* By Thom Shanker New York Times *

It is a morbid theme, but one that no superpower can ignore. So the Obama administration has quietly reviewed, and revised, the sequence in which Pentagon civilian officials would take command should Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates die unexpectedly, say in a surprise attack.

An executive order published without fanfare this month does away with a system for Pentagon succession instituted by former President George W. Bush, which played down the service secretaries and elevated positions held at the time by trusted aides to Donald H. Rumsfeld, who as defense secretary wanted it that way.

These plans governing Pentagon succession are intended to guarantee civilian control of the military during a doomsday situation, like a nuclear strike or a terrorist attack, when the defense secretary could be taken out of action at the moment when war-fighting decisions must be made. The Bush order, issued in December 2005, continued the traditional sequence of the deputy defense secretary as next in line. But it booted the Army secretary out of the No. 3 slot in the order of succession, in favor of the under secretary of defense for intelligence.

The intelligence position was a new job, held by Stephen A. Cambone, a longtime Rumsfeld adviser who had worked with the defense secretary on many policy issues, including missiles, space, proliferation and weapons acquisition.

Senior Pentagon officials said the change was to ensure that the No. 3 in line would be someone with a wider area of expertise and experience, rather than the Army secretary, whose focus is on the ground forces.

Yet even top Rumsfeld aides acknowledged at the time that the decision had dual motivations: It was an official affirmation of their trust in Mr. Cambone’s experience and intellect — and a slap at the Army’s leadership at the time.

Read more at New York Times

But we have a National shame on our hands here. 

Immigrant Veterans are being deported from the adopted country they love, discarded after answering the call of duty in defense of liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.   We ask them to join our Military and stand for our principles and they do so with great pride.  They deserve the highest respect awarded, period!

Promises made that America would honor their service, provide a permanent home, and a path to citizenship, were utterly broken.  This is a national disgrace.   It must be reversed.  Human dignity and respect must be the hallmark of who are as a nation; not this!

We need to tell Congress that our nation’s veteran’s deserve better; that all immigrant veteran’s must be recognized as nationals of the United States, and to stop the deportation of Veterans immediately.

Change.org has created a huge petiton drive.  I kindly please ask you to sign the petition to send a letter to your representatives and to the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Click Here to Sign Petition: http://immigration.change.org/actions/view/stop_the_deportation_of_immigrant_military_veterans

Rethink Afghanistan [click here] is related to the article I posted mentioning “Operation Moshtarak”, called Marja, Afghanistan: Pentagon Propaganda taken to new heights!

Derrick Crowe, Robert Greenwald and the Brave New Foundation team remind us that the military-industrial complex has a well-oiled message machine. Just look at their latest video: despite killing more civilians in Marjah, Afghanistan, than the insurgents, the Pentagon is furiously spinning Operation Moshtarak as a move to “protect the people.”

As Peace activist plan to rally in Chicago, LA, San Francisco, and Washington, DC grassroots groups that were instrumental in getting Democrats elected to Congress and the Obama campaign for President are now united in an effort to show that there is very little difference between Republicans and Democrats in the Congress or White House.

Posted by Robert L. Hanafin, Staff Writer, Veterans Today News

Become a Facebook Fan of Rethink Afghanistan and Beat the Pentagon presence on FACEBOOK.

The military-industrial complex has a well-oiled message machine. Just look at the Pentagon’s latest video: despite killing more civilians in Marjah, Afghanistan, than the insurgents, the Pentagon is furiously spinning Operation Moshtarak as a move to “protect the people.”The film makers at Brave New Films via Rethink Afghanistan are working to counteract the Defense Industry propaganda machine every day, especially when it comes to the bloody, costly Afghanistan war.

Rethink Afghanistan [click here]

But, they need our help. Can you forward this video to three of your friends?

On Facebook, Rethink Afghanistan is taking the Pentagon on directly. Right now, the Defense Department has 22,157 fans. Rethink Afghanistan has 14,440. They are throwing down the gauntlet to the Pentagon, and they want to beat them. If you’re on Facebook, please become a fan and suggest us to your friends.

As Congress moves closer to this year’s fight on war funding, Rethink Afghanistan and other progressive grassroots organizations need all of us with them.

Your activism will be essential to bringing this war to a close,

Sincerely,
Derrick Crowe, Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Foundation team

Sometimes he could see the body. Sometimes he could smell the body. Sometimes he first heard the flies.

And when he located a fellow, fallen Marine on Iwo Jima, rifleman Jack Cole and another boy — really, they were boys; Cole had turned 18 only a month earlier — would lift them onto “stretchers so badly soiled they could no longer be used to transport wounded men,” he says.

“You know what a Jackson Pollock painting looks like?”

They worked without gloves, face masks or body bags, loading the corpses onto a truck, stacking them in two layers.

Cole, now 83 and a part-time Boca Raton resident, served 31 days on Iwo Jima — that desolate speck of Pacific island, all black sand, craggy hills, sulfur pits, and caves, tunnels and pillboxes concealing the enemy.

This is how the retired manufacturing engineer now measures the results of that assault, which lasted 37 days in February and March of 1945:

“If you took their 21,000 dead, if you took the 6,000 or 7,000 dead that we had, if you laid them out on Iwo Jima … you could make a carpet of bodies that would be almost 15 feet wide and about 3 miles long, and you could walk from one end of the island to the other on those bodies, without touching the soil.

“That’s what happened there.”

What happened there — and on Guadalcanal and Peleliu and Okinawa — is the subject of The Pacific, a 10-part miniseries that begins on March 14 at 9 on HBO. Produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, who also collaborated on the WWII epics Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, the miniseries dramatizes the Pacific campaign through the real-life stories of three Marines.

Read more at pbpulse.com

Veterans gathering to celebrate a Veterans Appreciation Day Anniversary marking the gift of a large parcel of Los Angeles land by Senator John P. Jones (R-Nevada, 1873 -1903)  and Arcadia B. de Baker in the 19th century for the permanent care of veterans had their commemoration met with a chain and a padlock.

The incident is the latest development in the fight that pits the Los Angeles VA administration and national VA police against Los Angeles-area veterans who protest the private, for-profit use of land that was deeded to the public care of veterans after the Civil War.

The national Dept of Veterans Affairs has thus far refused communication with the growing group of veterans who have protested every Sunday for some 100 straight weeks. Below is a letter sent from one veteran to General Eric K. Shinseki ( USA Ret.), Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs. At the bottom of this article are pictures from Veterans Appreciation Day held outside the VA land.

General Eric K. Shinseki ( USA Ret.)
Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs
Washington , D.C.

