Division, enabling them to integrate returning forces from 53rd IBCT and 3rd ID into facilities on Fort Stewart during the same time period.
He also discussed First Army’s concept of focused soldier care as a means of providing individualized administrative, medical and behavioral health care to returning citizen-soldiers.
He said demobilization flowed smoothly for the soldiers of the 53rd IBCT, owed in large part to the coordination between the leadership of the 53rd and the demobilization team, which consisted of the 188th Infantry Brigade, Winn Army Community Hospital and the Mobilization Operations Center.
“The biggest take away from the demobilization was that everyone came together to work the issues before they became problems,” said Lt. Col. Pete Kaye, 53rd IBCT rear detachment commander. “Everyone focused on the goal and made it work; that goal being to get the 53rd IBCT soldiers home, while still maintaining standards of care set for the demobilization.”
As part of the focused soldier care concept, more than 170 ready reserve soldiers not returning to a National Guard unit were assigned a nurse case manager from Winn to make sure that any deployment-related medical needs not treated at Fort Stewart were met in their home states.
“Meeting the commitment to provide focused soldier care is our number one priority throughout the demobilization,” said Col. Robert A. Warburg, commander of the 188th Infantry Brigade, which facilitated the 53rd IBCT’s demobilization.
The majority of the 53rd IBCT soldiers completed demobilization Dec. 22 and departed Fort Stewart either the same day or the following day. Most of the brigade should be home by today.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/27119/

Wreaths for Warriors Walk is currently purchasing wreaths in preparation for its annual wreath laying ceremony at noon Saturday, Dec. 11. The cost to sponsor one wreath is $15.
Warriors Walk is a memorial on Fort Stewart that borders Cottrell Field on two sides and consists of three sidewalks and more than 430 eastern redbud trees. Each tree represents a 3rd Infantry Division soldier who died in the line of duty. A granite marker identifies each soldier. Family and friends may visit the memorials and leave flowers, photographs or mementos.
Wreaths for Warriors Walk is a local nonprofit organization comprised of Fort Stewart employees, veterans and local volunteers. The group, founded three years ago, places holiday wreaths at each of the trees along Warriors Walk. Several thousand family members, friends and comrades of fallen soldiers have attended the yearly ceremonies. The local wreath laying ceremony coincides with the national wreath laying ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery.
To sponsor a wreath and pay online using PayPal, go to www.w4ww.org or send a check payable to Warriors Walk to Wreaths for Warriors Walk, c/o Anthony Justi, P.O. Box 3533, Fort Stewart, GA 31315. For more information, e-mail wreaths4warriorswalk@yahoo.com.

Article source: http://beta.coastalcourier.com/section/35/article/26549/