By E&P Staff Published: May 27, 2008 10:30 PM ET
NEW YORK News of yet another "nonhostile" death for a U.S. military person abroad has surfaced in local media in Maine.
A former South Portland man, age 22, is reported to have been killed while serving with the military in Afghanistan. His family said they were told it was due to "noncombat" causes.
Justin Buxbaum's grandfather said he was shot in the stomach. He said the Army is looking into what happened, and speculated that his grandson's death may have been caused by friendly fire.
Justin, an engineer with the National Guard who worked to defuse IEDs, had already served two tours of duty in Iraq.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Iraq war veteran accused of killing fellow Marine
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Marine was in custody Friday and authorities were searching for a second as they investigated the shooting death of a fellow Marine whose body was found in a ditch, in his desert fatigues and boots.
Orange County sheriff's deputies arrested Lance Cpl. Christian William Carney for investigation of murder Friday after Camp Pendleton personnel put him in the brig the night before, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.
Carney, a 21-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, was wanted in the May 15 slaying of Pfc. Stephen Serrano. Authorities were still looking for Pfc. Alvin Reed Lovely, 20. Amormino said Lovely has been on unauthorized leave from Camp Pendleton since April, is considered a fugitive and is thought to be armed and dangerous.
A hiker found Serrano's body in a drainage ditch north of the Marine base in San Clemente on May 15. Authorities said they believe Serrano, 21, was in the ditch when he was shot once in the chest. A murder weapon was not recovered.
The victim and the suspects were all assigned to the 1st Marine Division. Carney and Serrano had been with the Marines about one year, but Lovely went missing several months after arriving at the base, Amormino said. It wasn't clear why Lovely left, he said.
Amormino said all three Marines knew each other, although he didn't know how close they were.
Authorities have ruled out a love triangle as the reason for the killing but said they otherwise have no motive.
The sheriff's spokesman said neither Carney nor Lovely was believed to have retained an attorney.
Serrano, of Sacramento, was a field radio operator who joined the Marines in March 2007. He had not served in Iraq, Amormino said.
Lovely, of Dallas, Texas, had not been deployed to Iraq. He was listed by the Marines as being on unauthorized absence, a step before being declared a deserter, said Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Curtis Williamson.
Three servicemen from Camp Pendleton have died in the past eight days in noncombat-related incidents.
Lance Cpl. Samuel Stucky, 19, died Saturday after he was found unconscious in his barracks a day earlier with a gunshot wound. The same day, 25-year-old Lance Cpl. Noah Cole died of injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident during a visit to relatives in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tom Umberg, a former Army colonel and military prosecutor, said such cases are exceedingly rare, despite the combat stress that many servicemen and servicewomen face during and after deployment.
"Being in a high stress situation over a long period of time can exacerbate a number of things, including the ability to continue to cope, especially if the person is already unstable," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Chelsea Carter in San Diego contributed to this report.
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Marine was in custody Friday and authorities were searching for a second as they investigated the shooting death of a fellow Marine whose body was found in a ditch, in his desert fatigues and boots.
Orange County sheriff's deputies arrested Lance Cpl. Christian William Carney for investigation of murder Friday after Camp Pendleton personnel put him in the brig the night before, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.
Carney, a 21-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, was wanted in the May 15 slaying of Pfc. Stephen Serrano. Authorities were still looking for Pfc. Alvin Reed Lovely, 20. Amormino said Lovely has been on unauthorized leave from Camp Pendleton since April, is considered a fugitive and is thought to be armed and dangerous.
A hiker found Serrano's body in a drainage ditch north of the Marine base in San Clemente on May 15. Authorities said they believe Serrano, 21, was in the ditch when he was shot once in the chest. A murder weapon was not recovered.
The victim and the suspects were all assigned to the 1st Marine Division. Carney and Serrano had been with the Marines about one year, but Lovely went missing several months after arriving at the base, Amormino said. It wasn't clear why Lovely left, he said.
Amormino said all three Marines knew each other, although he didn't know how close they were.