Greetings!

That should have been the message yesterday to those who planned on attending “Veterans Appreciation Day” and the 122nd Anniversary celebration of the Land Grant Deed of 1888.

That should have been the message extended by the Los Angeles VA administration and VA police to the members of Chapter 13 of the Disabled American Veterans who hosted the event.

Instead, the message was … LOCKED OUT! … DISABLED VETERANS NOT WELCOME!

That is precisely what your Department of Veterans Affairs intentionally executed yesterday.

The main entry gate into the VA on Eisenhower Avenue adjacent to where we planned to hold the event was chained and padlocked, even though it was open earlier in the morning for the ‘church of the good shepherd’ services.

Even as we stood outside the locked gates, a VA policeman drove by twice and refused to stop and help.

Leaders of Chapter 13 of the American Disabled Veterans drove approximately a half-mile to the entryway on Wilshire, and then to the site where we have held this event the previous two years … and the gates were always open for this annual event.

The DAV leaders approached two VA police squad cars and two officers, who were observing us on the outside.

One of the DAV leaders who drove inside, Sam Cardova, an 80 year-old Disabled Korean War Marine Combat Veteran, asked why the gates were locked and the VA police said that the DAV did not request to have them open.

What a crock of crap that is General!

The response by VA police does not even merit further discussion. The facts are very clear and succinct: Your Department is guilty of discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other vile and evil actions against America ’s Military Veterans at the largest VA in the nation.

On Friday, asset management tried to cancel this already approved event by saying that the DAV’sinsurance was not satisfactory with the VA. And when proven otherwise, the VA had to reluctantly relinquish their hold on the event.

General, your Department has worked overtime to try and destroy this event and they did a good job of it. Yesterday was a disgraceful display of intentional cruelty and injustice promoted and provoked by your  LA VA bureaucrats.

Even God was on our side by lifting several days of rain so that we could hold the event as scheduled, but your VA bureaucrats locked us out!

Eventually one VA police officer opened a parking lot so we could hold the event on blacktop because of the soggy grass and gopher holes. This would allow Veterans in wheelchairs and walking with canes to navigate more safely.  He still would not open the Eisenhower entry gate less than 25 feet from where he was standing.

Moreover, the VA refused to allow Disabled Veterans and all other Veterans and attendees to use the restrooms of building 220, where asset management has its headquarters.  Said building is less than 100 feet from where we held our event.

The VA police refused to open the side gate during the entire time of our scheduled event, and the attendees had no knowledge how to get into the event.

The Commander of DAV Chapter 13 hung a banner to notify the attendees of the event, and was ordered by the VA police to remove it. Still, the VA police refused to open the entry gate less than 50 feet from the DAV banner.

The VA’s refusal to open the standard entry gates forced our attendance to be much smaller than anticipated, which is precisely what your Department wanted to achieve … so be sure and promote them and give them all pay raises.

Following below are a few of the photos that depict what happened. There’s video coverage as well that really tells the story, including 87 year-old World War II Veteran Steve Palmer parking his van on the outside and struggling to maneuver through a pedestrian gate in his wheel chair.

As you know, the Deed we were celebrating yesterday specifically declares that this land is …”to be permanently maintained as a National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers.” As you also know, yesterday’s event was hosted by Disabled American Veterans. This sacred land that was deeded for to benefit Disabled Veterans … seriously lacks handicap ramps on and off the sidewalks!

General, what has taken place these past two Sundays, not to mention endless confrontations theretofore, have defied everything of what America is all about and represents. In fact we’ve gone to war with countries who have treated their civilians far better than the way your Department treats Veterans.

While your VA police forcefully removed our American Flags from last week’s Sunday Rally, it comes as no surprise that these same VA police do not even have the American Flag patch on their right shoulder, like virtually all other forms of police and security do, including 7-Eleven security cops. Even our Active Duty Military wear the American Flag on their Uniforms.

Clearly, your Department is flagrantly anti-American and anti-Veteran!

However, I do not believe this is indicative of you in the slightest.  Nonetheless, so long as you allow this type of shameful conduct to continue … you will forever be linked to it.

General, this is to respectfully request that you do your Duty and clean house at the largest VA in the nation … posthaste.

There are 20,000 homeless Veterans in Los Angeles .

Sincerely,

Robert L. Rosebrock

Following are photos of the Los Angeles VA bureaucrats and VA police intentionally locking out Veterans and attendees to Veterans Appreciation Day for the Deed of 1888, hosted by Chapter 13 of American Disabled Veterans.

Disabled American Veteran van outside the Eisenhower Avenue entry

LOCKED OUT! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME!

Two Disabled Veterans in their 80s sit on back of van because the VA did not offer chairs for Disabled American Veterans who were hosting the event. In fact, the VA refused to let any Veteran use the restrooms to Building 220, where asset management is headquartered less than 100 feet away.

Sam Cardova in red jacket, an 80 year-old Disabled Korean War Marine Combat Veteran, confronts VA police and ask why the gates were locked, and the VA police responded that we didn’t request to have them open.

Disabled Veterans are “Locked Out” of the Los Angeles National Veterans Home … for Disabled Veterans!

I am aware that two war movies, “The Hurt Locker” and “The Messenger,” have received multiple nominations for the Academy Awards. Though I’ve enjoyed war movies in the past, I haven’t seen either of these.

I’ve stopped watching movies about our current wars for the same reason I don’t like recounting my scariest moments for voyeuristic friends.  I am protective of my memories and don’t want them crowded out.

People seem impatient when I choose to talk about playing volleyball with interpreters, drinking tea with warlords, training police, or dredging irrigation canals. It’s as if you lack authenticity if you talk about anything other than killing or being killed.

The expectation bores into your memory, and you struggle to distinguish how you felt from how you are expected to feel. Often, it feels easier to surrender to expectation. There is truth in what Isaac Babel wrote in his story, “My First Fee”: “A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.”

I feel the reality of my experiences seeping through my fingers as my own life tries with all its might to resemble one of two stories: that of hero or victim. I can be the hero who in the face of danger mustered all the old truths of the heart, or, and perhaps simultaneously, I can be a well-intentioned victim of circumstance forced to commune with death through the moral ambiguities of war.

Whatever a veteran’s faults, they are all excused with four simple words: I’ve been to war.

We roll out a red carpet for such victims. Whatever a veteran’s faults — irritability, boorishness, aloofness, alcoholism, drug use, self destruction — they are all excused with four simple words: I’ve been to war. For many, the effects are genuine, sure, and we should help them. I do not want to dismiss anyone’s suffering. I do, however, want to acknowledge the seductive power of the red carpet of victimhood, and life bending to resemble a well-crafted story.

