Web Posted: 05/13/2008 10:28 PM CDT
By Zeke MacCormack
Express-News
BOERNE — Kendall County Court-at-Law Judge Bill Palmer on Tuesday stood by his decision to make available grand jury testimony about the 2003 death of Air Force Col. Philip Shue for use in a lawsuit.
The litigants, USAA Life Insurance Co. and Shue's widow, Tracy, sought access to tapes of grand jury witnesses for use as evidence in their dispute, which goes to trial June 9.
Grand jury proceedings are done in secret, and the release was opposed by District Attorney Bruce Curry, whose lawyer said an appeal was likely after Palmer's refusal to vacate his April 21 order for Curry to hand over the recordings.
Shue, 54, died when his car crashed into a tree beside Interstate 10 on April 16, 2003, in Kendall County.
Then-Justice of the Peace Nancy White ruled it a suicide, as did military investigators and the medical examiner.
Tracy Shue contends her husband fell victim to foul play after leaving home that morning for work as a psychiatrist at Wilford Hall Medical Center. His nipples had been cut off, and duct tape was on his ankles and wrists.
Her lawsuit says USAA should have investigated and canceled a $500,000 policy on Shue's life from 1999, when he first told the insurer that his ex-wife — the policy's beneficiary — was possibly plotting his demise.
USAA denies liability, saying it advised Shue to contact law enforcement authorities.
An attorney for Shue's ex-wife, Nancy Shue, has said she had no role in the death.
Representing District Attorney Curry at Tuesday's hearing, Assistant Attorney General Angela Goodwin told Judge Palmer that only state District Judge Steve Ables, who convened the grand jury, could clear the release of its tapes.
A release, she said, could have “a chilling effect” on the candor of witnesses at other grand juries and hinder any future investigation of Shue's death, should one occur.
Goodwin said those seeking the tapes hadn't met the legal threshold of showing “a particularized need,” noting the witnesses are alive and available to testify at the lawsuit trial.
But Jason Davis, Tracy Shue's lawyer, said time's passage has dimmed the memories of former Bexar County Medical Examiner Vincent DiMaio and law officers who testified to the grand jury.
“This will be a means to both refresh their memory and impeach,” he said of the tapes.
Davis called the grand jury review of Shue's death “kind of a sham,” asserting investigators asked Curry to delay presenting the case so they could gather more facts and that information subsequently surfaced that contradicted evidence grand jurors heard.
He said trial jurors should hear the evidence behind the grand jury's Nov. 24, 2003, finding that it saw no evidence of criminal activity in Shue's death, which USAA likely will cite in its defense of the lawsuit.
“We know that incomplete testimony was given to the grand jury,” Davis said. “We suspect inaccurate testimony.”
Curry wasn't at the hearing and later declined comment.
--submitted by Tracy Shue
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Call for new probe into Irish-American's death
Friday, 9 May 2008 16:20
A retired US Army Reserve Colonel has called on the US congress to compel the US army to re-investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Connemara native Ciara Durkin in Afghanistan last September.
Colonel Ann Wright has researched the suspicious noncombat deaths of military women in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
She has concluded that specific US Army units and certain US military bases in those countries have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of noncombat related injuries, with several identified as suicides.
According to her research, 94 US military women have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Twelve US civilian women have been killed during the operation.
Thirteen US military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Twelve US Civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan. Colonel Wright says that at least 15 of these deaths occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances.
One such case was the death of Massachusetts Army National Guard Specialist Ciara Durkin.
the 30-year-old finance specialist was found lying near a church on the very secure Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, with a single gunshot wound to her head on 28 September 2007.
She had recently told her relatives to press for answers if anything happened to her while she was deployed in Afghanistan.
When she was home three weeks prior to her death, she told her sister about something she had come across that raised some concern with her and that she had made some enemies because of it.
Members of her family also questioned whether the fact that she was gay played a role in her death.
They believe Ms Durkin was killed by a fellow service member, intentionally or accidentally, and they are confident that she did not commit suicide.
The US army has recently concluded its investigation into the death and it is thought that it will rule that the cause of death was suicide.
Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy have supported Ms Durkin's family's call for a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.
A retired US Army Reserve Colonel has called on the US congress to compel the US army to re-investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Connemara native Ciara Durkin in Afghanistan last September.
Colonel Ann Wright has researched the suspicious noncombat deaths of military women in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
She has concluded that specific US Army units and certain US military bases in those countries have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of noncombat related injuries, with several identified as suicides.
According to her research, 94 US military women have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Twelve US civilian women have been killed during the operation.
Thirteen US military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Twelve US Civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan. Colonel Wright says that at least 15 of these deaths occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances.
One such case was the death of Massachusetts Army National Guard Specialist Ciara Durkin.
the 30-year-old finance specialist was found lying near a church on the very secure Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, with a single gunshot wound to her head on 28 September 2007.
She had recently told her relatives to press for answers if anything happened to her while she was deployed in Afghanistan.
When she was home three weeks prior to her death, she told her sister about something she had come across that raised some concern with her and that she had made some enemies because of it.
Members of her family also questioned whether the fact that she was gay played a role in her death.
They believe Ms Durkin was killed by a fellow service member, intentionally or accidentally, and they are confident that she did not commit suicide.
The US army has recently concluded its investigation into the death and it is thought that it will rule that the cause of death was suicide.
Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy have supported Ms Durkin's family's call for a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Families demand answers in Iraq electrocutions
By Robin Acton
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Three years and three months before Ryan Maseth stepped into a shower Jan. 2 in Baghdad, an Army safety specialist identified electrocution as a "killer of soldiers."
Still, when the 24-year-old Shaler Green Beret turned on the faucet, water flowed from a pump powered by an improperly grounded electrical system manufactured in China. Borne on water, an electrical current surged through the pipes, out of the shower head and into his body.
His heart stopped.
Maseth's electrocution, the latest of 14 among service personnel in Iraq since 2003, set into motion a series of events to determine how and why these deaths occurred.
In March, a congressional committee started an investigation into all Iraq electrocutions. A month later, Maseth's parents sued the defense contractor responsible for the Chinese electrical system, alleging it failed to meet U.S. safety standards. And now, families across the country say they want more detailed information about the earlier deaths of loved ones.
"I want answers, not revenge," said Bart Cedergren of South St. Paul, Minn., who suspects his son died of electrocution Sept. 11, 2005, near Iskandariyah, Iraq.
Back then, the Navy said Petty Officer 3rd Class David A. Cedergren, 25, died of natural causes after being found unconscious in a shower stall, he said. Although Cedergren asked for additional information, he said he received only documents with black marks covering specifics of the investigation that the Navy has closed.
"I know for sure that there were problems where he was, near the electric generating station, because there was a history of individuals getting shocked," Cedergren said. "I just want to know what happened. He was strong and healthy."
Hidden danger
No one knows whether everyone serving in Iraq is aware of the potential for electrocution, despite warnings in an October 2004 report by Army safety specialist Brett Blount. He wrote that five soldiers were electrocuted in that fiscal year alone and advised military leaders to get electrical experts to inspect generators and electrical systems.
Frank Trent of the Army Corps of Engineers said in the report that improper grounding was a "factor in nearly every electrocution and is a serious threat for soldiers and civilians there."
"We've had several shocks in showers and near misses here in Baghdad, as well as in other parts of the country," Trent said. "As we install temporary and permanent power on our projects, we must ensure we require our contracts to properly ground electrical systems."
The electric shock that struck Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Everett, 23, of Huntsville, Texas, far exceeded a "near miss."
It was dead on target.
On the evening of Sept. 7, 2005, Everett was electrocuted while power washing sand from a Humvee in a motor pool in Al Taqqadum. It was late, and dark, and no one saw him on the ground until other soldiers noticed water shooting into the air. His mother, Larraine McGee, later learned that they were shocked while trying to help him.
"They couldn't get to him until the power was turned off," McGee said.
She remembers standing at the kitchen sink window facing her front porch as two men in uniform and her priest walked to the front door. She knew then that her son, an outdoorsman who volunteered to go to Iraq, would not come home.
Never, for the rest of her life, will she forget that night.
She said Army officers said they were sorry, and that because of what happened to her son, all of the generators across Iraq would be fixed. She felt comforted, recalling that they gave her the impression that Christopher's case was unique, the first of its kind to strike unsuspecting soldiers.
They didn't tell her about Spc. Marcos O. Nolasco, 34, of Chino, Calif., who was electrocuted while showering at a base in Baiji on May 18, 2004. No one mentioned Spc. Marvin A. Camposiles, 25, of Austell, Ga., who was electrocuted April 17, 2005, while performing routine generator maintenance in Samarra. They said nothing about Spc. Chase R. Whitham, 21, of Harrisburg, Ore., who died May 8, 2005, when an electrical current surged through a Mosul swimming pool.
"That, to me, makes it inexcusable. It's got to stop," McGee said. "Now, I'm angry. It's such a basic thing to ground electricity. It's carelessness, negligence."
Seeking answers
It is unclear whether all electrocution injuries and deaths in Iraq are listed in military casualty reports, because they often are identified as accidents or noncombat-related incidents.
Lt. Col. George Wright, a public affairs officer based at the Pentagon, said the Department of Defense releases names of casualties about 24 hours after notifying relatives. At that point, investigations into noncombat deaths are incomplete.
"That's why we are vague and simply indicate that a death is 'noncombat related,' " Wright said.
A casualty report prepared by the Defense Manpower Data Center listed 14 electrocution deaths in nonhostile situations and two in hostile situations from Oct. 7, 2001, through May 3, 2008.
Electrocution injuries totaled 19, according to the report.
About a month after Maseth's death, U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, received two e-mails about military casualty reports that disturbed him.
A Feb. 14 e-mail to Altmire from Kelly Widener, director of strategic communications for the U.S. Army Combat Readiness/Safety Center, reported that 10 fatalities by electrocution were identified only as accidents. The other, sent on Feb. 15 by Sgt. Jennifer Evitts, a Marine liaison, listed two more.
Altmire immediately asked U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California's 30th District and chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to investigate the deaths. Waxman wrote to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, seeking all reports concerning Maseth and the names of all U.S. military or contractor personnel injured or killed by electrocution in Iraq facilities maintained under U.S. government contracts.
Waxman asked for contracts, orders and reports submitted by and issued to Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc., a Texas-based defense contractor whose nearly 18,000 employees in Iraq perform building maintenance and other services for the military at facilities where the electrocutions occurred.
Karen Lightfoot, Waxman's spokeswoman, said the committee received some documents and expects to receive more as the investigation advances.
"We're trying to determine who should be held accountable, and whether this could have been prevented," Altmire said.
Meanwhile, Maseth's parents, Cheryl Harris of Cranberry and Douglas Maseth of Allison Park, turned to the courts for help.
In April, they sued KBR in federal court, alleging the firm inspected the facilities at the Radwaniyah complex where their son died. They claim the contractor knew that hazardous conditions existed from improper grounding of faulty electrical systems manufactured in China for sale only to countries outside the United States because they did not comply with U.S. electrical safety standards.
The wrongful death lawsuit contends that the contractor knew of other electrocutions and failed to repair electrical problems, despite orders to do so from the Defense Contract Management Agency. It adds that KBR did nothing to warn U.S. troops.
Their attorney, Patrick Cavanaugh of Pittsburgh, said the family is seeking accountability from the defense contractor, as well as some answers about how he died.
They view his death as senseless.
"You don't expect your son to step into a shower and get killed," Harris told the Tribune-Review after Maseth's death.
Heather Browne, KBR's director of corporate communications, wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune-Review that the company's "thoughts and prayers remain with Staff Sergeant Maseth's family." She said the company's commitment to safety is unwavering.
"Based on our own current knowledge and the information we have gathered to date, KBR has found no evidence of a link between the work it has been tasked to perform and reported electrocutions," Browne wrote.
Meanwhile, in Salem, Ore., Mark Whitham is not surprised by the number and frequency of electrocutions in Iraq.
During an interview on the fourth anniversary of his son's death in a Mosul swimming pool, Whitham did not blame the military or the defense contractor.
"If anything, it's the Iraqis' fault. Their rules for electrical grounding are not as strict as ours," Whitham said.
"Not that there isn't anger there, but it's not going to bring Chase back. It's not going to change anything. ... We sure miss him."
Robin Acton can be reached at racton@tribweb.com or 724-830-6295.
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Three years and three months before Ryan Maseth stepped into a shower Jan. 2 in Baghdad, an Army safety specialist identified electrocution as a "killer of soldiers."
Still, when the 24-year-old Shaler Green Beret turned on the faucet, water flowed from a pump powered by an improperly grounded electrical system manufactured in China. Borne on water, an electrical current surged through the pipes, out of the shower head and into his body.
His heart stopped.
Maseth's electrocution, the latest of 14 among service personnel in Iraq since 2003, set into motion a series of events to determine how and why these deaths occurred.
In March, a congressional committee started an investigation into all Iraq electrocutions. A month later, Maseth's parents sued the defense contractor responsible for the Chinese electrical system, alleging it failed to meet U.S. safety standards. And now, families across the country say they want more detailed information about the earlier deaths of loved ones.
"I want answers, not revenge," said Bart Cedergren of South St. Paul, Minn., who suspects his son died of electrocution Sept. 11, 2005, near Iskandariyah, Iraq.
Back then, the Navy said Petty Officer 3rd Class David A. Cedergren, 25, died of natural causes after being found unconscious in a shower stall, he said. Although Cedergren asked for additional information, he said he received only documents with black marks covering specifics of the investigation that the Navy has closed.
"I know for sure that there were problems where he was, near the electric generating station, because there was a history of individuals getting shocked," Cedergren said. "I just want to know what happened. He was strong and healthy."
Hidden danger
No one knows whether everyone serving in Iraq is aware of the potential for electrocution, despite warnings in an October 2004 report by Army safety specialist Brett Blount. He wrote that five soldiers were electrocuted in that fiscal year alone and advised military leaders to get electrical experts to inspect generators and electrical systems.
Frank Trent of the Army Corps of Engineers said in the report that improper grounding was a "factor in nearly every electrocution and is a serious threat for soldiers and civilians there."
"We've had several shocks in showers and near misses here in Baghdad, as well as in other parts of the country," Trent said. "As we install temporary and permanent power on our projects, we must ensure we require our contracts to properly ground electrical systems."
The electric shock that struck Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Everett, 23, of Huntsville, Texas, far exceeded a "near miss."
It was dead on target.
On the evening of Sept. 7, 2005, Everett was electrocuted while power washing sand from a Humvee in a motor pool in Al Taqqadum. It was late, and dark, and no one saw him on the ground until other soldiers noticed water shooting into the air. His mother, Larraine McGee, later learned that they were shocked while trying to help him.
"They couldn't get to him until the power was turned off," McGee said.
She remembers standing at the kitchen sink window facing her front porch as two men in uniform and her priest walked to the front door. She knew then that her son, an outdoorsman who volunteered to go to Iraq, would not come home.
Never, for the rest of her life, will she forget that night.
She said Army officers said they were sorry, and that because of what happened to her son, all of the generators across Iraq would be fixed. She felt comforted, recalling that they gave her the impression that Christopher's case was unique, the first of its kind to strike unsuspecting soldiers.
They didn't tell her about Spc. Marcos O. Nolasco, 34, of Chino, Calif., who was electrocuted while showering at a base in Baiji on May 18, 2004. No one mentioned Spc. Marvin A. Camposiles, 25, of Austell, Ga., who was electrocuted April 17, 2005, while performing routine generator maintenance in Samarra. They said nothing about Spc. Chase R. Whitham, 21, of Harrisburg, Ore., who died May 8, 2005, when an electrical current surged through a Mosul swimming pool.
"That, to me, makes it inexcusable. It's got to stop," McGee said. "Now, I'm angry. It's such a basic thing to ground electricity. It's carelessness, negligence."
Seeking answers
It is unclear whether all electrocution injuries and deaths in Iraq are listed in military casualty reports, because they often are identified as accidents or noncombat-related incidents.
Lt. Col. George Wright, a public affairs officer based at the Pentagon, said the Department of Defense releases names of casualties about 24 hours after notifying relatives. At that point, investigations into noncombat deaths are incomplete.
"That's why we are vague and simply indicate that a death is 'noncombat related,' " Wright said.
A casualty report prepared by the Defense Manpower Data Center listed 14 electrocution deaths in nonhostile situations and two in hostile situations from Oct. 7, 2001, through May 3, 2008.
Electrocution injuries totaled 19, according to the report.
About a month after Maseth's death, U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, received two e-mails about military casualty reports that disturbed him.
A Feb. 14 e-mail to Altmire from Kelly Widener, director of strategic communications for the U.S. Army Combat Readiness/Safety Center, reported that 10 fatalities by electrocution were identified only as accidents. The other, sent on Feb. 15 by Sgt. Jennifer Evitts, a Marine liaison, listed two more.
Altmire immediately asked U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California's 30th District and chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to investigate the deaths. Waxman wrote to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, seeking all reports concerning Maseth and the names of all U.S. military or contractor personnel injured or killed by electrocution in Iraq facilities maintained under U.S. government contracts.
Waxman asked for contracts, orders and reports submitted by and issued to Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc., a Texas-based defense contractor whose nearly 18,000 employees in Iraq perform building maintenance and other services for the military at facilities where the electrocutions occurred.