Authorities have ruled out a love triangle as the reason for the killing but said they otherwise have no motive.
The sheriff's spokesman said neither Carney nor Lovely was believed to have retained an attorney.
Serrano, of Sacramento, was a field radio operator who joined the Marines in March 2007. He had not served in Iraq, Amormino said.
Lovely, of Dallas, Texas, had not been deployed to Iraq. He was listed by the Marines as being on unauthorized absence, a step before being declared a deserter, said Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Curtis Williamson.
Three servicemen from Camp Pendleton have died in the past eight days in noncombat-related incidents.
Lance Cpl. Samuel Stucky, 19, died Saturday after he was found unconscious in his barracks a day earlier with a gunshot wound. The same day, 25-year-old Lance Cpl. Noah Cole died of injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident during a visit to relatives in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tom Umberg, a former Army colonel and military prosecutor, said such cases are exceedingly rare, despite the combat stress that many servicemen and servicewomen face during and after deployment.
"Being in a high stress situation over a long period of time can exacerbate a number of things, including the ability to continue to cope, especially if the person is already unstable," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Chelsea Carter in San Diego contributed to this report.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Marines hit by rash of noncombat fatalities
5 in 8 days worsen 1st MEF's bad year
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 23, 2008
CAMP PENDLETON – Three servicemen from Camp Pendleton and two from Twentynine Palms have died in the past eight days, and the confirmed or probable causes are homicide, suicide and traffic accidents.
None of the Marine officials interviewed for this story could remember a worse week in terms of noncombat losses.
Camp Pendleton is home to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, commonly called the 1st MEF, which includes troops at Twentynine Palms and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
At least 13 Marines from the 1st MEF – most of them stationed at Camp Pendleton – have died this year. Most of the causes are believed to have been vehicle crashes, homicides and suicides, although some cases are still being investigated.
By comparison, six Camp Pendleton-based Marines have died from combat in Iraq during the same time period, according to the Defense Department.
Officials for Camp Pendleton and the 1st MEF didn't immediately provide or confirm the death toll for 2008 or past years. They also didn't say whether the recent deaths may have been linked to drug or alcohol abuse, gang activity or suicide.
They said those questions must be submitted as a Freedom of Information Act request or, in the case of gang problems, to Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon.
It can take weeks to years to receive responses to such requests.
In addition, it's unclear whether any of the dead servicemen suffered combat stress, post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety ahead of a deployment to Iraq.
“It's extremely unfortunate to lose any Marine, especially here in the States, where we should feel secure,” said a senior officer for the 1st MEF who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak with news media about the cases.
“I can definitely say that the commanders and commands are looking into each one of these deaths to determine the cause, and then backtracking to see if we need to do anything different to avoid these things happening again.”
Investigations into three recent deaths are being led by civilian law enforcement agencies, according to a statement from the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. The division is part of the 1st MEF.
“Two of these deaths were caused by apparent motorcycle accidents, an area of deep concern for our Corps as motorcycle fatalities continue to rise at an alarming rate,” the statement said. “In a recently released All-Marine Message, the commandant outlines guidance and directives designed to curb motorcycle injuries and fatalities.”
Motorcycle-related deaths in the Marine Corps have risen every year since 2004, when there were seven. Last year, there were 19, according to the Naval Safety Center.
As for efforts to minimize combat stress and substance abuse, Camp Pendleton officials said the base has programs, policies and officers devoted to outreach and education. They also said each unit conducts monthly random drug tests on a mandated percentage of its Marines.
The recent succession of deaths started May 15, when Camp Pendleton-based Pfc. Stephen Serrano, 20, was found fatally shot in a drainage ditch in San Clemente.
Then Camp Pendleton-based Lance Cpl. Samuel Stucky, 19, died Saturday. A day earlier, he had been found unconscious in his Camp Pendleton barracks with a gunshot wound.
Also on Saturday, Camp Pendleton-based Lance Cpl. Noah Cole, 25, died from injuries suffered in an apparent motorcycle accident. Cole, who was visiting relatives in Grand Rapids, Mich., was scheduled to deploy on his second combat tour early next month.