Read more at The New York Times

The Gulf War Reunion

This one for all veterans that have served in the Gulf. From Desert Storm OIF and OEF. We all served in a place where there have been a lot of toxins around us.

We have lined up many things for you to do around the area. Six flags is close by. The WRIISC will be there to teach us how to get your doctor to better under stand TBI’s and GWI.

They will also let you know how to get to one of the three clinics for help.

THIS IS “BETWEEN US”

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

I just returned from the region after a REMF “combat tour” of my own, 5 star hotels, dozens of armed guards and “consultations” with tribal leaders in Afghanistan and “everyone” in Pakistan.  This qualifies me to be as pig headed as the “Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon” that are running the show.  I expect I will start talking out an entirely new orifice any day now.  I could, however, talk as a former member of a Marine rifle squad in Vietnam.  That might be worth something, as long as I tell it straight.  So many seem to have forgotten how to do that.

None of us know each other, the military from today, those who fought in Desert Storm or Grenada and the aging and shrinking group from Vietnam, represented typically by rear eschelon blowhards, phonies or psychos.  If troops today learned early on not to listen to Vietnam vets, I would call that decision “reality based.”

Increasingly, Afghanistan is taking on the look of Vietnam.  It is an unpopular war, a war whose purpose and goals are now in question and even disrepute.  Welcome to my world.  Vietnam was a purists dream, dumb built on dumb.  58,000 initially and another 200,000 or much more not so long afterwards died in and after Vietnam, a war with little purpose than to amuse defense contractors and set the stage for America to do alot of business with the Communists we claimed we were going to save the world from.

From day one, ariving in Vietnam, it was obvious.  The war was a joke, a deadly joke and our own military was corrupt beyond imagination.  Nobody cared so long as TV was still TV back home and someone else did the dying. 

Now, the old guys who fought in Vietnam are told that today’s soldiers look down on us for being cowardly, unprofessional and uncommitted to the protection of Christian values and American honor.  I don’t know this to be true, but veterans of Vietnam hear it alot, hear it constantly.

Does any of this matter?  Not hardly.  Too many of those serving now are our kids.  If we had our way all veterans would learn to respect each other.  Nothing should ever divide any of us, we are all each other have.  All we really care about is that you  be kept safe, brought home quickly as possible and have the kind of lives we hoped we had hope America would give you. 

When I see soldiers praying and talking about religious war or killing farm animals or see photos of dead civilians, I try to remember that this isn’t reality, it is the “news,” the people we pay to lie to us.  Be warned, the news media is taking a dump on you like it took a dump on us.  However, we are having none of it, thank you very much.

My advice, for what it is worth is for all of you in uniform and especially those of you in combat to keep yourselves whole.  What does this mean, “whole?”  First of all, it means not to buy in on patriotism, sacrifice or honor crap.  It is only going to lead to you being bitter or angry later on.  Bitter and angry isn’t worth it.  If you need to justify yourself with something from a preacher or politician, you are at risk.  Find strength in each other, not from books, stories, myths or phony politics.

Few of us know what is going on in Afghanistan.  We are told our t-shirts are replaced with body armour, the weapons work better and food is no longer 30 year old c-rations.  However, if the military tells me something I have learned not to believe it even if I see it myself.  Nearly half the Marine grunts that served in Vietnam died there or soon after.  None of it was necessary and none of it our fault. 

I only wish the billions we spend on these wars actually went to arm and protect you as we mean it to and not into the pockets of the thieves.  If you are trained, equipped and led well, good.  If not, make sure we know.  This is still a democracy and it is our job to see to it that you aren’t used up like so many of us were.

Sadly, we also know we have failed at this too.   400,000 recent vets are in line for VA benefits.  I am thinking that this is a message of some kind and I don’t think it is because they love filling out forms and being humiliated by Army and VA doctors.

The war.

Counter-insurgency is something I understand.  It involves making people pretend they like you while waiting to kill you the moment you turn your back.  Oh, you were told something different?  Listen to me, don’t turn your back for a minute, don’t trust anyone.

I love that “hearts and minds” crap.  We now call it “irregular warfare” and it is taught by people who live inside their own heads and think life is a video game.  Common sense, restraint and good manners are the best weapons you have.  Use them.

More stuff to be aware of:

• You are in the military, meaning, you are not “free.”  It is hard to love freedom when someone controls your life, to the point of being able to make a simple mistake and kill you at any moment.  Do not fall in love with that warm and fuzzy feeling of being told what to do.  An active and disciplined intellect questions everything.  Lose that and you have lost your best weapon of all.
• Afghanistan is full of lovely and decent people and some of the most vicious animals on two legs.  Learn the difference and stay alive.  Just because people fight Americans doesn’t mean they are monsters, but there are monsters out there.  Cover your ass.
• How do I tell someone who takes orders from military leaders I wouldn’t let wash my car that  they, and I mean you, are going to have to start running this country?  You may not know it, but this is the job you have been training for.  I look at it like this, the military and the war should have gotten all the dumb and deluded out of your system, unlike the folks running things back in good old Washington DC.
• I have a good friend who tossed two Viet Cong prisoners out of a helicopter when they made it impossible for him to save an American soldier who needed extreme measures to keep him alive.  In a kidding way, I tell him, “Hey, you were only doing about 90 knots at about 1500 feet…..they are probably just fine.”  I tell him that because he hasn’t slept since then, not without meds anyway.  Think about it.
• Everything you have seen, especially the worst of it can either kill you or make you stronger.  A German named Freddy something, Nietzsche I think, said that.  The choice is yours.  Know that the choice is yours.  Do what you can to make sure you know the choice is yours.

90% of what I remember from Vietnam is crumbling temples, walking thru elephant grass and being on an unending camping trip with the best friends I would ever have.  There is alot I don’t remember.  Frankly, I can’t usually find my car in a parking lot. 

Alot of us back here, most of us I think by now, want you back home and believe we have asked too much already.  I think asking you to fix Afghanistan is too much.  Do not die in the process.

You have walked into the middle of a 500 year old war made complex by tons of geopolitical game playing, corruption and dumb American politics.  I can’t figure it out and I am supposed to know about this stuff.  If someone else tries to tell you, just nod, say  “yes sir” and think to yourself, “another arrogant dumb shit.” 

Do work to hold back one of those patriotic military cheer things that is supposed to build camaraderie.  It is only a con to make you obedient.  It is all about social pressure.  Start reading about feudalism and you will understand the military very well.