Karen Lightfoot, Waxman's spokeswoman, said the committee received some documents and expects to receive more as the investigation advances.
"We're trying to determine who should be held accountable, and whether this could have been prevented," Altmire said.
Meanwhile, Maseth's parents, Cheryl Harris of Cranberry and Douglas Maseth of Allison Park, turned to the courts for help.
In April, they sued KBR in federal court, alleging the firm inspected the facilities at the Radwaniyah complex where their son died. They claim the contractor knew that hazardous conditions existed from improper grounding of faulty electrical systems manufactured in China for sale only to countries outside the United States because they did not comply with U.S. electrical safety standards.
The wrongful death lawsuit contends that the contractor knew of other electrocutions and failed to repair electrical problems, despite orders to do so from the Defense Contract Management Agency. It adds that KBR did nothing to warn U.S. troops.
Their attorney, Patrick Cavanaugh of Pittsburgh, said the family is seeking accountability from the defense contractor, as well as some answers about how he died.
They view his death as senseless.
"You don't expect your son to step into a shower and get killed," Harris told the Tribune-Review after Maseth's death.
Heather Browne, KBR's director of corporate communications, wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune-Review that the company's "thoughts and prayers remain with Staff Sergeant Maseth's family." She said the company's commitment to safety is unwavering.
"Based on our own current knowledge and the information we have gathered to date, KBR has found no evidence of a link between the work it has been tasked to perform and reported electrocutions," Browne wrote.
Meanwhile, in Salem, Ore., Mark Whitham is not surprised by the number and frequency of electrocutions in Iraq.
During an interview on the fourth anniversary of his son's death in a Mosul swimming pool, Whitham did not blame the military or the defense contractor.
"If anything, it's the Iraqis' fault. Their rules for electrical grounding are not as strict as ours," Whitham said.
"Not that there isn't anger there, but it's not going to bring Chase back. It's not going to change anything. ... We sure miss him."
Robin Acton can be reached at racton@tribweb.com or 724-830-6295.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Alabama Paper Reports Yet Another Iraq Vet Suicide -- With Mother Watching
By Greg Mitchell Published: May 06, 2008 9:30 PM ET updated Tuesday
NEW YORK As the scandal of suicide attempts by Iraq veterans expands -- in the face of Veterans Administration denials -- another horrific case has emerged, once again only gaining attention because of a local newspaper.
E&P has been tracking these accounts for almost five years and only recently has the problem, with an estimated 1,000 attempts a month now reported, gained wide media, and official, attention.
The latest story came Saturday in a story by Patrick McCreless in The Cullman Times of Cullman, Ala.
The headline is similar to so many others lately: "Family pushing for changes after soldier's suicide."
It tells how one Dorothy Screws "witnessed her only son, U.S. Army Pvt. Tommie Edward Jones, commit suicide right before her eyes six weeks ago in Colorado.
She says the Army, which promised to be there for Screws and her family to deal with the loss, has yet to provide assistance.
"Now Screws can hardly do her job without breaking down. Just the simple act of living is a challenge."
Only the memory of her son keeps Screws going as she fights to ensure another parent does not have to live through the same tragedy. 'I can’t save my son now ... I want to save somebody,' Screws said with tears in her eyes.
'If I can save one soldier, it will be worth it.'"
Screws plans to petition the government for as long as it takes until a law is passed requiring soldiers to undergo some type of psychological therapy after they return from intense combat."
Her son was 27 when he died.
An excerpt follows.
The whole article is still posted at http://www.cullmantimes.com/.*
One thing Screws and her family did not know until after her son’s death — which occurred March 25 at Fort Carson, Colo. — was that Jones, 27, had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from when he fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007.
Jones mentioned a few of the traumatic events he experienced in Iraq to his mother shortly before his death.
“He said, ‘I wake up every morning angry,’” Screws said. “He said, ‘My body is here but my mind is in Iraq.’”
Screws said she wants therapy to be mandatory for soldiers because many, like her son, do not seek help out of fear of being stigmatized. She said Jones told her he did not want to talk to a therapist because he thought such action would prevent him from rising in rank.
...Jones’ sister, Amanda Wimberly, said her family was assigned an assistance officer. But Wimberly said the officer has been anything but helpful.
“I called her a few weeks ago and she was with her family ... but she could come by later if we wanted,” Wimberly said.
“We needed her then. I asked to speak to her boss. ... She fumbled with the phone and eventually hung up. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
Screws said she has already expressed her feelings about the Army and her petition for mandatory therapy to the local Democratic Party. She plans to attend an upcoming Republican Party meeting to do the same.
“I don’t care if I get in trouble,” Screws said. “Until somebody can answer some questions and make it right, oh yeah, I’ll keep talking.”
____E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new book includes several chapters on this issue. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."
--submitted by Patti Woodard
NEW YORK As the scandal of suicide attempts by Iraq veterans expands -- in the face of Veterans Administration denials -- another horrific case has emerged, once again only gaining attention because of a local newspaper.
E&P has been tracking these accounts for almost five years and only recently has the problem, with an estimated 1,000 attempts a month now reported, gained wide media, and official, attention.
The latest story came Saturday in a story by Patrick McCreless in The Cullman Times of Cullman, Ala.
The headline is similar to so many others lately: "Family pushing for changes after soldier's suicide."
It tells how one Dorothy Screws "witnessed her only son, U.S. Army Pvt. Tommie Edward Jones, commit suicide right before her eyes six weeks ago in Colorado.
She says the Army, which promised to be there for Screws and her family to deal with the loss, has yet to provide assistance.
"Now Screws can hardly do her job without breaking down. Just the simple act of living is a challenge."
Only the memory of her son keeps Screws going as she fights to ensure another parent does not have to live through the same tragedy. 'I can’t save my son now ... I want to save somebody,' Screws said with tears in her eyes.
'If I can save one soldier, it will be worth it.'"
Screws plans to petition the government for as long as it takes until a law is passed requiring soldiers to undergo some type of psychological therapy after they return from intense combat."
Her son was 27 when he died.
An excerpt follows.
The whole article is still posted at http://www.cullmantimes.com/.*
One thing Screws and her family did not know until after her son’s death — which occurred March 25 at Fort Carson, Colo. — was that Jones, 27, had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from when he fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007.
Jones mentioned a few of the traumatic events he experienced in Iraq to his mother shortly before his death.
“He said, ‘I wake up every morning angry,’” Screws said. “He said, ‘My body is here but my mind is in Iraq.’”
Screws said she wants therapy to be mandatory for soldiers because many, like her son, do not seek help out of fear of being stigmatized. She said Jones told her he did not want to talk to a therapist because he thought such action would prevent him from rising in rank.
...Jones’ sister, Amanda Wimberly, said her family was assigned an assistance officer. But Wimberly said the officer has been anything but helpful.
“I called her a few weeks ago and she was with her family ... but she could come by later if we wanted,” Wimberly said.
“We needed her then. I asked to speak to her boss. ... She fumbled with the phone and eventually hung up. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
Screws said she has already expressed her feelings about the Army and her petition for mandatory therapy to the local Democratic Party. She plans to attend an upcoming Republican Party meeting to do the same.
“I don’t care if I get in trouble,” Screws said. “Until somebody can answer some questions and make it right, oh yeah, I’ll keep talking.”
____E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new book includes several chapters on this issue. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Mother Questions Tillman's Death in 'Fog of War'
Audio for this story will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET
Book Excerpt
'Boots on the Ground by Dusk'
Pentagon Investigation
Defense Department Report on the Tillman Investigation (March 2007, PDF)
Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · Four years ago last month, Army Ranger Pat Tillman set off with his unit on orders to "have boots on the ground" in a small Afghan village near the border with Pakistan. By nightfall, he was dead. His death has been the subject of seven investigations, several inquiries and two congressional hearings.
The military reported that Tillman died a heroic death during an insurgent strike, before admitting weeks later that he was killed by friendly fire and launching a series of investigations.
"We as an Army failed in our duty to the Tillman family, the duty we owe to all families of our fallen soldiers: Give them the truth, the best we know it, as fast as we can," Acting Army Secretary Peter Geren said in March 2007.
Tillman's mother and father have publicly expressed frustration over the probes and what they have said are the military's "lies" about their 27-year-old son's death. Mary Tillman has launched her own investigation, poring over thousands of pages of Army documents. Pat Tillman, an NFL star who joined the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, died in a confusing scene in the mountains of Afghanistan.
"Pat went up a ridgeline and got in a position where there were some rocks and he could see some enemy above the canyon walls," says Mary Tillman, whose new book is called Boots on the Ground by Dusk.
"According to the Army, [another U.S. Army] vehicle came out of the canyon basically in a panic, in a fog of war, and shot up the ridgeline in a matter of 4 seconds," she says. "That is the story that ultimately we were told."
But that's not what Mary Tillman and the rest of her family say they ultimately learned about Pat Tillman's death on April 22, 2004.
"You have to understand and I think it's really important that people realize that our family originally, when we learned of the friendly fire, it was very tragic and we were very saddened by it," she tells Steve Inskeep. "It's a horrible thing to know that your loved one was killed by his own men. We thought it was a terrible accident.
"But I think that after looking at the documents and talking to soldiers, I have a feeling that they didn't come out of that canyon in a fog of war. And their behavior was more of an adrenaline rush, a lust to fight."
Mary Tillman says her quest for the truth behind her son's death is often dismissed by people who think it's just the pursuit of a grieving mother.
"I will always grieve for him; I will always miss him," she says of her son. "But we can't accept that he was treated with such disrespect and treated as a political tool, we believe."
Book Excerpt
'Boots on the Ground by Dusk'
Pentagon Investigation
Defense Department Report on the Tillman Investigation (March 2007, PDF)
Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · Four years ago last month, Army Ranger Pat Tillman set off with his unit on orders to "have boots on the ground" in a small Afghan village near the border with Pakistan. By nightfall, he was dead. His death has been the subject of seven investigations, several inquiries and two congressional hearings.
The military reported that Tillman died a heroic death during an insurgent strike, before admitting weeks later that he was killed by friendly fire and launching a series of investigations.
"We as an Army failed in our duty to the Tillman family, the duty we owe to all families of our fallen soldiers: Give them the truth, the best we know it, as fast as we can," Acting Army Secretary Peter Geren said in March 2007.
Tillman's mother and father have publicly expressed frustration over the probes and what they have said are the military's "lies" about their 27-year-old son's death. Mary Tillman has launched her own investigation, poring over thousands of pages of Army documents. Pat Tillman, an NFL star who joined the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, died in a confusing scene in the mountains of Afghanistan.
"Pat went up a ridgeline and got in a position where there were some rocks and he could see some enemy above the canyon walls," says Mary Tillman, whose new book is called Boots on the Ground by Dusk.
"According to the Army, [another U.S. Army] vehicle came out of the canyon basically in a panic, in a fog of war, and shot up the ridgeline in a matter of 4 seconds," she says. "That is the story that ultimately we were told."
But that's not what Mary Tillman and the rest of her family say they ultimately learned about Pat Tillman's death on April 22, 2004.
"You have to understand and I think it's really important that people realize that our family originally, when we learned of the friendly fire, it was very tragic and we were very saddened by it," she tells Steve Inskeep. "It's a horrible thing to know that your loved one was killed by his own men. We thought it was a terrible accident.
"But I think that after looking at the documents and talking to soldiers, I have a feeling that they didn't come out of that canyon in a fog of war. And their behavior was more of an adrenaline rush, a lust to fight."
Mary Tillman says her quest for the truth behind her son's death is often dismissed by people who think it's just the pursuit of a grieving mother.
"I will always grieve for him; I will always miss him," she says of her son. "But we can't accept that he was treated with such disrespect and treated as a political tool, we believe."
Friday, May 02, 2008
Officials tussle on grand jury dealings
Web Posted: 05/01/2008 10:59 PM CDT
Express-News
BOERNE — District Attorney Bruce Curry has balked at revealing Kendall County grand jury deliberations on the April 16, 2003, death of Air Force Col. Philip Shue — in which the panel found no evidence of a criminal act — for use in an upcoming lawsuit trial.
Shue's widow, Tracy Shue, is suing USAA Life Insurance Co. for alleged negligence in its handling of a life insurance policy on her husband, whose death in a car wreck in Kendall County was ruled suicide.
An order backed by the lawsuit parties was issued April 21 by Kendall County Court at Law Judge Bill Palmer directing Curry to supply them with the secret testimony and evidence within 10 days.
An objection filed on Curry's behalf Wednesday argues that revealing grand jury proceedings for use in a lawsuit could expose Curry to fines and possible removal from office.
It said that ‘to expose the sanctity' of the grand jury proceedings, and raising the specter that jurors may be called as witnesses in the civil case, ‘could have a chilling effect on a grand jury's exploration of the truth.'
Express-News
BOERNE — District Attorney Bruce Curry has balked at revealing Kendall County grand jury deliberations on the April 16, 2003, death of Air Force Col. Philip Shue — in which the panel found no evidence of a criminal act — for use in an upcoming lawsuit trial.
Shue's widow, Tracy Shue, is suing USAA Life Insurance Co. for alleged negligence in its handling of a life insurance policy on her husband, whose death in a car wreck in Kendall County was ruled suicide.
An order backed by the lawsuit parties was issued April 21 by Kendall County Court at Law Judge Bill Palmer directing Curry to supply them with the secret testimony and evidence within 10 days.
An objection filed on Curry's behalf Wednesday argues that revealing grand jury proceedings for use in a lawsuit could expose Curry to fines and possible removal from office.
It said that ‘to expose the sanctity' of the grand jury proceedings, and raising the specter that jurors may be called as witnesses in the civil case, ‘could have a chilling effect on a grand jury's exploration of the truth.'
Monday, April 28, 2008
Is There an Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?
By Ann Wright
Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder?
Monday 28 April 2008
The Department of Defense statistics are alarming - one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. The warnings to women should begin above the doors of the military recruiting stations, as that is where assaults on women in the military begin - before they are even recruited.
But, now, even more alarming, are deaths of women soldiers in Iraq and in the United States following rape. The military has characterized each death of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "noncombat related injuries," and then added "suicide." Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. Specific US Army units and certain US military bases in Iraq have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of "noncombat related injuries," with several identified as "suicides."
Ninety-four US military women have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Twelve US civilian women have been killed in OIF. Thirteen US military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Twelve US Civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan.
Of the 94 US military women who died in Iraq or in OIF, the military says 36 died from noncombat related injuries, which included vehicle accidents, illness, death by "natural causes" and self-inflicted gunshot wounds, or suicide. The military has declared the deaths of the Navy women in Bahrain, which were killed by a third sailor, as homicides. Five deaths have been labeled as suicides, but 15 more deaths occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances.
Eight women soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas, (six from the Fourth Infantry Division and two from the 1st Armored Cavalry Division) have died of "noncombat related injuries" on the same base, Camp Taji, and three were raped before their deaths. Two were raped immediately before their deaths and another raped prior to arriving in Iraq. Two military women have died of suspicious "noncombat related injuries" on Balad base, and one was raped before she died. Four deaths have been classified as "suicides."
Nineteen-year-old US Army Pvt. Lavena Johnson was found dead on the military base in Balad, Iraq, in July, 2005, and her death characterized by the US Army to be suicide from a self-inflicted M-16 shot. On April 9, 2008, Dr. John Johnson and his wife Linda, parents of Private Johnson, flew from their home in St. Louis for meetings with US Congress members and their staffs. They were in Washington to ask that Congressional hearings be conducted on the Army's investigation into the death of their daughter, an investigation that classified her death as a suicide despite extensive evidence suggesting she was murdered.
From the day their daughter's body was returned to them, the parents had grave suspicions about the Army's investigation into Lavena's death and the characterization of her death as suicide. In charge of a communications facility, Lavena was able to call home daily. In those calls, she gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter to her parents, Lavena's commanding officer Capt. David Woods wrote, "Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good health both physically and emotionally."
In viewing his daughter's body at the funeral home, Dr. Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound. As a US Army veteran and a 25-year US Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena's head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round.
He questioned why the exit hole was on the left side of her head, when she was right handed. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena's hands, hiding burns on one of her hands, is what deepened Dr. Johnson's concerns that the Army's investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.
Over the next two and one-half years, Dr. and Mrs. Johnson and their family and friends relentlessly, through the Freedom of Information Act and Congressional offices requested the Department of the Army for documents concerning Lavena's death. With each response of the Army to the request for information, another piece of information/evidence about Lavena's death emerged.
The military criminal investigator's initial drawing of the death scene revealed Lavena's M16 was found perfectly parallel to her body. The investigator's sketch showed her body was found inside a burning tent, under a wooden bench, with an aerosol can nearby. A witness stated he heard a gunshot and, when he went to investigate, found a tent on fire, and when he looked into the tent, saw a body. The Army official investigation did not mention a fire or that her body had been burned.
After two years of requesting documents, one set of papers provided by the Army included a photocopy copy of a CD. Wondering why the photocopy copy was in the documents, Dr. Johnson requested the CD itself. With help from his local Congressional representative, the US Army finally complied. When Dr. Johnson viewed the CD, he was shocked to see photographs taken by Army investigators of his daughter's body as it lay where her body had been found, as well as other photographs of her disrobed body taken during the investigation.