And again Saturday, Twentynine Palms-based Pfc. Jack Kenner, 22, died in Upland after he tried to maneuver his motorcycle between two vehicles, struck one of them and crashed.
Finally, on Tuesday, Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, was found dead in his barracks room at Twentynine Palms. Camp Pendleton officials said the cause of death is under investigation.
Staff researcher Denise Davidson contributed to this report.
Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 23, 2008
CAMP PENDLETON – Three servicemen from Camp Pendleton and two from Twentynine Palms have died in the past eight days, and the confirmed or probable causes are homicide, suicide and traffic accidents.
None of the Marine officials interviewed for this story could remember a worse week in terms of noncombat losses.
Camp Pendleton is home to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, commonly called the 1st MEF, which includes troops at Twentynine Palms and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
At least 13 Marines from the 1st MEF – most of them stationed at Camp Pendleton – have died this year. Most of the causes are believed to have been vehicle crashes, homicides and suicides, although some cases are still being investigated.
By comparison, six Camp Pendleton-based Marines have died from combat in Iraq during the same time period, according to the Defense Department.
Officials for Camp Pendleton and the 1st MEF didn't immediately provide or confirm the death toll for 2008 or past years. They also didn't say whether the recent deaths may have been linked to drug or alcohol abuse, gang activity or suicide.
They said those questions must be submitted as a Freedom of Information Act request or, in the case of gang problems, to Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon.
It can take weeks to years to receive responses to such requests.
In addition, it's unclear whether any of the dead servicemen suffered combat stress, post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety ahead of a deployment to Iraq.
“It's extremely unfortunate to lose any Marine, especially here in the States, where we should feel secure,” said a senior officer for the 1st MEF who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak with news media about the cases.
“I can definitely say that the commanders and commands are looking into each one of these deaths to determine the cause, and then backtracking to see if we need to do anything different to avoid these things happening again.”
Investigations into three recent deaths are being led by civilian law enforcement agencies, according to a statement from the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. The division is part of the 1st MEF.
“Two of these deaths were caused by apparent motorcycle accidents, an area of deep concern for our Corps as motorcycle fatalities continue to rise at an alarming rate,” the statement said. “In a recently released All-Marine Message, the commandant outlines guidance and directives designed to curb motorcycle injuries and fatalities.”
Motorcycle-related deaths in the Marine Corps have risen every year since 2004, when there were seven. Last year, there were 19, according to the Naval Safety Center.
As for efforts to minimize combat stress and substance abuse, Camp Pendleton officials said the base has programs, policies and officers devoted to outreach and education. They also said each unit conducts monthly random drug tests on a mandated percentage of its Marines.
The recent succession of deaths started May 15, when Camp Pendleton-based Pfc. Stephen Serrano, 20, was found fatally shot in a drainage ditch in San Clemente.
Then Camp Pendleton-based Lance Cpl. Samuel Stucky, 19, died Saturday. A day earlier, he had been found unconscious in his Camp Pendleton barracks with a gunshot wound.
Also on Saturday, Camp Pendleton-based Lance Cpl. Noah Cole, 25, died from injuries suffered in an apparent motorcycle accident. Cole, who was visiting relatives in Grand Rapids, Mich., was scheduled to deploy on his second combat tour early next month.
And again Saturday, Twentynine Palms-based Pfc. Jack Kenner, 22, died in Upland after he tried to maneuver his motorcycle between two vehicles, struck one of them and crashed.
Finally, on Tuesday, Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, was found dead in his barracks room at Twentynine Palms. Camp Pendleton officials said the cause of death is under investigation.
Staff researcher Denise Davidson contributed to this report.
Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Mary Tillman's Interview with Amy Goodman
Mary Tillman, Mother of Slain Army Ranger and former NFL Star Pat Tillman, on Her Four-Year Quest to Expose the Military Cover-Up of Her Son’s Death by Members of His Own Unit
Pat Tillman left behind a lucrative NFL contract to enlist in the military after 9/11. On April 22, 2004, Tillman was killed while serving in Afghanistan. He died, the military said, while charging up a hill toward the enemy to protect his fellow Army Rangers. But that wasn’t the real story. Tillman was killed by his own men. What’s more, the military knew that within hours but waited five weeks before admitting it. Four years and several probes later, Pat Tillman’s family, led by his mother Mary, are still searching for answers about what really happened. Mary Tillman has just published a book based on her review of uncensored government documents and her four-year effort to cut through misleading official accounts of how her son died. It’s called Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: He was perhaps the most famous American soldier of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat Tillman was an NFL star who left behind a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the military after 9/11. His decision made headlines across the country and prompted then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to send him a congratulatory note. On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was killed while serving in Afghanistan. He was twenty-seven years old.
Two weeks later, just before a nationally televised memorial service, the Pentagon awarded him the Silver Star. He died, the military said, while charging up a hill toward the enemy to protect his fellow Army Rangers. But that wasn’t the real story. Tillman was killed by his own men. What’s more, the military knew that within hours but waited five weeks before admitting it.
Four years later and after seven investigations, several inquiries and two congressional hearings, Pat Tillman’s family, led by his mother Mary, are still searching for answers about what really happened. Lawmakers granted Mary Tillman access to uncensored versions of some documents that were not available to journalists. She has just published a book based on her review of those documents and her four-year effort to cut through misleading official accounts of how her son died. It’s called Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman.
I spoke with Mary Tillman this week about the life and death of her son. I began by asking her how she first heard that Pat had been killed.
MARY TILLMAN: I first learned from my daughter-in-law. She told me that Pat had been killed. And, of course, we heard from the casualty report that he had been shot in the head getting out of a vehicle, he died an hour later in a field hospital. And then, when we had his memorial service, the Army gave a Navy Seal friend of Pat and Kevin’s a narrative to read that said that he was running up a ridgeline in an attempt to help a convoy of troops get through an ambush zone, and he was killed by the enemy.
But then, four weeks later, when Kevin, his brother, who was also in the same platoon but was not present when his brother was killed, he had gone back to Fort Lewis. He was taken aside by his first sergeant, and he was told that Pat was killed by friendly fire. I was told, however, by an Arizona Republic reporter, who called me assuming I knew already. And so, it was rather shocking to learn the news.
Read the rest of this interview by clicking here.
Pat Tillman left behind a lucrative NFL contract to enlist in the military after 9/11. On April 22, 2004, Tillman was killed while serving in Afghanistan. He died, the military said, while charging up a hill toward the enemy to protect his fellow Army Rangers. But that wasn’t the real story. Tillman was killed by his own men. What’s more, the military knew that within hours but waited five weeks before admitting it. Four years and several probes later, Pat Tillman’s family, led by his mother Mary, are still searching for answers about what really happened. Mary Tillman has just published a book based on her review of uncensored government documents and her four-year effort to cut through misleading official accounts of how her son died. It’s called Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: He was perhaps the most famous American soldier of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat Tillman was an NFL star who left behind a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the military after 9/11. His decision made headlines across the country and prompted then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to send him a congratulatory note. On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was killed while serving in Afghanistan. He was twenty-seven years old.
Two weeks later, just before a nationally televised memorial service, the Pentagon awarded him the Silver Star. He died, the military said, while charging up a hill toward the enemy to protect his fellow Army Rangers. But that wasn’t the real story. Tillman was killed by his own men. What’s more, the military knew that within hours but waited five weeks before admitting it.
Four years later and after seven investigations, several inquiries and two congressional hearings, Pat Tillman’s family, led by his mother Mary, are still searching for answers about what really happened. Lawmakers granted Mary Tillman access to uncensored versions of some documents that were not available to journalists. She has just published a book based on her review of those documents and her four-year effort to cut through misleading official accounts of how her son died. It’s called Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman.
I spoke with Mary Tillman this week about the life and death of her son. I began by asking her how she first heard that Pat had been killed.