If those of us back here were better people, you would be coming home to a rich country, good jobs and a people united.  Instead, you are likely to find alot of whining, finger pointing and moaning.  If you find yourself feeling superior, you may be right.  Ouch.

As almost everyone of you knows, coming home is hard and after each deployment it gets harder.  Why do I know that?  Simple, I saw it on television.  That tells you how much we know.  We know nothing, or most of us don’t anyway.

The only message that matters is the simple one.   Keep yourself whole.  It is possible to shoot at people when you have to and still be human, caring and normal.  This “warrior” crap is just that, crap.  You are going to be spending the rest of your life raising kids, working at a job of some kind and cruising around on a motorcycle.  The “warrior” routine is another con, meant to build damaged self esteem. 

A Harley does the job alot better.

By David K. Winnett, Jr., Captain, USMC (Ret.)—Last Saturday afternoon my wife Tess and I had the honor of enjoying lunch with retired Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer-4 Hershel W. ‘Woody’ Williams, the last surviving Congressional Medal of Honor recipient from the World War II battle for Iwo Jima. Woody was accompanied by his grandson Brent Casey, a friend and fellow Persian Gulf War Veteran with whom I serve on the Board of the National Gulf War Resource Center.

As a retired Marine myself, well-versed in the Marine Corps’ illustrious history, I am in awe of all who participated in the battle for Iwo Jima, where it was famously said that ‘Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue’. Iwo Jima was one of the most hard-fought campaigns of WWII. The iconic Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington DC, inspired by photographer Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph of the flag-raising on Iwo’s Mount Suribachi is hallowed ground to all Marines. To suddenly find myself in the presence of someone who fought on Iwo Jima, aside from the fact that he was awarded the nation’s highest award for valor during that battle was surreal, to put it mildly. Tess had to steady me as I felt a little light-headed when I shook Woody’s hand.  To a Marine, meeting a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient is on par with meeting a head of state. As we had lunch and engaged in conversation with this exceptional American, we quickly understood how very special Woody Williams really is.
Woody has worn the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) since it was presented to him by President Harry Truman in October of 1945. The actions which led to Woody’s nomination for the CMH occurred 65 years ago last week, on February 23, 1945. Since receiving the CMH, Woody has actively carried on the responsibility of reminding his fellow citizens to never forget the thousands who gave their lives in the battle for Iwo Jima, and the more than sixteen million American and Allied forces who died in the many other pivotal battles of WWII.  If anyone knows the true meaning of the phrase, ‘freedom is not free’, and that its price must never forgotten, it is Woody Williams.

To truly appreciate what this man did during the battle for Iwo Jima, Google: ‘Hershel W. Williams’ and read his CMH citation. His repeated feats of bravery on Iwo Jima were superhuman. Yet Woody insists that he is just an ordinary man who once found himself in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. Woody would tell you that he was only doing his job. He would also remind you of the heroics of the more than 6,800 Americans, mostly Marines, many of them close friends, who died during the 46-day battle to capture that small but strategically important island.

High-profile heroism must no doubt be a heavy burden to carry, yet Woody stands out as a shining example of amazing humility and selflessness. He represents the best of America. He represents those who didn’t come home, and he honors their memory and as he puts it “gives back” by continuing to travel frequently to various engagements around the country, offering words of wisdom and inspiration to our active duty forces, and to countless civic and charitable organizations. Woody was a hero then, and remains one to this day. Following his retirement from the Marine Corps he served with the Department of Veterans Affairs, helping his fellow Veterans for over 30 years.  Woody epitomizes leadership by example.

As our WWII heroes leave us and time fades the memories of the extraordinary sacrifices made at places like Iwo Jima, one can only hope that our society will not give in to the temptations of apathy and complacency that are often the unintended consequences of freedom. Woody Williams, and the millions who gave their lives during WWII were fighting to ensure that our nation and the world remained free of tyranny and oppression. They succeeded in that mission, but at great cost. We owe Woody, and all of his generation a promise never to squander the freedoms that were bought and paid for with their enormous sacrifices, and to continue to honor the countless young Americans who still to this day pay the ultimate price so that we are able to continue living in a free society.
In many respects today’s generation faces challenges similar to those that Woody’s ‘greatest generation’ had to deal with, yet oddly many of our own citizens and some of our political leaders don’t seem to fully comprehend the threats at hand. We seem dangerously close to repeating past mistakes that are born of political naivety, indecisiveness, and moral weakness. The best outcome that we can hope for is that if any part of our nation’s history repeats itself, it’s the part that Woody’s generation called ‘Victory’.

Woody; may God bless you, and may God bless the greatest generation of Marines, Sailors, Soldiers and members of the Army Air Corps who fought so valiantly to preserve our liberties all those years ago. Tess and I were so honored to have met you and we promise that we will always be grateful for the blessings of freedom that you and your brothers and sisters-in-arms bestowed upon our family.

Semper Fidelis,

David K. Winnett, Jr.
Captain, USMC (Ret.)

Chairman, Funding Development, National Gulf War Resource Center

WASHINGTON — The Army’s ability to train its forces is “increasingly at risk” because of the nation’s protracted commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the general in charge of training has told the Army’s chief of staff.

In a Feb. 16 memo to Gen. George W. Casey, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, says that the Army has lost thousands of uniformed trainers because of troop demands in Iraq and Afghanistan, has had to put junior officers in charge of some key training functions and has delayed initial instruction for nearly 500 pilots because it doesn’t have enough trainers.

Only 30 percent of the instructors at Army training schools are in the military, Dempsey says, with the Army increasingly dependent on outside contractors.

“We are behind in integrating lessons learned, developing training and updating doctrine,” Dempsey wrote in the memo, a copy of which McClatchy obtained. “We are undermanned in our efforts to design the future Army.”

Dempsey’s warning comes as the Obama administration presses ahead with plans to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 and has committed a growing number of military trainers to doubling the size of the Afghan security forces. Since Dempsey took command of TRADOC in December 2008, the command has sent 889 troops, contractors and civilians to Iraq and 675 to Afghanistan.

Casey, who’s frequently warned that the long-term commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained the Army, said in an interview this week that Dempsey’s memo didn’t surprise him.

He said, however, that the military didn’t have enough soldiers to commit more troops to training, and that relief would come from two developments: the continued U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the planned expansion of the Army by 65,000 soldiers by the end of 2011.

“This is his way of getting it on my radar,” Casey said of Dempsey’s memo.

Entitled “Erosion of TRADOC’s Core Competencies and Functions,” the memo contains a litany of how keeping a large troop presence in two war zones while committing to train foreign troops has hurt the military’s training efforts.