The photographs revealed that Lavena, a small woman, barely five feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her teeth knocked backwards. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes had debris on them indicating she had been dragged from one location to another.
The photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her back as well as her right hand had been burned, apparently from a flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted. The photographs of her genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA evidence of sexual assault.
Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body, Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a blood trail from outside a contractor's tent to inside the tent. Apparently, she had been dressed after the attack and her attacker placed her body into the tent and set it on fire.
Investigator records reveal members of her unit said Lavena told them she was going jogging with friends on the other side of the base. One unit member walked with her to the Post Exchange where she bought a soda and then, in her Army workout clothes, went on by herself to meet friends and get exercise. The unit member said she was in good spirits with no indication of personal emotional problems.
The Army investigators initially assumed Private Johnson's death was a homicide and indicated that on their paperwork. However, shortly into the investigation, a decision apparently was made by higher officials that the investigators must stop the investigation into a homicide and to classify her death a suicide.
As a result, no further investigation took place into a possible homicide, despite strong evidence available to the investigators.
Another family that does not believe their daughter committed suicide in Iraq is the family of Army Pfc. Tina Priest, 20, of Smithville, Texas, who was raped by a fellow soldier in February, 2006, on a military base known as Camp Taji. Priest was a part of the 5th Support Battalion, lst Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. The Army said Tina was found dead in her room on March 1, 2006, of a self-inflicted M-16 shot, a "suicide", 11 days after the rape. Private Priest's mother, Joy Priest, disputes the Army's findings. Mrs. Priest said she talked several times with her daughter after the rape, and while very upset about the rape, she was not suicidal. Priest continues to challenge the Army's 800 pages of investigative documents with a simple question: How could her petite, five-foot-tall daughter, with a short arm length, have held the M-16 at the angle that would have resulted in the gunshot? The Army attempted several explanations, but each was debunked by Mrs. Priest and by the 800 pages of materials provided by the Army itself. The Army now says Tina used her toe to pull the trigger of the weapon that killed her. The Army never investigated Tina's death as a homicide, but only as a suicide.
Rape charges against the soldier whose sperm was found on her sleeping bag were dropped a few weeks after her death. He was convicted of failure to obey an order and sentenced to forfeiture of $714 for two months, 30 days restriction to the base and 45 days of extra duty.
On the same Camp Taji, ten days later after Tina Priest was found dead, on May 11, 2006, a female US Army Pfc. (name known to author, but not identified for the article), 19, was found dead. She died three days after she suffered what the Army called "a self-inflicted gunshot". The Army claimed she, too, had committed suicide. In her room, where her body was found, investigators discovered her diary open to a page on which she had written about being raped during training, after unknowingly drinking a date-rape drug. The person identified in the diary as the rapist was charged by the Army with rape after her death. Many who knew her did not believe she shot herself, but there is no evidence of a homicide investigation by the Army.
The September 4, 2006, the death at Camp Taji of Pfc. Hannah Gunterman McKinney, 20, of the 44th Corps Support Battalion, Ft. Lewis, Washington, was investigated. Rather than having been run over by a military vehicle as she crossed a road from a guard tower to the latrine, as initially claimed by the Army, she fell, or was pushed from, and run over by a vehicle driven by a drunk sergeant from her unit, who had first sexually assaulted her. The sergeant pleaded guilty to drinking in a war zone, drunken driving and consensual sodomy with an underage, incapacitated junior soldier to whom he had supplied alcohol. A military judge ruled McKinney's death was an accident and the sergeant was sentenced to 13 months imprisonment, demotion to private, but he would not be discharged from the Army.
Other suspicious "noncombat related injury" deaths on Camp Taji include Fort Hood's 1st Armored Cavalry Division Pfc. Melissa J. Hobart (who died June 6, 2004), 1st Armored Cavalry Sgt. Jeannette Dunn (who died November 26, 2006), 89th Military Police Brigade Specialist Kamisha J. Block (who died August, 2007), 4th Infantry Division Specialist Marisol Heredia (who died September 7, 2007) and 4th Infantry Division Specialist Keisha M. Morgan (who died February, 22, 2008). None of the deaths have been classified as suicides, but the circumstances of their deaths should be investigated further because of serious questions concerning their deaths.
The US Army has classified the deaths of four other women as suicides. In the space of three months in 2006, three members of the US Army, who had been part of a logistics group in Kuwait, committed suicide. Two of them were women. In August 2006, Lt. Col. Marshall Gutierrez was arrested at a restaurant in Kuwait and accused of shaking down a laundry contractor for a $3,400 bribe. He was allowed to return to his quarters, and found dead on September 4, 2006, with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills and an open container of what appeared to be antifreeze.
Maj. Gloria D. Davis, 47, assigned to the Defense Security Assistance Agency, which handles the sales of military equipment to other countries, reportedly committed suicide in Baghdad on December 12, 2006, the day after she allegedly admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from Lee Dynamics, a US Army contractor, who reportedly bribed officers for work in Iraq. Major Davis had a daughter, son and granddaughter. She had worked as a police officer, was a volunteer at women's shelters and helped get disadvantaged African-American students into ROTC programs.
New York Army National Guard Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman, 46, was assigned to a desk job at a procurement office in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, that purchased millions of dollars in supplies. She received excellent performance ratings, her supervisor citing that her work eliminated misuse of funds by 36 percent. On October 1, 2006, Lannaman was questioned by a senior officer about the death of Lt. Col. Gutierrez, and reportedly told by that officer that she would be leaving the military in disgrace. Later in the day, she was found in a jeep, dead of a gunshot wound. While her family said she had attempted suicide four different times in her life, the Army has not ruled on the cause of Lannaman's death.
US Army interrogator Specialist Alyssa Renee Peterson, 27, assigned to C Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, was an Arabic linguist, who reportedly was very concerned about the manner in which interrogations were being conducted. She died on September 15, 2003, near Tal Afar, Iraq, in what the Army described as a gunshot wound to the head, a noncombat, self-inflicted weapons discharge, or suicide. Peterson reportedly objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners and refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Members of her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Peterson objected to. The military says all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. After refusing to conduct more interrogations, Peterson was assigned to guard the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards.
She was also sent to suicide-prevention training. On the night of September 15, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle. Family members challenge the Army's conclusion.
US Army Sgt. Melissa Valles, 26, assigned to Headquarters Detachment, Company B, 64th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Carson, Colorado, died on July 9, 2003, in Balad from two noncombat gunshot wounds to her abdomen. The Army has not ruled whether her death was a suicide or a homicide. But Valles's family stated that, although small in stature at five-foot-three, she was a tough person. "She really put people in their place. She did that since she was a girl. She would put little boys who were bullies in their place." The family does not believe Valles committed suicide.
One suspicious noncombat death of a military woman occurred in Afghanistan.
On September 28, 2007, Massachusetts Army National Guard Specialist Ciara Durkin, 30, a finance specialist, was found lying near a church on the very secure Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, with a single gunshot wound to her head. She had recently told her relatives to press for answers if anything happened to her while she was deployed in Afghanistan. When she was home three weeks prior to her death, she told her sister about something she had come across that raised some concern with her and that she had made some enemies because of it. Members of her family also questioned whether the fact that she was gay played a role in her death. They believe Ciara was killed by a fellow service member, intentionally or accidentally, and they are confident that she did not commit suicide.
In Bahrain, on January 16, 2007, US Navy Petty Officer First Class Jennifer A. Valdivia, 27, assigned to the naval security force for Naval Support Activity, Bahrain, was found dead three days after she was to report for duty on January 14. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has classified her death as a suicide. Valdivia was kennel master of the largest military kennel in the world. In 2005, she was named Sailor of the Year at the Bahrain Naval Base.
The circumstances surrounding each of these deaths warrants further investigation by the US military. Congress can compel the military to reopen cases and provide further investigation. I strongly urge Congress to demand further investigation of the deaths of these women.
-----------
US Army Reserve Colonel, Retired, Ann Wright is a 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves. She was also a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US Department of State in March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq War. She is the co-author of "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder?
Monday 28 April 2008
The Department of Defense statistics are alarming - one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. The warnings to women should begin above the doors of the military recruiting stations, as that is where assaults on women in the military begin - before they are even recruited.
But, now, even more alarming, are deaths of women soldiers in Iraq and in the United States following rape. The military has characterized each death of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "noncombat related injuries," and then added "suicide." Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. Specific US Army units and certain US military bases in Iraq have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of "noncombat related injuries," with several identified as "suicides."
Ninety-four US military women have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Twelve US civilian women have been killed in OIF. Thirteen US military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Twelve US Civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan.
Of the 94 US military women who died in Iraq or in OIF, the military says 36 died from noncombat related injuries, which included vehicle accidents, illness, death by "natural causes" and self-inflicted gunshot wounds, or suicide. The military has declared the deaths of the Navy women in Bahrain, which were killed by a third sailor, as homicides. Five deaths have been labeled as suicides, but 15 more deaths occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances.
Eight women soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas, (six from the Fourth Infantry Division and two from the 1st Armored Cavalry Division) have died of "noncombat related injuries" on the same base, Camp Taji, and three were raped before their deaths. Two were raped immediately before their deaths and another raped prior to arriving in Iraq. Two military women have died of suspicious "noncombat related injuries" on Balad base, and one was raped before she died. Four deaths have been classified as "suicides."
Nineteen-year-old US Army Pvt. Lavena Johnson was found dead on the military base in Balad, Iraq, in July, 2005, and her death characterized by the US Army to be suicide from a self-inflicted M-16 shot. On April 9, 2008, Dr. John Johnson and his wife Linda, parents of Private Johnson, flew from their home in St. Louis for meetings with US Congress members and their staffs. They were in Washington to ask that Congressional hearings be conducted on the Army's investigation into the death of their daughter, an investigation that classified her death as a suicide despite extensive evidence suggesting she was murdered.
From the day their daughter's body was returned to them, the parents had grave suspicions about the Army's investigation into Lavena's death and the characterization of her death as suicide. In charge of a communications facility, Lavena was able to call home daily. In those calls, she gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter to her parents, Lavena's commanding officer Capt. David Woods wrote, "Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good health both physically and emotionally."
In viewing his daughter's body at the funeral home, Dr. Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound. As a US Army veteran and a 25-year US Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena's head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round.
He questioned why the exit hole was on the left side of her head, when she was right handed. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena's hands, hiding burns on one of her hands, is what deepened Dr. Johnson's concerns that the Army's investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.
Over the next two and one-half years, Dr. and Mrs. Johnson and their family and friends relentlessly, through the Freedom of Information Act and Congressional offices requested the Department of the Army for documents concerning Lavena's death. With each response of the Army to the request for information, another piece of information/evidence about Lavena's death emerged.
The military criminal investigator's initial drawing of the death scene revealed Lavena's M16 was found perfectly parallel to her body. The investigator's sketch showed her body was found inside a burning tent, under a wooden bench, with an aerosol can nearby. A witness stated he heard a gunshot and, when he went to investigate, found a tent on fire, and when he looked into the tent, saw a body. The Army official investigation did not mention a fire or that her body had been burned.
After two years of requesting documents, one set of papers provided by the Army included a photocopy copy of a CD. Wondering why the photocopy copy was in the documents, Dr. Johnson requested the CD itself. With help from his local Congressional representative, the US Army finally complied. When Dr. Johnson viewed the CD, he was shocked to see photographs taken by Army investigators of his daughter's body as it lay where her body had been found, as well as other photographs of her disrobed body taken during the investigation.
The photographs revealed that Lavena, a small woman, barely five feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her teeth knocked backwards. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes had debris on them indicating she had been dragged from one location to another.
The photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her back as well as her right hand had been burned, apparently from a flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted. The photographs of her genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA evidence of sexual assault.
Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body, Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a blood trail from outside a contractor's tent to inside the tent. Apparently, she had been dressed after the attack and her attacker placed her body into the tent and set it on fire.
Investigator records reveal members of her unit said Lavena told them she was going jogging with friends on the other side of the base. One unit member walked with her to the Post Exchange where she bought a soda and then, in her Army workout clothes, went on by herself to meet friends and get exercise. The unit member said she was in good spirits with no indication of personal emotional problems.
The Army investigators initially assumed Private Johnson's death was a homicide and indicated that on their paperwork. However, shortly into the investigation, a decision apparently was made by higher officials that the investigators must stop the investigation into a homicide and to classify her death a suicide.
As a result, no further investigation took place into a possible homicide, despite strong evidence available to the investigators.
Another family that does not believe their daughter committed suicide in Iraq is the family of Army Pfc. Tina Priest, 20, of Smithville, Texas, who was raped by a fellow soldier in February, 2006, on a military base known as Camp Taji. Priest was a part of the 5th Support Battalion, lst Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. The Army said Tina was found dead in her room on March 1, 2006, of a self-inflicted M-16 shot, a "suicide", 11 days after the rape. Private Priest's mother, Joy Priest, disputes the Army's findings. Mrs. Priest said she talked several times with her daughter after the rape, and while very upset about the rape, she was not suicidal. Priest continues to challenge the Army's 800 pages of investigative documents with a simple question: How could her petite, five-foot-tall daughter, with a short arm length, have held the M-16 at the angle that would have resulted in the gunshot? The Army attempted several explanations, but each was debunked by Mrs. Priest and by the 800 pages of materials provided by the Army itself. The Army now says Tina used her toe to pull the trigger of the weapon that killed her. The Army never investigated Tina's death as a homicide, but only as a suicide.
Rape charges against the soldier whose sperm was found on her sleeping bag were dropped a few weeks after her death. He was convicted of failure to obey an order and sentenced to forfeiture of $714 for two months, 30 days restriction to the base and 45 days of extra duty.
On the same Camp Taji, ten days later after Tina Priest was found dead, on May 11, 2006, a female US Army Pfc. (name known to author, but not identified for the article), 19, was found dead. She died three days after she suffered what the Army called "a self-inflicted gunshot". The Army claimed she, too, had committed suicide. In her room, where her body was found, investigators discovered her diary open to a page on which she had written about being raped during training, after unknowingly drinking a date-rape drug. The person identified in the diary as the rapist was charged by the Army with rape after her death. Many who knew her did not believe she shot herself, but there is no evidence of a homicide investigation by the Army.
The September 4, 2006, the death at Camp Taji of Pfc. Hannah Gunterman McKinney, 20, of the 44th Corps Support Battalion, Ft. Lewis, Washington, was investigated. Rather than having been run over by a military vehicle as she crossed a road from a guard tower to the latrine, as initially claimed by the Army, she fell, or was pushed from, and run over by a vehicle driven by a drunk sergeant from her unit, who had first sexually assaulted her. The sergeant pleaded guilty to drinking in a war zone, drunken driving and consensual sodomy with an underage, incapacitated junior soldier to whom he had supplied alcohol. A military judge ruled McKinney's death was an accident and the sergeant was sentenced to 13 months imprisonment, demotion to private, but he would not be discharged from the Army.
Other suspicious "noncombat related injury" deaths on Camp Taji include Fort Hood's 1st Armored Cavalry Division Pfc. Melissa J. Hobart (who died June 6, 2004), 1st Armored Cavalry Sgt. Jeannette Dunn (who died November 26, 2006), 89th Military Police Brigade Specialist Kamisha J. Block (who died August, 2007), 4th Infantry Division Specialist Marisol Heredia (who died September 7, 2007) and 4th Infantry Division Specialist Keisha M. Morgan (who died February, 22, 2008). None of the deaths have been classified as suicides, but the circumstances of their deaths should be investigated further because of serious questions concerning their deaths.
The US Army has classified the deaths of four other women as suicides. In the space of three months in 2006, three members of the US Army, who had been part of a logistics group in Kuwait, committed suicide. Two of them were women. In August 2006, Lt. Col. Marshall Gutierrez was arrested at a restaurant in Kuwait and accused of shaking down a laundry contractor for a $3,400 bribe. He was allowed to return to his quarters, and found dead on September 4, 2006, with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills and an open container of what appeared to be antifreeze.
Maj. Gloria D. Davis, 47, assigned to the Defense Security Assistance Agency, which handles the sales of military equipment to other countries, reportedly committed suicide in Baghdad on December 12, 2006, the day after she allegedly admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from Lee Dynamics, a US Army contractor, who reportedly bribed officers for work in Iraq. Major Davis had a daughter, son and granddaughter. She had worked as a police officer, was a volunteer at women's shelters and helped get disadvantaged African-American students into ROTC programs.
New York Army National Guard Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman, 46, was assigned to a desk job at a procurement office in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, that purchased millions of dollars in supplies. She received excellent performance ratings, her supervisor citing that her work eliminated misuse of funds by 36 percent. On October 1, 2006, Lannaman was questioned by a senior officer about the death of Lt. Col. Gutierrez, and reportedly told by that officer that she would be leaving the military in disgrace. Later in the day, she was found in a jeep, dead of a gunshot wound. While her family said she had attempted suicide four different times in her life, the Army has not ruled on the cause of Lannaman's death.
US Army interrogator Specialist Alyssa Renee Peterson, 27, assigned to C Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, was an Arabic linguist, who reportedly was very concerned about the manner in which interrogations were being conducted. She died on September 15, 2003, near Tal Afar, Iraq, in what the Army described as a gunshot wound to the head, a noncombat, self-inflicted weapons discharge, or suicide. Peterson reportedly objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners and refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Members of her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Peterson objected to. The military says all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. After refusing to conduct more interrogations, Peterson was assigned to guard the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards.