MARY TILLMAN: I first learned from my daughter-in-law. She told me that Pat had been killed. And, of course, we heard from the casualty report that he had been shot in the head getting out of a vehicle, he died an hour later in a field hospital. And then, when we had his memorial service, the Army gave a Navy Seal friend of Pat and Kevin’s a narrative to read that said that he was running up a ridgeline in an attempt to help a convoy of troops get through an ambush zone, and he was killed by the enemy.
But then, four weeks later, when Kevin, his brother, who was also in the same platoon but was not present when his brother was killed, he had gone back to Fort Lewis. He was taken aside by his first sergeant, and he was told that Pat was killed by friendly fire. I was told, however, by an Arizona Republic reporter, who called me assuming I knew already. And so, it was rather shocking to learn the news.
Read the rest of this interview by clicking here.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Hinchey Unveils Bill to Reverse Military Medical Malpractice Injustice
By WBNG News
Seeking to reverse an injustice that prevents armed service members and their families from holding the military accountable for negligent health care, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today unveiled legislation he's authored that would permit medical malpractice claims against the military.
Hinchey's bill, the Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2008, is named after the late Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez of Ellenville, NewYork, who died of skin cancer last year after a series of extraordinary mistakes made by military medical personnel.
The congressman intends to formally introduce the legislation in the House tomorrow.
"The death of Carmelo Rodriguez is an extraordinary tragedy that has left his family with nowhere to turn," Hinchey said.
"As the result of a misguided law and subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Rodriguez family and many other military families in similar situations have no way of holding the military responsible for the negligence of military medical personnel.
Joining the military should not mean that one has to give up his or her right to hold medical providers accountable. The Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2008 will finally bring accountability into the military medical system and afford our service members and their families the same rights that the rest of us have when it comes to medical malpractice."
Rodriguez, a Marine who served in Iraq, died last year at the age of 29.
Upon enrolling in the military in 1997, Rodriguez received an initial medical exam that revealed melanoma on his buttocks.
The doctor making the diagnosis, however, failed to tell Rodriguez or refer him to a specialist.
While serving in Iraq in 2005, Rodriguez was bothered by the area on his buttocks, which was constantly pussing and bleeding. A different military doctor repeatedly misdiagnosed the skin cancer as a birthmark or wart.
As the skin cancer worsened, Rodriguez's family was unable to receive a copy of his medical records from the Marines to give to other doctors.
The family then asked Hinchey's office for help, but by the time the congressman's office received the medical records from the Marines it was too late. Carmelo Rodriguez had three surgeries, received radiation and chemotherapy, but it didn't save his life. The cancer had spread throughout Rodriguez's body and weakened him to the point that he went from being an athletic 190 pound man to weighing less than 80 pounds.
He left behind a loving family, including a seven year old son.
Hinchey's bill would legislatively reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's 1950 ruling in Feres vs. United States in which the court said military members and their families have no right or ability to sue the military for negligent medical care given to them during their service.
The ruling, which has subsequently been referred to as the Feres Doctrine, has left families such as the Rodriguez's with no recourse for addressing the loss of a loved one due to obvious medical malpractice by military doctors and other medical personnel.
"Carmelo's situation and this legislation speak directly to the fact that our military, including the military's health care system, is spread far too thin by the occupation of Iraq," Hinchey said.
"Our military is facing shortfalls of doctors, nurses, and other health care staff across the board. Additionally, it is incumbent upon the military to ensure that it has doctors who know how to diagnose non-combat injuries and diseases such as skin cancer rather than just having doctors who are trained to treat combat wounds.
In addition to providing the Rodriguez family and other military families with a way to hold the military accountable for the wrongful death and injuries of loved ones, this bill helps encourage the military to take the steps needed to improve its care so that no one else ever has to go through what the Rodriguez's have endured."
Hinchey's bill has the support of Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) who has previously introduced a similar measure. This week, the congressman plans to begin collecting cosponsors for his legislation and is also working to find a Senate sponsor.