There are 96,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 78,000 in Afghanistan.

Dempsey wrote that since September 2001, the number of soldiers assigned to training and other planning responsibilities has declined by 7,300, while the number of civilian employees has declined by 4,500. To fill the gap, Dempsey says, his command has hired 9,000 outside contractors.

He complains that the result is a “de-greening” of training, meaning less reliance on Army personnel. For example, he wrote, outside contractors are teaching 68 percent of the courses at the Army’s Intelligence School.

Dempsey also says the manpower shortage has affected ROTC training programs, particularly at universities that provide large numbers of junior officers to the Army. He says that the officer-to-student ratios at five of the nation’s six largest ROTC programs, including The Citadel in South Carolina and Texas A&M University, now exceed 1 to 45 and that in some cases the ratio is 1 to 76.

A shortage of captains and majors with combat experience is particularly troubling, he says.

“Their experience level is of extreme importance to our command because it gives them the field-tested knowledge and credibility to teach, coach and mentor the officers following behind them,” Dempsey wrote.

He wrote that 18 first lieutenants were filling company command positions in basic combat training units — positions usually reserved for higher-ranking officers — and that the command has had to turn to noncommissioned officers in some of those units to fill operations positions usually reserved for commissioned officers.

Dempsey says the shortage of majors and captains also has damaged the Army’s ability to assess practices and to develop new tactics and strategies, another responsibility of TRADOC.

“We rely on their recent combat experience and lessons learned for application in our force and combat development-related functions to help build the future Army,” he says.

Dempsey estimates that the command is 900 “work years” behind on developing new training methods and that “it is currently not possible to decrease this backlog.”

In an interview with McClatchy, Dempsey said that he’d shifted resources to basic training, leaving functions such as developing new tactics till later.

“You can’t out source basic training,” Dempsey said. “That is an area where we can’t take risks, because we are taking people off the streets and trying to make them soldiers” in a few months.

The command is exploring ways to use technology as a training tool, particularly for soldiers younger than 27, he said.

He said technology couldn’t replace experienced instructors, however, and that if the manpower shortage persisted, the impact on the Army’s future training could be great.

Besides training soldiers, TRADOC develops doctrine, integrates lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan into leadership training and is in charge of the Army’s primary officer training center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Said the veteran, “It appears that our military men and women are being warned if they speak of such [religious] issues they will be kicked out of the Navy! I was never given this warning when I went to the Persian Gulf in 1998 – and I understand this was before the Cole incident as well as 9/11. However, where is the freedom of speech?”

The son is stationed in [region withheld upon request], and the Navy veteran asked me in an e-mail to bring this issue to the fore here.

I recommend contacting the Military Religious Freedom Foundation whose clientele is composed of mostly Christians whose freedom of religious expression is too often violated in the contemporary American armed forces.

If a Navy airman, for example, cannot even have his mother post a reference to Jesus Christ on his Facebook page, we do have a problem.

Freeman was a former Army helicopter pilot who received the Medal of Honor for his heroics during the Vietnam War.

He was portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie We Were Soldiers.

E-mail chains are still moving around the globe, now with an enough-about-Tiger Woods preface and other media tripe. Just got this e-mail from a bunch of Madison lawyers. Freeman touches a chord in a lot of people.

You may have seen this passage below; it’s worth posting again. It’s worth advocating that today’s 26-million veterans deserve the same respect; one guesses Freeman would want that. Look around this site, its readers — same stuff as Freeman. A lot of these guys are Vietnam veterans; proud to advocate for ‘em. Not so proud of the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs.

You’re a 19-year old kid.

You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley.

November 11, 1965, LZX-ray, Vietnam

Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you’re not getting out.

Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you’ll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then – over the machine gun noise – you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter.

You look up to see an unarmed Huey.

But … it doesn’t seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you.

He’s not Medi-Vac so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.

Even after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He’s coming anyway.

And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses.

And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!!

He took about 30 of you and your buddies out who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died August 20, 2008 at the age of 80, in Boise, Idaho.

May God Rest His Soul.

The military is currently at a strained capacity due to the back-to-back wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, one would think that military officials would not continue to be so finicky about whether one is female or gay when it comes to serving, or service within a particular occupational specialty. The number of military troops also have not feared much better in numbers from the unwillingness of individuals to flock recruiting stations within the last couple of years. We are currently at a point in our history where service, liberty, and freedom should be considered admirable qualities of those who want to act in servitude to others. However, many decision-makers are so engulfed with gender, sex, and not crossing certain lines that they fail to see the reality and potential of what tomorrow’s military will and could be.

Women serving in the military provide a duality that is necessary for the continuation of tomorrow’s military, and its numerical and intellectual strength. By reducing the opportunities that are available to females simply because of their sex, our leaders are essentially reducing the military population over time without realizing it. According to the US Census (2006), there were 12.9 million single family household with 80% headed by females. There are also many married individuals within the military ranks–either both spouses are military or one is civilian. Whenever decisions are being made for enlistment of family members, the continuation of service to country, females are major influences in the decision-making process.

It is great that females are being considered for service on submarines. However, service on submarines, or for that matter anywhere else in the military should be a given. It is nonsensical to preach equal opportunities in one statement and then take it away in another.

http://www.census.gov/apsd/techdoc/cps/cpsmar06.pdf

By Rachel Slajda – 

Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, and Army Secretary John McHugh testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell today and made clear they are less than enthusiastic about repealing the policy.

Casey and McHugh, like many lawmakers, said they are waiting for the completion of a policy review before they make a decision. The review could take up to a year.

“I do have serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that is fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight and a half years. We just don’t know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness,” Casey said, adding that he fully supports Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ call for the review.

Casey said he can only offer his “informed military judgment to the secretary of defense, the president and Congress” after he sees the review.

“Exactly,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the ranking member of the committee and historically a staunch supporter of DADT. McCain is also waiting for the review to make a final decision.

“Sen. McCain has not taken it [repeal] off the table, but he wants to wait until the policy review is concluded,” his spokeswoman, Brooke Buchanan, told TPMDC yesterday. McCain had said in the past that he would support a repeal if military leaders agreed. But the outspoken support of Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has not changed his mind.

SINCE the two recent NATO-led military strikes that accidentally killed dozens of Afghan civilians, I have been thinking a great deal about the psychic toll that killing takes on soldiers.

In 2007, I was an Army lieutenant leading a group on a house-clearing mission in Baquba, Iraq, when I called in an artillery strike on a house. The strike destroyed the house and killed everyone inside. I thought we had struck enemy fighters, but I was wrong. A father, mother and their children had been huddled inside.