She was also sent to suicide-prevention training. On the night of September 15, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle. Family members challenge the Army's conclusion.
US Army Sgt. Melissa Valles, 26, assigned to Headquarters Detachment, Company B, 64th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Carson, Colorado, died on July 9, 2003, in Balad from two noncombat gunshot wounds to her abdomen. The Army has not ruled whether her death was a suicide or a homicide. But Valles's family stated that, although small in stature at five-foot-three, she was a tough person. "She really put people in their place. She did that since she was a girl. She would put little boys who were bullies in their place." The family does not believe Valles committed suicide.
One suspicious noncombat death of a military woman occurred in Afghanistan.
On September 28, 2007, Massachusetts Army National Guard Specialist Ciara Durkin, 30, a finance specialist, was found lying near a church on the very secure Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, with a single gunshot wound to her head. She had recently told her relatives to press for answers if anything happened to her while she was deployed in Afghanistan. When she was home three weeks prior to her death, she told her sister about something she had come across that raised some concern with her and that she had made some enemies because of it. Members of her family also questioned whether the fact that she was gay played a role in her death. They believe Ciara was killed by a fellow service member, intentionally or accidentally, and they are confident that she did not commit suicide.
In Bahrain, on January 16, 2007, US Navy Petty Officer First Class Jennifer A. Valdivia, 27, assigned to the naval security force for Naval Support Activity, Bahrain, was found dead three days after she was to report for duty on January 14. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has classified her death as a suicide. Valdivia was kennel master of the largest military kennel in the world. In 2005, she was named Sailor of the Year at the Bahrain Naval Base.
The circumstances surrounding each of these deaths warrants further investigation by the US military. Congress can compel the military to reopen cases and provide further investigation. I strongly urge Congress to demand further investigation of the deaths of these women.
-----------
US Army Reserve Colonel, Retired, Ann Wright is a 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves. She was also a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US Department of State in March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq War. She is the co-author of "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
VA Tried to Conceal Extent of Attempted Veteran Suicides, Email Shows
By Jason Leopold
(The Intelligence Daily) -- Top officials at the Veterans Administration tried to conceal information from the public about the sudden increase of attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country, a previously undisclosed internal VA email indicates.
The email was disclosed Tuesday in a federal trial at a courthouse in Northern California where two veterans advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the VA alleging that a systematic breakdown at the VA has led to an epidemic of suicides among war veterans. These groups claim the VA has turned away veterans who have sought help for posttraumatic stress disorder and were suicidal. Some of the veterans, the lawsuit claims, later took their own lives.
The organizations who filed the lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, want a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to force the VA to immediately treat veterans who show signs of PTSD and are at risk of suicide and overhaul internal system that handles benefits claims. PTSD is said to be the most prevalent mental disorder arising from combat.
The Feb. 13., 2008, email, disclosed in federal court Tuesday, was sent to Ira Katz, the VA’s mental health director by Ev Chasen, the agency’s chief communications director.
Chasen sought guidance from Katz about interview queries from CBS News, which reported extensively on veterans suicides last year.
“Is the fact that we’re stopping [suicides] good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we’ve ever seen before? It might be something we drop into a general release about our suicide prevention efforts, which (as you know far better than I) prominently include training employees to recognize the warning signs of suicide,” Chasen wrote Katz in an email titled "Not for CBS News Interview Request."
Katz’s response is startling. He said the VA has identified nearly 1,000 suicide attempts per month among war veterans treated by the VA. His response to Chasen indicates that he did not want the VA to immediately release any statistical data confirming that number, but rather suggested that the agency quietly slip the information into a news release.
“Shh!” Katz wrote in his response to Chasen. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”
The February email was sent shortly after the VA gave CBS News data that showed only a total of 790 attempted suicides in 2007 among veterans treated by the VA. In an email sent to the network Monday after Katz's email was disclosed in court, he denied a "cover-up" and said he did not disclose the true figures of attempted suicides because he was unsure if it was accurate.
In a December email Katz sent to Brig. Gen. Michael J. Kussman, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration within the VA, that roughly 126 veterans of all wars commit suicide per week. He added that data the agency obtained from the Center for Disease Control showed that 20 percent of the suicides in the country are identified as war veterans.
The “VA’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us,” Katz said in the email he sent to Kussman.
Pehaps underscoring just how underprepared the VA was for the number of PTSD cases to emerge from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, documents released to support the plaintiffs’ allegations show that prior to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq the VA believed it would likely see a maximum of 8,000 cases where veterans showed signs of PTSD.
Last week, the RAND Corporation released a study that said about 300,000 U.S. troops sent to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from major depression or PTSD, and 320,000 received traumatic brain injuries. Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many soldiers have completed more than two tours of duty meaning they are exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events.
“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a researcher at RAND who worked on the study. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need.”
Those are statistics Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, has been warning lawmakers about for several years.
“The scope of PTSD in the long term is enormous and must be taken seriously. When all of our 1.6 million service members eventually return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, based on the current rate of 20 percent, VA may face up 320,000 total new veterans diagnosed with PTSD,” Sullivan told a Congressional committee in July 2007. If America fails to act now and overhaul the broken DoD and VA disability systems, there may a social catastrophe among many of our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. That is why VCS reluctantly filed suit against VA in Federal Court...Time is running out”
Sullivan has urged Congress to enact legislation to immediately overhaul the VA.
“Congress should legislate a presumption of service connection for veterans diagnosed [with] PTSD who deployed to a war zone after 9/11,” Sullivan told lawmakers last year. “A presumption makes it easier for dedicated and hard-working VA employees to process veterans’ claims. This results in faster medical treatment and benefits for our veterans.”
Yet despite Sullivan’s dire predictions and calls for legislative action the issue has not been given priority treatment by lawmakers. Instead, Congress continued to fund the war in Iraq to the tune of about $200 billion and will likely pour another $108 billion into Iraq later next month.
Meanwhile, a backlog of veterans’ benefits claims continue to pile up at the VA.
The VA said it has hired more than 3,000 mental healthcare professionals over the past two years to deal with the increasing number of PTSD cases, but the problems persist.
VA Says Vets Not ‘Entitled’ to Healthcare
In opening statements Monday, Richard Lepley, a Justice Department attorney, said the VA runs a "world-class health care system."
But Gordon Erspamer, the lead attorney representing the two veterans groups, said the VA has arbitrarily denied coverage to thousands of vets, that it takes nearly a year to decide whether it will provide coverage to veterans suffering from PTSD, and takes as long as four years for the VA to address veterans appeals cases.
“Seeking help from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs... involves a two-track system,” says a copy of the plaintiff’s trial brief filed in federal court last week.“A veteran will go to the Veterans’ Health Administration for diagnosis and medical care; and a veteran goes to the Veterans’ Benefits Administration to apply for service-connection and disability compensation...
“VA is failing these veterans as they move along both of these parallel tracks. They are not receiving the healthcare to which they are entitled (and where they do receive it, it is unreasonably delayed) and they are not able to get timely compensation for their disabilities, which means that they have no safety net. These two problems combine to create a perfect storm for PTSD veterans: they receive no treatment, so their symptoms get worse; and they receive no compensation, so they cannot go elsewhere for treatment. The failings of these two separate but interrelated systems are what this action seeks to address.”
The lawsuit the groups filed alleges that numerous VA practices stemming from a 1998 law violate the constitutional and statutory rights of veterans suffering from PTSD by denying veterans mandated medical care.
Justice Department attorneys had argued in court papers filed last month that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were not "entitled" to the five-years of free healthcare upon their return from combat as mandated by Congress in the "Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act." Rather, the VA argued, medical treatment for the war veterans was discretionary based on the level of funding available in the VA's budget.
But during a court hearing hearing last month before U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, Dr. Gerald Cross, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Health Administration, said that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only entitled to free healthcare, but he said "there is no co-pay."
Soldier’s Suicide Warnings Ignored
Chris Scheuerman, a retired Special Forces masters sergeant, testified before a Congressional committee last month that there is an urgent need for mental healthreform in the military.
Scheuerman said his son, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman, went to see an Army psychologist because he had been suicidal.
The Army psychologist wrote up a report saying Jason Scheuerman “was capable of (faking) mental illness in order to manipulate his command,” according to documents the soldiers father turned over to Congress.
“Jason desperately needed a second opinion after his encounter with the Army psychologist,” Chris Scheuerman testified in mid-March before the Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee.
“The Army did offer him that option, but at his own expense. How is a PFC (private first class) in the middle of Iraq supposed to get to a civilian mental health care provider at his own expense?” he said. “I believe a soldier should be afforded the opportunity to a second opinion via teleconference with a civilian mental health care provider of their own choice.”
Jason Scheuerman shot himself with a rifle on July 30, 2005. The 20-year-old’s suicide note was nailed to the close in his barracks. It said, “Maybe now I can get some peace.”
Investigative journalist Jason Leopold is the author of the bestselling memoir, News Junkie. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com/ for a preview.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
(The Intelligence Daily) -- Top officials at the Veterans Administration tried to conceal information from the public about the sudden increase of attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country, a previously undisclosed internal VA email indicates.
The email was disclosed Tuesday in a federal trial at a courthouse in Northern California where two veterans advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the VA alleging that a systematic breakdown at the VA has led to an epidemic of suicides among war veterans. These groups claim the VA has turned away veterans who have sought help for posttraumatic stress disorder and were suicidal. Some of the veterans, the lawsuit claims, later took their own lives.
The organizations who filed the lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, want a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to force the VA to immediately treat veterans who show signs of PTSD and are at risk of suicide and overhaul internal system that handles benefits claims. PTSD is said to be the most prevalent mental disorder arising from combat.
The Feb. 13., 2008, email, disclosed in federal court Tuesday, was sent to Ira Katz, the VA’s mental health director by Ev Chasen, the agency’s chief communications director.
Chasen sought guidance from Katz about interview queries from CBS News, which reported extensively on veterans suicides last year.
“Is the fact that we’re stopping [suicides] good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we’ve ever seen before? It might be something we drop into a general release about our suicide prevention efforts, which (as you know far better than I) prominently include training employees to recognize the warning signs of suicide,” Chasen wrote Katz in an email titled "Not for CBS News Interview Request."
Katz’s response is startling. He said the VA has identified nearly 1,000 suicide attempts per month among war veterans treated by the VA. His response to Chasen indicates that he did not want the VA to immediately release any statistical data confirming that number, but rather suggested that the agency quietly slip the information into a news release.
“Shh!” Katz wrote in his response to Chasen. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”
The February email was sent shortly after the VA gave CBS News data that showed only a total of 790 attempted suicides in 2007 among veterans treated by the VA. In an email sent to the network Monday after Katz's email was disclosed in court, he denied a "cover-up" and said he did not disclose the true figures of attempted suicides because he was unsure if it was accurate.
In a December email Katz sent to Brig. Gen. Michael J. Kussman, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration within the VA, that roughly 126 veterans of all wars commit suicide per week. He added that data the agency obtained from the Center for Disease Control showed that 20 percent of the suicides in the country are identified as war veterans.
The “VA’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us,” Katz said in the email he sent to Kussman.
Pehaps underscoring just how underprepared the VA was for the number of PTSD cases to emerge from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, documents released to support the plaintiffs’ allegations show that prior to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq the VA believed it would likely see a maximum of 8,000 cases where veterans showed signs of PTSD.
Last week, the RAND Corporation released a study that said about 300,000 U.S. troops sent to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from major depression or PTSD, and 320,000 received traumatic brain injuries. Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many soldiers have completed more than two tours of duty meaning they are exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events.
“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a researcher at RAND who worked on the study. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need.”
Those are statistics Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, has been warning lawmakers about for several years.
“The scope of PTSD in the long term is enormous and must be taken seriously. When all of our 1.6 million service members eventually return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, based on the current rate of 20 percent, VA may face up 320,000 total new veterans diagnosed with PTSD,” Sullivan told a Congressional committee in July 2007. If America fails to act now and overhaul the broken DoD and VA disability systems, there may a social catastrophe among many of our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. That is why VCS reluctantly filed suit against VA in Federal Court...Time is running out”
Sullivan has urged Congress to enact legislation to immediately overhaul the VA.
“Congress should legislate a presumption of service connection for veterans diagnosed [with] PTSD who deployed to a war zone after 9/11,” Sullivan told lawmakers last year. “A presumption makes it easier for dedicated and hard-working VA employees to process veterans’ claims. This results in faster medical treatment and benefits for our veterans.”
Yet despite Sullivan’s dire predictions and calls for legislative action the issue has not been given priority treatment by lawmakers. Instead, Congress continued to fund the war in Iraq to the tune of about $200 billion and will likely pour another $108 billion into Iraq later next month.
Meanwhile, a backlog of veterans’ benefits claims continue to pile up at the VA.
The VA said it has hired more than 3,000 mental healthcare professionals over the past two years to deal with the increasing number of PTSD cases, but the problems persist.
VA Says Vets Not ‘Entitled’ to Healthcare
In opening statements Monday, Richard Lepley, a Justice Department attorney, said the VA runs a "world-class health care system."
But Gordon Erspamer, the lead attorney representing the two veterans groups, said the VA has arbitrarily denied coverage to thousands of vets, that it takes nearly a year to decide whether it will provide coverage to veterans suffering from PTSD, and takes as long as four years for the VA to address veterans appeals cases.
“Seeking help from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs... involves a two-track system,” says a copy of the plaintiff’s trial brief filed in federal court last week.“A veteran will go to the Veterans’ Health Administration for diagnosis and medical care; and a veteran goes to the Veterans’ Benefits Administration to apply for service-connection and disability compensation...
“VA is failing these veterans as they move along both of these parallel tracks. They are not receiving the healthcare to which they are entitled (and where they do receive it, it is unreasonably delayed) and they are not able to get timely compensation for their disabilities, which means that they have no safety net. These two problems combine to create a perfect storm for PTSD veterans: they receive no treatment, so their symptoms get worse; and they receive no compensation, so they cannot go elsewhere for treatment. The failings of these two separate but interrelated systems are what this action seeks to address.”
The lawsuit the groups filed alleges that numerous VA practices stemming from a 1998 law violate the constitutional and statutory rights of veterans suffering from PTSD by denying veterans mandated medical care.
Justice Department attorneys had argued in court papers filed last month that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were not "entitled" to the five-years of free healthcare upon their return from combat as mandated by Congress in the "Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act." Rather, the VA argued, medical treatment for the war veterans was discretionary based on the level of funding available in the VA's budget.
But during a court hearing hearing last month before U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, Dr. Gerald Cross, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Health Administration, said that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only entitled to free healthcare, but he said "there is no co-pay."
Soldier’s Suicide Warnings Ignored
Chris Scheuerman, a retired Special Forces masters sergeant, testified before a Congressional committee last month that there is an urgent need for mental healthreform in the military.
Scheuerman said his son, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman, went to see an Army psychologist because he had been suicidal.
The Army psychologist wrote up a report saying Jason Scheuerman “was capable of (faking) mental illness in order to manipulate his command,” according to documents the soldiers father turned over to Congress.
“Jason desperately needed a second opinion after his encounter with the Army psychologist,” Chris Scheuerman testified in mid-March before the Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee.
“The Army did offer him that option, but at his own expense. How is a PFC (private first class) in the middle of Iraq supposed to get to a civilian mental health care provider at his own expense?” he said. “I believe a soldier should be afforded the opportunity to a second opinion via teleconference with a civilian mental health care provider of their own choice.”
Jason Scheuerman shot himself with a rifle on July 30, 2005. The 20-year-old’s suicide note was nailed to the close in his barracks. It said, “Maybe now I can get some peace.”
Investigative journalist Jason Leopold is the author of the bestselling memoir, News Junkie. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com/ for a preview.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
Monday, April 21, 2008
Mother Fights Army Over Son's Death
By ROBERT IMRIE – Mar 23, 2008
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — Joan McDonald believes her son was a casualty of the war in Iraq, but the Army says that while he did suffer a severe head wound in a bomb blast, the cause of his death is undetermined, keeping him off the casualty list.
She and her family are demanding more answers in the death of Sgt. James W. McDonald.
"I don't want it to be an undetermined cause of death," said Joan McDonald. "That is ridiculous."
McDonald, 26, was injured in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq last May. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment based at Fort Hood, Texas. After treatment in Germany, McDonald returned to Fort Hood and underwent extensive facial surgery in August.
His body was found in his barracks apartment Nov. 12, a Monday. He was last seen alive the previous Friday.
The Army ruled out suicide and accidental factors, but an autopsy could not determine the exact cause of death, in part because of the decomposition of the body, said Col. Diane Battaglia, a base spokeswoman.
As a result, McDonald's death is considered noncombat-related, with the caveat that medical experts couldn't rule out that "traumatic brain injury" may have been a factor, Battaglia said.
Joan McDonald, of Neenah, has no doubts about her son's death.
"If my son was not at the war, he would not be dead, plain and simple," she said. "He was a strong healthy boy. ... Don't tell me it was unrelated to the war. I will never accept that."
Tom Wilborn, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans in Washington, said the question of whether McDonald was a war casualty is the first that he was aware of from the Iraq war.