Seeking to reverse an injustice that prevents armed service members and their families from holding the military accountable for negligent health care, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today unveiled legislation he's authored that would permit medical malpractice claims against the military.
Hinchey's bill, the Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2008, is named after the late Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez of Ellenville, NewYork, who died of skin cancer last year after a series of extraordinary mistakes made by military medical personnel.
The congressman intends to formally introduce the legislation in the House tomorrow.
"The death of Carmelo Rodriguez is an extraordinary tragedy that has left his family with nowhere to turn," Hinchey said.
"As the result of a misguided law and subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Rodriguez family and many other military families in similar situations have no way of holding the military responsible for the negligence of military medical personnel.
Joining the military should not mean that one has to give up his or her right to hold medical providers accountable. The Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2008 will finally bring accountability into the military medical system and afford our service members and their families the same rights that the rest of us have when it comes to medical malpractice."
Rodriguez, a Marine who served in Iraq, died last year at the age of 29.
Upon enrolling in the military in 1997, Rodriguez received an initial medical exam that revealed melanoma on his buttocks.
The doctor making the diagnosis, however, failed to tell Rodriguez or refer him to a specialist.
While serving in Iraq in 2005, Rodriguez was bothered by the area on his buttocks, which was constantly pussing and bleeding. A different military doctor repeatedly misdiagnosed the skin cancer as a birthmark or wart.
As the skin cancer worsened, Rodriguez's family was unable to receive a copy of his medical records from the Marines to give to other doctors.
The family then asked Hinchey's office for help, but by the time the congressman's office received the medical records from the Marines it was too late. Carmelo Rodriguez had three surgeries, received radiation and chemotherapy, but it didn't save his life. The cancer had spread throughout Rodriguez's body and weakened him to the point that he went from being an athletic 190 pound man to weighing less than 80 pounds.
He left behind a loving family, including a seven year old son.
Hinchey's bill would legislatively reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's 1950 ruling in Feres vs. United States in which the court said military members and their families have no right or ability to sue the military for negligent medical care given to them during their service.
The ruling, which has subsequently been referred to as the Feres Doctrine, has left families such as the Rodriguez's with no recourse for addressing the loss of a loved one due to obvious medical malpractice by military doctors and other medical personnel.
"Carmelo's situation and this legislation speak directly to the fact that our military, including the military's health care system, is spread far too thin by the occupation of Iraq," Hinchey said.
"Our military is facing shortfalls of doctors, nurses, and other health care staff across the board. Additionally, it is incumbent upon the military to ensure that it has doctors who know how to diagnose non-combat injuries and diseases such as skin cancer rather than just having doctors who are trained to treat combat wounds.
In addition to providing the Rodriguez family and other military families with a way to hold the military accountable for the wrongful death and injuries of loved ones, this bill helps encourage the military to take the steps needed to improve its care so that no one else ever has to go through what the Rodriguez's have endured."
Hinchey's bill has the support of Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) who has previously introduced a similar measure. This week, the congressman plans to begin collecting cosponsors for his legislation and is also working to find a Senate sponsor.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Cherie Morton
Gulf Daily News -- TRIBUTES poured in yesterday for a US sailor found dead at her home in Bahrain, as hundreds of colleagues attended a memorial service at the navy base in Juffair.
Staff of all ranks came out in force to pay respects to Cherie Morton, who leaves behind a son, Brian Trevor, in Los Angeles.
The 41-year-old was found dead at her home in Galali at 9.20am on Sunday, but her death still remains a mystery.
Initial hospital notes reported a suspected bullet wound to the back of her head, but navy officials have repeatedly denied that and said no weapon was involved.
The memorial service took place at the multipurpose room of the navy base's Freedom Suq. Ms Morton, who was born in Rockville, Illinois, worked as the command career counsellor for Naval Security Force and was a popular figure, who helped hundreds of enlisted sailors assigned to both Naval Support Activity Bahrain and navy region south-west Asia.
She picked up several awards during her 15 years of service, including the Navy Achievement Medal (two awards) and the Good Conduct Medal (four awards).