The feelings of disbelief that initially filled me quickly transformed into feelings of rage and self-loathing. The following weeks, months and years would prove that my life was forever changed.

In fact, it’s been nearly three years, and I still cannot remove from my mind the image of that family gathered together in the final moments of their lives. I can’t shake it. It simply lingers.

I know that many soldiers struggle long after they leave the battlefield to cope with civilian deaths. It does not matter whether they were responsible for those deaths, whether it was a mistake of the command, of the weaponry, or even the fault of the enemy, who in parts of both Iraq and Afghanistan have been known to intentionally place or involve civilians, even children, in their operations. Just seeing the lifeless body of a little boy or girl is all it takes.

For many soldiers, what follows a killing is a struggle of the mind. We become aware that what we’ve seen has changed us. We can’t unlearn it, and we continue to think of those innocent children. It is not possible to forget.

Read more at New York Times

Nope he does not recommend anything as near radical or irrational as his fictional account. In fact, it is exactly what he recommends that is more realistic and thought provoking than the attention getter of a military coup in 2016.

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, Veterans Today News

The Coup of 2016 Can Happen Here, Unless We Act by William J. Astore, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force-Retired

Yes, it can happen here.  In some ways, it’s already happening. But the key question is: at this late date, how can it be stopped?  Here are some vectors for a change in course, and in mindset as well, if we are to avoid our own stealth coup:

1. Somehow, we need to begin to reverse the ongoing militarization of this country, especially our ever-rising “defense” budgets.  The most recent of these, we’ve just learned, is a staggering $708 billion for fiscal year 2011 — and that doesn’t even include the $33 billion President Obama has requested for his latest surge in Afghanistan.  We also need to get rid of the idea that anyone who suggests even minor cuts in defense spending is either hopelessly naïve or a terrorist sympathizer.

It’s time as well to call a halt to the privatization of military activity and so halt the rise of security contractors like Xe (formerly Blackwater), thereby weakening the corporate profit motive that supports and underpins the American version of perpetual war.  It’s time to begin feeling chastened, not proud, that we’re by far the number one country in the world in arms manufacturing and the global arms trade.

VT Editors Note: the Xe Website remains UNDER CONSTRUCTION, so let’s keep it that way. Seriously there is a link to an Xe subsidiary that clearly shows the SAME characteristics a Blackwater. It is called the U.S. Training Center to give it sort of an official U.S. government sounding name, but folks this is what Blackwater has become from mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan to now training unauthorized private armies in the continental United States.  Check it out for your selves then contact Congress demanding an investigation into U.S. Training Center to determine its relationship with Blackwater and the National Rifle Association (NRA). Are these mercenaries training home grown militias that have gotten out of control during the Bush administration?

What exactly are the ties between Blackwater, U.S. Training Center, and Xe.

The copyright caveat at the bottom of U.S. Training Center reflects it is an Xe company. The link to the Pro Shop at the bottom left side notes that it is the Blackwater Pro-Shop. U.S. Training Center is also a Blackwater company. Note that every link has a blackwater.com transition between pages. U.S. Training Center -  A Xe company.

2. Let’s downsize our global mission rather than endlessly expanding our military footprint.  It’s time to have a military capable of defending this country, not fighting endless [offensive] wars in distant lands while garrisoning the globe.

3. Let’s stop paying attention to major TV and cable networks that rely on retired senior military officers, most of whom have ties both to the Pentagon and military contractors, for “unbiased” commentary on our wars.

In the spirit of the upcoming film  SEVERE CLEAR, LTC. Astore notes   that,” If we insist on fighting our perpetual “frontier” wars, let’s start insisting as well that they be covered in all their bitter reality: the death, the mayhem, the waste, the prisons, and the torture.

Why is our war coverage invariably sanitized to “PG” or even “G,” when we can go to the movies anytime and see “R” rated, pornographically violent films? And by the way, it’s time to be more critical of the government’s and the media’s use of language and propaganda. Mindlessly parroting the Patriot Act doesn’t make you patriotic.

LTC. Astore has no knowledge nor connection with the SEVERE CLEAR film company or the effort of a young Marine to film their experience during the invasion of Iraq. Astore is like me a Retired Air Force officer. WE have to allow the young combat troops to be able to tell their stories from their perspectives foul language and all. I agree with Astore that it is way past time to stop sanitizing the wars in order to sell them to the American voter and keep the public ignorant of what our troops experience.

4. It’s time to elect a president who doesn’t surround himself with senior “civilian” advisers and ambassadors who are actually retired military generals and admirals, one who won’t accept a Nobel Peace Prize by defending war in theory and escalating it in practice.

5. Let’s toughen up. Let’s stop deferring to authority figures who promise to “protect” us while abridging our rights.  Let’s stop bowing down before men and women in uniform, before they start thinking that it’s their right to be worshipped and act accordingly.

6. Let’s act now to relieve the sort of desperation bred by joblessness and hopelessness that could lead many — notably male workers suffering from the “He-Cession” — to see a militarized solution in “the homeland” as a credible last resort. It’s the economy, stupid, but with Main Street’s health, not Wall Street’s, in our focus.

7. Let’s take Sarah Palin and her followers seriously. They’re tapping into anger that’s real and spreading.  Don’t let them become the voices of the angry working (and increasingly unemployed) classes.

Class warfare for good or bad is the message being thrown around by the Tea Baggers, and in many ways this is a good thing if controlled properly with discipline not out of control home grown militias trained by Blackwater regardless what Xe calls themselves. A mercenary is a mercenary is a mercenary and changing logos does not change the shame of being a MERC.

8. Recognize that we face real enemies in our world, the most powerful of which aren’t in distant Afghanistan or Yemen but here at home. The essence of our struggle to sustain our faltering democracy should not be against “terrorists,” with their shoe and crotch bombs, but against various powerful, perfectly legal groups here whose interests lie in a Pentagon that only grows ever stronger.

9. Stop [arrogantly] thinking the U.S. is uniquely privileged.

Don’t take it on faith that God is on our side. Forget about God blessing America. If you believe in God, get out there and start trying to earn His blessing through deeds.

10. And, most important of all, remember that FEAR  is the mind-killer that makes militarism possible. Ramping up “TERROR” is an amazingly effective way of shredding our Constitution.  Putting our “safety” above all else is asking for trouble.  The only way we’ll be completely safe from the big bad terrorists, after all, is when we’re all living in a maximum security state.  Think of walking down the street while always being subject to a “full-body scan.”