"But it happened a lot during Vietnam," he said. "There's a long history where guys would be wounded in the jungle and they might live long enough to come home. And then they would pass away and were not counted as a combat casualty."
According to an Army study in 2007, 1.4 million people in the U.S. suffer traumatic brain injuries each year. Of those, 50,000 die, 235,000 are hospitalized and 1.1 million are evaluated, treated at a hospital emergency department and released.
A Government Accountability Office study found that of soldiers who required a medical evacuation for battle-related injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, 30 percent suffered a traumatic brain injury. But it was unknown how many soldiers suffered more mild forms of brain injury.
The family has asked Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., for help. McDonald has a copy of a March 11 letter Feingold sent to Maj. Gen. Galen Jakman at the Pentagon outlining her concerns.
McDonald said her son was a strapping 6-foot-3, 200-pound soldier who served two tours of duty in Iraq and loved the military.
"He was having a problem sleeping since he came back from the war. I don't think it had anything to do with sleep apnea. I think it had to do with bombs," she said.
He also had seen a doctor because of severe nose bleeds but was told the symptoms were not that unusual, given his August surgery, she said.
Before he died, McDonald had worked on the base at a weapons room and the post office, she said. He had planned to leave the Army in January to pursue a career in firefighting.
She said she recently ran across a T-shirt that said he helped build a memorial wall at Fort Hood to honor its soldiers killed in Iraq.
"I want his name on that wall," she said. "We don't know what else to do. I have one brother who is saying 'Does it matter. To you, he is a casualty of war. To everyone that knew him, he is a casualty of war.' I am like, well, it kinda does matter."
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — Joan McDonald believes her son was a casualty of the war in Iraq, but the Army says that while he did suffer a severe head wound in a bomb blast, the cause of his death is undetermined, keeping him off the casualty list.
She and her family are demanding more answers in the death of Sgt. James W. McDonald.
"I don't want it to be an undetermined cause of death," said Joan McDonald. "That is ridiculous."
McDonald, 26, was injured in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq last May. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment based at Fort Hood, Texas. After treatment in Germany, McDonald returned to Fort Hood and underwent extensive facial surgery in August.
His body was found in his barracks apartment Nov. 12, a Monday. He was last seen alive the previous Friday.
The Army ruled out suicide and accidental factors, but an autopsy could not determine the exact cause of death, in part because of the decomposition of the body, said Col. Diane Battaglia, a base spokeswoman.
As a result, McDonald's death is considered noncombat-related, with the caveat that medical experts couldn't rule out that "traumatic brain injury" may have been a factor, Battaglia said.
Joan McDonald, of Neenah, has no doubts about her son's death.
"If my son was not at the war, he would not be dead, plain and simple," she said. "He was a strong healthy boy. ... Don't tell me it was unrelated to the war. I will never accept that."
Tom Wilborn, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans in Washington, said the question of whether McDonald was a war casualty is the first that he was aware of from the Iraq war.
"But it happened a lot during Vietnam," he said. "There's a long history where guys would be wounded in the jungle and they might live long enough to come home. And then they would pass away and were not counted as a combat casualty."
According to an Army study in 2007, 1.4 million people in the U.S. suffer traumatic brain injuries each year. Of those, 50,000 die, 235,000 are hospitalized and 1.1 million are evaluated, treated at a hospital emergency department and released.
A Government Accountability Office study found that of soldiers who required a medical evacuation for battle-related injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, 30 percent suffered a traumatic brain injury. But it was unknown how many soldiers suffered more mild forms of brain injury.
The family has asked Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., for help. McDonald has a copy of a March 11 letter Feingold sent to Maj. Gen. Galen Jakman at the Pentagon outlining her concerns.
McDonald said her son was a strapping 6-foot-3, 200-pound soldier who served two tours of duty in Iraq and loved the military.
"He was having a problem sleeping since he came back from the war. I don't think it had anything to do with sleep apnea. I think it had to do with bombs," she said.
He also had seen a doctor because of severe nose bleeds but was told the symptoms were not that unusual, given his August surgery, she said.
Before he died, McDonald had worked on the base at a weapons room and the post office, she said. He had planned to leave the Army in January to pursue a career in firefighting.
She said she recently ran across a T-shirt that said he helped build a memorial wall at Fort Hood to honor its soldiers killed in Iraq.
"I want his name on that wall," she said. "We don't know what else to do. I have one brother who is saying 'Does it matter. To you, he is a casualty of war. To everyone that knew him, he is a casualty of war.' I am like, well, it kinda does matter."
Monday, April 14, 2008
Newspaper Carries Word of Another Mysterious U.S. Soldier Death in Iraq
By Greg Mitchell
Published: April 13, 2008 1:30 PM ET
NEW YORK For the past five years, since shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I have chronicled -- often a lonely pursuit -- the deaths of nearly one thousand U.S. military personnel who have died in that war from "non-hostile" causes. These include deaths from illness, accident, friendly fire and suicide. The suicide rate has surged in the past few years, as multiple tours increased, and this has always seemed especially haunting for me.
Word emerged yesterday of another mysterious, non-hostile fatality. His name is Jeremiah Hughes. The army is investigating and may never release its findings.
But the final "mood" icon on his MySpace page, I discovered today, was a frown -- with the word: "Crushed."
Army Spc. Jeremiah Hughes, 26, left for Iraq in December with the Stryker brigade from Hawaii -- three years after a previous tour. An article in the Honolulu Advertiser yesterday quotes an entry from his MySpace page just before he was deployed: "I'm gonna hate being away from my wife for over a year. And I'm gonna hate not being able to spend time with her, or my friends, or my dogs. I'm really gonna dislike not being able to drink every once in a while when I get irritated by the things around me. And then of course, I can't say that I'm gonna be too fond of people shooting at me again, or trying to blow me up again, or any of that stupid stuff."
The Pentagon announced that he died Wednesday in Balad, Iraq, "from injuries sustained in a noncombat incident in Abu Ghraib." His wife survives him.
Often, as I have written, local newspapers are first to reveal the true causes of death, gathering information from family or friends. There are several chapters about these sad cases in my new book on Iraq and the media, including the story of Alyssa Peterson (which I recently highlighted here) who took her life after refusing to engage in torture interrogations.
*
Greg Mitchell's new book is "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq." It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.
Published: April 13, 2008 1:30 PM ET
NEW YORK For the past five years, since shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I have chronicled -- often a lonely pursuit -- the deaths of nearly one thousand U.S. military personnel who have died in that war from "non-hostile" causes. These include deaths from illness, accident, friendly fire and suicide. The suicide rate has surged in the past few years, as multiple tours increased, and this has always seemed especially haunting for me.
Word emerged yesterday of another mysterious, non-hostile fatality. His name is Jeremiah Hughes. The army is investigating and may never release its findings.
But the final "mood" icon on his MySpace page, I discovered today, was a frown -- with the word: "Crushed."
Army Spc. Jeremiah Hughes, 26, left for Iraq in December with the Stryker brigade from Hawaii -- three years after a previous tour. An article in the Honolulu Advertiser yesterday quotes an entry from his MySpace page just before he was deployed: "I'm gonna hate being away from my wife for over a year. And I'm gonna hate not being able to spend time with her, or my friends, or my dogs. I'm really gonna dislike not being able to drink every once in a while when I get irritated by the things around me. And then of course, I can't say that I'm gonna be too fond of people shooting at me again, or trying to blow me up again, or any of that stupid stuff."
The Pentagon announced that he died Wednesday in Balad, Iraq, "from injuries sustained in a noncombat incident in Abu Ghraib." His wife survives him.
Often, as I have written, local newspapers are first to reveal the true causes of death, gathering information from family or friends. There are several chapters about these sad cases in my new book on Iraq and the media, including the story of Alyssa Peterson (which I recently highlighted here) who took her life after refusing to engage in torture interrogations.
*
Greg Mitchell's new book is "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq." It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Updates on the Maria Lauterbach Case
I hope we can find out what happened now so her family and friends will know. Altho I don't know if the authorities will get the truth out of him or not.
Missing Marine
14 more stories about Maria Lauterbach
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Missing Marine
14 more stories about Maria Lauterbach
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Friday, April 11, 2008
Army under stress from long wars
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 10, 2:15 AM ET
U.S. soldiers are committing suicide at record levels, young officers are abandoning their military careers, and the heavy use of forces in Iraq has made it harder for the military to fight conflicts that could arise elsewhere.
Unprecedented strains on the nation's all-volunteer military are threatening the health and readiness of the troops.
While the spotlight Wednesday was on congressional hearings with the U.S. ambassador and commanding general for Iraq, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody was in another hearing room explaining how troops and their families are being taxed by long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prospect of future years of conflict in the global war on terror.
"That marathon has become an enduring relay and our soldiers continue to run — and at the double time," Cody said. "Does this exhaust the body and mind of those in the race, and those who are ever present on the sidelines, cheering their every step? Yes. Has it broken the will of the soldier? No."
And it's not just the people that are facing strains.
Military depots have been working in high gear to repair or rebuild hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment — from radios to vehicles to weapons — that are being overused and worn out in harsh battlefield conditions. The Defense Department has asked for $46.5 billion in this year's war budget to repair and replace equipment damaged or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both the Army and Marine Corps have been forced to take equipment from non-deployed units and from pre-positioned stocks to meet needs of those in combat — meaning troops at home can't train on the equipment.
National Guard units have only an average of 61 percent of the equipment needed to be ready for disasters or attacks on the U.S., Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton lamented at Wednesday's hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.
Cody and his Marine counterpart, Gen. Robert Magnus, told the committee they're not sure their forces could handle a new conflict if one came along.
The Pentagon and Congress have worked in recent years to increase funding, bolster support programs for families, improve care for soldiers and Marines and increase the size of both forces to reduce the strain. Cody said the U.S. must continue the investment, continue to support its armed forces and have an "open and honest discussion" about the size of military that is needed for today's demands.
An annual Pentagon report this year found there was a significant risk that the U.S. military could not quickly and fully respond to another outbreak elsewhere in the world. The classified risk assessment concluded that long battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, are to blame.
The review grades the armed services' ability to meet the demands of the nation's military strategy — which would include fighting the current wars as well any potential outbreaks in places such as North Korea, Iran, Lebanon or China.
Similarly, a 400-page January report by the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves found the force isn't ready for a catastrophic chemical, biological or nuclear attack on this country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job.
Strain on individuals has been repeatedly documented.
It contributes to the difficulty in getting other Americans to join the volunteer military. The Army struggles to find enough recruits each year and to keep career soldiers.
Thousands more troops each year struggle with mental health problems because of the combat they've seen. The lengthening of duty tours to 15 months from 12 a year ago also has been blamed for problems as has the fact that soldiers are being sent back for two, three or more times.
President Bush will announce on Thursday that the length of tours will go back to 12 months for Army units heading to war after Aug. 1, defense officials said Wednesday.
Some 27 percent of soldiers on their third or fourth combat tours suffered anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems, according to an Army survey released last month. That compared with 12 percent among those on their first tour.
In Afghanistan a range of mental health problems increased, and 11.4 percent of those surveyed reported suffering from depression.
Medical professionals themselves are burning out and said in the survey that they need more help to treat the troops. The report also recommended longer home time between deployments and more focused suicide-prevention training. It said civilian psychologists and other behavioral health professionals should be sent to the warfront to augment the uniformed corps.
Though separate data reported on divorce rates appeared to be holding steady last year, soldiers say they are having more problem with their marriages due to the long and repeated separations.
As many as 121 troops committed suicide in 2007, an increase of some 20 percent over 2006, according to preliminary figures released in January.
If all are confirmed that would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch the war in Afghanistan.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
Thu Apr 10, 2:15 AM ET
U.S. soldiers are committing suicide at record levels, young officers are abandoning their military careers, and the heavy use of forces in Iraq has made it harder for the military to fight conflicts that could arise elsewhere.
Unprecedented strains on the nation's all-volunteer military are threatening the health and readiness of the troops.
While the spotlight Wednesday was on congressional hearings with the U.S. ambassador and commanding general for Iraq, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody was in another hearing room explaining how troops and their families are being taxed by long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prospect of future years of conflict in the global war on terror.
"That marathon has become an enduring relay and our soldiers continue to run — and at the double time," Cody said. "Does this exhaust the body and mind of those in the race, and those who are ever present on the sidelines, cheering their every step? Yes. Has it broken the will of the soldier? No."
And it's not just the people that are facing strains.
Military depots have been working in high gear to repair or rebuild hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment — from radios to vehicles to weapons — that are being overused and worn out in harsh battlefield conditions. The Defense Department has asked for $46.5 billion in this year's war budget to repair and replace equipment damaged or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both the Army and Marine Corps have been forced to take equipment from non-deployed units and from pre-positioned stocks to meet needs of those in combat — meaning troops at home can't train on the equipment.
National Guard units have only an average of 61 percent of the equipment needed to be ready for disasters or attacks on the U.S., Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton lamented at Wednesday's hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.
Cody and his Marine counterpart, Gen. Robert Magnus, told the committee they're not sure their forces could handle a new conflict if one came along.
The Pentagon and Congress have worked in recent years to increase funding, bolster support programs for families, improve care for soldiers and Marines and increase the size of both forces to reduce the strain. Cody said the U.S. must continue the investment, continue to support its armed forces and have an "open and honest discussion" about the size of military that is needed for today's demands.
An annual Pentagon report this year found there was a significant risk that the U.S. military could not quickly and fully respond to another outbreak elsewhere in the world. The classified risk assessment concluded that long battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, are to blame.
The review grades the armed services' ability to meet the demands of the nation's military strategy — which would include fighting the current wars as well any potential outbreaks in places such as North Korea, Iran, Lebanon or China.
Similarly, a 400-page January report by the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves found the force isn't ready for a catastrophic chemical, biological or nuclear attack on this country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job.
Strain on individuals has been repeatedly documented.
It contributes to the difficulty in getting other Americans to join the volunteer military. The Army struggles to find enough recruits each year and to keep career soldiers.
Thousands more troops each year struggle with mental health problems because of the combat they've seen. The lengthening of duty tours to 15 months from 12 a year ago also has been blamed for problems as has the fact that soldiers are being sent back for two, three or more times.
President Bush will announce on Thursday that the length of tours will go back to 12 months for Army units heading to war after Aug. 1, defense officials said Wednesday.
Some 27 percent of soldiers on their third or fourth combat tours suffered anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems, according to an Army survey released last month. That compared with 12 percent among those on their first tour.
In Afghanistan a range of mental health problems increased, and 11.4 percent of those surveyed reported suffering from depression.
Medical professionals themselves are burning out and said in the survey that they need more help to treat the troops. The report also recommended longer home time between deployments and more focused suicide-prevention training. It said civilian psychologists and other behavioral health professionals should be sent to the warfront to augment the uniformed corps.
Though separate data reported on divorce rates appeared to be holding steady last year, soldiers say they are having more problem with their marriages due to the long and repeated separations.
As many as 121 troops committed suicide in 2007, an increase of some 20 percent over 2006, according to preliminary figures released in January.
If all are confirmed that would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch the war in Afghanistan.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Why Did U.S. Soldier Kill Herself -- After Refusing to Take Part in Torture?
-- from the Huffington Post:
They served in the same battalion in Iraq at the same time. Kayla Williams spoke with Alyssa Peterson about the young woman's troubles a week before she died -- and afterward, attended her memorial service. Williams even has her own Iraq interrogation horror story to tell. So what, in Williams' view, caused Alyssa Peterson to put a bullet in her head in September 2003 after just a few weeks in Iraq? And why were the press and the public not told about it?
The death of Alyssa Peterson, which I chronicled here last month, is unspeakably sad, and what was fully in her mind will never be known, especially since her parents apparently knew little about her death until years after it happened. The press, which has rarely challenged the official version of Iraq fatalities, has not probed the incident, to this day (although it is featured in two chapters in my new book on Iraq and the media). But this tragedy also begs the question: Which interrogation techniques drew her ire?
And were they of such a nature that this might explain why this young woman of Mormon faith and, reportedly, good nature would suddenly turn a gun on herself?
The official Army investigation notes that all papers relating to the interrogations have been destroyed. But what do we know about what was going on in Iraq in 2003, beyond credible claims that treatment of prisoners was being "Gitmo-ized"?
Perhaps the most specific testimony that may relate to Alyssa Peterson comes from another Arabic-speaking female U.S. soldier who also served in the 101st Airborne at that time in the same region of Iraq. She even wrote a book partly about it. This is former Army sergeant Kayla Williams, author of the 2005 memoir, Love My Rifle More Than You. Much of the media publicity about the book focused on her accounts of sexual tension or harassment in Iraq, but it also holds several key passages about interrogations.
In the book, Williams, now 30 and out of the Army, described how she had been recruited to briefly take part in over-the-line interrogations. Like Peterson, she protested torture techniques -- such as throwing lit cigarettes at prisoners -- and was quickly shifted away. But she told me that she is still haunted by the experience and wonders if she objected strongly enough.
Williams and Peterson were both interpreters -- but only the latter was in "human intelligence," that is, trained to take part in interrogations. They met by chance when Williams, who had been on a mission, came back to the base in Tal Afar in September 2003 before heading off again. A civilian interpreter asked her to speak to Peterson, who seemed troubled. Like others, Williams found her to be a "sweet girl." Williams asked if she wanted to go to dinner, but Peterson was not free -- maybe next time, but of course time ran out.