Tributes on the Patriot Guard Riders, a US-based motorcyclist group made up of veterans, who attend the funerals of armed forces members, described her as an "American hero".
One entry on their website, from Larry Sanderson, offered his sincere condolences to Ms Morton's family. "I am grateful for PO1 (First Class Petty Officer) Cherie Morton's service to our great nation and greatly appreciate her for my freedom," he said. "PO1 Cherie Morton, you are a true American hero and will not be forgotten. Know you are loved."
Another tribute, signed only by a person with the name Cat, also praised Ms Morton's valuable contribution to the US navy. "My family and I send our most sincere and heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of this American hero," it said. "May you find peace in knowing that the love and memories you have will remain in your heart forever, and comfort knowing you are in the hearts and prayers of a grateful nation. "PO1 Cherie Morton, our world is a safer place because of brave and selfless warriors like you, rest in peace." "I thank you for your service and because you are a sailor, you hold a special place in my heart," said one entry from Candyman.
"My thoughts and prayers are with those you leave behind, for you have gone to prepare another place for us. "May God grant them peace and comfort." Ms Morton's body has already been repatriated to the US. Last October, two female sailors Genesia Mattril Gresham, 19, and Anamarie Sannicolas Camacho, 20, were shot dead in their barracks at the Naval Support Activity base, Juffair.
They were allegedly shot dead by American serviceman Clarence Jackson who apparently turned the gun on himself. He was critically wounded and was sent for treatment at the Minneapolis VA Medical Centre, US and the incident is still under investigation.
--submitted by Leonard Wahl
Staff of all ranks came out in force to pay respects to Cherie Morton, who leaves behind a son, Brian Trevor, in Los Angeles.
The 41-year-old was found dead at her home in Galali at 9.20am on Sunday, but her death still remains a mystery.
Initial hospital notes reported a suspected bullet wound to the back of her head, but navy officials have repeatedly denied that and said no weapon was involved.
The memorial service took place at the multipurpose room of the navy base's Freedom Suq. Ms Morton, who was born in Rockville, Illinois, worked as the command career counsellor for Naval Security Force and was a popular figure, who helped hundreds of enlisted sailors assigned to both Naval Support Activity Bahrain and navy region south-west Asia.
She picked up several awards during her 15 years of service, including the Navy Achievement Medal (two awards) and the Good Conduct Medal (four awards).
Tributes on the Patriot Guard Riders, a US-based motorcyclist group made up of veterans, who attend the funerals of armed forces members, described her as an "American hero".
One entry on their website, from Larry Sanderson, offered his sincere condolences to Ms Morton's family. "I am grateful for PO1 (First Class Petty Officer) Cherie Morton's service to our great nation and greatly appreciate her for my freedom," he said. "PO1 Cherie Morton, you are a true American hero and will not be forgotten. Know you are loved."
Another tribute, signed only by a person with the name Cat, also praised Ms Morton's valuable contribution to the US navy. "My family and I send our most sincere and heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of this American hero," it said. "May you find peace in knowing that the love and memories you have will remain in your heart forever, and comfort knowing you are in the hearts and prayers of a grateful nation. "PO1 Cherie Morton, our world is a safer place because of brave and selfless warriors like you, rest in peace." "I thank you for your service and because you are a sailor, you hold a special place in my heart," said one entry from Candyman.
"My thoughts and prayers are with those you leave behind, for you have gone to prepare another place for us. "May God grant them peace and comfort." Ms Morton's body has already been repatriated to the US. Last October, two female sailors Genesia Mattril Gresham, 19, and Anamarie Sannicolas Camacho, 20, were shot dead in their barracks at the Naval Support Activity base, Juffair.
They were allegedly shot dead by American serviceman Clarence Jackson who apparently turned the gun on himself. He was critically wounded and was sent for treatment at the Minneapolis VA Medical Centre, US and the incident is still under investigation.
--submitted by Leonard Wahl
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Judge stands by decision to release grand jury tapes
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
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
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
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