That’s my top 10 things we need to do. It’s a daunting list and I’m sure you have a few ideas of your own.  But have faith.  Ultimately, it all boils down to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words to a nation suffering through the Great Depression: the only thing we have to FEAR is FEAR itself.  These words came to mind recently as I read the following missive from a friend and World War II veteran who’s seen tough times:

“It’s very hard for me to accept how soft the American people have become. In 1941, with the western world under assault by powerful and deadly forces, and a large armada of ships and planes attacking us directly, I never heard a word of FEAR as we faced three powerful nations as enemies. Sixteen million of us went into the military with the very real possibility of death and I never once heard of FEAR, except from those exposed to danger.

Now, our people let [their leaders] terrify them into accepting the destruction of our economy, our image in the world, and our democracy... All this over a small group of religious fanatics [mostly] from Saudi Arabia whom we kowtow to so we can drive 8-cylinder SUV’s.  Pathetic!

“How many times have [you] stood in ‘security lines’ at airports and when [you] complained of the indignity of taking off shoes and not having water and the manhandling of passengers, have well educated people smugly said to me, ‘Well, they’re just keeping us safe.’ I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state.”

A public conditioned [indoctrinated]  to act like sheep, to “support our troops” no matter what, to cower before the idea of terrorism, is a public ready to be herded.

The real military threat could be our own

A military that’s being used to fight unwinnable wars is a military prone to return home disaffected and with scores to settle.

Angry and desperate veterans and mercenaries already conditioned to violence, merging with “tea baggers” and other alienated groups, could one day form our own Freikorps units, rioting for violent solutions to national decline. Recall that the Nazi movement ultimately succeeded in the early 1930s because so many middle-class Germans were scared as they saw their wealth, standard of living, and status all threatened by the Great Depression.

If our Great Recession continues, [and it will along with the fiscal cost of the wars] and if decent jobs remain scarce, if the mainstream media continue to foster fear and hatred, if returning troops are disaffected and their [military] leaders blame politicians for “not being tough enough,” if one or two more terrorist attacks succeed on U.S. soil, wouldn’t this country be well primed for a coup by any other name?

Don’t expect a “Seven Days in May” scenario.  No American Caesar will return to Washington with his legions to decapitate governmental authority.  Why not?  Because he won’t have to.

VT Editorial Comment: Already the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress appear to FEAR the hold overs of the Bush administration in high level civilian and military postions. The worse mistake any President can make is not cleaning house at the Pentagon to ensure all military and civilian leaders of our military are loyal to him or her.

As long as we continue to live in perpetual FEAR in an increasingly militarized state, we establish the preconditions under which Americans will be nailed to, and crucified on, a cross of iron.

William J. Astore teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology (wastore@pct.edu).  A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), he has also taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School.  A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism.

This first post will be in two parts to allow the initial reaction to set in. Although I do not buy everything in what appears to be a very good plot for a remake of the movie Dr. Strangelove or The Rock about renegade U.S. military generals losing it. However, the scenario does stress just how divided and angry America is, plus how out of control our Defense budget remains.

The scenario that William J. Astore presents in his fictional account, A Very American Coup Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You, does leave readers with food for deep thought that goes a bit beyond a script for a motion picture about renegade Generals at the Pentagon.

Astore wrote this piece to make a point about the need to begin reversing an ongoing militarization of the Nation, especially our rising Defense Budgets, or the scenario of a military coup could in his words, “Happen Here, Unless We Act.”

William Astore is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who had taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy (no not religion)  and the Naval Postgraduate School.

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, Veterans Today News

Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You

Astore’s scenario begins six years from now during September 2016. It is now year 15 of America’s “Long War” against terror. As weary troops return to the homeland, a bitter reality assails them: despite their sacrifices, America is losing.

Iraq is increasingly hostile to remaining occupation forces. Afghanistan is a riddle that remains unsolved: its army and police forces are untrustworthy, its government corrupt, and its tribal leaders unsympathetic to the…U.S. intervention. Since the Obama surge of 2010, a trillion more dollars have been devoted to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries in…central Asia, without measurable returns; nothing, that is, except the prolongation of America’s Great Recession, now entering its tenth year without a sustained recovery in sight.

Take America Back

Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of politicians who only speak [hypocritically] of shared sacrifices, [Vets] begin to organize. Their motto: take America back.

Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50.

Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance. Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.

Protests from across the political spectrum

Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common — and the protesters in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as [even more attacks] on basic freedoms.

The Frustration Revolution

Tapping the frustration of protesters — including a…mainstreamed “tea bag” movement — the ‘former’ Captains and Sergeants, the ex-CIA operatives and out-of-work private mercenaries of the War on Terror take action.

Conflict and confrontation they seek; laws and orders they increasingly ignore. As riot police are deployed in the streets, they face a grim choice: where to point their guns? Not at veterans, they decide, not at America’s erstwhile heroes.

A dwindling middle-class, still waving the flag and determined to keep its sliver-sized portion of the American dream, throws its support to the agitators. Wages shrinking, savings exhausted, bills rising, the sober middle can no longer hold. It vents its fear and rage by calling for a decisive leader and the overthrow of a can’t-do Congress.

Savvy members of traditional Washington elites are only too happy to oblige. They too crave order and can-do decisiveness — on their terms. Where better to find that than in the ranks of America’s most respected institution: the military?

The Coup of September 11, 2016

A retired senior officer who led America’s heroes in central Asia is anointed. His creed: end public disorder, fight the War on Terror to a victorious finish, and put America back on top. The United States, he says, is the land of winners, and winners accept no substitute for victory.

Nominated on September 11, 2016, Patriot Day, he marches to an overwhelming victory that November, embraced in the streets by an American version of the post-World War I German Freikorps and the police who refuse to suppress them. A concerned minority is left to wonder (and tremble) at the de facto military coup that occurred so quickly, and yet so silently, in their midst.

Although Astore’s fictional account makes a decent plot for a movie, he contends that It Can Happen Here, Unless We Act.

The second part of this two part article will cover in detail what LTC. Astore recommends we do in order to prevent this fictional scenario from becoming reality.

Nope he does not recommend anything as near radical or irrational as his fictional account. In fact, it is exactly what he recommends that if more realistic and thought provoking than the attention getter of a military coup in 2016 that he uses.

Posted by: Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, Veterans Today News

WILMINGTON, N.C. – An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review.

The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies.

For years, Marines who served at Camp Lejeune have blamed their families’ cancers and other ailments on tap water tainted by dry cleaning solvents, and many accuse the military of covering it up. The benzene was discovered as part of a broader, ongoing probe into that contamination.