Their one conversation, Williams told me, centered on personal, not military, problems, and it's hard to tell where it fit in the suicide timeline. According to records of an Army probe that were obtained by radio reporter Kevin Elston, Peterson had protested, and asked out of, interrogations after just two days in what was known as "the cage" -- and killed herself shortly after that. This might have all transpired just after her encounter with Williams, or it might have happened before and she did not mention it -- they did not really know each other.
Peterson's suicide on Sept. 15 -- reported to the press and public as death by "non-hostile gunshot," usually meaning an accident -- was the only fatality suffered by the battalion during their entire time in Iraq, Williams reports. At the memorial service, everyone knew the cause of her death.
Shortly after that, Williams (a three-year Army vet at the time) was sent to the 2nd Brigade's Support Area in Mosul, and she described what happened next in her book. Brought into the "cage" one day on a special mission, she saw fellow soldiers hitting a naked prisoner in the face. "It's one thing to make fun of someone and attempt to humiliate him. With words. That's one thing. But flicking lit cigarettes at somebody -- like burning him -- that's illegal," Williams writes. Soldiers later told her that "the old rules no longer applied because this was a different world. This was a new kind of war."
Here's what she told Soledad O'Brien of CNN on Sept. 26 of this year: "I was asked to assist. And what I saw was that individuals who were doing interrogations had slipped over a line and were really doing things that were inappropriate. There were prisoners that were burned with lit cigarettes.
"They stripped prisoners naked and then removed their blindfolds so that I was the first thing they saw. And then we were supposed to mock them and degrade their manhood. And it really didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I didn't know if this was standard. But it did not seem to work. And it really made me feel like we were losing that crucial moral higher ground, and we weren't behaving in the way that Americans are supposed to behave."
As soon as that day ended, after a couple of these sessions, she told a superior she would never do it again.
In another CNN interview, on Oct. 8, 2005, she explained: "I sat through it at the time. But after it was over I did approach the non-commissioned officer in charge and told him I think you may be violating the Geneva Conventions. . . . He said he knew and I said I wouldn't participate again and he respected that, but I was really, really stunned. . . ."
So, given all this, what does Williams think pushed Alyssa Peterson to shoot herself one week after their only meeting? The great unknown, of course, is what Peterson was asked to witness or do in interrogations. We do know that she refused to have anything more to do with that after two days -- or one day longer than it took for Williams to reach her breaking point.
Properly, Williams points out that it's rarely one factor that leads to suicide, and Peterson had some personal problems, to be sure. "It's always a bunch of things coming together to the point you feel so overwhelmed that there's no way out," Williams says. "I witnessed abuse, I felt uncomfortable with it, but I didn't kill myself, because I could see the bigger context.
"I felt a lot of angst about whether I had an obligation to report it, and had any way to report it. Was it classified? Who should I turn to?" Perhaps Alyssa Peterson felt in the same box.
"It also made me think," Williams says, "what are we as humans, that we do this to each other? It made me question my humanity and the humanity of all Americans. It was difficult, and to this day I can no longer think I am a really good person and will do the right thing in the right situation." Such an experience might have been truly shattering to the deeply religious Peterson.
Referring to that day in Mosul, Williams says, "I did protest but only to the person in charge and I did not file a report up the chain of command." Yet, after recounting her experience there, she asks: "Can that lead to suicide? That's such an act of desperation, helplessness, it has to be more than that." She concludes, "In general, interrogation is not fun, even if you follow the rules. And I didn't see any good intelligence being gained. The other problem is that, in situations like that, you have people that are not terrorists being picked up, and being questioned. And, if you treat an innocent person like that, they walk out a terrorist."
Or, maybe in this case, if an innocent person witnesses such a thing, some may walk out as a likely suicide.
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed in Iraq. It has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald, Paul Rieckhoff and others. It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.
They served in the same battalion in Iraq at the same time. Kayla Williams spoke with Alyssa Peterson about the young woman's troubles a week before she died -- and afterward, attended her memorial service. Williams even has her own Iraq interrogation horror story to tell. So what, in Williams' view, caused Alyssa Peterson to put a bullet in her head in September 2003 after just a few weeks in Iraq? And why were the press and the public not told about it?
The death of Alyssa Peterson, which I chronicled here last month, is unspeakably sad, and what was fully in her mind will never be known, especially since her parents apparently knew little about her death until years after it happened. The press, which has rarely challenged the official version of Iraq fatalities, has not probed the incident, to this day (although it is featured in two chapters in my new book on Iraq and the media). But this tragedy also begs the question: Which interrogation techniques drew her ire?
And were they of such a nature that this might explain why this young woman of Mormon faith and, reportedly, good nature would suddenly turn a gun on herself?
The official Army investigation notes that all papers relating to the interrogations have been destroyed. But what do we know about what was going on in Iraq in 2003, beyond credible claims that treatment of prisoners was being "Gitmo-ized"?
Perhaps the most specific testimony that may relate to Alyssa Peterson comes from another Arabic-speaking female U.S. soldier who also served in the 101st Airborne at that time in the same region of Iraq. She even wrote a book partly about it. This is former Army sergeant Kayla Williams, author of the 2005 memoir, Love My Rifle More Than You. Much of the media publicity about the book focused on her accounts of sexual tension or harassment in Iraq, but it also holds several key passages about interrogations.
In the book, Williams, now 30 and out of the Army, described how she had been recruited to briefly take part in over-the-line interrogations. Like Peterson, she protested torture techniques -- such as throwing lit cigarettes at prisoners -- and was quickly shifted away. But she told me that she is still haunted by the experience and wonders if she objected strongly enough.
Williams and Peterson were both interpreters -- but only the latter was in "human intelligence," that is, trained to take part in interrogations. They met by chance when Williams, who had been on a mission, came back to the base in Tal Afar in September 2003 before heading off again. A civilian interpreter asked her to speak to Peterson, who seemed troubled. Like others, Williams found her to be a "sweet girl." Williams asked if she wanted to go to dinner, but Peterson was not free -- maybe next time, but of course time ran out.
Their one conversation, Williams told me, centered on personal, not military, problems, and it's hard to tell where it fit in the suicide timeline. According to records of an Army probe that were obtained by radio reporter Kevin Elston, Peterson had protested, and asked out of, interrogations after just two days in what was known as "the cage" -- and killed herself shortly after that. This might have all transpired just after her encounter with Williams, or it might have happened before and she did not mention it -- they did not really know each other.
Peterson's suicide on Sept. 15 -- reported to the press and public as death by "non-hostile gunshot," usually meaning an accident -- was the only fatality suffered by the battalion during their entire time in Iraq, Williams reports. At the memorial service, everyone knew the cause of her death.
Shortly after that, Williams (a three-year Army vet at the time) was sent to the 2nd Brigade's Support Area in Mosul, and she described what happened next in her book. Brought into the "cage" one day on a special mission, she saw fellow soldiers hitting a naked prisoner in the face. "It's one thing to make fun of someone and attempt to humiliate him. With words. That's one thing. But flicking lit cigarettes at somebody -- like burning him -- that's illegal," Williams writes. Soldiers later told her that "the old rules no longer applied because this was a different world. This was a new kind of war."
Here's what she told Soledad O'Brien of CNN on Sept. 26 of this year: "I was asked to assist. And what I saw was that individuals who were doing interrogations had slipped over a line and were really doing things that were inappropriate. There were prisoners that were burned with lit cigarettes.
"They stripped prisoners naked and then removed their blindfolds so that I was the first thing they saw. And then we were supposed to mock them and degrade their manhood. And it really didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I didn't know if this was standard. But it did not seem to work. And it really made me feel like we were losing that crucial moral higher ground, and we weren't behaving in the way that Americans are supposed to behave."
As soon as that day ended, after a couple of these sessions, she told a superior she would never do it again.
In another CNN interview, on Oct. 8, 2005, she explained: "I sat through it at the time. But after it was over I did approach the non-commissioned officer in charge and told him I think you may be violating the Geneva Conventions. . . . He said he knew and I said I wouldn't participate again and he respected that, but I was really, really stunned. . . ."
So, given all this, what does Williams think pushed Alyssa Peterson to shoot herself one week after their only meeting? The great unknown, of course, is what Peterson was asked to witness or do in interrogations. We do know that she refused to have anything more to do with that after two days -- or one day longer than it took for Williams to reach her breaking point.
Properly, Williams points out that it's rarely one factor that leads to suicide, and Peterson had some personal problems, to be sure. "It's always a bunch of things coming together to the point you feel so overwhelmed that there's no way out," Williams says. "I witnessed abuse, I felt uncomfortable with it, but I didn't kill myself, because I could see the bigger context.
"I felt a lot of angst about whether I had an obligation to report it, and had any way to report it. Was it classified? Who should I turn to?" Perhaps Alyssa Peterson felt in the same box.
"It also made me think," Williams says, "what are we as humans, that we do this to each other? It made me question my humanity and the humanity of all Americans. It was difficult, and to this day I can no longer think I am a really good person and will do the right thing in the right situation." Such an experience might have been truly shattering to the deeply religious Peterson.
Referring to that day in Mosul, Williams says, "I did protest but only to the person in charge and I did not file a report up the chain of command." Yet, after recounting her experience there, she asks: "Can that lead to suicide? That's such an act of desperation, helplessness, it has to be more than that." She concludes, "In general, interrogation is not fun, even if you follow the rules. And I didn't see any good intelligence being gained. The other problem is that, in situations like that, you have people that are not terrorists being picked up, and being questioned. And, if you treat an innocent person like that, they walk out a terrorist."
Or, maybe in this case, if an innocent person witnesses such a thing, some may walk out as a likely suicide.
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed in Iraq. It has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald, Paul Rieckhoff and others. It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Army silent on deaths of soldiers
By MARTIN J. KIDSTON - Independent Record - 04/03/08
The March death of a U.S. Army soldier with ties in Hardin remains under investigation, officials said Wednesday, bringing to two the number of Montana soldiers whose cause of death has not been released by the military.
Staff Sgt. Shawn Gillespie, who was born in Wyoming and grew up in Montana, died in King George, Va., on March 24. The cause of death has not been released by investigators.
“They’re not telling us,” said Col. Garth Scott, public relations officer for the Montana National Guard. “It’s under investigation. The cause of death is pending.”
Gillespie was not a Montana Guard soldier, but military protocol calls for Guard officials to answer media questions about the death of soldiers in their state, placing Scott in the difficult position of fielding media calls surrounding the case.
The 28-year-old soldier was stationed at Fort Meyer, Ga., headquarters for the U.S. Army.
Gillespie becomes the second soldier whose death is under investigation. On Dec. 13, Pvt. Daren Smith died in Baghdad from non-combat related injuries. Military investigators have yet to say what actually caused Smith’s death.
Smith served with a light infantry unit based out of Fort Polk, La. He lived in Butte before moving to Helena, where he graduated from high school in 2006 before joining the service in March the following year.
The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command in Washington, D.C., did not return calls by the Independent Record Wednesday regarding the two soldiers’ deaths.
On Wednesday, Gov. Brian Schweitzer ordered both the national flag and state flag flown at half-staff starting today on Gillespie’s behalf.
“Out of respect for their family, we made the determination,” said Sarah Elliott, the governor’s press secretary.
Gillespie’s 28th birthday would have been today.
Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com
The March death of a U.S. Army soldier with ties in Hardin remains under investigation, officials said Wednesday, bringing to two the number of Montana soldiers whose cause of death has not been released by the military.
Staff Sgt. Shawn Gillespie, who was born in Wyoming and grew up in Montana, died in King George, Va., on March 24. The cause of death has not been released by investigators.
“They’re not telling us,” said Col. Garth Scott, public relations officer for the Montana National Guard. “It’s under investigation. The cause of death is pending.”
Gillespie was not a Montana Guard soldier, but military protocol calls for Guard officials to answer media questions about the death of soldiers in their state, placing Scott in the difficult position of fielding media calls surrounding the case.
The 28-year-old soldier was stationed at Fort Meyer, Ga., headquarters for the U.S. Army.
Gillespie becomes the second soldier whose death is under investigation. On Dec. 13, Pvt. Daren Smith died in Baghdad from non-combat related injuries. Military investigators have yet to say what actually caused Smith’s death.
Smith served with a light infantry unit based out of Fort Polk, La. He lived in Butte before moving to Helena, where he graduated from high school in 2006 before joining the service in March the following year.
The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command in Washington, D.C., did not return calls by the Independent Record Wednesday regarding the two soldiers’ deaths.
On Wednesday, Gov. Brian Schweitzer ordered both the national flag and state flag flown at half-staff starting today on Gillespie’s behalf.
“Out of respect for their family, we made the determination,” said Sarah Elliott, the governor’s press secretary.
Gillespie’s 28th birthday would have been today.
Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Lawmakers want probe of accidental electrocutions in Iraq
By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
At least a dozen soldiers and Marines have been electrocuted in Iraq over the five years of the war, and investigators now are trying to learn what role improper grounding of electrical wires played in those deaths.
And Houston-based KBR — which builds bases and maintains housing for U.S. troops in Iraq — is at the center of the probe, with questions being raised about its responsibility to repair known wiring problems.
On the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, California Democrat Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter today to Defense Secretary Robert Gates seeking details about electrocutions of military and contract workers in Iraq and about KBR's role in making electrical repairs.
Defense Department spokesman Chris Isleib said the Pentagon "considers this matter to be serious, and we have referred it to the (Department of Defense) Inspector General for a full investigation."
KBR officials pledged to cooperate fully with agencies involved in the probe.
The investigation was prompted by the death of Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pennsylvania, who was electrocuted Jan. 2 while taking a shower in his living quarters in the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad.
Initially, Maseth's mother, Cheryl Harris, was told her son — serving in the Army's special forces — had a small, electrical appliance with him in the shower.
"I tried to do this on my own and get answers," Harris said in a telephone interview. "I was not successful doing that."
Three weeks after the her son's death, Harris sought help from her local congressman, Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa.
Maseth, according to a memorandum written by Army investigators and obtained by the Chronicle, was living in a building that had been refurbished by local Iraqis. KBR had been contracted to provide maintenance on the building in 2007, the memo said.
Maseth was killed, the memo said, when an electrical water pump shorted out after he had stepped into the shower and turned on the water. An electrical current then passed through the water pipes to a metal shower hose in the shower.
Waxman, in his letter to Gates, said investigators blamed Maseth's death on improper grounding of the water pump.
"The circuit breaker was, in fact, bypassed," said Patrick Cavanaugh, an attorney hired by Harris and Maseth's father, Douglas Maseth.
KBR's contract, the memo said, "only required KBR to fix the building (plumbing and electricity) as things broke. KBR did an initial survey of the building upon assuming responsibility and noted several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices.
"The contract did not cover fixing potential hazards so those issues were never addressed," the memo said.
KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said today that at the time of Maseth's death, "KBR was providing repair services at the facility in response to requests issued by the Army."
Maseth's death was only the latest in a series of electrocutions, Waxman wrote.
In all, 10 soldiers and two Marines are known to have been electrocuted, Waxman noted.
In October 2004, the Army issued a safety warning after five soldiers had been electrocuted that year alone, Waxman said. The warning noted that improper grounding of electrical wires is "a factor in nearly every electrocution," Waxman said.
Altmire said those deaths were "easily preventable."
"You wonder how it even could happen one time. But if a tragedy does occur once — because of a mistake — how could it possibly occur 12 times?" he asked.
In his letter to Gates, Waxman has asked for the names and addresses of all service personnel and contractors killed or seriously injured in electrical accidents.
He also wants details about KBR's assignments for making electrical repairs at the giant complex, as well as any reports about needs for rewiring at the facility.
Waxman has asked that the Pentagon respond to his request by April 4.
Maseth, an Army Ranger and Green Beret, was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. His twin brother is also serving in Iraq, and another another brother also is in the armed forces.
Today Maseth's parents filed suit against KBR in state court in Pittsburgh, seeking unspecified damages.
"I'd like to know who was accountable and why Ryan was permitted to live in a facility that was life-threatening," his mother said.
david.ivanovich@chron.com
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
At least a dozen soldiers and Marines have been electrocuted in Iraq over the five years of the war, and investigators now are trying to learn what role improper grounding of electrical wires played in those deaths.
And Houston-based KBR — which builds bases and maintains housing for U.S. troops in Iraq — is at the center of the probe, with questions being raised about its responsibility to repair known wiring problems.
On the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, California Democrat Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter today to Defense Secretary Robert Gates seeking details about electrocutions of military and contract workers in Iraq and about KBR's role in making electrical repairs.
Defense Department spokesman Chris Isleib said the Pentagon "considers this matter to be serious, and we have referred it to the (Department of Defense) Inspector General for a full investigation."
KBR officials pledged to cooperate fully with agencies involved in the probe.
The investigation was prompted by the death of Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pennsylvania, who was electrocuted Jan. 2 while taking a shower in his living quarters in the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad.
Initially, Maseth's mother, Cheryl Harris, was told her son — serving in the Army's special forces — had a small, electrical appliance with him in the shower.
"I tried to do this on my own and get answers," Harris said in a telephone interview. "I was not successful doing that."