When water was sampled in July 1984, scientists found benzene in a well near the base’s Hadnot Point Fuel Farm at levels of 380 parts per billion, according to a water tests done by a contractor. A year later, in a report summarizing the 1984 sampling, the same contractor pointed out the benzene concentration “far exceeds” the safety limit set by federal regulators at 5 parts per billion.

The Marines were still studying the water contamination in 1991 when another contractor again warned the Navy of the health hazards posed by such levels of benzene.

By 1992, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, showed up at the base to begin a health risk assessment. That’s when a third contractor, the Michael Baker Corp., released a draft report on the feasibility of fixing the overall problem.

In it, the 1984 level on the well of 380 parts per billion had changed to 38 parts per billion. The company’s final report on the well, issued in 1994, made no mention of the benzene.

Gotten worse over time
Not only hasn’t the benzene disappeared from the now-closed wells, it’s gotten much worse over time. One sample from a series of tests conducted from June 2007 to August 2009 registered 3,490 parts per billion, according to a report from a fourth contractor.

Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an enforcement officer for the Environmental Protection Agency before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney, reviewed the different reports and said it was difficult to conclude innocent mistakes were made in the Baker Corp. documents.

“It is weird that it went from 380 to 38 and then it disappeared entirely,” she said. “It does support the contention that they did do it deliberately.”

News of Baker Corp.’s handling of the benzene levels has ex-Lejeune residents questioning anew the honesty of a military they accuse of endangering their lives.

“It is a shame that an institution founded on honor and integrity would resort to open deceit in order to protect their reputation at the cost of the health, safety and welfare of its service men, women and their families,” said Mike Partain, a 42-year-old who lives in Tallahassee, Fla., but was born at Lejeune and diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007.

Capt. Brian Block, a Marine Corps spokesman, took exception to characterizing the conflicting information in the reports as anything but inadvertent.

“It was probably just a mistake on the part of the contractor, but I can’t tell you for certain why that happened,” he said.

David Higie, a spokesman for Baker Corp., declined to discuss the company’s reports or why its employees might have revised the benzene levels. He referred questions to the military.

Block said Camp Lejeune held a news conference to alert residents of problems with the water system in 1985 and has spent millions of dollars in outreach and studies. “The Marine Corps has never tried to hide any of this information,” he said.

The discrepancies in the reports were tucked inside thousands of documents the Marines released last year to the Agency for Toxic Substances as part of the Marines’ long-running review of water supplied to Camp Lejeune’s main family housing areas. That water was contaminated by fuel and cleaning solvents from the 1950s through the 1980s, and health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to the toxins before the wells that supplied the tainted water were closed two decades ago.

The newly discovered records, first reported Sunday by McClatchy News Service, show that a water well contaminated by leaking fuel was left functioning for at least five months after a sampling discovered it was tainted with benzene in 1984.

Host of health problems
Benzene, a carcinogen, is a natural part of crude oil and gasoline. Drinking water containing high levels of it can cause vomiting, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, and death and long-term exposure damages bone marrow, lowers red blood cells and can cause anemia and leukemia, according to the EPA.

Camp Lejeune environmental engineer Robert Alexander was quoted in 1985 as saying no one “had been directly exposed” to contaminants, including benzene. In December, Alexander told the AP he didn’t recall anything about the well contaminated with the benzene or the ensuing studies that failed to account for its toxicity, but said that the methods at the time were still being perfected, and that he and the other base officials did the best they could.

The records indicate the military knew a lot of specifics.

For years the Marine Corps knew the fuel farm, built in 1941, was leaking 1,500 gallons a month and did nothing to stop it, according to a 1988 memo from a Camp Lejeune lawyer to the base’s assistant facilities manager. “It’s an indefensible waste of money and a continuing potential threat to human health and the environment,” wrote Staff Judge Advocate A.P. Tokarz.

Minutes of a 1996 meeting with Moon Township, Pa.-based Baker Corp., the third contractor, indicate the fuel farm had lost 800,000 gallons of fuel, of which 500,000 gallons had been recovered. Benzene was “in the deeper portion of the aquifer” and the “fuel farm is definitely the source,” the minutes quote a Michael Baker employee as saying.

The Coast Guard categorizes any coastal oil spill larger than 100,000 gallons as major.

Former Marines and Camp Lejeune residents continue to fight for a compensation program and to fund a mortality study that would determine if Marines and sailors who were exposed to these contaminants suffer from a higher death rate. The Senate passed legislation in September backed by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., preventing the military from dismissing claims related to water contamination pending completion of the several studies, including the mortality study.

“These people knowingly exposed us to these high levels of contaminants and now they don’t want to know if their negligence caused harm to the people they say they care so much about?” said Jerry Ensminger, a retired master sergeant who lived at the base and lost his 9-year-old daughter to leukemia. “There is definitely something wrong with this picture.”

Maybe I should’ve been a soldier in Israel’s army. As of 10 years ago, that country’s women have been allowed to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (I.D.F.) in any capacity that male soldiers serve, including combat units. They can serve in the infantry or mechanized units, or any other combat occupation. They make up a third of the I.D.F., and are treated as equals with males. This CNN segment features footage of Israeli female soldiers who can and do serve in any capacity.

Watching that video got me fired up. It was a real eye opener for me. These women are living proof that female soldiers can perform all of the same duties that male soldiers perform. These women don’t have to go around proving themselves.

Meanwhile, back here in the United States, women in the military are still seen as less capable and something of a curiosity. The fact that we are so grossly outnumbered — only 14 percent of soldiers in the Army are women — automatically makes us a curiosity. Until I saw that video about the I.D.F., I thought that women were pretty well integrated in our Army. And the truth is, since President Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Act in 1948, progress has been made. Women are now integrated into most every military role. Only our admission into combat units remain.

Despite the fact that we’re not allowed to hold a combat arms M.O.S. (Military Occupation Specialty) and — at least according to Department of Defense policy — not allowed to serve in ground combat units at the battalion level and below, serving in any capacity in a combat zone can unofficially alter that policy.

While in Iraq, I was directly attached to an infantry battalion. I went everywhere they did, lived as they did and faced the same dangers they did every time I went “outside the wire” to conduct infrastructure assessments, which was nearly every day. There is nothing special or unique about what I experienced. Many female soldiers have been or currently are in the same situation — going outside the wire and facing the possibility of I.E.D.’s, small arms fire and more. The fact is that as “support” we end up attached to infantry, artillery and other combat arms units, and make enemy contact. Despite this, I was blind to the big picture. I suppose I had just guzzled down the Kool-Aid and drove on. It took getting out of the Army for me to see how women in the military are truly viewed and treated.

Read more at The New York Times