Three weeks after the her son's death, Harris sought help from her local congressman, Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa.
Maseth, according to a memorandum written by Army investigators and obtained by the Chronicle, was living in a building that had been refurbished by local Iraqis. KBR had been contracted to provide maintenance on the building in 2007, the memo said.
Maseth was killed, the memo said, when an electrical water pump shorted out after he had stepped into the shower and turned on the water. An electrical current then passed through the water pipes to a metal shower hose in the shower.
Waxman, in his letter to Gates, said investigators blamed Maseth's death on improper grounding of the water pump.
"The circuit breaker was, in fact, bypassed," said Patrick Cavanaugh, an attorney hired by Harris and Maseth's father, Douglas Maseth.
KBR's contract, the memo said, "only required KBR to fix the building (plumbing and electricity) as things broke. KBR did an initial survey of the building upon assuming responsibility and noted several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices.
"The contract did not cover fixing potential hazards so those issues were never addressed," the memo said.
KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said today that at the time of Maseth's death, "KBR was providing repair services at the facility in response to requests issued by the Army."
Maseth's death was only the latest in a series of electrocutions, Waxman wrote.
In all, 10 soldiers and two Marines are known to have been electrocuted, Waxman noted.
In October 2004, the Army issued a safety warning after five soldiers had been electrocuted that year alone, Waxman said. The warning noted that improper grounding of electrical wires is "a factor in nearly every electrocution," Waxman said.
Altmire said those deaths were "easily preventable."
"You wonder how it even could happen one time. But if a tragedy does occur once — because of a mistake — how could it possibly occur 12 times?" he asked.
In his letter to Gates, Waxman has asked for the names and addresses of all service personnel and contractors killed or seriously injured in electrical accidents.
He also wants details about KBR's assignments for making electrical repairs at the giant complex, as well as any reports about needs for rewiring at the facility.
Waxman has asked that the Pentagon respond to his request by April 4.
Maseth, an Army Ranger and Green Beret, was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. His twin brother is also serving in Iraq, and another another brother also is in the armed forces.
Today Maseth's parents filed suit against KBR in state court in Pittsburgh, seeking unspecified damages.
"I'd like to know who was accountable and why Ryan was permitted to live in a facility that was life-threatening," his mother said.
david.ivanovich@chron.com
An Excerpt from the Winter Soldier Hearings
This past week, there has been another Winter Soldier event, similar to the one held during the Vietnam War. No mainstream media has covered this event, with the exception of The Washington Post. The coverage was minimal. Here is a statement by the parents of a soldier who committed suicide. You can read all the statements at DemocracyNow.org
JOYCE LUCEY: My name is Joyce Lucey, and I’m the mom of Corporal Jeffrey Michael Lucey. The last month of his life, he had this flashlight by his bedside, and he was looking for the camel spiders that he could hear running around the room. And when he went over to Iraq, he asked me to hold this coin for him every day, so he’d come home safely. I had no idea that it was after he came home that I should have been holding this coin.
Jeffrey’s death should never have happened. The young man, who in January of 2003 was sent to Kuwait to participate in an invasion in which he did not agree, was not the same young man that stepped off the bus in July. Our Marine physically returned to us, but his spirit died somewhere in Iraq. As we celebrated his homecoming, Jeff masked the anger, the guilt, the confusion, pain and darkness that are part of the hidden wounds of war behind his smile.
Jeff was in Kuwait with the 6th Motor Transportation Battalion. He was a convoy driver. On the 20th of March, he entered in his journal, which I have here, “At 10:30 p.m., a scud landed in our vicinity. We were just falling asleep when a shockwave rattled through our tent. The noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums. Everyone’s heart truly skipped a beat, and the reality of where we are and what’s happening hit home.” The last entry is, "We now just had a gas alert, and it’s past midnight. We will not sleep. Nerves are on edge.” The invasion had begun, and Jeff never had time to put another entry in.
Several months after his return, he said that he would like to complete it. We never knew that he did not—he would never get the time to do that. Our fear the whole time he was over there was that he would be physically harmed. We never imagined that an emotional wound could and would be just as lethal.
The letters we received from him were brief and sanitized. But to his girlfriend of six years, he said in April of 2003 he felt he had done immoral things and that he wanted to erase the last month of his life. “There are things I wouldn’t want to tell you or my parents, because I don’t want you to be worried. Even if I did tell you, you’d probably think I was just exaggerating. I would never want to fight in a war again. I’ve seen and done enough horrible things to last me a lifetime.” This is the baggage that my son carried with him when he stepped off that bus that sunny July day at Fort Nathan Hale, New Haven, Connecticut.
Over the next several months, we missed the signs that Jeffrey was in trouble. We had no way of knowing that during his post-deployment briefing at Camp Pendleton he was told to watch the direction that he was going in his survey, or else he’d be kept there another two to four months. He was careful from then on.
In July, he went to the Cape with his girlfriend, and she found him rather distant. He didn’t want to walk the beach. He later told a friend at college that he had seen enough sand to last him a lifetime. At his sister’s wedding in August, he told his grandmother, “You could be in a room full of people, but you could feel so alone.” He resumed college in 2003. That fall, we found out that Jeff had been vomiting just about every day since his return, and that kind of kept up right until the day he died.
On Christmas Eve, his sister came home early to see how he was doing. He had been drinking. He was standing by the refrigerator, and he grabbed his dog tags and he tossed them to her, and he called himself a murderer. We were to find out that these dog tags included two Iraqi soldiers that he feels—or he knows he’s personally responsible for their deaths. His private therapist, who saw him the last seven weeks of his life, said he didn’t wear them as a trophy, but he wore them to honor these men. He had a nightmare in February. He told me he was having a dream that they were coming after him in an alleyway. After his death, we kind of checked the VA records, and he had talked to them also about having nightmares in which he was running from alleyway to alleyway.
Spring break 2004 began, three months in which our family watched the son and brother we knew fall apart. He was depressed and drinking. When college classes resumed, he found attending classes very difficult. He had panic attacks, feeling that the other students were staring at him, even though he realized they weren’t. He was placed on Klonopin and Prozac to see if it could keep him in class. Jeff’s problems just worsened. He was having trouble sleeping, nightmares, poor appetite, isolating himself in his room. He was unable to focus on studies, so he could take his—so he could not take his finals. An excellent athlete, his balance was badly compromised by the mixture of Klonopin and alcohol.
He confided in his younger sister that he had a rope and a tree picked out near the brook behind our home, but told her, “Don’t worry. I’d never do that. I wouldn’t hurt Mom and Dad.” He was adamant that the Marines not be told, fearing a Section 8 and not wanting the stigma that is connected to PTSD to follow him throughout his life.
He finally went to the VA, after being assured that they were not part of the military and would not relay any information without Jeff’s permission. His dad called and explained what was happening with our son, and they said it was classic PTSD and that he should come in as soon as possible. The problem was getting Jeffrey to actually go in. It was—he kind of—every day it was “Tomorrow. I’ll go in tomorrow. I’m tired.” He just didn’t have the energy to get up. The day he went in, he blew up .328, and it was decided he needed to stay. As it was decided he needed to stay, it took six employees to take Jeffrey down. He had gotten out the door and ran out into the parking area.
Involuntarily committed for four days, the stay did nothing but make him feel like he was being warehoused. After seeing an admitting psychiatrist, he would not see another one until the day of his discharge. After answering in the affirmative that he was thinking of harming himself and revealing the three methods—overdose, suffocation or hanging—he was released on June 1st, 2003, a Tuesday. We found out later that he told them on Friday, the day that he was admitted, that he had a hose to choke himself. None of this was ever relayed to us.
They told us while he was there that he would not be assessed for PTSD until he was alcohol-free. But Jeffrey was using this alcohol as self-medication, and he had told us often that’s the only way he could sleep at night. That we might—and the VA said that we might have to consider kicking him out of the house so he would hit rock bottom and then realize he needed his help. That wasn’t an option for us.
On his discharge interview, Jeff said there were three phone calls that the psychiatrist took, one of them being just before he was going to tell her about the bumps in the road, the children they were told not to stop their vehicles for and just not to look back. He decided not to, after she took the call, feeling she wasn’t really interested.
On June 3rd, on a Dunkin’ Donut run—and this was two days after he was released from the hospital—he totaled our car. Was it a suicide attempt? We’re never going to know. No drinking was involved. I was terrified I was losing my little boy. I asked him where he was. He touched his chest, and he said, “Right here, Mom.”
On the 5th, he arrived at HCC, Holyoke Community College, where he was a student. But because of not taking the finals, he would not be graduating. But he arrived there to watch the graduation of his sister. This was supposed to be his graduation also. How he drove his car there, we’ll never know. He was so impaired. We managed to get him home, but his behavior got worse. He was very depressed.
My parents, who saw their grandson often, never saw him like this. His sisters and brother-in-law and my dad took him back to the VA. He did not want my husband to go, because he felt he was going to be involuntarily committed again. They were waiting for him, but he refused to go in the building. He was intelligent, didn’t want to get committed again like the weekend before. They decided, without consulting someone with the authority to commit him involuntarily, that he was neither suicidal or homicidal, there was nothing they could do. Our daughters called home in a panic saying it didn’t look like they were going to keep their brother. In their records, they say the grandfather pleaded for someone to help his grandson. Neither our veterans nor their families should ever have to beg for the care they should be entitled to.
My father lost his only brother in World War II. He was twenty-two years old. He was now watching his only grandson self-destructing at twenty-three because of another war.
Kevin and I went through the rooms when we knew Jeff was coming back. We took his knives, bottles, anything we felt he could harm himself with, a dog leash. I took a stepstool, anything that I thought could trigger something in his mind. His car was disabled not only to protect himself, but to protect others from Jeffrey. Kevin called the civilian authorities. They said they can’t—“We can’t touch him. He’s drinking.” My child was struggling to survive, and we didn’t know who to turn to. There was no follow-up call from the VA, no outreach, though they knew he was in crisis. We had no guidance—what to say to him, how to handle his situation. You hear a lot about supporting our troops, but I’ll tell you: we felt isolated, abandoned and alone.
While the rest of the country lived on, going to Disney World, shopping, living their daily lives, our days consisted of constant fear, apprehension, helplessness, while we watched this young man being consumed by this cancer that ravaged his soul. I sat on the deck with this person who was impersonating my son and listened to him while he recounted bits and pieces of his time in Iraq. Then he would grind his fist into his hand, and he’d say, “You could never understand.”
On Friday, June 11th, around midnight, my daughter got a call from a girl down the street. She asked me, “Where’s your son?” And I said, “Debs, he’s in his room. He’s sleeping.” Well, apparently not. He had climbed out the window and gotten into this girl’s car. He wanted some beer. She was—this girl who had known Jeffrey all her life was a little bit scared of him. When I saw him get out of the car, I froze. Jeff was in—dressed in his cammies with two k-bars, a modified pellet gun, which the police wouldn’t know, and carrying a six-pack. He had just wanted that beer. There was a sad smile on his face like a lost soul. When I told him how concerned I was about him, he said, “Don’t worry, Mom. No matter what I do, I always come back.”
KEVIN LUCEY: So later that evening, we had decided that we were going to try to go out, because he had become reclusive in the house. We were going to try to go out for a steak dinner the following night. At about 11:30, quarter to 12:00, Jeffrey asked me, for the second time within the past ten days, if he could just sit in my lap and I could rock him for about—well, for a while. And we did. We sat there for about forty-five minutes, and I was rocking Jeff, and we were in total silence. As his private therapist that we had hired said, it was his last harbor and his last place of refuge.
The next day, I came home. It was about quarter after 7:00. I held Jeff one last time, as I lowered his body from the rafters and took the hose from around his neck.
AMY GOODMAN: Kevin and Joyce Lucey, their son, Marine Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, served five months in Iraq in 2003 with the 6th Motor Transport Battalion. Almost a year later, he committed suicide, June 22nd, 2004. He was twenty-three years old.
JOYCE LUCEY: My name is Joyce Lucey, and I’m the mom of Corporal Jeffrey Michael Lucey. The last month of his life, he had this flashlight by his bedside, and he was looking for the camel spiders that he could hear running around the room. And when he went over to Iraq, he asked me to hold this coin for him every day, so he’d come home safely. I had no idea that it was after he came home that I should have been holding this coin.
Jeffrey’s death should never have happened. The young man, who in January of 2003 was sent to Kuwait to participate in an invasion in which he did not agree, was not the same young man that stepped off the bus in July. Our Marine physically returned to us, but his spirit died somewhere in Iraq. As we celebrated his homecoming, Jeff masked the anger, the guilt, the confusion, pain and darkness that are part of the hidden wounds of war behind his smile.
Jeff was in Kuwait with the 6th Motor Transportation Battalion. He was a convoy driver. On the 20th of March, he entered in his journal, which I have here, “At 10:30 p.m., a scud landed in our vicinity. We were just falling asleep when a shockwave rattled through our tent. The noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums. Everyone’s heart truly skipped a beat, and the reality of where we are and what’s happening hit home.” The last entry is, "We now just had a gas alert, and it’s past midnight. We will not sleep. Nerves are on edge.” The invasion had begun, and Jeff never had time to put another entry in.
Several months after his return, he said that he would like to complete it. We never knew that he did not—he would never get the time to do that. Our fear the whole time he was over there was that he would be physically harmed. We never imagined that an emotional wound could and would be just as lethal.
The letters we received from him were brief and sanitized. But to his girlfriend of six years, he said in April of 2003 he felt he had done immoral things and that he wanted to erase the last month of his life. “There are things I wouldn’t want to tell you or my parents, because I don’t want you to be worried. Even if I did tell you, you’d probably think I was just exaggerating. I would never want to fight in a war again. I’ve seen and done enough horrible things to last me a lifetime.” This is the baggage that my son carried with him when he stepped off that bus that sunny July day at Fort Nathan Hale, New Haven, Connecticut.
Over the next several months, we missed the signs that Jeffrey was in trouble. We had no way of knowing that during his post-deployment briefing at Camp Pendleton he was told to watch the direction that he was going in his survey, or else he’d be kept there another two to four months. He was careful from then on.
In July, he went to the Cape with his girlfriend, and she found him rather distant. He didn’t want to walk the beach. He later told a friend at college that he had seen enough sand to last him a lifetime. At his sister’s wedding in August, he told his grandmother, “You could be in a room full of people, but you could feel so alone.” He resumed college in 2003. That fall, we found out that Jeff had been vomiting just about every day since his return, and that kind of kept up right until the day he died.
On Christmas Eve, his sister came home early to see how he was doing. He had been drinking. He was standing by the refrigerator, and he grabbed his dog tags and he tossed them to her, and he called himself a murderer. We were to find out that these dog tags included two Iraqi soldiers that he feels—or he knows he’s personally responsible for their deaths. His private therapist, who saw him the last seven weeks of his life, said he didn’t wear them as a trophy, but he wore them to honor these men. He had a nightmare in February. He told me he was having a dream that they were coming after him in an alleyway. After his death, we kind of checked the VA records, and he had talked to them also about having nightmares in which he was running from alleyway to alleyway.
Spring break 2004 began, three months in which our family watched the son and brother we knew fall apart. He was depressed and drinking. When college classes resumed, he found attending classes very difficult. He had panic attacks, feeling that the other students were staring at him, even though he realized they weren’t. He was placed on Klonopin and Prozac to see if it could keep him in class. Jeff’s problems just worsened. He was having trouble sleeping, nightmares, poor appetite, isolating himself in his room. He was unable to focus on studies, so he could take his—so he could not take his finals. An excellent athlete, his balance was badly compromised by the mixture of Klonopin and alcohol.
He confided in his younger sister that he had a rope and a tree picked out near the brook behind our home, but told her, “Don’t worry. I’d never do that. I wouldn’t hurt Mom and Dad.” He was adamant that the Marines not be told, fearing a Section 8 and not wanting the stigma that is connected to PTSD to follow him throughout his life.
He finally went to the VA, after being assured that they were not part of the military and would not relay any information without Jeff’s permission. His dad called and explained what was happening with our son, and they said it was classic PTSD and that he should come in as soon as possible. The problem was getting Jeffrey to actually go in. It was—he kind of—every day it was “Tomorrow. I’ll go in tomorrow. I’m tired.” He just didn’t have the energy to get up. The day he went in, he blew up .328, and it was decided he needed to stay. As it was decided he needed to stay, it took six employees to take Jeffrey down. He had gotten out the door and ran out into the parking area.
Involuntarily committed for four days, the stay did nothing but make him feel like he was being warehoused. After seeing an admitting psychiatrist, he would not see another one until the day of his discharge. After answering in the affirmative that he was thinking of harming himself and revealing the three methods—overdose, suffocation or hanging—he was released on June 1st, 2003, a Tuesday. We found out later that he told them on Friday, the day that he was admitted, that he had a hose to choke himself. None of this was ever relayed to us.
They told us while he was there that he would not be assessed for PTSD until he was alcohol-free. But Jeffrey was using this alcohol as self-medication, and he had told us often that’s the only way he could sleep at night. That we might—and the VA said that we might have to consider kicking him out of the house so he would hit rock bottom and then realize he needed his help. That wasn’t an option for us.
On his discharge interview, Jeff said there were three phone calls that the psychiatrist took, one of them being just before he was going to tell her about the bumps in the road, the children they were told not to stop their vehicles for and just not to look back. He decided not to, after she took the call, feeling she wasn’t really interested.
On June 3rd, on a Dunkin’ Donut run—and this was two days after he was released from the hospital—he totaled our car. Was it a suicide attempt? We’re never going to know. No drinking was involved. I was terrified I was losing my little boy. I asked him where he was. He touched his chest, and he said, “Right here, Mom.”
On the 5th, he arrived at HCC, Holyoke Community College, where he was a student. But because of not taking the finals, he would not be graduating. But he arrived there to watch the graduation of his sister. This was supposed to be his graduation also. How he drove his car there, we’ll never know. He was so impaired. We managed to get him home, but his behavior got worse. He was very depressed.
My parents, who saw their grandson often, never saw him like this. His sisters and brother-in-law and my dad took him back to the VA. He did not want my husband to go, because he felt he was going to be involuntarily committed again. They were waiting for him, but he refused to go in the building. He was intelligent, didn’t want to get committed again like the weekend before. They decided, without consulting someone with the authority to commit him involuntarily, that he was neither suicidal or homicidal, there was nothing they could do. Our daughters called home in a panic saying it didn’t look like they were going to keep their brother. In their records, they say the grandfather pleaded for someone to help his grandson. Neither our veterans nor their families should ever have to beg for the care they should be entitled to.
My father lost his only brother in World War II. He was twenty-two years old. He was now watching his only grandson self-destructing at twenty-three because of another war.
Kevin and I went through the rooms when we knew Jeff was coming back. We took his knives, bottles, anything we felt he could harm himself with, a dog leash. I took a stepstool, anything that I thought could trigger something in his mind. His car was disabled not only to protect himself, but to protect others from Jeffrey. Kevin called the civilian authorities. They said they can’t—“We can’t touch him. He’s drinking.” My child was struggling to survive, and we didn’t know who to turn to. There was no follow-up call from the VA, no outreach, though they knew he was in crisis. We had no guidance—what to say to him, how to handle his situation. You hear a lot about supporting our troops, but I’ll tell you: we felt isolated, abandoned and alone.
While the rest of the country lived on, going to Disney World, shopping, living their daily lives, our days consisted of constant fear, apprehension, helplessness, while we watched this young man being consumed by this cancer that ravaged his soul. I sat on the deck with this person who was impersonating my son and listened to him while he recounted bits and pieces of his time in Iraq. Then he would grind his fist into his hand, and he’d say, “You could never understand.”
On Friday, June 11th, around midnight, my daughter got a call from a girl down the street. She asked me, “Where’s your son?” And I said, “Debs, he’s in his room. He’s sleeping.” Well, apparently not. He had climbed out the window and gotten into this girl’s car. He wanted some beer. She was—this girl who had known Jeffrey all her life was a little bit scared of him. When I saw him get out of the car, I froze. Jeff was in—dressed in his cammies with two k-bars, a modified pellet gun, which the police wouldn’t know, and carrying a six-pack. He had just wanted that beer. There was a sad smile on his face like a lost soul. When I told him how concerned I was about him, he said, “Don’t worry, Mom. No matter what I do, I always come back.”
KEVIN LUCEY: So later that evening, we had decided that we were going to try to go out, because he had become reclusive in the house. We were going to try to go out for a steak dinner the following night. At about 11:30, quarter to 12:00, Jeffrey asked me, for the second time within the past ten days, if he could just sit in my lap and I could rock him for about—well, for a while. And we did. We sat there for about forty-five minutes, and I was rocking Jeff, and we were in total silence. As his private therapist that we had hired said, it was his last harbor and his last place of refuge.
The next day, I came home. It was about quarter after 7:00. I held Jeff one last time, as I lowered his body from the rafters and took the hose from around his neck.
AMY GOODMAN: Kevin and Joyce Lucey, their son, Marine Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, served five months in Iraq in 2003 with the 6th Motor Transport Battalion. Almost a year later, he committed suicide, June 22nd, 2004. He was twenty-three years old.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Family questions investigation into soldier's death
By Kathryn Fiegen
Iowa City Press-Citizen
The family of a fallen Riverside soldier said they still have unanswered questions after receiving the results recently of an investigation into his death that concluded he killed himself in Iraq.
Initial reports said U.S. Army Sgt. James Musack, 23, of Riverside, was killed in a non-combat related incident Nov. 21, 2006, in Samarra, Iraq. He was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.
The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command investigated the death and concluded in December 2007 that it was a suicide.
However, Musack's sister, Morgan Rorex, 20, of Coralville, said her family doesn't believe Musack killed himself just days before he was supposed to come home from Iraq.
"We didn't think that's what happened," she said. "There's too many inconsistencies."
Musack's family received the results of the investigation in the mail two weeks ago. The report is more than 100 pages long and includes interviews with unit members, the family and friends who last spoke to Musack, the results of forensic tests and diagrams of where his body was found. Many of the details, including the names of who was interviewed, were redacted.
Christopher Grey, Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, said Musack's death was "thoroughly investigated."
"We stand by the findings of this investigation," he said. "My heart goes out to the family, of course, but at this point, we stand by our investigation."
According to the report, Musack was found 67 meters from the southeast corner of Patrol Base South in the Al-Taji area of Iraq about 9:45 a.m. Nov. 21. He was found lying on his right side, with his left shoulder slumped over his body. The unit members who found him said in the interviews that Musack's M4 rifle was parallel to his body with the barrel pointed toward his head and his left arm was draped over it. The report said he died of a gunshot wound to his head.
Musack had arrived at the base the day before to train members of another unit, and the area he in which was found was used as a restroom or private area to make phone calls by other soldiers at the base, the report said.
Rorex said the family is questioning a few aspects of the report, starting with the soldier interviews.
Unit members who were interviewed about the death said Musack was generally happy but kept to himself. They said Musack had no enemies in the unit and didn't express any family, financial or emotional distress. They also said he was excited to go home and talked about buying a house in Texas.
The report also said Musack was not being treated for mental illness, taking medication or receiving counseling.
On the day of his death, soldiers said nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except Musack seemed to be smoking more than usual. He was last seen stepping out to smoke about 5:15 a.m. or 5:20 a.m. The report said gunshots were heard near the base about 6 a.m.
"Why would no one go to look for him until 9:45?" Rorex said. "It doesn't make sense."
Interviews with family members and friends paint a different picture than what the soldiers said.
Rorex said her mother, Yvette Eastom of Glenpool, Okla., and aunt, DeeAnna Newlin of Tulsa, Okla., were interviewed. In their statements, in the days before his death Musack was paranoid and edgy. He said he was being "set up" and said he had seen something he shouldn't have seen involving the death of a little girl and he had to "watch his back." Musack told his family he didn't think he was coming home.
Rorex said he didn't provide many details to his family about the little girl because he thought the calls were being recorded, but she thinks the incident led to his death.
Eastom said she and her sister told her son not to say anything about the little girl because he was two weeks away from coming home.
"It will probably be a decision I'll regret the rest of my life," she said.
Eastom said she is communicating with U.S. senators in her state and will tell "anyone who will listen" that Musack's case should be re-investigated.
Grey said occasionally credible information comes up after investigations wrap up and the cases are re-opened, but not often.
Rorex said the family just wants some peace.
"We just want to figure out what really happened to James," she said.
Iowa City Press-Citizen
The family of a fallen Riverside soldier said they still have unanswered questions after receiving the results recently of an investigation into his death that concluded he killed himself in Iraq.
Initial reports said U.S. Army Sgt. James Musack, 23, of Riverside, was killed in a non-combat related incident Nov. 21, 2006, in Samarra, Iraq. He was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.
The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command investigated the death and concluded in December 2007 that it was a suicide.
However, Musack's sister, Morgan Rorex, 20, of Coralville, said her family doesn't believe Musack killed himself just days before he was supposed to come home from Iraq.
"We didn't think that's what happened," she said. "There's too many inconsistencies."
Musack's family received the results of the investigation in the mail two weeks ago. The report is more than 100 pages long and includes interviews with unit members, the family and friends who last spoke to Musack, the results of forensic tests and diagrams of where his body was found. Many of the details, including the names of who was interviewed, were redacted.
Christopher Grey, Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, said Musack's death was "thoroughly investigated."
"We stand by the findings of this investigation," he said. "My heart goes out to the family, of course, but at this point, we stand by our investigation."
According to the report, Musack was found 67 meters from the southeast corner of Patrol Base South in the Al-Taji area of Iraq about 9:45 a.m. Nov. 21. He was found lying on his right side, with his left shoulder slumped over his body. The unit members who found him said in the interviews that Musack's M4 rifle was parallel to his body with the barrel pointed toward his head and his left arm was draped over it. The report said he died of a gunshot wound to his head.
Musack had arrived at the base the day before to train members of another unit, and the area he in which was found was used as a restroom or private area to make phone calls by other soldiers at the base, the report said.
Rorex said the family is questioning a few aspects of the report, starting with the soldier interviews.
Unit members who were interviewed about the death said Musack was generally happy but kept to himself. They said Musack had no enemies in the unit and didn't express any family, financial or emotional distress. They also said he was excited to go home and talked about buying a house in Texas.
The report also said Musack was not being treated for mental illness, taking medication or receiving counseling.
On the day of his death, soldiers said nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except Musack seemed to be smoking more than usual. He was last seen stepping out to smoke about 5:15 a.m. or 5:20 a.m. The report said gunshots were heard near the base about 6 a.m.
"Why would no one go to look for him until 9:45?" Rorex said. "It doesn't make sense."
Interviews with family members and friends paint a different picture than what the soldiers said.
Rorex said her mother, Yvette Eastom of Glenpool, Okla., and aunt, DeeAnna Newlin of Tulsa, Okla., were interviewed. In their statements, in the days before his death Musack was paranoid and edgy. He said he was being "set up" and said he had seen something he shouldn't have seen involving the death of a little girl and he had to "watch his back." Musack told his family he didn't think he was coming home.
Rorex said he didn't provide many details to his family about the little girl because he thought the calls were being recorded, but she thinks the incident led to his death.
Eastom said she and her sister told her son not to say anything about the little girl because he was two weeks away from coming home.
"It will probably be a decision I'll regret the rest of my life," she said.
Eastom said she is communicating with U.S. senators in her state and will tell "anyone who will listen" that Musack's case should be re-investigated.
Grey said occasionally credible information comes up after investigations wrap up and the cases are re-opened, but not often.
Rorex said the family just wants some peace.
"We just want to figure out what really happened to James," she said.
Coroners face gagging over troop deaths
From The Times:
March 18, 2008
Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent
Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, is trying to prevent coroners from being highly criticical of the Ministry of Defence over the deaths of British troops killed in action.
In a highly unusual move, Mr Browne began legal moves yesterday to prevent coroners from using language prejudicial to the MoD when issuing verdicts on the deaths of troops who die on active service.
Lawyers for Mr Browne went to the High Court to challenge comments made by a coroner in Oxfordshire after an inquest of a Territorial Army soldier in Iraq. Private Jason Smith, 32, died of heatstroke in 2003.
Andrew Walker, the assistant deputy coroner of Oxfordshire, recorded at his inquest in November 2006 that Private Smith’s death was caused “by a serious failure to recognise and take appropriate steps to address the difficulty that he had in adjusting to the climate”.
Sarah Moore, appearing for the Defence Secretary, argued that the coroner should not have used the phrase “serious failure”. She told the High Court that the phrase could be seen as deciding civil liability for Private Smith’s death, which was not permitted under Rule 42 of the 1984 Coroners’ Rules.
The Government’s decision to go to the High Court is an attempt to stop the MoD from being exposed to civil actions on the back of – and using as evidence – the outspoken comments of coroners.
The hearing will act as a test case for how much freedom coroners have to make wideranging criticisms of the MoD after independent investigations into the deaths of troops serving in Iraq and elsewhere.
Private Smith fell ill in temperatures of up to 60C (140F) in August 2003 at the al-Amara stadium in southern Iraq. The inquest’s narrative verdict described how he was taken to a medical centre at Abu Naji camp, where he died. The coroner said that Private Smith’s difficulty in acclimatising should have been recognised.
Ms Moore told the High Court that the case raised “a matter of general importance” because the phrase “serious failing” was regularly being used in inquests of British Service personnel in Iraq.
Mr Justice Collins, the judge hearing the appeal, also emphasised the importance of the issue at stake as a new inquest has been ordered for Private Smith, because of alleged flaws in the original hearing.
Lawyers acting for the late soldier’s mother, Catherine Smith, from Roxburghshire, Scotland, argued that the Defence Secretary’s legal challenge was misconceived.
Private Smith’s family is also making submissions to the court over the scope of the new inquest and asking the judge to order full disclosure of MoD documents, other than those covered by public interest immunity.
Mr Walker has been critical of the MoD in his findings from several inquests. Last week, at the hearing into the death of Captain Daniel Wright, who fell 2,500ft (760m) at Weston-on-the-Green airfield while on parachute training near RAF Brize Norton in 2005, he concluded that he would not have died had he been equipped with a radio, enabling instructors to tell him how to open his reserve chute.
Last month, at the inquest of Captain James Philippson, Mr Walker accused the MoD of betraying British soldiers’ trust. Captain Philippson, 29, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, died in a gunfight with Tale-ban troops in 2006 in which British forces were “totally out-gunned”, his inquest was told.
Mr Walker said: “To send soldiers into a combat zone without basic equipment is unforgivable, inexcusable and a breach of trust between the soldiers and those who govern them.” Geoff Webb, coroner’s officer for Oxfordshire, said Mr Walker felt that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the High Court case.
David Masters, the Wiltshire coroner, who is conducting inquests of British servicemen, said: “I am unable to make any comment on this particular case.
“Having said that, I do not consider that this will deflect coroners from conducting full, frank and fearless inquiries into the deaths that they are entrusted to investigate – those of people serving their country when they are killed abroad. If something needs to be said, I’ll say it.”
March 18, 2008
Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent
Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, is trying to prevent coroners from being highly criticical of the Ministry of Defence over the deaths of British troops killed in action.
In a highly unusual move, Mr Browne began legal moves yesterday to prevent coroners from using language prejudicial to the MoD when issuing verdicts on the deaths of troops who die on active service.
Lawyers for Mr Browne went to the High Court to challenge comments made by a coroner in Oxfordshire after an inquest of a Territorial Army soldier in Iraq. Private Jason Smith, 32, died of heatstroke in 2003.
Andrew Walker, the assistant deputy coroner of Oxfordshire, recorded at his inquest in November 2006 that Private Smith’s death was caused “by a serious failure to recognise and take appropriate steps to address the difficulty that he had in adjusting to the climate”.
Sarah Moore, appearing for the Defence Secretary, argued that the coroner should not have used the phrase “serious failure”. She told the High Court that the phrase could be seen as deciding civil liability for Private Smith’s death, which was not permitted under Rule 42 of the 1984 Coroners’ Rules.
The Government’s decision to go to the High Court is an attempt to stop the MoD from being exposed to civil actions on the back of – and using as evidence – the outspoken comments of coroners.
The hearing will act as a test case for how much freedom coroners have to make wideranging criticisms of the MoD after independent investigations into the deaths of troops serving in Iraq and elsewhere.
Private Smith fell ill in temperatures of up to 60C (140F) in August 2003 at the al-Amara stadium in southern Iraq. The inquest’s narrative verdict described how he was taken to a medical centre at Abu Naji camp, where he died. The coroner said that Private Smith’s difficulty in acclimatising should have been recognised.
Ms Moore told the High Court that the case raised “a matter of general importance” because the phrase “serious failing” was regularly being used in inquests of British Service personnel in Iraq.
Mr Justice Collins, the judge hearing the appeal, also emphasised the importance of the issue at stake as a new inquest has been ordered for Private Smith, because of alleged flaws in the original hearing.
Lawyers acting for the late soldier’s mother, Catherine Smith, from Roxburghshire, Scotland, argued that the Defence Secretary’s legal challenge was misconceived.
Private Smith’s family is also making submissions to the court over the scope of the new inquest and asking the judge to order full disclosure of MoD documents, other than those covered by public interest immunity.
Mr Walker has been critical of the MoD in his findings from several inquests. Last week, at the hearing into the death of Captain Daniel Wright, who fell 2,500ft (760m) at Weston-on-the-Green airfield while on parachute training near RAF Brize Norton in 2005, he concluded that he would not have died had he been equipped with a radio, enabling instructors to tell him how to open his reserve chute.
Last month, at the inquest of Captain James Philippson, Mr Walker accused the MoD of betraying British soldiers’ trust. Captain Philippson, 29, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, died in a gunfight with Tale-ban troops in 2006 in which British forces were “totally out-gunned”, his inquest was told.
Mr Walker said: “To send soldiers into a combat zone without basic equipment is unforgivable, inexcusable and a breach of trust between the soldiers and those who govern them.” Geoff Webb, coroner’s officer for Oxfordshire, said Mr Walker felt that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the High Court case.
David Masters, the Wiltshire coroner, who is conducting inquests of British servicemen, said: “I am unable to make any comment on this particular case.
“Having said that, I do not consider that this will deflect coroners from conducting full, frank and fearless inquiries into the deaths that they are entrusted to investigate – those of people serving their country when they are killed abroad. If something needs to be said, I’ll say it.”
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